In Lotbiniere (2009)
"Malaysia drops English Language teaching" article, he discussed the
possible reasons why the government had decided to drop the PPMSI policy and
implement a new policy instead. Max showed two sides of a coin, those who
supported and those who opposed the policy. One of the reasons given by the
government was the existence of English language disparity in terms of rural
and urban areas, yet, he mentioned that many suspected the main reason was the
government opposition party had given them political pressure by saying that
PPSMI compromised malay heritage.
Despite that Max's article
was mainly on presenting the current situation of Malaysia's decision, the fact
that the students’ results for maths and science had dropped by 2.5%, I do agree
with the government’s decision of having English being taught in a separate
class. The main reason why the government chose to remove the PPSMI was English
and Maths are more technical and it will be easier for students to learn in the
language that they are used to. Maths and Science are the main subjects focused
on education throughout the world for development and progress of technologies.
These are important to Malaysia so that they can catch up with the global
economics and hence, it is important for the citizens to have a profound
knowledge in these subject areas.
Learning English in a separate subject helps
the students to fully understand the technical usage of English correctly. If
they learn English to learn Maths and Science, they probably will only know the
English technical terms for these subjects. This will still pose a problem when
they want to communicate with the speakers from other countries. Having it taught
in a separate class, the students can learn how to communicate in English via
different mediums like oral and written. After which, it is easier for them to
learn how to write scientific papers which then, they are only required to
learn certain technical terms in English. Otherwise, they still have to learn
the correct way of phrasing and sentence structures. Actually, What matters is
how students present their ideas for readers to understand, which is difficult
to learn when English is a tool for learning Maths and Science, instead of
being treated as another subject. A very good example will be the China’s education
system, which managed to develop many global speakers with impressive
communication and technical skills. In China, Maths and Science are taught in
English as it is the language that the students are most familiar with. This
has been proved to be really successful as many chinese students manage to do
really well in academics when they study abroad.
From my personal interactions
with my China’s friends, they say that they initally faced communication issues
but they rectified it rather fast as they took extra english classes in the
British Council and learnt formal English. Therefore, it is easier for students
to learn English and Maths in their preferred language and to have English in a
separate class.
