So, what's a better way?

I wrote in one blog recently that if we view the change of S&M from MT to English in a different way, it has been successful. Successful in telling us what the problems really are and how far they extend and what cards we have at hand which we can play.

I'm optimistic about a lot of things except the notion that we will have enough, what M.Bakri Musa calls, "native" (proficiency) bilingual graduates who can read/write/speak/dream in Malay or, if I may add, their MT plus English.

We've had 30 years of bleeding out English-proficiency speakers. We completely forget that the spare parts to change our cogs and wheels no longer exist. You can try and revert your vehicle of progress to an English-medium one but the parts to accomplish that exist only in junkyards here and there.

I am a product of the KBSM system. In case you missed it in another blog, I do not come from a typically educated, middle-class English-speaking home. It seems that being instructed in Bahasa or another MT does not automatically compel one to be deficient in acquiring English. The surgeon's training in solving a problem typically requires their diagnosis to consist of identifying and then removing the thing they can see which was not there before thus must be what is causing the problem. But we cannot solve every problem by trying to revert everything back to how it was - cutting this out and replacing it with another part. Sometimes, we have to understand what was the original cause of deterioration and whether current beliefs and practices induced the deterioration/deficiency.

I had mentioned in a previous blog that some English-speaking, English-dreaming advocates of the policy to implement English as the medium of instruction have an unchecked air of superiority in the points they advocate. It is as if ENGLISH is the only ticket to being competitive and progressive and a final saving grace. Consider the case of Japan though. Despite the fact that Japan has taken its time to bow to its own whims and fancies in teaching their people English, their lack of English did not deter their competitiveness in the global market. It would also be prudent to note that significant numbers of native-speakers never actually acquired reading and writing and thinking skills that would've made them productive, creative forces in their given economy. This, despite the fact that they obviously dream in living English.

Before we jump into any of "Malaysia's Next Big Idea" (things which seem to make perfect sense because they just sound sensational) people need to be informed that the idea of "Total immersion" works in collaboration with a lot of other heavyweight factors. Since I am not a Linguist of any sort, I would refrain from weighing my blog down enumerating those factors. But say I were a non-English speaking student once again, how receptive would I be towards this Total Immersionism? And would my receptiveness or lack of contribute to the success of Total Immersionism? And if I were not so receptive, what sort of roles do cognitive and associative factors play in that and to what degree? Say, would students and their families perceive a threat to their own cultural identity? And would I not question, how does total immersion account for the number of failures among English-speaking people who cannot read and write at a graduate level? Or Hispanics and Blacks who are 'totally immersed' yet completely behind in their (legal) economic competitiveness?

I just drove home a point to myself : the people who would benefit most from a proficiency in English are also the least likely to question policies in a critical way. They are desperate. They probably can't read and think critically enough to go look for data which would've pointed out that total-immersion is not a be-all solution. It drives home the point that Malaysians are too eager and open to adopt change that will fill their rice-bowl or increase the volume of their future rice-bowls. That is why I do this : because the people with a 'voice' do not always speak for those who cannot have a voice.

Anyway, let's consider this :How many gifted teachers and programme facilitators would we need, logistically, to be able to set up an 'incubator' for 'total immersion' and keep the momentum going? How much research and training before that? How do we diagnose learners' from different areas to ascertain their AFs and a host of other psychological and cognitive factors that may or may not facilitate and promote the initiatives of 'total immersion'? Instead of being so ambitious in trying to tailor ideals to our local scenario, let us try and find new parts and recalibrate the whole vehicle. Sometimes, it helps to forget the old ways and try something we've never tried before.

I can go on and on, arguing one by one against the points supporting complete instruction in English. When we talk about introducing L1 as a subject only after several years, we are essentially killing off L1 as a language to read, speak, write and think critically in. If we're going to teach content (Science, Math, History, Geography) in a foreign language would that not spell the eventual death of a language? Does every language have to die so English can have its dominance? Other Mother Tongues would do a Rodney King and say, "Can't we all just get along?"

In general, I am not a stickler for traditions and cultures, but an institutionalised submission of a mother tongue to a dominant (economic and academic) language will lead it to its eventual death. A language being 'alive' is not as simple as being able to speak it but to be able to think and write in it, innovate with it and add to it. To relegate Bahasa Malaysia and other Mother Tongues to be taught only as one subject has phychological connotations as well. You're basically telling me it's not as important to me, my community, my country, the world' heritage and future diversity - and young people, lacking foresight and living on immediate gratification would never cultivate the sort of engagement and motivation required to be proficient in any given language.

What scares me about writings that get so much airspace in Malaysia (websites, newspapers, etc) is that they come from highly narrow perspectives of the big picture. Sometimes it feels like everyone just cares about their own importance in the issue, their own egos in the face of this question. If all of you English-thinking, Chinese and Malay nationalists take up all the airspace in three corners to articulate your highly eloquent opinions, who's taking care of the little guys to whom all this really matters?

The one thing all of you have in common is that you are all well-educated people who are obviously in a position to articulate, publish and garner support for your views. You all have your team to gather reports and references and this and that, which makes perfect sense when you try and outdo one another scoring points for yourselves. You have all the hard, soft data to validate whatever opinions you have already arrived at. You are all too intellectual and ambitious and egoistic, whether you realize it or not.

And whether you realize it or not, there is a sea of people who completely disagree with some or all that you say, but thanks to the very same things you are trying to champion for them, lack the sort of brazen-ness you all possess which is a given to you all, since you are all well-connected, well-read people. Their subdued response is due to their own sense of humility of not being able to 'reference' and compete in the three-cornered fight. Who are they? They are the loose collective who will be the most affected by the outcome of the things you are all debating.

From school teachers to educated parents to middle-class working parents, you all have had your say. But there is the sad silence of the majority who will be the most affected. Where are the voices of the Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc teachers who genuinely wished they had better command of English? Who have to overcome the disabled function of an innate autonomous nature? Are the children really allowed to speak? Are the low-educated, non-academic, inarticulate parents represented? Or have they simply been informed or misinformed, whichever was more convenient, to sway their responses to support whatever outcome the studies were intended?

I'll start again by saying, whether we believe we can or we cannot, we are right. I believe there are more efficient ways of teaching language development than what has always been publicly hawked. And I know this because I have spent 2 years of my own money setting up a control situation proving my theories on top of enough time in a school environment requesting for complete autonomy to give my beliefs a shot.

I would again like to put forward a disclaimer that my observations an my language incubator were not funded by any university or body which also effectively renders me impotent in any design, implementation, supervision or conclusion of what I've observed. I accept that. But the fact that the course of dozens of learners' lives have been permanently altered from their 12-24 months of language learning experience and the inspiration that they will carry with them to continue fostering autonomous language learning after they leave this experiment will bear witness to itself.

It's a piece of cake teaching students who already have some English but it's a challenge teaching students whose L1 and L2 contain a disparity of at least 10 to 15 years of full-time learning between each. It's also easy to claim success after 2 years of kindy under a levelled reading programme, but we're looking to finish the race, not just to start strong.

Can everyone be effectively bi, tri and quadrilingual?

I'd like to put a disclaimer on all the things I write that they cannot be supported, correlated and concluded the way you'd expect a 'credible' piece of writing ought to be. I'm not credible at all and have no ambitions of being a mekah of credibility. In a blogosphere of writing where every author is pretty confident in the validity of their perspective, to care none at all about whether or not I would appear 'credible' or 'noteworthy' seems radical even without trying to be.

I say the things that sophisticated and intellectual people, who are already set on the trajectory towards their own conclusions, would less likely say. The difficult thing about correlating and quoting accurately every point we're trying to present is that we lose everyone else in the course of it. There are enough academics, intellectuals and born-again-politicians/activists that can provide their own statistics and references to support the arguments they want to make. I can't see myself doing that and it is purely from a lack of trying.

When I write about my views on education and TEMS, I have to bear in mind that I am up against a well-educated, well-connected network of people who have been surfing the tide during those years when I was merely observing how and where the currents would flow while idly watching each sunrise and sunset.

A lot of times when I've attempted to write about issues that feel as if I was born to experience, I've held myself back because, working on an hourly wage and juggling single parenthood didn't give me enough time to collect enough references and digest enough journals and studies to quote extensively on every opinion I want to express. I suppose that can also be a reason why a lot of people produce questionable research design, implementations and results - it takes bloody a lot of time to select and screen target study groups, design and re-check question design and control for this and that....well, you get my point. They just need to come up with something that would 'validate' an opinion that has already been reached.

I don't go so far as to pick something out of my .....hair, but a lot comes from my solitary observation and readings from journals and most recent papers presented in ESL conferences around the world. I do not claim to have read every publication to date nor internalised all the findings synchronistically and coherently. If anyone is industrious enough, they can take time out and trawl through the sea of research and publications and eventually ...no, wait, I wouldn't recommend that. Research is an ever-expanding field. It can go either way for or against a theory depending on the time of the millenia. For that reason, I would rather each person appeal to their own inner reflections, trust their own insights in order to swim freestyle in any direction that benefits them most immediately.

Anyway.....

Right. There is this argument, authored by an M.Bakri Musa that goes it is now accepted that exposing children at a young age to bilingual education confers significant linguistic, cognitive and other advantages. The authors’ recommendation that pupils be taught only in their mother tongue and learn a second language later at a much older age is not supported by modern research.

I agree with half of the opinions he expressed in his entire article and appreciate the sort of analyszing and referencing he does that I would never find time to do. That is probably very necessary if he is going to be a credible author. Right, so yes, there is a lot of evidence to suggest bilingualism benefits children. But who are these types of bilingual children? For many years I've observed people who are bilingual and trilingual and they all have one thing in common - they come from homes which are generally more progressive in thinking and have more helpful psychological make-ups. You can also say they come from a lineage that is linguistically more gifted and diverse and cognitively more 'advanced'. I agree that there are great benefits to reap if you can be bi, tri and multi-lingual, etc etc etc. But does reverting to the medium of instruction in English facilitate this?

We seem to ignore the fact that we model language after what we are exposed to. The author said himself later on that if you teach bastardized language, you get bastardized language. The 'linguistic' and 'cognitive' advantageous our brains have do not come equip with a 'Standard Built-In Language Rules for the (year) child' that we can upgrade like a software. GIGA.....so to speak.

So we think we can effectively train teachers to ......undo their bastardization of the language (no fault of theirs), recalibrate and holify their English in.....how many man hours? As I observed from 1990 til 2005, I saw how we have passed the point of no return. But it takes a landslide for us to realize our slopes are naked, so.,,,,,,

People often ask me, as a child coming from a working class, dysfunctional Chinese family and schooled in the KBSM system, how did I gain the level of proficiency I have? If I told you I skipped all my English classes or slept through them, would you believe me?

I largely did not conform to the instruction nor absorb the environment English teaching was creating around me. No one else in my family nor my primary classmates, not even my American educated older brother, speaks and writes the way I do. In fact, my AF (affective filter) towards the learning of English in school was very high. I joined the English society because I was obligated to choose co-c activities and that was one society I could take it easy and not do anything worth doing. I remember the teacher advisor teaching me this word starting with 'z', - 'Zeal'. She said I had no zeal for learning English. Point taken then. During English Week, I was conscripted, rather than an eager participant. I attribute my autonomous learning traits and my proficiency in English to all those years of never conforming to what schooling expected of me and living with a label of being an underachiever. I could've been what they now term "a dysfunctional independent learner" but I'd like to think that I knew exactly what I wanted to learn, what I needed NOT to learn in order to achieve the sort of gratification I wanted from my learning experience.

No, we cannot train teachers as conveniently as we install new software or buy new RAM. Some English-ed teachers have written in newspapers about how they had to transition from being English-ed to teaching in BM and do not see why the current batch of teachers cannot do the same. Whether it had something to do with their 'training' or not, a lot of o-ty's assumed that the deterioration of minds has a direct relationship to denouncing the remnants of colonial indoctrination through education. Then why are schools in English-speaking countries suffering the same decline? And do we actually believe that the stronger economies of English-speaking countries has everything to do with English itself and nothing to do with trading policies etc?

Another factor that explains why the ol-ty's can do it but the current generation would find it more difficult is the way one language transfers up or down to another. This is no way marks a superiority of one language over another. If it did, we should all be reading and writing only in Arabic and Sanskrit and a whole host of other nominess even before we adopt English as our International Lingua-Franca.

It's a no-brainer that if your brain has already been accustomed to read and write / listen and speak in the more complexed system, it becomes easier to acquire language from a less complex system. That is only one aspect of language acquisition. Transfering from English to BM is generally a stepping down. The lack of informed approaches towards the teaching and learning of English to speakers of other languages and the continuous deterioration of minds through traditional schooling compounds the difficulty of current day teachers being able to acquire English.

Having said that, I would like to see these English-ed teachers transition to teach in Arabic or Mandarin and then see if they can still claim the same air of superiority. I suppose I cannot blame our English teachers - like what M.Bakri Musa pointed out, a lot of what our public teachers have access to is dated. I've always noted that the danger of being a teacher is a false sense of exclusivity and superiority about the 'subject' you teach. Teachers don't actually feel an obligation to empathise with others and keep themselves updated about learning before passing judgment on other people's unsuccessful learning.

I'm going to share a story told to me by a lady, we shall call her Cikgu Pah. She was a student of the famous Malaysian BM expert, Adibah Amin. Cikgu Pah was often told off during class for not being good at BM and that she should go back to Arab where she came from. This hurt the sensitivies of the young Cikgu Pah very much. (This is very typical of us insensitive Malaysians somehow. The other variant is "Go back to tiong-hua if you cannot speak Bahasa properly!" By properly they mean in RP Bahasa Malaysia.... their judgment of RP Bahasa Malaysia which is el supremo.) - So, anyway, by the time Cikgu Pah graduated, the policy had been revised to Bahasa as the medium of instruction. - The next scenario would seem familiar to many teachers : By virtue of being Malay and being conversant in Malay, she was seconded to teach Bahasa Malaysia on top of the subjects she had majored in. Those subjects she had majored in she learned in English and now she has to teach them in Bahasa.

What I mean by a familiar scenario is that I've noticed how School Heads decide which teacher teaches languages, especially English : first priority, the ones who are not Chinese, followed by those who might be Chinese but who were not completely schooled in Chinese and when both groups are not available, any teacher that can read the most words in Bahasa/English, even if it's still at a Ladybird series level. I mean no offence, but if you only worked in schools before, you'd know. No parent out there can realistically expect the conversant English/Malay speaker assigned to be their child's subject teacher to be an expert in language (L1 or L2) pedagogy. Once in a while, you would be so lucky as to get a Cikgu Pah who has a lot of initiative, drive, passion and commitment and a heart the size of........Alaska!

Back to my little piece of anecdotal story - Eventhough Cikgu Pah was more fluent in English than Bahasa then (coming from a well-educated, urban Malay family in the 50s) her transition to Bahasa was difficult but do-able. She wanted badly to tell her cikgu, "Hah, tengok! Sekarang saya jadi cikgu Bahasa Malaysia!"

Kind of like what I would like to say to my English teacher in Form 4. She told me to go be an English teacher if I think her methods of teaching my other classmates (I was not from the first class) were ineffective and destructive to their self-esteem and language development. Actually, the last thing I would want to be is an English teacher. I don't mind teaching literature and theatre on my free weekends but who needs Shakespeare when the rest of the third world needs applicable skills in acquiring knowledge in a fast-changing world?

Back to the comparison the group of retiring/retired teachers made about,"If we could do it then, why can't they do it now?". English to BM is a stepping down in terms of linguistic difficulty. On top of that, there was an existing cultural and social environment that was very condusive for learners who were self-directed in their learning. To be fair, all teachers should be self-directed. This was during a time when the teaching profession was the reserve of the most self-directed of students!!

The landscape for our teachers today is like climbing Mt.Kilimanjaro on stilettos compared to the skiing trip down an artifical Alps the teachers in the 60s experienced. On top of it being a stepping-up transitioning from BM to English, English is not as widely used now as Bahasa Malaysia was. Of course we can argue that with so much more English-media clutter and broader air/webspace in general dedicated to English, there's a greater environment. In mass, there is more...which necessitated also a new ability to manouvre around and filter through all that clutter and noise in order to select their prime sources of information.

Way back when, we had only a couple of channels and radio stations and print publications and they were either in Bahasa Malaysia or English. In fact, there was this radio subscription channel called Redifussion which broadcasted extra Chinese or English channels on top of the RTM ones. The scenario is vastly different today. Even in simulated environments like mass media, Astro channels and the dozens of paid broadcasting, multiple-language interface products, etc are competing for viewer attention. When given a choice, people would revert to the language they are most efficient in. I would never read a manual in Bahasa or set my Windows or google browser up in Bahasa if I had a choice! And I think even rural kids nowadays would rather read in Bahasa Malaysia than Jawi?

Besides, if I am not mistaken (you dig up the archives yourself) it was in the late 70s and full-throttle in the 80s when teaching colleges were synonymous as the last refuge of those who could not hack it for university courses. I remember being a very young girl running around Recsam eavesdropping on what teacher trainers go through and what they were like and trying to catch what visiting educators would lecture. By the time I finished secondary school, I told my dad that it would be over his dead body that I would become a teacher. I know now that we really must be careful what we say when we parlay with the Universe in rebelling against our parent's wish.

We simply cannot compare high-school leavers from the 50s and 60s with those from the later decades up til now. We're comparing high achievers like Cikgu Pah (schooled in the 50s and 60s) who got into undergrad and teaching diploma programmes on pure merit with mediocre achievers who got in on quotas and by virtue of having failed to get places in universities. To imitate my German friend's expression, "What is that for a comparison?"

High-achievers tend also to be more self-directed and have more initiative in their learning. Apple to apple, the first group would have transitioned better from BM to English when compared to the latter group. Mediocre achievers are constantly plagued with a quiet confession that they became teachers because that is the last respectable thing left for them to do. I hope everyone is aware though, that the way we perceive ourselves as learners from the time we first experience learning, greatly influences the initiative, resourcefulness and progressiveness of our future learning. Can we see now the many ways our teachers are handicapped?

Eventhough I am but a lowly lone-ranger, I am as guilty as our local academics and researchers in beginning with a conclusion and then looking only for the evidences which corroborate initial views. I knew trainee teachers were in a lot of trouble when it came to continuous learning, I knew different demographics predicted a general economic outcome due to a correlating lacking of proficiency in English. I knew almost instinctively that those who did not acquired enough mental lexicon, vocab and efficient reading and writing skills would most probably not enjoy post-secondary and the domino effect can settle in. (Fortunately, a lot of other factors can contribute to a change in a school-leaver's trajectory, if only they would let go of the unhelpful impressions they have acquired of themselves during school and replaced them with more helpful and positive beliefs after school.)

As a primary school student, I sympathised so much with my trainee Malay teachers who confessed how difficult it was for them to improve themselves because so much information is written in English. (That was in '85,'86). One Cikgu Sapiah gave me an English storybook to encourage me to continue on my then promising path of mastering English. She had told me how difficult it was for her and the only thing that kept her efforts up in English was reading romance novels which were a lot more 'interesting' than Malay ones. She gave me one of those. I never read it but I developed an aversion towards romance novels.

I also saw how many of my friends were falling behind in acquiring English and they were not the ones who copped out from doing homework and rested forehead on folded arms during English lessons. I integrated my passing observations of the sort of trainee teachers we were getting, the teachers we already had, the people outside of school who were their age groups, the areas where my friends lived, what jobs their parents did and whether I found any correlation between their school work, family backgrounds and their acquisition of English. I did that passively, day in and day out. There is no one clear episode, just a general theme of a memory I have of primary through lower secondary school.

It pained me that there has always existed a double-standard in the treatment of those who did better in English compared to those who didn't. This directly causes how a person values and perceives their ability as a learner, what is more, were were only children. Could the prejudice be remnants of teachers schooled during a time when English was the medium of instruction? It pained me even more that I put in none of the accepted norms of learning effort yet them, twice as much or more.

I started with two conclusions : There were two broad themes I concluded from my own reflections as a language learner within the KBSM system. First, the methods and approaches were deeply flawed. That was the only way to explain how my non-conformism to standard classroom norms saved me from language bastardization or fossilization. My English textbooks were always returned as new as they came, and I never came across any English exercise books during spring cleaning. Textbooks did next to nothing for my language acquisition. But it could have done something out of the thousands of others, maybe. But at the end of the race, my non-textbook, disengageed perspectives towards classroom learning of English put me miles ahead.

Second, a high sense of self-esteem is imperative in both the teacher and the learner in order to acquire language effectively. A teacher with a high self-esteem in their ability to teach and inspire in the subject is a safer bet to be more reflective, encouraging and supportive of his learner's language development.

There is a part of me which wishes I could be put into a state of hypnosis and regressed to my childhood to see how my learning happened. I've learned significantly a lot more things in the area of SLA and Learner Autonomy to understand a significant part of how I acquired my language. I always put out a disclaimer that my memories are fallible. But there is this memory of always reading a column by a Lucille Dass in The Star newspaper in the 80s. There was another teacher called a Miss Dass at my school at the same time. It always fascinated me that there was a Dass I could see who never spoke that intelligently to me, and a Dass I could read, who wrote so intelligently, whom I could not see. I never actually met Lucille Dass in person until about 20 years later and very briefly at a workshop.

Abolishing vernacular schools and focussing on the actual problems of teaching Science and Math in English

Yes. We should abolish the term vernacular schools and make them equals to kebangsaan schools. Why do we call them 'kebangsaan' schools anyway? Schools that nationalize people? Do we need to actually 'teach' nationalization? We wouldn't have had to if politics simply got out of the way of education. So, yes - we should abolish the term 'salah satu jenis kebangsaan' and make verncular schools kebangsaan schools. What's wrong with simply celebrating the richness and diversity in languages that makes Malaysia so unique? What's wrong with switching from one type of school to another? There would be nothing wrong if vernacular schools were simply just schools. 

That Mahathir's son...what's his face - said that all vernacular schools should be abolished to promote unity. He has a point there eventhough he dared not say what really needs to be told. The problem is not in the teaching of non-Malay languages, the problem is the race-politics and racist indoctrinations promoted through these schools! He couldn't come on out to just say that unless he went undercover (like I did) and saw it with his own dua-biji....mata.

I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's not some ignorant race-chauvinist because I have deep reverence for his father and respect for his sister. However, if he is the black sheep of the flock, then it would be truly regrettable despite the fact he came from such a pedigree stock. 

Speaking of my reverence for Mahathir, there has been only one public policy he has stamped his mark on that I have not supported. (There may have been other views by him but I only pay attention to the headlines that get the most airtime, like KLCC, standing up to the IMF, the Look-East policy, championing South countries,...). Everything Mahathir suggests and says in public, I jump out of my chair in support. He could not have delivered it better. People who call him pemimpin kuku besi or hate his guts simply have none of their own. I suppose that' explains the unmerited gravitational towards  Abdullah Badawi which ended up giving him such a landslide victory. Now that Malaysians get a true taste of what it's like to have no-LP, I am sure they have a new appreciation of Mahathir.

Way back when, I knew Mahathir made the wrong move in pushing for Maths and Science in English. But to his credit, he didn't have much time left. Whether he left it as it is or drove the gear into this massive experiment, nothing much is lost. He knew his successors would have neither the will, vision nor LP to consider radical change. At least in this way, we were jolted out of our very infamous Malaysian attitude of dragging our feet about getting anything worth doing done. 

There are those who fret about how it's been a great waste of time and money and our children being treated as guinea pigs. But what makes us so sure that the same amount of time and money would not have been spent on even more wasteful activities? Like, sending five space tourists instead of one?

At least, having done this form of ACTION RESEARCH we have amassed a mountain of data and insight into the deep problems of our nation's human productivity and capacity and not wait til it is way too late. We Malaysians have a way of ignoring falling rocks and tilting buildings with an over-optimistic view that a massive erosion and landslide will not occur just because all the signs says it will. (Yes, just because). If we can ignore signs of devastating floods and landslides, do you trust us to actually ring the alarm on a quiet deterioration of Malaysian minds?

So now we know that most of our schoolteachers are not qualified! Hahahahaha! I am so delighted to know that I was right about some of my teachers - that they did not become qualified teachers by virtue of their initiative in learning nor pioneering insights to teaching. It also has nothing to do with inherent intelligence and productivity since everyone knows that teaching is the last resort for those who did not qualify for choice courses.

Memories are fallible, but perhaps some of my classmates could validate this later on. I remember one time in Form 4, I told my History teacher that in order to teach a chapter on the Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance or Islamic history, she needed to acquire the experience and covered reading the width and breadth of those his-stories. She did not know who Michaelangelo was and could not extend further about his works and pronounced his name, "Mee-kah-eh-lang-e-lo". 

Anyway, time to grow up and be an adult about this. I spoke at length to some primary school teachers and I actually sympathise with them. In front of a class, they have to present themselves as authorities. It's probably very damaging for their self-esteem to have a student point out their ineffectiveness and ignorance, and disheartening to know that they cannot do their job to their best ability and holding their students back at the same time. That is what any teacher who is not proficient in English would be made to feel.

As Head of Department once, I had a choice between hiring a teacher who is fluent (but neither proficient nor had a convincing recipe for effective teaching) or a Chinese-educated teacher who has demonstrated a great ability to bond with students, is highly committed and dedicated to learning and is passionate about guiding her students to achieve. I chose the latter, because you can buy a piece of certificate, but you can never buy passion and the drive to learn. Of course, if I really had a choice, I'd go for a proficient speaker with insights into language learning and acquisition, training, width and breadth in knowledge, applications and theory, great presenter with humor yet able to control a class without being an impeding authority, etc.

From the day I started teaching, I've always had this fantasy that we could do teacher-training the way we do direct-selling training. I really love the way the MLM-ers achieve their goals. The good companies have a wonderful mentoring system with practical coaching and motivating approaches and tools to drive people to become self-starters. I've always told myself, if I had not had a taste for words and writing and teaching, there is nothing I would love better to be than a network marketing coach who started out as the door-to-door saleslady working on commissions.

The only way I can see the government really helping teachers train and be self-starters is to include other-medium language schools in their fold - not as stepmothers, but lawful mothers of our future nation. I am sick and tired of the race politics being played out in school. I know though, that if we allow students to transfer from one-medium to another and have the flexibility of starting at a lower grade for certain subjects which they want to take in the other language and be allowed to take effective FL classes, racial politics could never happen in school. Imagine what would happen if children came back and could give feedback of what's happening in their school that is negatively different from what they've experienced elsewhere? Imagine if there was a programme where teachers can transfer to different medium schools to share with other teachers their strengths and expertise in teaching a particular subject in L1 or as a second-language? Not only would it eradicate the opportunities for creating strongholds in racist ideologies, it would promote the proliferation of knowledge and languages. 

Sigh...someone should really make me Hishamuddin's policy writer. His policies would be so successful and popular it would propel him to Premiership even if his cousin was in his way. 

Why Malay and Chinese nationalists protest over the use of English - Pt 1

What is culture? Look at these web definitions of culture for a moment : 

• a particular society at a particular time and place; "early Mayan civilization"
• the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group
• acculturation: all the knowledge and values shared by a society
• the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization; "the developing drug culture"; "the reason that the agency is doomed to inaction has something to do with the FBI culture

To feel that one's "culture" and "traditions" or budaya is being threatened, to feel one's lineage, thus identity, is being threatened is reflected in a tenacious desire to preserve that particular status quo in its time and place, to preserve a set of thinking that is favoured by those whose voices we hear, to preserve 'the knowledge and values' shared by those whose voices are most vocal and a reflection of a particular social group, in our case, the ketuanan Melayu and the DJZ.

If we are to preserve and fossilize culture as it is, we might as well never validate education. Despite the fact that millions of people have been disillussioned by a system failure of schools, nevertheless, education and schooling are not synomymous. Schooling is about the mass production, the acculturation of a nation's people as a supply resource to industry, a resource that is as tangible and consumable as the machines used and materials produced and consumed. Education, on the other hand, is about the flowering of the individual, about the sharing and proliferation of the insights, wisdoms and skills obtained by those who have found the path towards a higher, more existential existence.

In discussing the merits for or against MT learning for Science and Maths I think we must first start bottom up. What I think has been happening is a scenario where people are shooting paintballs while hiding in camouflage. The field is a big mess with the general public walking around like forensic amateurs with neither the tools nor expertise to ascertain what happened  - and drawing misinformed conclusions or opinions about the whole scenario. 

Thus I've decided to start with the premise of 'mati bahasa, mati bangsa' by asking everyone to consider examining what this 'budaya' really is? Is it a productive, helpful budaya? A budaya pining about the loss of face and pride, a budaya tied to past glories or ketuanan? 

Upon clear examination, we will all come to realize that all that talk by Malay nationalists and the DJZ party is about their own political agenda in the end. I don't know of that many Malays, including lawyers and national laureates and academics, medical doctors, engineers, aerospace tourist, bankers, etc who have not benefited from and who would not want their children to benefit from a strong command of the International language. (I will substitute the term "English" for "International" because the number of non-native speakers has surpassed those of native users a decade ago and is projected to outnumber native speakers 80-20 in the next decade). 

If you  have ever wondered the way I did, what the variables are between those in ICS (represented by the umbrella body DJZ), Chinese government schools and 'the other schools' that gave Chi-Ed people such a disadvantage over other peers despite their incomparable diligence and tenacious ambition, you would infiltrate the schools and observe it with a reporter's eye and arrive at what I have : that these 'nationalists' are concerned about appearing concerned for the Chinese community but they really aren't. (No, I'm not a journalist, I engage in role-playing as a fantasy).

If you can only witness how much access they have to professional educators, private language consultants, tons of sample textbooks and research on ESL and the resources (money!) they claim they don't have but are pretty much throwing around, you can see there is no actual sincerity or will to do anything for their own 'Chinese' people. I have done more for their students after resigning than they could have done for their own despite having teachers like me amongst them for years. Yes, I am bitter. But I am bitter for the right reasons. I was not ambitious and was willing to be paid next to nothing, take days or weeks away from family to take part in any activity that aimed to collate the productivity and skills of their English teachers to affect change in the right direction. I was willing, like so many other idealistic teachers, to live paycheck to paycheck as long as I could render my services to stop this rot and get things rolling the other way, to not waste one more day of our children's future. 

Many times I considered electronically recording my experience inside the DJZ. There is so much racial-politicking and anti-government sentiments that you could cut the tension in the air with a knife. I am a person sensitive to collective energy and 'vibes' of a place or person and for the most part of my life, I am 99% accurate about people and situations, which earns me sometimes, a creepy reputation of being clairvoyant.  But since I was not contracted as an undercover journalist by a reputable agency, I would never be able to validate what I've recorded. It can always be thrown out as 'doctored' or I prompted and recorded only certain responses. I could not even have gone in undercover for the govt with experts and the DA planning some elaborate years-long investigation. I could not even suggest to any university to sponsor this sort of 'research'. There was no legal and foolproof way I could've recorded and related the things I saw happening amidst them. It's just me and God as my witness. But I can finally blast these communist with a clear conscience. I've always suspected they were doing things like this and I could not be more thankful that I was given an opportunity to validate my suspicions. 

If you could've experience vicariously through me, you will see that they (the Chinese nationalists) are no better nor any more sincere than what they accused the MoE of not to be. I would bet my chips on the MoE any given time even if two-thirds of their policies masuk angin. I do not doubt MoE's sincerity because I know there's always a price to pay when you are part of a bureaucracy. Which explains perfectly why I am not cut-out for that sort of place even if that is where the heart of education revolution will start from.

Going back to the DJZ, there is simply no political will on the side of these so-called 'Chinese' nationalists. Despite being labelled, 'ang moh sai' (white man's trash) by people like them, I can say with a clear conscience that I have done more for Chinese students than these Chinese natioanlists. A lot of my resentment towards them can evaporate if only I tell myself in a Zen-like philosophy that 'they know not what they are doing'. But then again, I think, you should not excuse people who wear the labels of 'Teacher' and 'Authority' or 'Leader' if they are misleading you through an assertion and protection of their total ignorance and the exacted conformity of everyone else beneath them. Along with the reverence and money a community of people surrender to you comes the condition that you do not simply exist for your salaries and distorted ideologies. You exist to serve their needs, to use your intellect and elected offices (as teachers or education leaders) to find ways that directly and immediately increase their learning and value to the economy, improving their state of mind and self-esteem. It does nobody any favours spreading the propaganda of fear and the notion of being under-seige from the non-Chinese. 

Any and every effort they have ever attempted and called a press conference for (or prepared a press kit for) is mere window-dressing. It would be completely unethical of me to say any of this if I was the same anti Chi-Ed I was a decade ago but I grew up, old enough to pass off as a teacher and infiltrate their network, read their publications, attend their conferences and workshops and trainings and a thing or two I cannot reveal  because I had signed confidentiality agreements.

In the turmoil of discussion for or against the use of English for Science and Maths in primary school, the issue of cultural or racial identity got picked up. It misdirects the intellectual energy to inform and resolve this question. Learning and education should have nothing to do with culture and race at all. For isn't that the entire point of education - to remove barriers and examine the unexamined thoughts and behaviours, to bring people higher in their awareness and consciousness. A perceived dilution of cultural or racial identity should not even have been an issue. I could be Chinese today, or Malaysian-Chinese if you like, but 5,000 years ago and 5,000 years from now, I doubt I would have been so rigidly classified. So whether or not language makes cultures more permeable in a multicultural society as ours is not even a worthy point of debate. If the great Mayans and Incans could vanish, what is so great about the rest of us that demands permanent validation and attachment to a label of our 'kind'? I hope no one ever wastes anyone else's airtime and pollute their thinking field anymore by spouting unexamined ideas about the mothertongue-culture-identity trinity.

What is valid though is that in Second Language learning, it is noted that information can transfer faster if the learner already has a substantial amount of knowledge and information in their own L1. Teaching new concepts in Maths and Science has more to do with teaching content than language. Because most of these very young learners may not even had had exposure or content knowledge of the concepts in Math and Science in their first language, it makes it completely incomprehensible to do it in a foreign language. Teaching brand-new concepts in a foreign language is definitely a bad idea. If I had a choice between taking up a Linguistics or Philosophy or Sociology or Law or Engineering or a Forensics course in English or Mandarin, I'd rather do it in English, since that is the language in which I have more access to references in my mental lexicon to make sense of new content that is being taught. Soon, we would be teaching Maths and Science in Arabic to improve the Malays' command of reading and interpreting the Quran?

There are parents who believe that learning in English makes more sense as you don't have to re-learn everything again in another language later on. Urban families or educated families who read, write and speak English could never imagine the world of difference between them and non-English speakers. Families who aspire to be fluent in English may falsely believe that simply knowing a few hundred words in English through recognition and being able to do simple guesswork in English tests and regurgitate sample answers for written ones is enough to be 'goodt' in English. As earnest as those intentions are, it is gravely misleading. Proficiency in English in order to compete academically in the language is a much larger picture than the few pieces of puzzle they have in hand. Eventhough it sounds more efficient to learn it in one language from the start, it becomes a bigger waste if you realize 9 years later, the rate of mastery is a longshot from what is required for tertiary education in the Science and Maths. Poor English language skills is only one of other factors causing us to lag  behind in these fields. 

After removing race-politics from the mix, there is real reason why content should first be taught in L1. Knowledge from L1 can be transferred to the target language. The focus should be on how an Other Language is acquired. Would it make sense if I said that language is acquired through input that is comprehensible. (For more on this, read works by Stephen Krashen). Have you ever experienced watching a foreign dialect or movie or singing a foreign song you liked and then figuring out what means what after some time being exposed to content and plot while reading the substitles in your L1? With the visual simulating context in an artifical 'environment', you acquired the meaning of words over time. 

Language learning is thus separate from the learning of other subjects that can be mastered through instruction and drills alone. It is the job of linguists and their relatives in psychology and pedagogy to explain the rest.  What I'm trying to introduce is the proven notion that there is a whole range of things that goes into the mixing bowl when it comes to helping learners effectively acquire a language, any language. 

According to Krashen's works and everyone else' common sense, we develop more and more complexed language abilities through a continous series of being exposed to comprehensible input plus 1. We experience this everytime we are trying to learn foreign phrases. We pick up the most common ones first that is universally understood (cuss words, saying "I Love You") and we build on our understanding, spurred by our interest and without being impeded by our own sense of failure. How else can I explain the way I learned Cantonese and Mandarin and Malay? I first had a huge  bank of references, cultural and vocabulary, which I transferred to the other languages. And then, without being instructed, my brain figured out the sounds and developed a frame of how the syntax and context works.  I can say for certain that none of the languages I learned, I learned from pure instruction. Of course, like I said earlier (disclaimer!) there are other things that goes into the mixing bowl for the Full Monty......

If we are sincere about helping young people gain the advantages of acquiring English as a strong 2nd language (I think I've succeeded, and I've also succeeded in examining my own success in learning the language) it's time to look at the theories and practices of 2nd language learning and the mountains of research that has been done in this area. Hishamuddin should just sack everyone on his staff and hire me to implement a plan that covers curriculum design, instruction and implementation, methods and approaches and the logistics in customizing a few sets of design to achieve optimum results that transcends race, geography and social ladders. Then, as his advisor on Education, I would hire the most talented and passionate and committed educators to help me recalibrate the whole system and attack gangreneous system weaknesses with the blindess of a scalpel. Then we would run a 5-year pilot project that would make all of us on board fully accountable for - something like what N9 did. When the results are out and we see mass-scale success, Hishamuddin would have all the support he needs across all barriers to become Prime Minister. Then, he can rule with his own agenda while seceding education away from the government - whatever government comes next. 

I think that's a good plan.....don't you think?