Malaysia Minister of EducationDatuk Seri Hishamuddin said the policy to use
English as medium for teaching science and mathematics in primary schools will
be reviewed in the year 2008 to decide whether to scrap it or improve on it. Why
wait for 2008? Do something about it quick now. I was looking at the maths test
papers of a primary-2 boy the other day and was shocked at what I read. He got
only 20% for that test, I was not shocked at his marks but at the way the
questions were presented. Below is one of the questions:
"John has 349 cards. After giving 154 cards to his sister, how many cards has
he left?"
Now compare to what the boy is learning currently in his English class by
referring to his text book:
"Puan Fatimah is a teacher"
"I am reading a story book"
"Ali is drawing on the black boar"
Notice the vast difference between the level of standards of the English use
for the maths test papers and what he has learned in the language class?
He is only begainning to learn simple present tense while the teacher is using
present perfect tense (
has he left)
already. The teacher also introduced the use of passive verb (After giving)
in the same question.
Just to find out what is his understanding of the English language, I went over
the question with him word by word. He could only make out these words :
has, to his sister, how, he, left. He reads "has" as "have", when asked the meaning of "left", he showed me his left hand! His answer to
the meaning of
"giving" is a person! What?! Oh..he thought "giving" is "Kivin", a mis-spelt version of the name "Kevin" !
Obviously he is very poor at English, but the test papers in question is about
maths subject and not about the langauge, don't get that mixed up, man. Please
mister Minister, teach maths in a maths class, teach English in an English class
lah. So simple also need people to tell you one!!!
