Born Better

English is a language that is internationally recognized and well established in various career paths. Most English speaking countries (countries that where English is thought, it need not be a national language) use English as a medium of communication to teach students in schools, especially colleges. Business, international forums and events all use English as one form of communication. In today's competitive world, English is now more important than ever, especially in a continent rich in diversity such as Europe and Asia. With so many languages used, you need a language that most people understand, that it when English comes into play.

Now I am very disappointed with the government putting English far away in the background in favor of the Malay language and respective mother tongues of other races. Revert back to the backwards way of using Malay to teach Science and Math has pushed English to somewhere in the end of the alimentary canal of the Malaysian Education Ministry. In my opinion, it is a step backward for Malaysia and contradicts Malaysia's new economic policy of opening its businesses to investments from foreigners.

English is definitely a language that is very important in our everyday life. I know that it is hard to most people because it is a language of white people and not Malays, Indians or Chinese but it is a you can't beat them, join them situation. Everyone is learning the language, as it is the language that most people use for things international. Plus, I can tell you, that those of us who are good at English (at least in my experience) tend to be better contributors to the nation than those of us who suck at English. Here are a few reasons why those of us who are fluent in English are plainly 'Born Better'.

1. We have better information or at least better understanding at the information

Most of the info we get are in English. If you give the same piece of paper filled with technical information to a person who is fluent in English and a person who is not. I can assure you that the one with great fluency will triumph over the non fluent one. The English language is always conducted in professional businesses. Nobody is going to do it in Chinese or Hokkien unless both parties can use the language. You know why most employers prefer graduates from universities like Swinburne instead of local unis? Its because of the English Language proficiency.

You can take my couples article for example. I can honestly tell you, there is a huge barrier drawn from those who are good at English and those who suck at it. Those who are good obviously will agree with me, those who suck well all they can yap is calling me 'gay', 'cibai kia', and 'chao ang mo' in any order and insulting my mother. Obviously their mothers did not raise them properly. (Unfortunately they are in Swinburne too. So employers just have to look at how the way they talk)

2. We are much saner.

We don't put one foot up on a chair, slurp, talk loudly and post hurtful anonymous comments on other people's blogs. We don't listen to trashy music while driving 180 km per hour in the little kancil. We have obviously much better fashion sense and we do not carry fake designer bags. We also do not dye our hair into colours that resembles the faeces of animals.

We also do not wear earrings that light up like some kind of beeper. We do not ride our motorcycles like surfboards. We do not rapidly increase the morality rate of the nation's car accident index. We are not lazy, anti-Americans/potential terrorists. We do not act like someone that has popped up from the jungles of Mount Santubong.

We do not have a narrow mind. Moreover, I can bet these people do not even know how to write one sentence in English.

3. We can mix with anyone aka we do not discriminate

Race or religion does not matter here. We have one language and we group together because of same interest, not because of the color of our skin. We tend to be much better at harmonizing than others. You see teaching things in English eliminates the whole playground advantage the mother tongue gives as everyone is learning it and almost everyone is unfamiliar with it. By using English in the medium, it will eliminate the whole racial discrimination thing. Even if everyone learns Malay, but the Bumis have been learning it since they were born, so that is like a 7 year advantage. With English, most Malaysian families do not bother conversing in it, thus everyone is new.

You see, English is important in today's society. We should not pull it back, we should push it forward. For the benefit of the younger generation.

UPDATE:

VOTE: NO (for those of us who are born better)

vote: yes (for those of you choosing to be losers for life)

http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/2009/07/the-teaching-of-maths-and-scie.html