8/12/2019 Before Malaysia or Known as Tanah Melayu Got Independence the Language Policy in Our Country is English Medium for the Missionary School

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Question. How does the language policy in your country affect your teaching orlearning English in the classroom? Discuss and give appropriate examples.

Before Malaysia or known as Tanah Melayu got independence the language policyin our country is English Medium for the missionary school , the vernacular school is

using their own their own mother tongue for example Mandarin and Tamil, the Malayschool is using Bahia Melayu or Arab as their medium tool in teaching and learning.When Malaysia got its independence in 1957, the government of Malaysia set out ona program to establish Bahasa Melayu as the official language, to be used in allgovernment functions and as the medium of instruction at all levels in the educationsystem. The introduction of a new primary school curriculum KBSR (KurikulumBersepadu Sekolah Rendah), and the new secondary school curriculum, KBSM(Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah), is an approach to provide holistic,balanced and integrated development of an individual s potential; intellectual,spiritual, emotional and physical aspect. However in 2002, the governmentannounced a reversal of policy, calling for a switch to English as a medium ofinstruction for Mathematics and Science at all levels in the education system. Since2003, Science and Mathematics has been taught in English. The governmentintroduced E-Tems and PPSMI in our education system. Therefore, teachers areforced to use code-switching to make pupils understand the subject matter. To makethe English had been used correctly by Science and Math teacher buddy beenintroduce .Meaning that English teacher had to help their colleagues who taughtMath and Science in English. Now the PPSMI has been abolished. It is change withMMBMMBI(To Up Hold The Bahasa Melayu and To Strenght Up The EnglishLanguage).This new policy been introduce due to failure of the PPSMI policy. Mostof the students from rural are an unable to understand the science and math subjectin English. Furthermore our teacher also is not really prepared to use the language.Now the policy is change back from English to Bahasa Melayu for the benefit of ouryoung generations purposes.

For me the language policy in our educational system always change Therefore, itgives me a little impact in my teaching and learning English in my classroom. As weall know, in 1980s KBSR and KBSM has been introduced in our syllabus. Thesystem continues until 2003 when the government revised it. Although it looks soperfect in the syllabus, it is the moment where English Language has become amajor downfall. My experienced as an English Language Teacher almost 17 years. Ihave thought primary school for 9 years in 3 different schools which is quite rural and

secondary school for 7 years. During my teaching in SK SG Ara ,Dato Alaudin andRelang in Batu Kurau and Kerian, I had to use Code Switching and Structural Approach in teaching.This because although they are Malay student but they tend touse thei own dialect whis is Patani and Banjar. Sometimes it is hardly for me tounderstand them. Apart from that a problem arise when the government introduce anew policy that I have stated which is PPSMI. The English Language teacher has tohelp Math and science teacher in their preparation in lesson plan. I found that itreally give me a lot of burden because I need to prepared two lesson plan everyweek. First is for my core subject the one is for my buddies. As examples, I made myown vocabulary and sentence book for primary one, two and three and also for myMath and Science teacher. I make sure they (my students and buddies memorised

all the word list and sentences). Sometimes I need to prepare my buddies for theirexamination either in oral or written test. Now the structural approach is the most

8/12/2019 Before Malaysia or Known as Tanah Melayu Got Independence the Language Policy in Our Country is English Medium for the Missionary School

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reliable source for me. I have to put a way CLT method that been introduce in oursyllabus and used the Audio Lingual method in teaching them. As a result, most ofthe teacher able to pass the oral and written exam. Although the method is beenused during 1950s until 1980s in Malaysia, I think it is a good approach in teachingthe target language especially English in isolated way. Why our policy need to

change the old approach and syllabus?

Next, my experienced teaching secondary school in Malaysia is quite challenging forme .Since Malaysia is multiracial country with muIti and varieties languages, I foundthat the students in my class especially form 1 the weak class had problems incommunicating among them. The foundation of their English and Bahasa Melayu arevery weak this is because their first language is Tamil or Mandrin.Most of themcame from vernacular school which is (SJKC and SJKT .They also had problem inunderstand other people cultures background For instance, during writing and oralpresentations most of the students translate the language in mother tongue. Thesentence structures are not in coherent and the vocabulary is used wrongly. Forexamples most of my students will make grammatical and phonological error andthey also loved to put suffixes lah, ma and la and also dialects. Another example isduring oral presentation the students or role play they tend to say come la, orteacher toilet,faster-faster, as for me I can understood what my student is trying tosay but sometime I also using that kind of language in my classroom. It is sad to seethem using this kind of language been used widely outside the classroom. Toovercome this problem I have to use my method in primary school which is structuralapproach. They have to memorise certain sentences when talking to me. During myday as a student it is hardly to find ma, and lah in English because the teacher atthat time is very strict and they used all the grammar rules during their teachingcontext. Now days, the purpose of teaching English in our country is only forexamination or exam oriented. This method is not only been used by me but alsoother teacher. The impact of our language system in this county also had made thegovernment to change the policy and introduced MBMMBI .

In a nut shell, our language policy should been mould according to social cultural ofour country and certain approach this sis because our country is not a nativespeaker country. Students must realise that the main objective of learning English isnot to acquire native speakers competency but rather to be intelligible amonginternational English speakers and those within their community . Students must beconscious that dialects and other varieties of language are not accepted in learning a

new language and they should be respect, that Standard English is necessary notonly in a formal context but it also everyday usage As for the government should notchange the policy drastically and frequently.

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