Studying the Student

Star Q

i.  Salam Buatmu, Saudara Baru

ii.  Carrot Pilaf

I have been meaning to write about it for sometime now but the situation is really getting out of hand that this entry cannot wait any longer; especially when I have come to note one possible reason why students do not like certain subjects.

I have long realized that students now are far different from those whom I first taught more than twenty years ago.  If students were naughty then, the students now are beyond naughty (some of them)  Their naughtiness even exceed the borders of a normal person's imagination; behavior that does not fit those of students.  Those at the end classes are rowdy to the extent that they walk about in class, throw the furniture, eat whenever they want and all this in the presence of the teacher in the classroom (amidst the teacher trying to control them)

I have  also come to realize that these students become this way because they themselves have a set objective on what they want to learn in school, that is the subjects that they can actually use in real-life once they leave school.  Thus, these rowdy students become somewhat docile when the teachers who teach them Mathematics, or Bahasa Melayu or Sejarah come in (the last two beings subjects that students in the upper secondary need to pass in order to pass the SPM examinations!)

So, when a teacher who teaches them, let's say English Language for example, comes in, they return to their 'normal' hyperactive, rowdy selves.  Obviously because they themselves know that they can survive in the (Malaysian) real world without even uttering a single English word throughout their lives.  They can in fact carry on with their daily lives even if they only use their mother tongue like Chinese or Tamil for example.

Thus it is not surprising when you meet them (unfortunately) in the future, and you happen to strike a conversation (this has actually happened), these particular students cannot even speak the National Language correctly; in fact the language is heavily influenced by their mother tongue!  Let alone the English Language!

Perhaps it is time for the people sitting in the freezing air-conditioned offices high up in cloud nine, to start thinking about making English Language an elective subject.  Let the students choose what subjects they really want to learn, because forcing upon them subjects that they don't want to learn (for the reason stipulated above) can only bring hatred to them and frustration to the teachers who try to teach them.

I guess, these people who are aimlessly traipsing amongst the clouds, should bring themselves down to earth and bite on the reality that English Language here is not really taught as the second language, but more of a third or fourth language!  More importantly, it serves no real purpose (to some)