The Great SILENCE on SPEAK ENGLISH DAY!

A dog chasing its own tail. What an apt analogy,this!

While the government has driven the last nail into the coffin for the continued teaching of English for Science and Mathematics at schools-at its own behest; the other important sector-the Civil Service seems to going the other way around.Thta, in a nutshell, is Malaysia Boleh! It is more enduring even than PM Najib's 1Malaysia!

Yes,INTAN started it many years back with its "Tuesday is Speak English Day!". But whatever became of it? It was mere sloganeering, the best thing the Malaysian Civil Service is good for.

So, on July 17, MAMPU,the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit started its own English Day.“Monday is English Day. Just Speak!” screams the colourful posters posted via email to its 400 staff.You find them also pasted on the walls of lifts and notice boards.

It may be a great effort on the part of some overzealous big bosses but the end result will be the same. Almost nothing. There are few winning horses helming government departments. At best, they are second best; promoted all the years on other reasons and not merit. This is due to the prevailing political-ethnic psyche governing the civil service.

Expect another mammoth campaign down the drain.

English can be improved only if there are institutionalized carrots in the system.MAMPU must think of fusing this aspect into the promotional criteria of all civil servants. The examinations for English proficiency must be conducted by a third party. It must be both an oral and a written test. The British Council may not be the best. Soem of our retirees are better. Hire them to work in the Curriculum Division and they will match the British Council any day.

An English Monday or a Tuesday is piecemeal. It is just like asking a smoker not to smoke on these days and they they are at a liberty to smoke on the other 5 days. Such foolhardiness. Language is never acquired in this manner.

Let us get close to the buzz on this English Mondays at MAMPU.

Now, everyone is encouraged – in e-mail messages, prayer recitals, announcements and meetings – to speak English as much as possible that Monday. [I would really love to hear the azan and sermon spoken in English!]

“We want to boost the competency of all staff in speaking English,” a Mampu spokesman told The Straits Times.["If wishes were horses, beggars will ride them"]

The Retirement Fund Incorporated, or KWAP, which handles the pensions of some one million civil servants, is reaching for the same goal by taking a fun approach.

Investment and fund managers play a game of Scrabble or two to improve their vocabulary. Regular public speaking and book review sessions are held.[These are great way, mind you.]

Employees also write investment papers, presentations, the minutes of meetings, and blog entries in English. It is quite a switch from Malay, which is used throughout the rest of the government.[I wonder, whether this is sustainable, long term.]

“For an investment company, it is very important that your English is up to the mark, because all the investment reports and analyses are in English,” KWAP chief executive officer Azian Mohd Noh told The Straits Times. “There are no two ways about it, you have to master your English.”[You are a realist. I only hope you can see it through.]

It even invited the British Council to test the staff and conduct courses in articulation and grammar.[INTAN with retirees from the service can do as good but cheaper.]

Such measures have paid off. According to Datuk Azian, some 70 per cent of KWAP employees speak English well. Another 20 per cent who understand the language shy away from speaking it.(This, I got to hear!"

“We still need to do more. English is important. If you work in the financial sector and deal with international counterparts, it will be a setback (if your English is not up to par),” she said.

Over nearly four decades, Malay has become important for political reasons and is now a very sensitive issue.

English was the medium of instruction in schools until it was replaced with Malay in the 1970s.

The soft push for the use of English at the workplace has been prompted by criticism that the standard of English has declined alarmingly since.

As a result, Malaysia’s global competitiveness has suffered, with many graduates possessing inferior English language skills, critics say.

Along with its decline in schools, English has also been neglected by most civil servants. With Malays making up 80 per cent of civil servants, many, apart from higher-ranking officers, prefer to use Malay daily. Thus there is some resistance to programmes that require them to speak English.

One Mampu worker joked that it would be a “Silent Monday”, referring to the fact that many would prefer not to speak to avoid speaking in English.[What a realist!]

“My English is a little rusty,” she said. “Most people still speak in Malay, but I guess in a more formal setting like a meeting, they converse in English.”

There is no penalty if an employee switches to his mother tongue, so the move is just a gentle nudge to ease civil servants into grappling with the language, broken or otherwise.[There is no such thing as broken English or Manglish,hear?]

An internal e-mail said: “Only a number of personnel are really into this programme. Do not worry so much about speaking grammatically correct. Practice makes perfect.”[Fossilised mistakes will occur if not corrected!]

A chief clerk with a district land office in Selangor said that her command of the English language deteriorated after she stopped using it when she joined the civil service 28 years ago.

“Even today’s graduates can’t converse in English very well,” she said.

The clerk said that the state government had tried implementing English Thursdays and other programmes but that they never got off the ground.( Is it any wonder?]

But some insist that such programmes can succeed.(In a place called EREHWON,read backwards, please]

A former civil servant of five years said: “Even if they speak broken English, it’s good for them to build confidence.”[Psychological crutches?]

She said she often ended up doing a lot of administrative work when traveling on overseas assignments, even when the support staff were meant to handle it, because of communication breakdowns.[Hear,hear!]

“A lot of them can’t speak or write in English. That’s what happens when you keep speaking the same language,” she told The Straits Times.[Wah,sudah bangun,pun!]

But some analysts feel that the entire system needs a major overhaul, including using English in all official documents.

“You need at least one competent speaker in a government department for this sort of programme to work,” said analyst James Chin of Monash University Malaysia Campus. “If all of them are not competent, it will not work.”[Where does he get this premise?]

He pointed out that the English policy that was scrapped from schools last month failed because too many teachers were not fluent in the language.

“If department heads are not fluent, subordinates will follow what they do,” said Chin. “Until they get real English speakers in the civil service and allow the use of English in all official documents, instead of just Malay, it will not work.” – The Straits Times

Are we chasing rainbows here?

What an eye opener, don't you think?