I was thinking, is there any scientific reason why I would prefer to do stupid and non-useful stuffs rather than doing my real work? —well, other than the super-lazy effect? Like a condition with a cool name that can make me use it as an excuses to be entitled for a personal hot-and-brilliant tutor to help me with my assignments...fully sponsored by the govt too.
Fine. Lets talk about this one topic since it’s suppose to be in my supposed-to-be-interested-in topics. I have to wait for a few other nine inch nails videos to upload anyway.
So.. teaching maths & science in English.
Hm… the first thing that come up in my mind about this topic is the reference books in the libraries, local libraries, overseas libraries… or the things up on the net… hmm, anyone can deny that most of these books and materials (in general) are in English? I don’t think so. What about reference books and online materials focusing on only these two subjects—still, mostly they r in English.
N then I was thinking—really? If we teach these two subjects in English, it will contribute to the death of our beloved language Bahasa Malaysia; despite the fact that there are so many efforts to preserve it—really?
Then I thought about—well , I was the product of a system when these two subjects aren’t taught in English. Here’s what I found myself in; related to the two previous thoughts. 1) I freaked out when I opened up a reference book on the two subjects. The words, the terms, the sentence structure n blablabla—I cant take them in. I realized this during the one month in matriculation (I was taking physics) and while I was killing time in some uni library; browsing through some cool books that I will never use in TESOL major. watever. 2) I am still speaking Malay 98% of my time. I can write in Bahasa in this blog but I’m not and even if I do, I’ll try to make it sound like Usher or my Sabahan slang. Why, waznah? Maybe because, I thought of the expectation towards overseas student/English teacher…or maybe I am just happy with it—so who cares…atau untuk meluaskan bilangan kebarangkalian pembaca—what?
Then I thought about the other things that we do that can endanger *to* our Bahasa while actually using it. Our texting forms, using slangs in written and speaking forms (when we could or preferably should be using the formal n real Bahasa) and many more.
So…after all those thoughts… aku jadi penat. Dan aku tidak dapat membuat satu konklusi pun dari rentetan buah fikiran ini.
Biar lah mereka yang lebih tahu tentang yang mana “lebih baik” untuk anak-anak kita, generasi akan datang, nasib bahasa kita, perpaduan antara bangsa-bangsa di Malaysia dan lain-lain untuk menentukan polisi pendidikan kita. After all, we are trained to always say—saya yang menurut perintah.
But, hey, aren’t we the Multicultural nation with most citizens are multilingual?