I disagree with malaysiakini columnist Lee Ban Chen's view that the usage of English as a medium of instruction in Maths and Science should be scrapped.
As a primary-level English tutor, I know that the best way to learn English (or any language) is not merely to learn it by rote, but to use it. So the government's got it right (for once) by insisting that English be used for Maths and Science.
Why Maths and Science, and not other subjects? Because at the UPSR level, there are no other subjects (unless you consider Kajian Tempatan, or Mandarin, or Tamil).
The problem lies not with English itself, nor with Malay students. The problem is with the teachers. The government's intentions are noble, but its implementation is flawed.
I believe that the decline of English in Malaysia can be arrested with a plan, but not in six years. In its haste to implement the teaching of English and Maths in English, the government overlooked the training of the teachers.
The current batch of teachers are all graduates of either a Malay or Mandarin medium. That is to say, they themselves are not very proficient in English. Learning a new language is a gradual process. One cannot go from broken English to total fluency in a few weeks, much less learn to teach in English in a month.
Another problem is that the kindergarten syllabus is not standardised. Many people still regard kindergarten as an extra, not a necessity. They should realise that by the time a student starts Year One, he is expected to have already mastered a decent vocabulary of everyday words and able to construct simple sentences in English. In Year 1, you already start learning tenses!
Some kids never attend kindergarten at all. When these children enter Year One, many can't even count to 10, never mind make sentences. Thrown into the deep end, what else can these kids do but sink? Education then becomes a race of who is richer, because only the more well-off can send their kids to good kindergartens or private tuition.
But even so, extra tuition is a privilege that not all can afford, and there is no free tuition in school for Year One students, or free kindergartens. Students are already failing in Year One - what hope do they have of catching up in the years to come?
Therefore, implementing the teaching of Maths and Science and English in secondary schools is a mistake. For a generation of kids who have grown up learning Maths and Science in Bahasa Malaysia (and with limited use of English in class), it is a big leap to have to learn a whole new set of terminology.
Not only that, their command of English is generally poor (limited only to completing multiple-choice tests and writing short sentences, and most can't even do that). It's even more hopeless when the teachers are themselves struggling with English.
For students who have spent their formative years with BM or Mandarin, let them continue their learning of Science and Maths in their regular medium.
As a nation, we can improve our standard of English, but it can only be done gradually, not overnight. First, train the teachers. Let them become fluent first. Then only teach the students, and start them from an early age - 'melentur buluh biar dari rebung'.
Research shows that a child picks up a new language quickest before the age of seven. Let the older students be. Sure, we can still help them improve their English, but not by changing languages mid-stream, whether it's from BM to English, or Mandarin to BM, or Mandarin to English.
Whatever they've grown up with works the best for them. Find other ways to help them improve their English.
English was not the medium of instruction for my generation, but our standard of English isn't too shabby and we never learned Science and Maths in English either. Dig deeply for the real cause of the problem before trying to fix it.
