The
Malaysian Education Ministry should review the way English is taught
and find ways and means to improve it, rather than rehashing the failed
PPSMI in the guise of the DLP
SINCE my name was mentioned in the letter “A common medium” (The Star,
Feb 18) by Datin Noor Azimah on the Dual Language Programme (DLP), I
would like to respond to some of the issues raised by her on why we
should continue the DLP.
First of all, I beg to differ with Noor Azimah’s notion that English is
the only language of science. All her arguments about the dominance of
English in scientific communications merely show that English has become
the de facto communication language of science but not the only
language in which established science could be taught and new science
could be discovered.
Major scientific discoveries of the 20th century such as the Relativity
Theory of Einstein that has enhanced our understanding of the huge
expanse of space in the universe and the Quantum Theory of Heisenberg
and Bohr that let us understand properties of the very tiny nanoscale
structures and of atoms, were discovered in German, the language of the
discoverers and not in English.
Both theories underlie almost all subsequent scientific discoveries
including the very recent discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO that
vindicated Einstein’s Relativity.
According to the Princeton historian of science, Prof Michael Godin in
his new book, Scientific Babel, English became the dominant language of
scientific communication only recently, in the last 60 years, at the
expense of the previous triumvirate of scientific communication
languages, English, French and German.
The Anglicization of scientific communication started much earlier by
the boycott of German scientists by Western European and American
scientists who published in French and English in between the World
Wars. German science was further decimated by the defeat in the Second
World War and many German scientists were brought over to work for
America and to use English in their work.
The dominance of the United Kingdom and American publishers in
scientific publications after the War squeezed out French as a
scientific communication language and literally forced the English
language down the throat of the scientific community, who otherwise
would have continued to publish in either German, French or English as
was the practice before the War. As a world-ranked scientist at the top
of my own field as attested by Thomson Reuters’ World’s Most Influential
Scientific Minds 2016, and as a professor in chemical engineering for
36 years at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), I have taught many
generations of Malaysian chemical engineers in Bahasa Melayu and have
supervised successfully many MSc and PhD students, who used Bahasa
Melayu in the practice of world class science in UKM’s labs and in the
reporting of the scientific results in their thesis.
External examiners from other universities in Malaysia were amazed and
surprised but enthusiastic that world class science could be done and
reported in Bahasa Melayu very well. The students then rewrote their
research results in English for publication in world renowned journals.
Hence, English does not contribute anything to the science but merely as
translations or rewrites of it. Since the MSc and PhD students are
among the brightest of the lot, they have no problem in communicating
their scientific results in Bahasa Melayu or English at international
conferences with confidence because their scientific works are world
class.
Renowned scientists look for the science not the language in their
presentations and papers because scientific talent is rare and far
between whereas the language of communication can be easily learned on
the job.
Their scientific education in Bahasa Melayu at UKM did not prevent many
of my students from going on to become successful professional engineers
in industry and excellent lecturers and world class scientists with
many of them becoming professors and world leaders in their fields of
research.
One of them in particular, Prof Dr Siti Kartom Kamarudin, a true blue
alumnus of UKM who graduated from UKM with BEng, MSc and PhD all in
Bahasa Melayu, is also sharing the same accolade with me as one of the
World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds 2016.
The Malaysian PhD candidate at Glasgow University from the International
Islamic University Malaysia, Hafizah Noor Isa who was involved in the
seminal detection of gravitational waves recently, was taught science in
Bahasa Melayu in primary and secondary school. Her Bahasa Melayu
background does not impair her ability to do world class science at all.
I am sure this is also true for many science and mathematics teachers
and professors all over the country, who have taught tens of thousands
of students, science and mathematics in Bahasa Melayu before PPSMI, and
whose students have become very successful in their chosen fields.
The fact that we have produced so many successful professors, engineers,
medical doctors and scientists varying in age from 25 to 55 years old,
who were taught science and mathematics in Bahasa Melayu before the
PPSMI speaks volumes for itself.
The logic that if only one is taught
science and mathematics in English then one would be more successful in
later life is a fallacy.
If this were to be true, then no Japanese, Korean and now Chinese
technopreneurs would have succeeded as they apparently had with
world-class brands without learning science and mathematics in English
in their schools and universities.
Learning English through science and mathematics, I am sure every
educator worth his salt agrees, is not the most appropriate way of
learning a language. There is no evidence whatsoever that English
proficiency is increased if English is used to teach science and
mathematics.
On the other hand, there is abundant evidence to the contrary. The
disastrous PISA and TIMMS results of 2012 where Malaysian students were
behind other non-English speaking countries clearly demonstrated the
failure of PPSMI because the Malaysian students who took the test were
taught science and mathematics in English under the PPSMI (See more on
related posts below).
Vietnamese students who were weaker in English fared a lot better than
Malaysian students who were better in English. Why do we want to
resurrect a programme that has clearly failed spectacularly? If the
objective is to be proficient in English, then the right way to achieve
it is to strengthen the teaching of the language by having better ways
of teaching it in schools.
The Education Ministry should review the way English is taught and find
ways and means to improve it, rather than rehashing the failed PPSMI in
the guise of the DLP.
I think many people like Noor Azimah who wrote passionately about the
DLP issue neglect to tell us or probably do not know the kind of science
and mathematics learnt by our children in schools all over the world.
Science and mathematics taught in schools are established scientific and
mathematical knowledge that have been accepted by consensus of most
scientists and mathematicians at that point of history. It should not be
confused with new cutting-edge science and technology that a scientist
and a professor like me has to deal with every day in my scientific
work.
Established science and mathematics change very slowly because new
scientific discoveries that would become established knowledge is rare
and far between.
On the other hand, cutting-edge science changes rapidly as new theories
are being postulated to explain newly discovered phenomena, which are
accepted or discarded after undergoing rigorous scrutiny by the
scientific community. There is no need for our children in schools to
learn cutting-edge science because understanding it requires the
scientific knowledge of a professor.
Not many people know that established science and mathematics have
already been translated into Bahasa Melayu in numerous textbooks for
primary and secondary schools as well as for universities published by
Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) and the premier universities, Universiti
Malaya, UKM, Universiti Sains Malaysia,Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and
Universiti Putra Malaysia over the past 40 years.
All scientific terms in all fields are already available at the
Persuratan Melayu web page of the DBP. Our children can easily gain
scientific knowledge by reading them.
Even fewer know that the discovery of new cutting-edge science and
mathematics in Bahasa Melayu is growing at the international level over
the last few years with the indexing of bi-lingual Bahasa Melayu-English
scientific journals such as Sains Malaysiana by major international
scientific journal indexing services such as the ISI and SCOPUS! Now
scientists from all over the world can access cutting-edge scientific
knowledge in Bahasa Melayu.
The whole idea of learning science and mathematics in the mother tongue
is not only simply about language patriotism as has been alleged by Noor
Azimah elsewhere. The central issue lies deeper than mere patriotism.
It is more about being able to create new scientific knowledge from a
deeper understanding of science and mathematics, which can only be
achieved by learning it in the mother tongue.
I am sure we are all familiar with the history of how both the great
Islamic and the European civilisations first translated and then
independently created scientific and mathematical knowledge of their own
in their own languages.
No country in the world that is ahead in science and technology ever
teaches its children science and technology in a foreign language.
By PROF DATUK IR DR WAN RAMLI WAN DAUD President
Former Founder Director & Principal Research Fellow Fuel Cell Institute, UKM
Prof of Chemical Engineering, UKM
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