The Teaching of Science and Mathematics in English - Part 1

I found this article written by Sinatra_Z in his blog "http://lipassepi.blogspot.com/2009/02/sinatraz-why-i-support-learning-math.html", and i have to say that i agree with him in his view. I affirm his view and i strongly supports the teaching of maths and science in English. here's the article:

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Recently there is a lot of support calling for the reversal of teaching math and science in English.
Much of these support comes of intellectual who has never studied any form of science or math in their respective college or University.

Take for example the recent PPSMI forum which was supposed to be attended by Anwar Ibrahim but was replaced by Syed Husin ALi.

Syed Husin Ali is a Professor of Anthropology and Sociology from University Malaya. What science or mathematics is there? In fact I had to look at the dictionary to understand the meaning of Anthropology.

The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences."

Zaidel describes Anthropology as a major you take in Uni if you can't do Math well but want to seem smart by having fancy words on your degree.

And Anwar Ibrahim? Degree in Malay Studies, Oiyoooo the only Math they have in Malay Studies is to calculate the amount of credit you take per semester which isn't much of a problem for Anwar because during his Uni days he spent most of them shouting slogans on the street and getting angry for no apparent reason.

Why I say getting angry for no apparent reason? Because later he Joined UMNO!!

Back to thw reason why I support the damn thing.
I came from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and trust me when I say this that a few years back this was the most Bahasa Kebangsaan University than any other local universities combined. Let's just say the first 3 years of my Engineering days were filled with Bahasa Malaysia/Melayu jargons. Just to show you what I mean take a look at some of these examples..

Engineering Term
Capacitor - Pemuat
Resistor - Perintang
Impedance - Galangan
Current - Arus

Others include : Momen Lentur, Tegasan, Terikan, Pepejal, Dinamik Haba and etc...

I mean those Engineering Lecturer took the extra mile to translate every single damn thing into Malay and I greatly respect this. As oppose to my sociology lecturers who like to screw up the Malay Language by prostituting English words into BM.

Take for example this term "Dekadensi Moral" When I first saw that term I was thinking what the hell is dekadensi moral, a type of resistor or something? Turns out Dekadensi comes from the English word Decadence. Dekadensi Moral means Moral Decadence direct translation where as you can simply translate it into "Kemerosotan Akhlak/Moral" which is much more clear. But NOOOO he had to use dekadensi so that he would seem smart and people won't question his Associate Professorship. Then you would have other words like kompak, visi, misi, infotainment, naratif kecil, naratif besar and penkek.

At first the Lecturers (Engineering) seemed to get it all good, they managed to translate the English term to BM very well and with very clear meaning. Then Things started to change as the subject get's more complex and you get newer terms. Take for example this Subject..

"Motorolla 68000 Microprocessor"

Which translates to Mikro Pemproses Motorolla 68000"
Sounds fine....

But then as you go deeper into the subject you will find more interesting terms. For instance

Timer - The clock cycle chip you use to send timing signals to the processors. It acts like a stopwatch to the processor.

BM Translation - Pemasa. Which is fine.

Then we have things like this -
Bistable Multivibrator - Dwimantap Penggetar Pelbagai. Apo Kobondo tu Jang?

Then in microprocessor you have this term call "Interrupt" and like it's name it means to interrupt the normal cycle of the processor and tell it to focus to doing something else. Kinda like the phone rings when you are cooking, you stop cooking and answer the phone.

The Malay Jargon Interrupt would be Sampukan. Interrupt Pin - Pin Sampukan.

Sampukan? Sampuk ke? Sejak bila Mikropemproses ada pocong atau Jembalang dalam dia? Ini Electrical Engineering ka Bomoh Engineering?

Masked Interrupt - Sampukan Bertopeng.
Handshake Interrupt - Sampukan Jabat Tangan. Ko salam dengan dia lepas tu ko kena sampuk, kira dia ni macam santau laa.

Then you have this thing called "Latch" which is an output chip.
Latch in Malay is Selak.
Selak as in Selak pintu, Selak Pagar or Selak pintu Jamban.

Mula-mula baca dulu saya ingat Selak dalam erti kata Selak Kain.
Contoh - Angin bertiup kencang lalu baju kurung Fasha Sanda pun selak sikit lalu Zaidel pun telah menerima ganguan emosi akibat dari kejadian itu.

Naah see,
And it gets interesting when it comes to "Electrical Power" Subject. In there there is this chapter where they talk about CoEnergy in power transmission. Coenergy in malay is translated to Kotenaga.

Which is why when he gave the lecture my lecturer would loudly proclaim KOtenaga compare to the students who prefer to pronounce it as KOTEnaga.

3 phase Coenergy in power transmission would then become
KoteNaga 3 fasa dalam penghantaran kuasa. OIYOOOOOO, kalah Anakonda!

Just for fun here are some other Technical Jargons you can play with...

Transformer - Pengubah
Decoder - Penyahkod (Mak Nyah kot)
Multiplexer - Pemultiplex
Polarity - Kutub
Instruction Set - Set Suruhan
Components - Peranti (I bet you didn't know that)
Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) - Penghantar Penerima Pemasa Serentak Am

Now try translating this
Connect Your Joy Stick into the server Port, you should find little problem with the Joystick as the server has Plug and Play mode.

Masukkan Kayu Ria anda ke dalam lubang pelayan, anda sepatutnya tidak mempunyai banyak masaalah dalam memasukkan kayu ria anda kerana pelayan ini mempunyai fungsi masuk dan main.

Hambik kau!
Tu belum dia kena sampuk ke selak ke nak nak pulak ada kotenaga.

By the time I was in my 4th year,
Everything was taught in English.... SENANG!

PPSMI: What's The Big Deal?

Hello folks. here i am ranting and grumbling about the current affairs and state-of-education here in Malaysia. Malaysia, as we all know is a multiracial and plural country. In Malaysia, one can find Malays, Indians and Chinese living together in peace and harmony.

The Malays and other races (viz. Indian and Chinese, just to name a few) attended the government school or so popularly known as "national" schools.

However, of late, certain issues has spark and ignited heated argument about the use of medium of instruction for teaching mathematics and science in English. certain quarters of people disagree with our present government's move of teaching mathematics and science in english.

i, for some reason could not fathom on the current situation. to me: hey, what's a big deal of learning maths and science in english? isn't that suppose to be good? english, as we all know, is a universal language, spoken all over the place in the world. english has become the second major (at least in Malaysia) language used in malaysia. so, why are we trying to stop the children from learning maths and science in english? after all, only these two subjects are taught in english. other subjects such as bahasa malaysia, kemahiran hidup, pengajian islam etc are all taught in malay.

does learning maths and science in english makes malay to be less malay? or even to the extreme point of saying "un-malay"? does learning maths and english derogate one's social status and bring heart attack to the whole nation? no, i don't think so. no one has ever gone blind, or deaf simply by learning maths and science in english, that's for sure.

next is the issue of "nationalism". O people of Malaysia: let thy know that learning maths and science in english won't change one's origin: if we are malay since the day we were born, then we will remain malay forever. the same goes to other races. however, it is very pathetic to hear argument that learning maths and science in english would make one to be less malaysian. says who?

learning maths and science in english is after all, a good move!

Anyway, the arguments, as put forth by certain quarters, says that "bahasa melayu perlu di daulatkan", which in English means, "the malay language should be popularized and worshipped". you know, in secondary schools in Malaysia, the students have to undertake more that seven subjects per year. Let's have a look at the subjects: Bahasa Melayu, English, Sejarah, Science, Pendidikan Islam/Moral, Mathematics, Geografi, and so on. Now, the government is only asking the two principal subjects, namely Mathematics and science to be taught in english, while the rest is kept in original language, that is malay. what the hell is so hard about that? why make such issue a fuss and a ruckus? i don't understand.

enlighten me!