Malays and their English (language)

Schoolchildren in Dili, Timor-Leste - cannot speak a word of English but I like the fancy footwear :)

11 years of studying English and cannot speak the language. That's my comment on the level of most Malaysians' grasp on the English language. And that does not include the ones who graduated from universities and still cannot speak the language confidently. OMG, so embarrassing...

It saddens me to think of my own people who wasted spent so much time studying something and gets nothing out of it. So whose fault is it? Inevitably, the big fat finger will point to the students and/or the teachers. Students for being lazy of course, and the teachers for teaching for teaching's sake. Once when I was in Form 5 at secondary school, our beloved English teacher was baffled when she found out no one in our class knew when to use an apostrophe after an s (our class was made up of students with the best marks in English, and our school was one of the top in the country). At that moment I realised that my grammar really sucked, and I had a sneaking suspicion that apostrophes were not part of our English syllabus (not sure if it's true, though). My teacher dutifully taught us about it there and then, and I remember it until now :)

I still believe a lot of the nooks and crannies of the language need to be explored by English teachers and taught to their ignorant students. Raising the standard in English doesn't necessarily means extending teaching hours and setting up more difficult exam questions, which the government is doing. It's about bettering the quality of the teaching - better syllabi, better teaching methods to make the students understand easier, et cetera. Of course I am no teacher myself, but I tutored my younger brother for his SPM (equivalent to the British O-Levels) many years ago using my unconventional technique and his English improved by 3 grades in under 2 months!

I'm not saying my English is perfect, because I don't speak it on an everyday basis or even at home. Plus, I personally know several Malaysians whose English is notably superior to mine ;) But I guess if you're a university graduate, conversing in English shouldn't be an agonizing torture you would rather avoid. Not to mention the 14 year-old relative of a Chinese patient in Penang who cannot speak Malay in spite of all the schooling... Well, that's another (sad) story.