My story on how I ‘engineered’ my children to be good in English language.
I followed the discussion on English language in Malaysian school curriculum staunchly and wish to share my 2cents worth. This thought should have been published much earlier, however due to my busy schedule, it has been left in my pc for no apparent reason. However when I was listening to the Prime Minister’s speech at the UMNO assembly this morning, I remember that I had penned down something on this subject, anyway, its batter late than never.
Back in 1980’s when all my children were very young, I had this excruciating worry on how they would fare in English language, knowing very well that the medium of instruction in primary and secondary schools was Malay language. Of course if one were rich enough to send their children to private schools, the worry would just be a hiccups. For parents like my hubby and me, though we knew the consequences ahead, nothing much could be done.
English language is the business language. It is the language that one is expected to be good at if not proficient. At the end of journey, when one enters the job market, whether one likes it or not one has to face the ‘language challenge’. This message settled well in my mind, especially when I encountered with many young graduates who joined my department way back in the 80’s were poor in their command of the language. At that point, I was terrified, visualizing my own children mirrored in similar situation. At that point I was adamant that I needed a framework to work on and it had to be neat and effective
My objective then was to ensure that all my children were good in their written and spoken English, which I believed would be a plus point to their overall academic achievements and well-being.
After a short discussion with my hubby we came to a conclusion that we could help them learning English in a fun way, not through serious learning, rather channeling and building their interest towards reading English books. We envisaged that the grammar part would be ‘inbuilt with the reading’.
Thus this is what we implemented:
We engaged an English tutor who came to the house three times a week f or a 2hour per session, to read English storybooks with the children.
I usually selected appropriate books for their reading, initially we borrowed books from the British Council, simply because the library had good book selection and later from other sources.
The ‘game’ was simple, grammar was not the main focus, building the interest in reading was our main idea. We made it clear to the kids that this was not another tuition class rather a story telling time. Of course they gave their usual skeptical look! And for me, being the veto holder, ignored them charmingly.
As expected their interests in reading developed well, so much so that the output was quite amazing, at the end of second year they were already writing their own scripts for their first English play. It was part of the ‘curriculum’ that they had to up at the end of each year. I must confess this was the best part of my life – seeing all my children in a mini theater.
The ‘game’ worked well, all of them grew up and weaved into the language very well. Not just their command of English is good; most of them are able to sustain their strong interest in ‘theater’. In fact in 2004, Shiqa excelled in few acting competitions in school, which later gave her enough confidence to participate in an international school competition in a solo acting category, and brought home a medal!
Faiz too brought home few medals in acting, and in one of the school plays, he was voted the best actor. The latest, he played a lead role as Parameswara in his college play ‘Melaka-The beginning’. Amongst the audience was one of the Malaysian renowned writer Dato’ Johan Jaffar who later quipped to me after the play, quote ‘ Faiz has a role in any of my TV stations’ unquote. As a mother I grinned from ear to ear.
To all young parents, please pay special attention to your children with regards to English Language. Implement the right framework for all your children. As for me the framework that I used had proven to be successful with all my 5 children. Until now the rule that my hubby and me implemented way back in 1989 still holds and it has woven well into our family fabric.
In addition to the ‘Reading session’ the following rules were also implemented as to complement the whole learning process.
Rule #1 Converse with parents in English, no alternative allowed
Rule # 2 Storybooks must be read by all children (I implemented Library system, they must tick against their names once they finished reading the book.
Rule # 3 once they have ticked, they had to share the gist of the story, this usually happened at dinnertime.
I would like to quote one incident in relation to the choice of book with the tutor.
This happened in 1995:
Emi, my eldest was 14, Dila was 11, Shiqa was 8, Syaza was 7 and Faiz my youngest was 4. In order to assist Emi in her SPM, the tutor decided to do “Mid Summer Night Dream”. I eagerly gave her the green light.
They were furious, they complained that the book was dry and too tough for them, but at the end of the day, when they finished the book they were smart enough to use it for their end of Year Theater.
Another interesting incident happened in 1997:
The tutor suggested the famous book ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird”. As expected everyone complained and brought this matter to the attention of their good-natured and gentle Papa. Their main complain was, they were being put under a lot of stress and duress, reading something way above their usual reading standard. Of course I hold the veto power, and again they finished the book with flying colors.
Unexpectedly 9 years later, in 2006, Faiz who was in form 4 then, had to do the same book for his English class in school, and he was so thankful that he could follow the class with ease. It also shows in his SPM results with an A1 for English.
Beginning of 1998, in my holiday planning, (by the way I usually do my family budget planning at the same time with my company business plan) we planned for a year-end Holiday to Beijing. Therefore with that in mind, naturally the book for the year was ‘Yuyi - The Last Emperor’!
As expected, they almost brought the whole house down again! But I assured them that they the story was very interesting and this would help them understand the country better when we visit Beijing. All went well, and when we were in Beijing, my bribe worked well. They were so into the stories that they often challenged the tour guide openly on some critical facts, came to a point that I told them to stop intercepting the guide!!
Back to the issue at hand, I strongly believe it’s not wise for the government to revert the teaching of Maths and Science to Malay, its not going to help. My thoughts are, continue giving the right training packages to the Maths and Science teachers at the same time re-draft the teaching methodology for English.
I suggest the government should create additional reading class for the students especially in rural schools. The teachers? They don’t need teachers, volunteers will do. Insufficient volunteers? We can import them from cheap English speaking countries.
To add color to the whole scenario, the government must create nationwide campaign for all Primary and Secondary schools to participate, and the campaign must run for 3 years at the least for the nation to see the effect.
To the Minister, you can make the difference; I had enough worries for my children then, and now you are repeating it for my grand children.
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