PPSMI

Some people asked me what is my opinion on this. This gonna be a little bit heavier than usual. You've been warned. :p

Some people sees PPSMI as a method to improve English among students, which is I believe they were being misinterpreted, or they interpreted it wrongly, or maybe they just got a bad information about it. (Or maybe I am the one who misinterpreted it but the hell I care as long as I believe that is the way).

The way I see it, PPSMI is never meant to improve English among students. It was meant to familiarize the students with the jargon words and terms in Science and Math, which are many in English, unfortunately. We might have to differentiate with these two interpretations, which obviously doesn't resemble each other at all. The main point is we must concentrate more on vocabs. not grammar.

Early suggestion from Tun M suggested that English to be taught in this two subjects, Science and Math, not History, Kemahiran Hidup, Pendidikan Seni or any other subject. The main reason is simply because most of the reference books for these two subjects are applicable in English, mostly. It is hard to find one In Malay. Science and Math terms in English were widely used internationally, where in such way might confuse our students when they go the university level.

Unfortunately for us PPSMI is a mere experiment. There is not a single country in the world has develop or implement this kind of technique into their system, thus it is impossible to prove that it's gonna work. You ask Tun M yourself even he will answer you that he will never know is it going to work. It is a big risk I might say, gambling with the future of our young ones, but in a way I do believe this is a calculated risk, which most of the drawback can be predicted and some counter measures has been ready made to prevent something bad from happen, hopefully.

We should've never compare our situation with other countries, for instance some of us will compare us with China and Japan, how in the world they can develop their countries, being so advance in Science and Technology although they learn them in their own language. Hmm. That was a good thought. It appears that the people who did that thought failed to mention that 95% of the population of the said countries were based on their race, which means 95% of China 1.3 billion population were Chinese, which again means that 1.3 billion speaks and writes in Chinese. The same goes to Japan where 95% of their 120 million population were Japanese and they talk Japanese and they write Japanese.

Apparently our country is unique, we got somewhat like 24 million of population, but only 50% of them were Malays, which means only 12 millions of us were Malay, and to make the matter worse some of that 12 million not even speaks and writes in Malay, more over practicing the Malay culture. And you just imagine the costs to translate all the books from other language to Malay, or even produce one, simply speaking it doesn't worth it. The solution, learn the subjects in English. Easy peasy Japanesey.

Those Chinese and Indian in our country demanded that these two subjects to be taught in their native tongue, this is because most of the books were imported from China and India respectively! How about us the Malay? Import them from Indon?

Eventually I had my experience on this myself and I believe the same goes to most of you. For instance in Malay a Double Overhead Cam (DOHC) is called Aci Dwi Sesendol. Can you imagine learning the Malay terms in college and you carry this knowledge when you go to work? And don't even let me me start with computer programming.

I don't know how the current system works, but during my time, what I learned about English is grammar. Lots and lots of grammar. Past tense, present tense, future tense, past present tense and a whole lot of other tenses. For a freaking 11 years in school I learn about grammar, and that is all about it when it comes to learn English in school. Which is, I believe a little bit less important than vocabs. Personally I believe learning English in school must be about vocabs, not grammar, as we are a non-English-speaking natives.

Or maybe we should reorganize the method of learning and teaching English in school. For instance, to master a certain language, one must endure these three skills, Reading, Writing and Speaking. And perhaps we should organize the methods to be around these three skills.

That is long enough. Although that, these PPSMI thingy is still a debatable discussion. Supposedly we work together to make this matter happen instead of fighting each other because of dissimilar ideas. Give me your thought on this.

ps: I'm writing this at 2:30 am, yes that is in the morning. Forgive me for the bad grammar or misspelling. I'm too sleepy to even reread it.