is it time for a change in paradigms? investigating the appropriateness of the secondary school...

Is It Time for a Change in Paradigms? Investigating the Appropriateness of the Secondary School English Education System in Brunei Darussalam

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01 INTRODUCTION

The presence of the English Language in Brunei Darussalam (henceforth Brunei) has

been well documented since the early 20th century. Even though the spread of its usage was

not identified, the foreign culture that it brought to the country was strongly felt, particularly

through the education system. The implementation of the current Bilingual Education Policy

in 1985 (Poedjosoedarmo, 2004, p.361) was intended to reduce Bruneians’ perception of

English as being elitist by equalling its status to that of the supposed first language Bahasa

Melayu and consequently, providing its access to everyone as an important tool for global

communication (Martin & Abdullah, 2002, p.25; Government of Brunei Darussalam,

1984:2).

01.1 The Status of the English Language in the Society at Present

The Bilingual Education Policy (BEP) instantly labelled English as the second

language whereby prior to 1984 it was fated to be a foreign language (Hill, 1982). McLellan

(1996) argues that when one discusses about the status of English in Brunei the first

language, which is Bahasa Melayu, must be considered. However, surprisingly, Bahasa

Melayu is used less in Brunei compared to English, making English the more dominant

language. The first language, as argued in several papers as the de facto national dialect, is in

fact Brunei Malay (Martin, 1996, p.131; Poedjosoedarmo, 2004, p.360).

With regards to usage, English is mainly institutionalized in bureaucracy where forms

and official papers are usually bilingual. The national newspaper is in English and the media

is English dominant (Poedjosodarmo, 2004 p.363). The most prevalent use of English is in

education particularly in teaching core subjects. In society, English is widely used across all

age ranges but the level of fluency and capacity to use English denote the status of the

speaker. English is thus regarded as a status bearer.

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01.2 The English Language Classroom and the Teacher

Before the paper proceeds further it is best to unravel the actual English teaching

situation commonly found in Bruneian schools. Students are exposed to English on the first

day of school and their journey in education accumulates to Form 5 Secondary where they

will be assessed using the GCE Cambridge O Level. The majority of students are of Malay

ethnicity with Chinese coming second and other minor ethnicities creating the third group.

The ages of secondary level students range from 11 to 18 years old. Students are streamed

according to their academic abilities. Since core subjects are conducted in the English

medium their proficiency in English directly correlates to their placements in the streaming

niche. Nonetheless, students are equipped with basic fluency due to their exposure to English,

albeit of different varieties, from televisions and other media at home.

01.3 The Focus and Scope

The author is a non-native speaker attempting to achieve a native speaker’s language

proficiency. He has taught in a variety of secondary class levels employing a set curriculum,

several level syllabuses and government issued textbooks and workbooks constructed around

the basis of the teaching paradigm identified in Chapter 2. The respective teaching materials

will be juxtaposed against the cultural orientation of English language learning in Brunei’s

education system in Chapter 3.

Thus, the aim of this paper is to discuss on and evaluate the appropriateness of these

ESL teaching materials based on the culture it brings and the conflicts that it may have with

the local culture. The arguments throughout this paper will be based on the author’s

observations and experiences supported by global and local literature revolving around the

TESL paradigm and culture with the scope being the teaching of English to secondary level

students of Brunei Darussalam.

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02 THE TEACHING PARADIGM

One can simply assume that TESL is the most appropriate teaching paradigm since

English is the second language of Brunei. However, the apparent ease of coming to such

conclusion incites suspicions if the teaching paradigm was actually decided through this

manner. Two questions arise from this notion.

Did the policy makers follow the most obvious? Does having English as

the second language mean having the need to use the TESL paradigm?

Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? English is the second language, therefore

the teachings that go on in school must then be of the TESL paradigm?

The process as to how the teaching paradigm was decided can be simulated by first

identifying the current paradigm being employed. This will be achieved using Kachru’s

(1985, 1992, 1996) ‘Concentric Circles’ model and its elaboration by Graddol (1997, 2006)

and Rajadurai (2005).

02.1 Identifying the Varieties of English in Brunei

Currently the advent of global media brought about several English varieties but the

English variety that acts as the theoretical model for education is the Standard British

English variety. English language acquisition in Brunei is assessed by the Cambridge

Board’s GCE examinations (Cane, 1994, p.352) thus conventions in spelling and

pronunciation are structured around SBE. Moreover, Brunei was once a British protectorate

state and one of the legacies left by the British was SBE (Martin & Abdullah, 2002, p. 23).

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In contrast Graddol (1997, p. 11) believes that if English is used extensively as “a

second language for internal (intranational) communication” then eventually the country

would “develop a distinct variety of English which reflects the other language{s} used

alongside English.” This is indeed the case in Brunei whereby new varieties are developing

due to the processes of ‘englishization’ and ‘nativization’ (Ramly, Othman & McLellan,

2002, p.95-112). Kachru (1996, p.138) suggests that they are normal processes with the

former being the process of change “initiated by English to other languages”, and the latter

being the process of change being experienced by the localised varieties of English via

“acquiring new linguistic and cultural identities”, hence ‘acculturation’.

Localised English varieties do exist but they are not as accepted or as distinct as

‘Singlish’ in Singapore or ‘Manglish’ in Malaysia (Ho, 2006). This is mainly because

Bruneians are relatively unaware that a localised variety does exist (Cane, 1994, p.353). To

reiterate, SBE is the variety that is to be achieved through education but realistically due to

‘nativization’ a local variety of SBE, which is Brunei Colloquial English (BCE), is the

result.

02.2 Establishing Brunei’s Position in Kachru’s Concentric Circles Model

Firstly, one criticism on Kachru’s (1985) Concentric Circles model - Brunei is not

listed in any of the circles! Fortunately the model, akin to a Venn diagram, has set

instructions on how to pinpoint the location of an element which is, in this case, Brunei.

Kachru’s model (1985) has three circles, (1) the Inner Circle, (2) the Outer Circle and (3) the

Expanding Circle. Each represents a position of where a country stands according to its

respective types of English speakers (Graddol, 1997, p.10) or more specifically according to

“the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition and the functional allocation of English in

diverse cultural contexts” (Kachru, 1992, p. 356). A term that Kachru (1985) uses to

summarize this designation is ‘speech-fellowship’.

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The English that is taught, and therefore spoken, places Brunei in the Outer Circle.

This notion is supported by four observable rationales which have already been

acknowledged by this paper thus far. Firstly, Brunei was once under the British governance.

Bruthiaux (2003, p.160) paraphrased Kachru (1985) that “the ‘Outer Circle’ represents

location that typically came under British (...) colonial administration before acceding to

independence”. Although Brunei was not colonised per se it was still subjected to the same

exposure to SBE as other British colonised states.

Secondly, Bruneians are mainly bilinguals and English is the official second

language. Kachru (1992, p.38) mentions that one distinct feature of the Outer Circle is that

“English is only one of two or more codes in the linguistic repertoire of such bilinguals or

multilinguals” of the country.

Thirdly, SBE is the institutionalised English variety and BCE is the vernacular

variety. “The Outer Circle represents the institutionalised non-native varieties” of English

(Kachru, 1992, p.356). Even though Brunei is yet to contribute to Kachru’s world Englishes,

Cane (1994) points out that Bruneians had never achieved SBE native-speaker fluency from

education alone. Bruneians who exhibit SBE native-speaker fluency achieve it by other

means such as from studying abroad or being brought up in an environment that prioritises

English as the first language (Jones, 2003, p.121). This sets the foundation for the next

rationale.

The fourth rationale is that SBE is a status bearer and is the language of the elite.

Kachru (1992, p. 38) was cautious in not to portray English as an elite language when he

states that the Outer Circle is “where English has acquired an important status in the

language policies of most of such multilingual nations...” (author’s emphasis) or when he

mentions English of the Outer Circle as “an access language par excellence” (1996, p.138,

original emphasis). This subtle view was reverberated by Rajadurai’s (2005) depiction of the

English in the Outer Circle as displaying “a significant depth in terms of users at different

levels of society, resulting in a cline of competence manifested in educated to bazaar sub-

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varieties of English”. The issue of English as an elite language is emphasized because it will

play a role in Chapter 3 in scrutinizing the appropriateness of the chosen paradigm.

The four rationales have effectively placed Brunei in the Outer Circle. Assumptions

can be made from this outcome - the speech-fellowship for Brunei is ‘norm-developing’

(Kachru, 1985) and the apparent paradigm is ‘ESL Type II’ (Graddol, 2006, p.90).

Accordingly, for the best interest of this paper, the two terms aforementioned will be

elaborated.

02.3 Establishing the English Norm of Brunei

There are three types of speech-fellowship norms as determined by Kachru (1985)

and each correlates with a circle in the Concentric Circle Model. The Outer Circle that

Brunei is in correlates with ‘norm-developing’ and such connotation is aptly put considering

the fact that English in Brunei is constantly developing through englishization and

acculturation and these processes are evidently characterised by “a wide range of linguistic

innovations, peculiarities, and deviations from other varieties that have developed

autonomously.” (Kachru, 1985).

Kachru (1985) further introduces the terms ‘exonormative’ and ‘endonormative’ to

depict towards which direction English is developing. The development in Brunei context is

represented by ‘Diagram A’ in the Appendix. An exonormative direction leads to achieving

the native linguistic norm of SBE. This is the evident direction aimed by the policy-makers

of education and the social elite.

The ‘endonormative’ direction favors the development of the BCE but, unlike

Singlish or Manglish, is more of a subconscious product caused by L1 interference and

code-switching (Martin, 1996). English in Brunei is therefore both exonormative and

endormative which is typical of ‘norm-developing’. This provides the conception that there 06


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is more than one way to achieve fluency depending on the perspective taken. The

significance of this statement will be elaborated in Chapter 3.

In Diagram A, both SBE and BCE are portrayed as milestones to indicate a shift

from the Outer Circle to the Inner Circle. This process is exemplified using stages. Diagram

A illustrates the native-speaker fluency milestone (Stage 2a) being farther away from Stage

1 because achieving native speaker fluency is an arduous task for bilingual students.

However, Stage 2A is closer to the Stage 3 compared to BCE (Stage 2B) because having

achieved native-speaker fluency means having the ability to ‘provide’, shifting the norm to

‘norm-providing’. This is supported by Kachru’s (1996) reconceptualization of the norms

when he claimed that “as a result of the development and establishing of local norms and

models for the acquisition, teaching and creativity in Englishes, the countries of the Outer

Circle may well be considered norm-providing as well.”

This shift in norms is evident in Bruneians, particularly in several non-native ESL

teachers and the elites, who have successfully achieved native-speaker fluency. Furthermore,

a growing population of students are automatically placed in the Inner Circle with English as

their ‘First’ Language through the growing trend of acquiring both languages at the same

time. In other words, the ‘first’ language concept is shared by two languages with equal

proficiency in both. This outcome is further encouraged by the BEP whereby both languages

are equal and they complement each other.

02.4 Establishing the Future Aims of Teaching English to Students

The aim of Brunei’s Ministry of Education is to nurture its students into developing

that ‘native-speaker fluency’ by exposing them to teaching materials that are modelled

around SBE and assessing them strictly on their SBE fluency in written and oral forms.

Brunei is a ‘rentier capitalist state’ that relies solely on oil resources (Minnis, 1997, p.122).

Educating students into near native-speaker fluency creates pathways to socioeconomic

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growth as portrayed by India, China (Graddol, 2006) and Thailand (Bruthiaux, 2003) thus

creating a human resource that is able to compete in the global economy and society.

02.5 Understanding The TESL Paradigm

The paper has thus far established that the current teaching paradigm is most likely

the TESL paradigm because it operates in the Outer Circle where English is the second

language. Its aim is to achieve near-native or native speaker fluency for internal and

international communications. Acknowledging the “role of English in the society in which it

is taught” is one definitive feature of ESL (Graddol, 2006, p.84).

To further substantiate this conclusion the teaching context will be elaborated with

reference to Graddol’s (2006) interpretation of the TESL paradigm and its characteristics.

One such characteristic is that the children of ESL countries usually learn some English,

most probably of a localized variety, informally before they enter school and once they enter

school the more formal and standard variety is taught (Graddol, 2006, p.85). This statement

echoes the exact intention of the policy-makers whereby SBE is emphasized and BCE is

regarded as a non-academic language.

Another characteristic is the use of code-switching (Graddol, 2006, p.85). A

substantial amount of study has been performed regarding the intentional use of code-

switching by both students and non-native teachers in the classroom (Martin, 1996, among

others). This validates the endonormative direction that is illustrated in Diagram A (in

Appendix) and concludes that BCE has its supporters.

These two aforementioned characteristics in addition to others such as the saturation

of English material in the community, the presence of bilingual teachers and the relation of

social groupings with English competency (Graddol, 2006, p.90) identifies the paradigm as

not only TESL but specifically as the TESL(b) type. Graddol (2006, p.90) characterises the 08


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TESL(b) type as having “local social values that may have Western orientations” and the

primary purpose is “communication within the social elite”. These are the underlying

cultural manifestations of TESL and thus they become the subject under scrutiny in

determining the appropriateness of the TESL paradigm and the teaching materials structured

around it.

03 HOW APPROPRIATE IS THE TESL PARADIGM?

The author’s stance regarding the TESL paradigm is neutral since all paradigms and

approaches have their shortcomings. Nevertheless, the discernable culture nuances that it

bears, which are further amplified by mismatched policies and teaching materials, are the

causes for concern at present and evermore so in the future. These nuances are interrelated to

one another and have been echoed throughout this paper.

03.1 Why Focusing on Standard British English alone is Detrimental to Students

The first issue is the need for students to attain SBE fluency and no other. Although

this claim is not recorded in any policy the intention is evident from the chosen teaching

materials and assessment and what they demand from the students – SBE accuracy. The

biggest flaw of the policy, syllabi, assessment methods and materials created under the

‘pretence’ of this paradigm is the fact that they are standardized. A student is obliged to the

demands of this teaching context irrespective of their capabilities.

The current emphasis being placed on attaining SBE (Martin & Abdullah, 2002,

p.31) leads to the widening gap between the academically good English speakers and the

underachieving poor English speakers, which then leads to the presence of social elites, the

lack of acknowledgement for localised English varieties and the lack of confidence when

speaking.

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03.1.1 Throwing the Elites Overboard

Among the students there exists an attitude that either one speaks perfect SBE or do

not attempt to speak English at all, thus creating a wedge between the elites and the non-

elites (Jones, 2003, p.113). The phrases commonly used by students to describe the language

of the two are ‘speaking London’ and ‘speaking kapal (ship)’ respectively, where the former

is having a good command of SBE while the latter is simply speaking in ‘broken English’.

Interestingly, ‘speaking kapal’ is adequate enough for communication. The root cause of

elitism is the policy and its standardised teaching materials which are always in favour of the

good SBE speakers.

03.1.2 The Value of Brunei Colloquial English

The Brunei Colloquial English variety exhibits pronunciation, styles and most

importantly grammatical structures that are atypical of SBE (Cane, 1994). Social pressures

have contributed to the development of an accepted localised English variety similar to that

found in Singapore and Malaysia (Hill, 1984, p.241). In other words, the universal voice of

the region believes that English is not the culture of the region, but one cannot not learn it

for it provides opportunities. Thus, localised varieties that are ingrained with local culture

are created to suit the palate of the region.

Another marked characteristic that is prevalent in the countries of the region is code-

switching (Martin, 1996). Garrett, Griffiths, James and Scholfield (1994, p.372) suggest that

use of the mother tongue signals to students that “their language and culture have value

{which} will have a beneficial effect on self-perceptions, attitudes, motivation and,

consequently, on achievement”. Mixing the L1 with the L2 is one way of conveying their

cultural values.

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When the policy states that it requires SBE fluency it therefore discriminates against

the other localised varieties that most students have relations to. BCE is thus frowned upon

and is marked as being error-ridden. One example is the unease of local students when

conversing in English with English speakers because these students are conscious of making

errors. On the other hand, Singaporean students are confident in their error-ridden Singlish

because the variety is accepted as an identity of Singaporeans (Ho, 2006). The question that

policy-makers need to consider is - if the United Kingdom itself has localised varieties that

are dissimilar to SBE why must Brunei, a country 3000 miles away, have to accurately

adhere to SBE?

There exists a strong need for students to retain their culture by means of using

localised English yet the policy and the teaching materials disregard this importance, insofar

as embedding foreign culture into the teaching methods and materials.

03.2 A Clash of Two Cultures

Canagarajah (2002, p.135) states that methods are "cultural and ideological

constructs" which "embody the social relations, forms of thinking and strategies of learning

that are preferred by the circles that construct them". It is therefore important that models

need to be constructed that are appropriate for the particular contexts in which they are to be

used (Holliday, 1994 cited in Martin & Abdullah, 2002). However, policy makers fail to

recognize this requirement.

Culture is the strongest constituent of a Bruneian’s identity. When a foreign culture

arrives and fuels conflicting values Bruneian students see the foreign culture’s ‘vessel’, the

English Language, as an intrusive element to their living. Although students love to learn the

language (Jones, 1998, p.246), they have difficulty in accepting its culture particularly

instances that conflicts with the students’ religion. Jones (1997, p.229) emphasises that “as

far as acculturation is concerned, there is a ‘combined influence of family and religion’ that

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results in a ‘desire for preservation of one’s own values and the rejection of those of another

culture’”.

03.3 Conclusion and Suggestions for Change

“Although there have been various attempts to reform the curriculum and modernize

teaching methods over the years, the reliance on standardized curricula (...) is still very much

in evidence. Many educators, not only in Brunei, but also in Southeast Asia generally, are

seriously questioning the appropriateness of such methods...” (Minnis, 1997, p.121).

The suggestion that is being implied by this paper is to reconstruct the English

education system, from the upper tier of the TESL paradigm if need be, that (1) does not

suggest SBE as the only accepted form of English communication and that (2) take into

account the cultural values of the students. Furthermore, the GCE O Level assessment

should be abolished, as agreed in many local CfBT meetings, and in its place should be an

assessment method that focuses more on functionality than accuracy.

To achieve positive change, English must not divide the society into elites and non-

elites. A flexible curriculum must be developed to replace the standardised curriculum. The

new curriculum would associate with students’ capacity. The curriculum must also

acknowledge BCE not as the main target variety but a variety that is acceptable in everyday

usage. Realistically, most students will take local jobs that only requires adequate

competency. The current curriculum appears to want to groom international politicians in

thousands.

Secondly, the teaching materials must exhibit subtle cultural hints. Fortunately, there

have been improvements in this area of late. “As part of educational corpus planning,

rigorous steps are taken to ensure that there is no cultural ‘intrusion’ in textbooks used in

Brunei classrooms, especially English language textbooks” (Martin, 1996, p. 30). However,

this process is being undertaken at too slow a pace. Therefore, this paper hopes to present

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the critical issues that evoke changes and to instigate further investigations into the

appropriateness of the English teaching package of Brunei.

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