Aiyaa, what is all this balyhoo about English. This is again Classic Malaysian endeavour. Ok, first of all, as a positve person, I congratulate the effort by all parties in this embracing English project, and the sponsors and the newspapers - for whatever motive you may have. For the politicians, this is too clear for all to see.
Macamnilah (translation: It's like this) ... ( ... this is also the url of my blog) - let me share my experience in this Englishsising (don't think there is such a word, but what the ***l) processs. For as long as I can remember, we spoke ENGLISH at home. That's process No.1 - SPEAK
Then I used to read ENGLISH-language COMICS. War stories (the small booklet type), Beano, Dandy, Beezer, The Mighty Thor ( I have a big 'old' collection), Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Green Lantern, Ironman, Dr Strange, Superman, Teen Titans, Flash, Justice League and the Reader's Digest. That's process No. 2 - READ
I advocate writing things down. This started when I was in Standard Two at the St. Geroge's Primary School in Balik Pulau (Penang). It was kind of a competition - but in an educational way. We we ask by our teacher to write down (in English, of course) a collection of 3-letter words, 4-letter words, 5, 6, 7 and as many letter words as one can gather in an excercise book. Whether you understand the words or not is not an issue. Gather them you must, no tricks, you can refer to the dictionary. I got third place and got some chocolates. But the process stuck until today. It was not so much of the competition but the gathering of words, looking them up, writing them down .. that was interesting. That's process No. 3 - WRITE.
However, all these are LONG TERM PROCESSES ...
Another true story - There was a research done in a 10-year period in the United States. This was how it went. EVERY morning, before anything else, a (experimental) class was asked to READ (English) for 20-minutes. The students in the class were just asked to READ. Anything!! - newspapers, comics, books, magazines - anything - Everyday. They were NOT taught English in a formal way. To cut a LONG STORY short, the English competencies of these children were FAR BETTER than those taught formally. I can give you the name of the Professor if you want.
Now, we Malaysians like to really do things in a BIG way, not in a correct way (just like the computer , oops, not here, not here ..). Now, we have a big ceremony with company sponsorship (thank you companies) and promoting reading NST ( very good, no doubt). Now even Minister also happily promoting this and thanking here and there. Further said, "I want to congratulate the NSTP group for its role as a responsible corporate citizen. I’m proud that so many generous sponsors have stepped in to offer their support. "I want to see this programme succeed and expand. You will have the co-operation of my Schools Division to work on identifying the neediest schools in the peninsula and Sabah and Sarawak."
ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS READ ENGLISH. Not just NST, ANY English book, magazine, reader's digest. It does not have to be brand new. Go buy ALL the second hand books in the shops. Hey, just flipping read ... anything (relevant lah , don't be s*****!! - we are also good at being loyar buruk) don't make this something burdensome. Aiyaa, tak tau lah ... nak glamour je ..
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