Discussion Issue on The Language Instruction

Good morning,

Malaysian students and teachers are multicultural and have multilingual background. Based on education history, primary school available in four mediums in Malaya. ‘National school’ used the malay medium, whereas ‘National-Type Schools’ employed English, Mandarin or Tamil as mediums. Malay medium, Mandarin medium, and Tamil medium exclusively to ethnic Malay, ethnic Chinese and ethnic Tamil pupils respectively. So, Malaya education background was started with four mediums and becomes three mediums because English medium was vanish in 1970s. Furthermore, in 1967, Malay was declared as national language in order to unify the nation. Then, all subjects in three mediums schools is teaching in Malay except for Mandarin language, Tamil language and English language. It shows that Malaysian learned bilingual since primary school. Nowadays, English, second language which is important for all Malaysian to compete in the globalization era. But, Malay students contributing low performance compared to the other groups in Malaysia is their perceived weakness in English as a second language. In an article in the University Science Malaysia's Jurnal Pendidik dan Pendidikan, Sharifah Md. Nor (1991) states that there is a significant difference between race and academic achievement, especially English language proficiency among primary (elementary) school students from the Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnic groups in Malaysia, with the Malays lagging behind the Chinese students. A study conducted by Jamaliah Kamal (1993) on English proficiency among undergraduates at the National University of Malaysia (UKM), also found that the performance of Malay undergraduates in English was still weak.

            In 2002, the government announced the implementation of a new policy in the national education system; ELIMS (English as the Language of instruction for Mathematics and Sciences) or PPSMI (Pengajaran dan Pembelanjaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris) was introduced. The decision to use English was based on the rationale that mastery of English is regarded as an important mechanism for direct acquisition of knowledge in the field of science and technology (Ainan, 2003). The purpose of teaching Science and Mathematics in English is to enable students to acquire proficiency in English while learning science. The implementation of ELIMS created great concern among parents and educators on the quality of Mathematics and Science education as both teachers and students are not proficient in the English language (The Star, 2006). This is expected as Malay language has been the language of instruction for more than three decades. To ensure the successful implementation of the educational reform, the Malaysian government provided adequate support for teachers’ professional development. Firstly, the Ministry of Education organized professional development course for MSTs, known as English for the Teaching of Mathematics and Science (ETeMS). Then, All MSTs were also given a laptop and LCD by the government to encourage the use of multimedia in their teaching. A financial incentive (5% of their basic pay every month) is given to MSTs to motivate them in using English in their teaching. Lastly, ELIMS was stop in 2012 because the achievement in Mathematics and Sciences getting worst compared to achievement by using Malay language as language instruction in these two subjects.

            Cummins (1981) points out that the effects of bilingualism on children's educational  and  intellectual  growth  depend  very  much  on  the  type  of  bilingualism  that  is developed. Where children develop low levels of proficiency in both languages, educational and intellectual progress will be slowed down. However, where children's abilities in both languages are relatively well developed, but not necessarily equal, then there is evidence that bilingualism can enhance intellectual functioning. However, we as a student must appreciate the chance to learn multiple languages. This is to ensure us able to compete with other candidates in order to have a better life in future.