With a sigh ( Pt 8b ) – Bring in the clowns

Kotastar left the following comment against my post ‘With a sigh ( Pt 8a )’. The gentleman behind Kotastar, suffice to say a product of the famed Kirkby teachers’ training college, explained briefly how a teacher of his era was trained. Here is what he wrote:

‘Thank you for remembering Kirkby and Brinsford Lodge. Yes they were two teacher training colleges set up for Malaysians overseas. Successful for that period.Don't know if the same experiment will show similar result. Just to enlighten. We started reading the 'Chong Beng' book and ended with almost all editions of Shakespeare and not to mention other literary books the likes of authors Thomas Hardy, Conrad, L. Stevenson and other literary figures. Only then, we were able to speak and write English as it was. Maybe as good as the Queen's English itself. So no short cut, no brief induction courses will push our teachers and students to that height. It took good six /seven years of hard learning, practice AND 2+ years overseas in native English speaking countries to get us to that position.Similarly people like Shahnon Ahmad,Kassim Ahmad ( two Malay writers) English educated with strong command of Malay Language to be active and well known writers. Mind you English Literature and Sastera were two strong subjects in school.

Now?

Next,I attended our PAMKM (Persatuan Alumni Maktab Kirkby Malaysia last Tuesday at KL and surprisingly yr name was mentioned after I brought up your father- in- law's name. Dato Baharudin , Dr Shaari Isa and others know of your activities at AlManar. Our President Tan Sri Yahya too was surprised how an engineer got into such 'predicament' but with success. We referred to your 'kampong' near Tg Malim plus the durian tree.Ha.Ha what a small world. Just to let you know the old Collegians are still 'active' though many have even touch the octogenarian period.We are proud to be able to share your success story. Wishing that the teaching and learning of Malay and English too will find the lights in the tunnel.
Salam to you and 'family' Selamat Berpuasa dan Selamat Menyambut Shawal.”

I am truly humbled by what Kotastar related in the second part of his comment. A few truly learned people talked about Almanar and the person running it. It is praise indeed to be commented in that vein by these people. But my fear is that this may be a case of ‘Indah khabar dari rupa’.

Kotastar, you were not certain whether the ‘experiment’ you underwent to be a teacher in English would still produce good results today. I maintain we need not reinvent the wheel. Our ‘cerdik pandai’ have experimented and failed badly. And now we do not know how and where we have gone wrong that the result has been all but wrong. So now bring in the clowns.

Berkhidmat kerana Tuhan untuk kemanusiaan.

With a sigh ( Pt 8a ) – Bad English?

Why the bad English?

That was the headline on Sunday. It was followed by another question :
Are teachers incompetent, or school books unsuitable?

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For many years, schools and pupils benefited from teachers who were trained at the two colleges ( not universities of taraf antarabangsa, mind you) in Kirkby and Wolverhampton. Those young men and women returned to Malaya and successfully taught English (Queen’s English) with pride and dedication for many years. Then we became very clever, with graduates and post-graduates, PhD and all coming home from countries like America, England, Australia etc. Every one was clever and had new ideas which had never been thought of by the likes of the lowly diploma holders from the two teachers’ training colleges. And so, the people in position implemented novel ideas. Not long ago a very senior personnel from the Education Department went to a great length to convince me how the centre of learning English had shifted away from the good old England. With humility Pakcik listened to the mini lecture.

Here we are. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

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And today we have thousands of teachers who are graduates with first and second degrees, many of which are from our own universities of taraf antarabangsa, no less. The so called English schools in the country would never dream of having such a high percentage of university graduates.

And we will be importing, by hundreds, teachers from America to teach real English at our schools. I have seen two of these English speaking teachers who spent useless couple of years trying to get used to the local culture and feeling distressed for not being totally accepted by local teachers.

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And only last week one of Pakcik’s Form 2 pupils came to relate how her teacher marked as wrong a sentence she wrote – ‘ My home address is in Batu Rakit.’ Apparently the sentence was wrong. It should just read ‘ My home address in Batu Rakit’, the verb ‘is’ should be deleted because the sentence has ‘in’, making ‘is’ unnecessary! Now that is some English. The girl had a good laugh telling me that. Maybe I had taught her the wrong kind of English. The need for finite verbs etc is now obviously out of date.

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Why can’t we do a simple thing like teaching English the way it used to be done? I can only draw a long sigh.

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