languages
i read the online newspaper just now….and saw an article arguing about teaching the subjects in BM or English in university
this language thingy has been a debate since long long time ago…the authority has yet to decide till now whether to do it in English or BM. on one hand, they wanna cope with the vast developement of the world but on th other, they scared that they would loose their original identity…
but in fact, language is created centuries ago by human to communicate. to deliver messages and to understand each other. each word brings meaning and as long as the msg is delivered, the language has done its job.
in a lecture when the lecturer speaks, the aim is for the student to understand.it doesn’t matter how poor the command of english is…he/she may use simple words to convey a simple idea. if the audience understand what he’s saying, he’s a good lecturer. it’s irrelavent to judge the quality of the lecturer based on his/her command of language.it’s the knowledge u want from him. so what if he speaks fluent english but isi kosong…..sure u would be amazed by how he use those flowery words….but in the end, u get nothing…
when 2 people from different culture background and language meets, the communication is hard at first. but we are of the same species.we can understand each other by body language.
my defination of body language : it’s the way of communication between the creature of same species to understand each other by body movements.when we are thinking of something to tell the person we wanna convey msg to, our organism sends a type of electromagnetic wave to that person, containing the msg we wanna deliver..however, being the ignorant species that we are, we do not understand that msg. perhaps our body understands and react to it, but our mind rejects it as an unimportant impuls(we tend to reject those we do not understand). thus the msg is inhibited….but if we observe carefully and listen and see not with our eys or ears, but with our "heart".(heart here means sensory system other than the 5 senses that we know).
those that understand the electromagnetic wave msges is known by human as "psychics".
but in fact we all have that ability to understand. we just need to devote some attention to harvest it.
when i first came to russia, my russian is bad (well, now still bad la’). but when talking to some russian in russian, when i was scratching my head trying to find the correct word, with " errr…." and "ahhhhh….", they somehow like understand what i am saying, and tell me back what i wanted to tell them.and me on the other hand, although i dun understand many of their words when they speak, i still managed to get what they want with their facial expression and body movement.
so back to the BM and english thing.i dun thnk we should limit ourselves to one language as the sole teaching medium. as we promote english as international language, we should remember that the only reason we do that is to get the information and sources easier. why do we need to inhibit the use of bm that we spent so much time learning it in secondary school.
those who learn their stuff in english is not superior than those who learn it in other language. because in the end, you will get the same information and ideas. all languages serve their purpose.
a quote from newspaper.
“We know it should all be in English as we studied mathematics and all our science subjects in English in Form Six.
“But what choice do we have if our lecturers choose to teach in BM Malaysia)?” asks an engineering student in Universiti Malaya (UM).
He says his decision to enrol into a public university is proving to be a “waste of time”.
you can’t blame the lecturer for not able to switch their teaching style overnight. because the nervous pathway formed in their brain are too used to it edi. and being half a century old, many of their nervous cell is ‘üsed up’. thus is very difficult for them to learn new things.it’s not their fault, just the limitation of the organism.
but on the other hand, the so called "young people"have the ability to adapt to new environment. they have the ability to form new nervous pathways to understand new stuf better than the old ones. if u force the lecturer to deliver lecture in the language that they are not good in…in the end it’s you who looses the precious information.
He adds that students who have problems with English and fail to complete assignments on time sometimes resort to cut-and-paste plagiarism using the Internet to source for material.
“As a result, students are told to submit their lab reports in BM so as to prevent plagiarism .
“This is based on the assumption that there is little information in BM available on the Internet for students to copy."
well, i think this is stupid.if you want students to learn more, but u don want them to take it from the net. then what’s the point of promoting english as teaching medium?? the excuse to prevent plagiarism is mere stupidity….or to put in a nicer way….funny…(and to think this idea some from authority in higher education….hahahahaha)
Dr Wan Abdul Manan proposes a win-win situation – to teach in both English and BM.
“In Sweden and some other countries, teaching is bilingual. We can do it here, too.
“That will solve all these problems,” he adds.
if u read my blog all these while, u can see i don’t use flowery word and sophisticated english. because i do not need to. i mixed all the languages i know and i’m proud of it…. because my aim is that u understand what i am going to tell you………..
but i disagree with him to some degree…..because to me he’s taking trying to find an easy way out. so far other than the dictionary, i have not seen a textbook written in 2 languages (maybe in sweedan, i dunno)….but this will seem kind of wierd lo….taking example of other country and want to implement on our own country is irrational. we should evaluate our own system, ability of our people,and not just copy from other country, as what he have done all these while and caused so much trouble….
my points are contradicting huh???hahahahaha……well, enough of crap…going to study for russian language’s test tomorrow…..
