ENGLISH TEACHERS: Foreigners not the solution

2009/07/14

W.K. TOO, Seremban

I REFER to the Education Ministry's plan -- announced in conjunction with the decision to stop teaching Mathematics and Science in English from 2012 -- to bring in 1,000 foreign teachers to enhance the teaching and learning of the English language in schools.
Employing foreign English language teachers should be seen as a temporary measure. I hope the ministry will ensure all hired foreign English language teachers are qualified to carry out their duties.

But as a long-term plan, resources should be used to train Malaysian English language teachers in school.

I attended a seminar in Batu Pahat several years ago. One of the speakers was a foreign English language officer assigned to the district office.

I talked to him and found out that his background was neither in English language teaching nor education. He told me that he had never stepped into a primary or secondary school classroom before.

The only training he had was a three-month course in teaching English. Yet, he had been hired to advise and train teachers in the district.

On another occasion, when I was attending a conference in Sabah, friends working in the state education office complained how a foreign English language officer behaved as if we Malaysians knew nothing about teaching English.

The foreign officer finally left, but that was after more than a year and numerous complaints had been lodged against him. Meanwhile, the damage had been done.

I do not intend to generalise that all foreign English language teachers are unqualified or behave poorly.

My contention is that if the ministry is willing to pay three to four times more than a Malaysian English language teacher's salary to employ a foreign English language teacher, it needs to ensure the money is well spent.

If Malaysian teachers were paid as much as their foreign counterparts, I believe many people would take up the offer to become English teachers.

English is an international language. No one owns it. We do not need to speak in a British, an American or an Australian accent to get ourselves understood.

As long as we speak and use standard English competently, we are intelligible to the world. The same should apply to all English language teachers -- qualified and competent language users -- no matter if English is their first language language or not.