COMMENT After reading through numerous articles and letters to editors about abandoning the PPSMI (Teaching of Science and Mathematics in English) policy, it seems to me that too many people have misconstrued the issue as an either-or situation.
Arguments have been put forward about the need to protect local identity from linguistic colonisation through the use of Bahasa Malaysia (BM). But this line of reasoning is seriously flawed.
Rather than usurping an existing identity, content-based language instruction, such as the teaching of maths and science in English, actually invites learners to see their own identities in a new light.
While encouraging learners to identify with a foreign culture, it also raises their awareness of their own culture. One offshoot is that learners develop a sense of shared citizenship through openness of mind and the dispelling of stereotypes.
In this respect, it promotes the democratic values of understanding, tolerance and pride in cultural diversity while bolstering local identity.
Equally misguided is the argument about so-called information overload.
“Not only do some students have problems in maths and science, but now there is the added difficulty of dealing with these subjects in English. Will they be able to cope?” So goes the cry of bewildered parents.
As well as they did before, if not better. That is my reply. For one of the most important advantages of learning subjects like maths and science in English is the enhanced development among students of broader cognitive strategies and skills.
The subject-language duality inherent in these modules requires a macro-micro approach to teaching, which is reflected in higher levels of student achievement.
Incremental feeding
The incremental feeding in of discrete items and technical chunks of subject-language matter into the learning spiral, combined with students’ top-down processing schemata, helps them to learn more effectively and efficiently. They fathom out the process and find answers for themselves using English as the medium of communication.
This inductive approach to learning encourages student activity and the result is reflected in a much deeper grasp of the concepts being taught, as opposed to the shallowness of information apparent through rote learning and spoon-fed instruction.
And as most of us have probably experienced, we mentally process and learn things much better once we have discovered them on our own.
Since we have appropriated that knowledge for ourselves, we find it much easier to recall it from memory. Furthermore, the acquisition process itself becomes transferable to other areas of learning.
To cap it all off, the use of English helps develop mechanisms which students will eventually acquire to naturally oil the wheels of spoken discourse.
This is true of any culture and is manifested in such things as turn taking, openings and closings and adjacency pairs. It guides the way to relevant and culturally acceptable contributions, leading to greater student fluency and autonomy.
Beacon of illumination and hope
With maths and science forming the cornerstone of the education system in Malaysia’s aspiration to raise itself to the status of a developed nation, the need to master English in these fundamental disciplines has never been more abundantly clear.
The use of information and communication technology to study these two subjects also clearly underscores the critical need for the use of English.
It gives Malaysian students access to a huge repository of technical knowledge written in the world’s lingua franca and will, of course, enhance their international career prospects, putting them on at least an equal footing with their foreign counterparts, be they in nearby India or Singapore or further afield in the US or in Europe.
I must admit that I had to suppress a chuckle when I recently read about someone mentioning Japan, South Korea, France and Germany as examples of countries that have succeeded on the economic front without letting the English language take a dominant place in their societies.
I beg to differ. Having worked in all of these countries or been indirectly involved with them with the exception of South Korea over the past 20 years, I can confidently say that while they uphold their languages as natural treasures, seemingly impervious to the slings and arrows cast upon them by the English language, the underlying reality is grossly different.
In France, for example, a recent education reform bill has just ushered in the teaching of English to children at kindergarten level across the nation, spawning the use of the English as the lingua franca beginning with toddlers and continuing right up to and even beyond tertiary education.
Indeed, since 1992, many state schools have been running history, geography, science and maths classes in English from their equivalent of Form 3 as part of the French-European Education Development Programme.
Germany is even more advanced in this regard. It has been promoting bilingual forms of education from kindergarten upwards for more than 40 years. It is also not uncommon for English to be used as the working language of major corporations in written as well as spoken form for internal and external communication.
Japanese myth
Casting our eyes eastwards also explodes the myth that Japan is insular in its approach to foreign cultures and languages. Since the 1960s, the interest in learning English has blossomed tremendously, culminating in 2002 in the creation of a national policy on English to enable the Japanese to communicate well in English in order to accommodate globalisation for the current and future generations.
When all is said and done, wherever one looks, be it east, west, north or south, the needles of the educational compass all clearly point in the same direction: that of the increasing importance and predominance of English at all levels of society across the planet.
Given such a sweeping movement, one may well ask what right we have to buck this worldwide trend, particularly where the education of our offspring is at stake.
Seen in this light, the either-or aspects of the issue evaporate into the cold light of clinical logic. And the clarity of using English to teach science and maths shines forth like a beacon of illumination and hope.
Nick Rogers is a highly experienced academic, language instructor and corporate trainer. He has worked in the education field in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean Rim Zone for more than 20 years.
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