edu issue on the teaching of english

7/28/2019 Edu Issue on the Teaching of English

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On the teaching of English

DEC 24 Declining English proficiency standards among our students has been a major concern

for years and apparently we are now keen on bringing in English teachers from India to address

the issue. At first I thought I had stumbled onto a satire piece, but a quick check confirmed that I

was reading a valid news report from a reliable news portal.

Importing English teachers from India will not solve this problem, because it is yet another short-

sighted quick-fix that superficially attempts to cure deep-rooted problems in our English

education system.

Misguided teaching approach

The teaching approach is the biggest problem with our English education system. At the heart of

it, our education system attempts to teach English to our students the same way it teaches all the

other subjects: by drilling bits and pieces of it into their heads in an exam-oriented environment.

Hence our English classrooms continue to be defined by teacher-centric methods, especially thechalk-and-talk variety1 whereby students sit quietly and give their undivided attention without

interrupting the teacher speaking in front. Drilling students by going through past-year

examination questions, work sheets and exercise books remain the preferred method of

teaching2.

We focus on tangible skills that we can measure in examinations. By drowning our students in

grammar rules and specific language mechanics that the students are to master in classroom-

specific situations, we hope that mechanically going through exercise after exercise ad infinitum

will confer on our students the perfect mastery of English.

However, language learning doesnt work that way. Our approach continues to neglect thesociocultural aspects of language learning3 and does not sufficiently expose our students to

actual communicative uses of what they have learned, the ins and outs and exceptions that

govern English as a tremendously tricky language.

The system presents English as a subject that can be mastered by mindless repetition of

exercises like Mathematics, whereas it is actually the opposite. No one learns a language by

endlessly answering grammar questions; people learn a new language by speaking it, using it,

reading it, singing it, listening to it regularly using it in real situations in which language is used.

Instead of proficient English speakers, this system produced a new breed of students and

graduates who can pass examinations but have no actual competency in productively using

English when they need to outside of examinations2, thereby creating illusions of proficiency

derived from paper qualifications. The teaching system doesnt work, and the ones with good or

at least passable English are usually those whose families encourage the use of English, even if

the English in use isnt perfect, i.e. they learn English outside of school.

A question of mentality

In addition to the problem of how we teach English, the general attitude of most Malaysians

towards English remains negative. English is viewed as a necessary evil just another subject

in school that their kids must study and get good grades in, not a second language to master as

a valuable skill.


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As a result school is the only place where our students encounter English in a meaningful way.

Outside of the English classroom, English is hardly, if at all, used, and sometimes even actively

avoided. Those using English or even stray English words here and there are still stigmatised in

school and in social groups, accused of betraying their native tongue or aspiring to be Mat

Salleh.

This creates students lacking in both enthusiasm and interest in learning English within an

environment that already does not encourage English use4 in the first place, further hampering

the learning process.

A case study analysing 72 essays written by Form Four students in a semi-urban secondary

school found that on the whole, students have not mastered basic grammatical structures despite

going through 10 years of learning English in school5. In 2010, an employability study found that

as many as 88 per cent of our graduates are unemployable with poor English cited as one of

the primary reasons6. These are but a taste of the situation today.

We can bring in the best teachers from around the globe, but without a mentality conducive to

English learning, it will not make much of a difference. Addressing the negative mentality towards

English as a second language that is still prevalent among Malaysians should be high up our

priority list in this matter.

Native-speaking vs non-native speaking teachers

Bringing in English teachers from India does not directly address either issue. Debate rages on

about the benefits of native-speaking English teachers (NSET) as compared to the plusses of a

non-native-speaking English teacher (NNSET), so let us compare both.

A NSET brings the advantage of innate feel for English that non-native speakers struggle for

years to (and in some cases may never) attain. They know the language inside-out. They alsocome with a deep understanding of the cultural background behind specific words and their

usage in different contexts, offering deeper insight into a higher level of English usage. Moreover,

they provide a fluent and natural model of speech that students can emulate and learn from.

However, NNSETs have themselves gone through the learning process, theyve been there and

done it, and they know how to guide their students around potential pitfalls that would otherwise

hamper progress aided by good understanding of the students own cultural background and

how that impacts the learning process.

In fact, the NNSETs proficiency may serve to encourage the students further, since they prove

that proficiency is not beyond reach the teacher is a living example of the success they are

pursuing. NNSETs also understand the mother tongue of their students, and are thus able to

help explain and derive equivalences between English and Malay for example which would help

students better understand what they are learning.

NSETs and NNSETs both come with their own advantages with regards to English teaching.

While the effectiveness of either over the other is arguable, what is clear is that bringing English

teachers from India to address our failing English standards will not work because they are

NNSETs without the advantages held over NSETs.

Hurdles for import teachers

Granted, they themselves were English as Second Language (ESL) students, but without a goodcommand of Malay, Mandarin or the other native tongues we have in Malaysia, their


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communication with our students will be limited to English, which is what our students are having

problems with. They would have lesser understanding of our different cultures and even less of

how it impacts our students learning.

The major advantage of NNSETs over NSETs is the ability to draw parallels between English

and the native tongue of the student. This helps tremendously because we lean on our nativetongues to absorb and master another language. If we take that ability away, what does the

teacher have left?

And thus if this importing goes through, we will be spending resources in the assumption that the

teachers we are importing bring some vital Indian ingredients of English teaching expertise

that our own local teachers are lacking which will offset their disadvantage of not having the

cultural understanding or common non-English language to communicate to our students with.

However, the Indian education system itself revolves around rote learning7, not much different

from our own public education system which has been noted as responsible for a memory-

based learning designed for the average student. Despite having an estimated 350 million

English speakers in 20057, that can perhaps be attributed to the prevalent use of English in India

(it is one of their national languages) as opposed to the effectiveness of their English education

system. Will bringing their teachers to our shores make a difference, then?

Long-term perspective

Even assuming that the above assumption is true, the fact remains that we cannot sustainably

depend on foreign expertise in something as fundamental as language teaching in our own

schools. Short-term quick-fixes only address our problem superficially; sustained effort must go

towards addressing the core of the problem if progress is to be made in solving it.

Amid these considerations, the more prudent thing to do would be to take a long hard look at whythe current system isnt working (some reasons being outlined above), and take politics out of the

equation as we find long-term solutions that will address the heart of the matter, not merely

increase the number of passing students per year.

Maybe revise our teaching approach and develop a suitable, effective and Malaysia-specific one

that resolves the weaknesses of our current methods. Maybe resources should instead go into

improving and training our English teachers capabilities as well as developing a sustainable way

of producing effective local ESL teachers for our schools.

Maybe alleviate the get-good-grades-in-exams pressure when it comes to English and actively

cultivate an interest in learning English as a second language within our society, not just another

subject to pass as we keep churning out mechanical grammar bots who cant speak coherent

English.

Long-term solutions may not be politically popular, and we will not see quick results measurable

in terms of our annual examination statistics, but surely the importance of good English

command among our citizens go beyond getting favourable statistics. After all, our students

should not be seen as guinea pigs as we experiment with endless quick-fixes hoping for instant

results. Their futures are at stake.

edu issue on the teaching of english

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