IT seems that 37 per cent is a good number for Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Earlier in the week, the minister delightedly announced that Malaysians should be proud that 37 per cent of trained English teachers in the country are at par with their counterparts in the United Kingdom, where proficiency in the language is concerned.
Only 37 per cent? Should we be jumping for joy? Celebrating? What does this mean? Where does this leave the proficiency level of the rest – the 63 per cent who are teaching our children? Does this mean that other than the 37 per cent, the majority of Malaysia’s children are being taught by teachers who are not proficient in the language themselves?
Thirty-seven per cent is a sad figure. No reason to celebrate, but every reason to be concerned.
The Eye is assuming that the 37 per cent is made up of those who have had the privilege of enjoying the Malaysian education system when English was the teaching medium, were taught by those who had been educated in the English medium, or those who had been exposed to environments where English is used frequently.
And what of the 63 per cent who are not on par?
Perhaps we should take a good look at the way individuals are selected and placed in teacher-training institutes to be trained as English language teachers or those selected to undertake a degree in Tesl (Teaching English as a Second Language) in our public universities.
What is the minimum pass mark for an individual to be placed in these courses?
Should the bar be raised where only those who achieve a perfect score in the English subject in Form 5 and Muet (Malaysian University English Test) be selected to undergo these courses?
Or perhaps, the Ministry of Education should consider first administering specific English language tests before selecting fresh school leavers to undergo training as English teachers. A good test to administer is the Cambridge’s English Language 1119 paper. Those selected to train as English teachers should score nothing less than a B!
Sadly, in this country, individuals are placed in English language teaching programmes first, and then trained in the language.
Last year, it was reported that 70 per cent of the 60,000 English language teachers in the country who sat for the English Language Cambridge Placement Test performed poorly.
So poorly that concerned parents have turned to options other than normal schooling hours to have their children coached in the language.
Recently, the Eye chanced upon an English language coaching classes conducted by a retiree and his English teacher wife (one who makes up the 37 per cent) for children in the village where they live.
These classes are first and foremost aimed at boosting the children’s confidence to converse in the English language and subsequently to assist these children in brushing up their proficiency in the language.
Sitting and observing the class, the Eye was rather disturbed by the level of proficiency among Form 1 students from several schools in the Petra Jaya and Santubong area.
Many of them could barely pronounce words as simple as ‘road’, ‘trees’ and ‘clouds’! Words that we learned even before we attended kindergarten!
Hardly any of them could explain in their own words their understanding of short passages that they were asked to read and comprehend.
These passages were taken from the very same textbooks that they use in school! Passages that they have supposedly already read in school.
Looking at the textbooks and worksheets that they use in school, the Eye was shocked.
English language textbooks used in Form 1 in Malaysian schools these days are a far cry from the textbooks used when we studied under the English medium system.
Yes, what children are learning today in Form 1, we learnt in kindergarten and Primary 1 back then. It is no wonder that the level of English language proficiency in Malaysia has taken a major slide.
This slide in the proficiency of the language did not just happen overnight. It has been happening for the past 30 years or so, thanks to flip-flopping policies which have destroyed our education system.
A friend who grew up speaking English at home related how, even 20 years ago, she made money by tutoring Tesl students in a Malaysian public university which she attended.
According to her, despite being future English teachers, these Tesl students had problems with their tenses, verbs and vocabulary in general. She, however, was not a Tesl student.
Mind you these are the very same people who were then going to graduate and teach students who may now be English teachers.
So, 37 per cent? The mere thought of it results in a feeling of fear and excruciating pain, rather than one of elation.
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