'If I caught you two making noise again, I'll threw you out of the classroom,' threatened the initially shy and timid teacher who finally had enough of the troublemaking duo in the classroom.
By then, sitting from the back of the classroom, I had heard more than enough to know that this wasn't a slip of the tongue, and I began to wonder if my teacher was even capable of constructing error-free sentences. Good Lord, I know of younger kids who speak better English.
Oh, by the way, this shy and timid teacher, was my English teacher. Wow...
Throughout my schooling years, I have amused myself during English classes by observing my teachers and their grammatical mistakes, though sometimes I grew indignant when they had to search the dictionaries for the meaning of simple words and made glaringly obvious pronunciation mistakes, such as 'fury' to 'furry'. However, I have to admit that once I went a bit overboard and got hauled up by the Assistant Supervisor for making my teacher feel, *cough cough*, "uncomfortable" in the classroom. Hem hem, moving on...
Not every English teacher in Malaysia is bad of course, but there are always cases of teachers being hauled up to the classrooms to teach the English language because of lack of "teacherpower". However, the sad thing is that some or most of these "teachers" only know enough of the English language to survive, and I'll bet that even most of that will consist of the Malaysian standardised Manglish. I pity them, especially if they get students who are actually good at the language and is more than capable of embarrassing the hell out of them in the classroom.
It's a known fact that the standard of English in Malaysia is low. If you need proof, all you gotta do is look at the Form 3 English text-books, or any other Malaysian English text-books for that matter. Anyone who has done a reasonable amount of reading would scoff at the books, and even up till now, my English exam papers consists of simple questions regarding grammar, common idioms, and stuff like that. Acing it is a piece of cake.
3 comments:
I once had a lousy English teacher too, in Form 3. We all hated her, lol. Two of my classmates asked her to define "ambidextrous" just to test her proficiency. She told them she'd go home and look it up. The following day she asked them if they were sure there was such a word. -_-"
English teachers for the past 10 years, have been mass produced by universities of a low standard. furthermore, the people who turn out to teachers seldom have teaching as their first choice. a vast majority of those who apply for government jobs apply for a job in customs. why? corruption there is like carbon dioxide. you always have more than enough.
the lack of commitment combined with lack of education and squared with lack of brains gives us this
3 tolak 1 sama dengan 2
3 push 1 is 2
mathematical equation
3-1=2
however, those among us who are more fortunate to have a better command of English compared to the vast majority of the Malaysian population, should not waste time giving ourselves ego massages by putting down the teachers but realise that our own command of the language is weak.
do the English part in SAT 1 and you'll see what i mean.
do not be complacent with what you have, be ambitious and go ahead of everyone else. read a book or two, not Jk Rowling level please but something more Shakespeare.
Just because you think you're good, doesn't mean you ARE good, it just makes you feel good.
first of all, my apologies if i had sounded arrogant and contemptuous in writing this post, and pls know that i had never intended it to be that way. i had not read what i wrote from another's perspective, till i read the previous comment.
just for the record and my guilty conscience, i do not consider my english skills to be 'good', nay. encounters with others have taught me that way back, though now i realise i sounded like an arrogant know-it-all in the post. again, my apologies, dear all...
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