Let's just face the fact that this has been a much debatable issue ever since gazillion years ago. I think I have even blogged about this issue somewhere in the past, but perhaps no one have heeded the message, because I am merely another citizen, one out of the 25 millions living in Malaysia. My stand is perhaps, there is no stand at all.
I was one of the few who had no choice but to pursue my studies in Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia. No further options were given, until when STPM was to be taught in English, despite the option of bilingual papers in the exams. Seriously, I have no problems learning in Bahasa Malaysia, because it has been that way since young. Be it "jisim", "isipadu", "pembolehubah dimalarkan" up to the scientific terms hardly Malay such as "centrifugasi", "kalium", "plumbum", it hardly makes any difference if you have the resources and support to enable you to learn them.
Those who fear the obstacle in language is merely fearing the unknown. Who are those who fear them? Adults. Because it sounds horrifying to learn a language foreign to them. Imagine someone telling you that you're supposed to learn a subject in French instead! That is the response that I'm talking about. In children, it is somewhat different. They do have an extremely flexible learning curve, if proper support and guidance are given. Start them young and I'm pretty sure that your child could even learn it in Greek, I assure you. Of course, how well they fare may be another issue, not of linguistic ability, but perhaps more on the cognitive and comprehensive ability.
My point is, if you do have a strong grip on the fundamentals in science and mathematics, it doesn't matter which language that you're learning in. Even so, mathematics do have universal signs and symbols after all, thus there is nothing to worry about. Those who worry, are those parents who are illiterate, or those who are semi-literate, because they blame their inability to master these as a result of language barrier, and not putting in on themselves for not trying hard enough, or other circumstances that prevented them from working harder. For those who are literate, it is just a matter of preference, but the politicization of this issue had made it a grave matter.
But of course, there are a few matters that needed to be ironed out if it should be taught in Bahasa Malaysia. As one who had gone through the system in Bahasa Malaysia, I do feel that I had deserved more rights to justify my suggestions rather than some politicians who had just undergone the arts stream instead, or even did not manage to make the cut at all.
Or perhaps, making me weaker for the next thing to kill me.
I was one of the few who had no choice but to pursue my studies in Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia. No further options were given, until when STPM was to be taught in English, despite the option of bilingual papers in the exams. Seriously, I have no problems learning in Bahasa Malaysia, because it has been that way since young. Be it "jisim", "isipadu", "pembolehubah dimalarkan" up to the scientific terms hardly Malay such as "centrifugasi", "kalium", "plumbum", it hardly makes any difference if you have the resources and support to enable you to learn them.
Those who fear the obstacle in language is merely fearing the unknown. Who are those who fear them? Adults. Because it sounds horrifying to learn a language foreign to them. Imagine someone telling you that you're supposed to learn a subject in French instead! That is the response that I'm talking about. In children, it is somewhat different. They do have an extremely flexible learning curve, if proper support and guidance are given. Start them young and I'm pretty sure that your child could even learn it in Greek, I assure you. Of course, how well they fare may be another issue, not of linguistic ability, but perhaps more on the cognitive and comprehensive ability.
My point is, if you do have a strong grip on the fundamentals in science and mathematics, it doesn't matter which language that you're learning in. Even so, mathematics do have universal signs and symbols after all, thus there is nothing to worry about. Those who worry, are those parents who are illiterate, or those who are semi-literate, because they blame their inability to master these as a result of language barrier, and not putting in on themselves for not trying hard enough, or other circumstances that prevented them from working harder. For those who are literate, it is just a matter of preference, but the politicization of this issue had made it a grave matter.
But of course, there are a few matters that needed to be ironed out if it should be taught in Bahasa Malaysia. As one who had gone through the system in Bahasa Malaysia, I do feel that I had deserved more rights to justify my suggestions rather than some politicians who had just undergone the arts stream instead, or even did not manage to make the cut at all.
- Be consistent. If you want to teach it in BM, do it for a period of more than 10 years. If you want it in English, do it for equally as long. Well, the publishers who obtained the government contract would have gained the most out of this constant flip-flop (although I'm not sure if this could be the main intention of the change or not), but this would make it hard for the teaching staff. 5 years would just be the bare minimum requirement to train or retrain the staff in a language, and then a change again would just send back the teachers to retrain for another 5 years at the very least. The teaching competency had already been compromised all these while, so do expect a further dip from all these.
- Get a Bahasa Malaysia committee catered for scientific terms in science and maths. Rest assured that Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is not your best bet if you would like to advance BM forward in science. Many scientific words are still in English, and our friends in DBP could only Malaysianize the words at the very best, because they think there was no substitute. Even if there was, there was no one to oversee its implementation. For example, the spinal cord has its equivalent in BM, namely saraf tunjang, but what has been commonly used is spina korda or korda spina instead. And then some fanatics bragged on the beauty of science in BM from the word spina korda, when the truly proper and nice words came from the former. Hence, with a proper committee specializing in BM in science and maths, one could expect it to be able to promote better introductory of new BM terms and hopefully, be able to promote and encourage the use of BM terminologies. Hence, there would be no funky derivation of terminologies which makes no sense simply because it came from an English or Latin word.
- Give more support to students from rural areas to learn science and mathematics. I know, most would blame the lack of proficiency in English as their inability to master these subjects. But let's face the fact, we are bound to learn English someday if you're going to pursue higher studies for science and maths.Of course, learning it in BM gives you a higher chance to enter local varsities because you can stomach all the facts in BM and vomit them all out again in exams, but that is all in academic sense. In actuality, you can even have medical students who could easily mistaken tendon vaginitis, an orthopedic diagnosis, with the inflammation of vagina! Of course, this is easily forgiveable, but given that particular student had more bouts of concrete thinking without the presence of abstract thinking, one would blame her mental ability rather than her linguistic ability. My point is, get more programmes running to reach these rural children instead of making it backward for everyone to the level of children in rural areas. If that is the case, you can even form special schools to cater for them, catering based on the needs of individual areas. The claim that BM is best for students in rural areas is the worst excuse if you would like to advance BM in science and maths. It's just merely declaring that you would intend to make everything go backwards and stupid so that everyone is equal. And then, in the eyes of the world, we would be seen as a bunch of cavemen, refusing to progress forward.
Or perhaps, making me weaker for the next thing to kill me.
good post. my thought on this issue is short. i initially was pro-Maths and science in english. but after a short teaching stint whr i'd to teach those subjects to students in the lower end of streamed classes, i think teaching the subjects in BM would benefit them more. cz there were students who were genuinely interested in the subject, but bcz of language barrier, they gave up on it. every lesson i had to translate everything into BM slowly, which just takes away the whole kick and whatever interest science had to offer to them. sure, maths n science in english can be beneficial, but good students will find no problems in the switch to english in tertiary education. it just comes naturally. the mean level of english proficiency of students in this country is just not up to par yet. the gap is too big. the gov shud put their focus on english programmes 1st. that being another whole issue in itself. heh.