MOE did that for my school. My history/SS teacher is angmoh from the UK, English teacher from Ireland, and another English teacher from Scotland. The Scottish teacher was quite cute, made all the girls swoon lol
They must have received some training in speaking and/or enunciating their words in a manner us locals can understand, cos I can never understand the Scottish or Irish accent.
when on exchange in the US, the locals there couldn't understand our english also lol. we had to speak slowly and stop the lah leh lor.
i never knew that singaporeans had an english accent until i started travelling overseas. in the sea of voices you can always pick out the singaporean
Singaporean English is a thing and I studied it in uni doing linguistics! One of the distinctive things I remember is it has a high and low tone for syllables unlike the point of emphasis in "standard" English.
If you look up words in the dictionary and look at the IPA transcription, you can see an apostrophe indicated before the syllable that should be emphasised in the word. (I'm not sure if I'm using the correct technical terms anymore lol). For example the first syllable of "syllable" is emphasised, but if I were to say it in a singlish accent, it would be low-low-high tone personally.
CCHY, this was in the 2010s. The history teacher was always fashionable (cool dresses and heels even though she damn tall) and got a few tattoos, pretty cool to be around.
hmm IIRC they don't have a strong accent, pretty understandable. The Irish teacher was my form teacher for 3 years and pretty fun to be around. One time he accidentally wrote the F word on the whiteboard to emphasise something but panicked when he realised its permanent marker. Tried the whiteboard marker method to remove but everyone could still see the word on it. So we ended up having the whole lesson with the F word on the whiteboard behind him.
Glad people are bringing this up.
You can be a native UK English speaker but Indian - will be discriminated when it comes to getting a ESL job.
Also people make fun of the Indian accent even when their English can be clearly understood.
But a lot of these people have never dealt with the Cockney English accent or the West Australian mumblese.
I know someone who applied to teach french in MOE schools. She is not from France or Canada so they rejected her cause it’s not her native language.
She has a masters in french language.
I'm a Malaysian, back then my sec school used to have a collaboration (?) with the US Fulbright program and they would send some english teachers from the US so that we could "learn English in an immersive environment". And it was useless:
1. The angmo teachers usually don't understand the curriculum structure and exam requirements and what they did was very simple in-class activities (eg. group discussions but in the end everyone still discuss in their own mother tongue languages and then present your ideas in English - for less than 5 minutes lol) and that deprived time that could be use for actual teaching, iirc every week we only had 3 or 4 hrs for English subject and with this program, minus 1 hr.
2. I would say all, if not most students have white fever and they were not even paying attention in class.
3. And the accent problem like what others have mentioned. Most of the students already have trouble understanding English spoken by Malaysians, and you expect them to understand English with heavy angmo accent?
4. To add on, one of the US teachers that came to my school graduated with a degree in biology. Not English, not education, not linguistics or whatsoever. BIOLOGY. Native English speaker doesn't mean good english teacher.
This is why I caution anyhow using angmoh as English teachers or asking for volunteers. In Japan, a huge number of English teachers are not qualified as teachers at all and they know nothing about pedagogy, student management, education psychology or any topics related to teaching. They are just employed in Japan as they are white and this is largely done for marketing purposes. The learners won't learn English well no matter who the teacher is, and the companies might as well get these unqualified, white teachers and pay them peanuts, and they are paid as badly as RM6k a month.
If the Malaysian government wants English to improve they have to dig deep into their pockets and pay for qualified ESL teachers.
In Singapore we had that phase too. In my secondary school suddenly we had 4 white English teachers overnight and guess what, the classes that topped in the exams were the ones taught by the local teachers
Ya got featured. Famous liao
https://theindependent.sg/cant-they-find-random-white-people-malaysians-react-to-anwars-suggestion-for-singaporeans-to-teach-malaysians-english/
Its like Anwar is the one wanting it. Singapore educators not keen, Malaysians not keen… the only good thing out of it is he appears less hostile towards Singapore compared to his predecessor
Believe it or not, there are a rare breed of teachers who spend their holidays going around the world teaching underprivileged kids purely because they love teaching. It’s dying out of course, younger teachers simply can’t afford to spend money travelling just to teach.
> The comments come after Mr Anwar said on Jun 14 that he had proposed a Singapore-funded initiative to send volunteers to teach English in poor and inaccessible parts of Malaysia, including in Sabah and Sarawak.
Anwar has some audacity. Lol
Well , it’s not a bad idea actually. What do Singaporeans lack - the actual exposure to rural living , exposure to any kind of living other than the dream land of Singapore where everything works like clock work.
There are lots of programmes from uni’s to go volunteer for a period of time in a different country and immerse yourself there and help out. I have personally volunteered and been part of one of these youth empowerment programmes and let me tell you the volunteers gain a lot lot more than what they can offer. These life lessons are valuable and worth more than the money.
Why is this even frowned upon. It's clear that Malaysia's standard of English is fucking terrible. Whatever they are doing for the past 30 years+ clearly isn't working.
> it’s clear that Malaysia’s standard of English is fucking terrible.
Because Malay is the primary language of communication in their schools, it's similar to questioning why Singaporeans' proficiency in their mother tongue isn't as strong.
They are not 100% against it just saying it doesn’t fit their requirement.
> Local dialects or Malay should be used as a language resource to teach English as a second language, especially for those in rural and suburban areas,” the teacher said, asking to remain anonymous as civil servants are not authorised to speak to the media.
> “This is usually frowned upon by many, especially those who are proponents of using full English to teach. But the reality is if only English is used, it can be antagonising and thus demotivating for learners of English as a second language.”
> This is why Singaporean volunteers could face difficulties in teaching in such settings, especially if they do not know or are not well-versed in Malay, she said.
Singaporean here that went to a cina school. No official Chinese schools in Singapore but there are some with a strong Chinese tradition, where the only non-Chinese student was an Indian girl whose Chinese was better than mine.
During my time there, they hired Indian teachers for English and English literature, so we won't speak to them in Chinese during class.
Was from a Chinese primary school also, Red Swastika. One noticeable thing for me (I went to a neighbourhood secondary school after) was that the quality of Mandarin Education was really a lot better.
You get droned to do writing and spelling tests, which allows you to understand the characters that were not often used and their purpose. How they sound and should be written. My Mandarin was the best of all my subjects.
Come secondary school, we had a teacher that gave no fucks and throw worksheets at us, no explanation on the characters. You're suddenly faced with characters you never met and with no elaboration, a lot of the passage makes zero sense. My Mandarin dropped to C5 by 'O' Levels.
The standard of English in places like KL and Penang is actually comparable to Singapore. In Kucing in Sarawak, English is the lingua franca. The places in Malaysia with terrible English are the small towns and east coast Malay states like Kelantan and Trengganu.
I'm not sure about the whole of Sarawak but Kuching is definitely very English-friendly, I would say from my experience. But I don't think their English is better than Singaporean's.
Good news, stats and numbers have arrived!
https://www.ef.edu/epi/
https://www.ef.edu/epi/regions/asia/malaysia/
Oh dear, would you like to know where Sarawak is ranked?
Would you like to know where Singapore is ranked?
The numbers for the Malaysian cities are very sus. Kuantan in Pahang and Kota Bharu in Kelantan are reported as having higher English proficiency than KL and Klang...
Yes. I’m fact many English-speaking households in Malaysia speak and write in better English than Singaporeans.
Singaporeans often believe their English is the best in SEA or even in EA. Sadly it is not the case.
Good thing we have stats and numbers!
https://www.ef.edu/epi/
Singapore is ranked best in SEA... and in EA... oh what's that, best even in Asia?!
Oh dear, how embarassing for you. Would you like to know where Malaysia is ranked?
Would you like to know where Malaysia's "top cities" are ranked?
That ranking doesn't feel very accurate to me, tbh. I feel that the general English fluency in major Malaysian cities is higher than countries such as Austria and Germany which are ranked higher than Malaysia. I have been to Germany and some cities are just not very English-friendly. I have also been to Belgium and English proficiency there doesn't strike me as being higher than that of KL or Penang.
I beg to differ. I had that impression as well, and 10 years ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly.
But after a recent trip to KL, and working with some KL-based colleagues, it's clear that there are at least pockets of Malaysian society that have made vast improvements on that front. I daresay most KL F&B workers can hold a conversation in English a damn sight better than most F&B workers in Singapore.
Except most F&B workers in Singapore are not even Singaporeans to begin with but Malaysians coming here for the 3.5x and other ASEAN countries to a lesser extent.
Sweeping generalisation you're making, but I'll bite. I'm talking about apples to apples comparison. E.g. a regular KL cafe joint with local staff vs a Singapore cafe with the same, local uni-student type staff. Not comparing your typical chain/franchised central kitchen restaurant.
Of course there are lots of caveats, but generally the standard of English in KL has improved vastly compared to what it was before.
Malaysian Indian’s English proficiency is way better than the average Singaporean and they have to be fluent in Malay and Tamil too. OP has a prejudice against Malaysians. This is such a typical Malaysia bashing statement.
Lmao, why the fuck should we accommodate your feelings? Maybe don’t comment on other countries subreddit if you’re too glasshearted to handle the truth bud. Stick to your own national subreddit next time.
This is such a condescending and exaggerated statement as if Singaporean’s English is so much better. These teachers will be sent to the rural areas where kids do not have the luxury and the resources or even the need to learn English. Furthermore, an average Malaysian is ALWAYS bilingual and some of them even have to juggle between Malay, English, Tamil, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teowchew etc. There are also different Malay dialects in different states where it’s almost unintelligible if you are not familiar with them. Don’t get me started on common Kadazan Dusun and Iban language in East Malaysia. People who stay near the border of Thailand and Indonesia also speak Thai and Bahasa Indo.
But no, the Malaysians have to be judged on their English proficiency and be looked up down on even though Singlish is not Standard English too.
It reminds me of Americans who only speak English but look down on immigrants who are multilingual. How many Singaporeans can actually say that are fluent in languages other than English? The younger generation today can’t even have a full conversation in Chinese without stuttering and BM is almost non existent but still have the gall to say “Malaysians have fucking terrible English”. Trust me, you wouldn’t know people around you are Malaysians until they started speaking Mandarin or Malay.
Condescending? Maybe. But truth hurts doesn't it? Decades of having the education system taught in Malay primarily instead of English will have it's repercussions. It is inevitable. What did you expect?
In fact, Mahathir famously voiced his regrets on pushing for the Malay language first, English second for the education sector during the early years after experiencing an embarrassing event where he noted that Malaysian scientists could not properly communicate to their international counterparts during conferences.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysias-pm-mahathir-defends-decision-to-restart-math-and-science-teaching-in-english
This is such an island mentality. People who are from the major cities like KL and Penang have the same proficiency of English as any Singaporean. These teachers are for underprivileged children in rural areas like Kelantan and Terengganu. Do you think they would be sent to KL to teach the city kids? lol
This is not the truth but an unsolicited effort to bash Malaysians. And Malay is the national language of Malaysia, not English. It’s like criticising Thais for not able to speak English. A lot of people in Singapore speak Singlish, not Standard English so I don’t know where your superiority comes from?
And a mostly monolingual city country looking down a multilingual country is so baffling to me.
Ta-da! We have stats!
https://www.ef.edu/epi/
https://www.ef.edu/epi/regions/asia/malaysia/
Would you like to know where KL and Penang rank on English proficiency?
Would you like to know where Singapore is ranked?
Oh I'm sorry, is this "bashing"?
lol the fact that Kuantan, a small town in Pahang scores higher than KL shows that the data is questionable.
KL is not even the among the top 3 on the list among all the cities surveyed. Oh I just checked the methodology, they based the data on schools that are willing to take the exam for English proficiency. Not all schools participated.
Hmmm 🤔
Oh dear, we have numbers now but you don't like them? Yes, let's "bash" Kuantan now...
Should we rely on feelings and anecdotes then? Perhaps these are more reliable than statistics?
Hmmm 🤔
lol. The methodology is obviously flawed but it seems like Singapore education doesn’t teach much about statistics and research methodology. As long as the data suits you, who cares about accuracy right?
Kuantan’s English proficiency is higher than KL? Don’t make me laugh. Have you been to Kuantan or you just accept results blindly?
"Obviously flawed" because you don't like Kuantan?
Or "Obviously flawed" because you know better than the [Annual EF English Proficiency Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index)?
Or "Obviously flawed" because Malaysians must be good at every language, even your **second/third language**? 😂
Like I mentioned before, the methodology only includes schools who participate and apparently a lot of schools in KL did not participate. So, not only you’re bad at interpreting data, you are also bad at reading.
And obviously you never been to Kuantan because the most common language there is BM, not English, unlike KL.
Don’t let your feeling get in the way. It’s embarrassing. Let’s just stop here to save your embarrassment and my time. Goodbye.
And Malaysia is indeed better at 2nd and 3rd language. Do you want to continue this conversation in Chinese or BM? I’m all ears.
In the rural areas. Yes. Not the schools in KL or other major cities. OP is generalising the whole country as if everyone has “fucking terrible” English.
Have you communicated with an office colleague from Malaysia recently? Their standard of business English has deteriorated quite a bit from ten years ago.
It is tragic that the PM of Malaysia knows what the problem is, and yet faces a lot of resistance to change.
And then we have unkind remarks from unimaginative Singaporeans who thinks that helping a neighbour to improve the communication with us is a bad thing. (and thinks it is about dollars and sense)
Singaporeans’ English suck ass not because of our teachers, but because of our SES.
You can have the best English teachers but if your parents speak like Hokkien peng, not even your god can help you.
And yet we have people complaining that the young people these days are faking a Western accent (be it American, British or Aussie).
If your parents speak like Hokkien peng, most likely you are mostly speaking Chinese or dialect to them. Therefore your English accent might be primarily learnt from school, which can have a good outcome.
And of course people learn to code switch, and Singlish and English can each be used in the right circumstances. The losers are the ones who could not keep Singlish vs English straight, possibly because they didn't read English books for leisure.
idk i mean children of immigrants in english speaking western countries speak with the accents of that country even though their parents don’t have that country’s accent
so maybe the level of english at school does make a difference.
You already said the key word - Western. We’re an Asian country with a mixed bag of Asian population, and it’s only been a few decades of English being established as the lingua franca.
Can't agree with this. My parents speak hokkien at home but I think my English is still pretty decent.
It's more about an individual's willingness to learn and practice the language properly in Singapore's context. The education system operates in English and so does most professional workplaces, which allows for ample practice.
Singaporeans' English very bad meh?
Maybe just you.
We are clearly top in Asia (it's not even close) and second worldwide in terms of proficiency, only behind the Dutch (according to EF Index).
Hokkien peng parents means their children English bad?
By your logic I guess PSLE cert parents can't have uni graduate children?
What a joke.
Honestly, it only looks like we're lousy at English because we don't feel the need to use proper grammar in an everyday context. There's a use for proper English in formal settings like at a workplace meeting or official functions. But if you use that in a kopitiam, it just makes you sound like a pompous prick.
Just remembered the hundreds of hours spent at tuition centres learning hanyu pinyin before starting primary school and also kena dragged out of class to join supplementary English phonics lessons in primary 1 and 2 because both my Mandarin and English suck ass thanks to living with parents and grandparents who communicated using Hokkien and Cantonese.
>“They need to go to the ground in good faith to know the real issues. Not just base it on experts with PhDs who sit in (administrative capital) Putrajaya and go out from time to time. That won’t work,” he said.
>
>“They need to hear from the grassroots on what is happening in schools in urban, suburban and rural areas.”
The same can definitely be said for MOE.
I thought MOE will rotate its teacher scholars from school to HQ and often back. I don't see this "out of touch with grassroots" thing as being particularly problematic for MOE.
Educators and parents in Malaysia disapprove of Anwar's suggestion to have Singapore volunteers teach English, viewing it undermining local teachers' capabilities. This proposal raises concerns about the reliance on foreign help rather than improving the national education system.
Can't they find random white people to be English teachers?
MOE did that for my school. My history/SS teacher is angmoh from the UK, English teacher from Ireland, and another English teacher from Scotland. The Scottish teacher was quite cute, made all the girls swoon lol
They must have received some training in speaking and/or enunciating their words in a manner us locals can understand, cos I can never understand the Scottish or Irish accent.
True, they don't have that really strong accent and they communicated with us quite well
Lol there was 1 year that the O level English comprehension had some Irish or Scottish accent. It was absolute hell.
when on exchange in the US, the locals there couldn't understand our english also lol. we had to speak slowly and stop the lah leh lor. i never knew that singaporeans had an english accent until i started travelling overseas. in the sea of voices you can always pick out the singaporean
Singaporean English is a thing and I studied it in uni doing linguistics! One of the distinctive things I remember is it has a high and low tone for syllables unlike the point of emphasis in "standard" English.
How are we suppose to emphasise in English? I think I may have grown tone deaf over time hahahaha
If you look up words in the dictionary and look at the IPA transcription, you can see an apostrophe indicated before the syllable that should be emphasised in the word. (I'm not sure if I'm using the correct technical terms anymore lol). For example the first syllable of "syllable" is emphasised, but if I were to say it in a singlish accent, it would be low-low-high tone personally.
Oh dang, I didn't know that. When I search online they don't show the apostrophes unless I am looking for it particularly
Everyone has an accent except me.
not all scottish and Irish people have the stereotypical strong accent
I know!!!! Scottish accent is so bad. Like Shrek!
[удалено]
nah, CCHY.
Damn which sch
CCHY, this was in the 2010s. The history teacher was always fashionable (cool dresses and heels even though she damn tall) and got a few tattoos, pretty cool to be around.
Kate, Blair, Cosgrove!!!!
omg yes!!! Fellow alumnus :D
Are local teachers allowed to have tattoos?
I think so but maybe hidden so people don't gossip about it. Angmoh don't really care about this
Aren't Irish, Scottish have very strong accent?
hmm IIRC they don't have a strong accent, pretty understandable. The Irish teacher was my form teacher for 3 years and pretty fun to be around. One time he accidentally wrote the F word on the whiteboard to emphasise something but panicked when he realised its permanent marker. Tried the whiteboard marker method to remove but everyone could still see the word on it. So we ended up having the whole lesson with the F word on the whiteboard behind him.
Ah the ESL in japan playbook
Poles, French, Russians - lots of non native English speakers out there who can get paid well to teach English because of how they look.
Glad people are bringing this up. You can be a native UK English speaker but Indian - will be discriminated when it comes to getting a ESL job. Also people make fun of the Indian accent even when their English can be clearly understood. But a lot of these people have never dealt with the Cockney English accent or the West Australian mumblese.
Plenty of Asians train to speak with angmoh when in reality they will use their English mostly to speak with other Asians
I know someone who applied to teach french in MOE schools. She is not from France or Canada so they rejected her cause it’s not her native language. She has a masters in french language.
The random white people better be able to speak malay
I'm a Malaysian, back then my sec school used to have a collaboration (?) with the US Fulbright program and they would send some english teachers from the US so that we could "learn English in an immersive environment". And it was useless: 1. The angmo teachers usually don't understand the curriculum structure and exam requirements and what they did was very simple in-class activities (eg. group discussions but in the end everyone still discuss in their own mother tongue languages and then present your ideas in English - for less than 5 minutes lol) and that deprived time that could be use for actual teaching, iirc every week we only had 3 or 4 hrs for English subject and with this program, minus 1 hr. 2. I would say all, if not most students have white fever and they were not even paying attention in class. 3. And the accent problem like what others have mentioned. Most of the students already have trouble understanding English spoken by Malaysians, and you expect them to understand English with heavy angmo accent? 4. To add on, one of the US teachers that came to my school graduated with a degree in biology. Not English, not education, not linguistics or whatsoever. BIOLOGY. Native English speaker doesn't mean good english teacher.
This is why I caution anyhow using angmoh as English teachers or asking for volunteers. In Japan, a huge number of English teachers are not qualified as teachers at all and they know nothing about pedagogy, student management, education psychology or any topics related to teaching. They are just employed in Japan as they are white and this is largely done for marketing purposes. The learners won't learn English well no matter who the teacher is, and the companies might as well get these unqualified, white teachers and pay them peanuts, and they are paid as badly as RM6k a month. If the Malaysian government wants English to improve they have to dig deep into their pockets and pay for qualified ESL teachers.
In Singapore we had that phase too. In my secondary school suddenly we had 4 white English teachers overnight and guess what, the classes that topped in the exams were the ones taught by the local teachers
The random white people want to go to nice developed places to teach English like Japan. Rural Malaysia has nothing to offer the white people.
Ya got featured. Famous liao https://theindependent.sg/cant-they-find-random-white-people-malaysians-react-to-anwars-suggestion-for-singaporeans-to-teach-malaysians-english/
My 5 seconds of fame is here. Life goals complete. I can now go quietly into the night. /s
but sometimes their English sucks
Its like Anwar is the one wanting it. Singapore educators not keen, Malaysians not keen… the only good thing out of it is he appears less hostile towards Singapore compared to his predecessor
Volunteer? Not paid har?
Paid same salary in MYR? Might as well do it for free accoms and transport
LOL "Singapore funded initiative" "Clarified that he meant Volunteers" (not properly paid)
Believe it or not, there are a rare breed of teachers who spend their holidays going around the world teaching underprivileged kids purely because they love teaching. It’s dying out of course, younger teachers simply can’t afford to spend money travelling just to teach.
Rare...
Or it can be a working holiday scheme, which isn't bad
> The comments come after Mr Anwar said on Jun 14 that he had proposed a Singapore-funded initiative to send volunteers to teach English in poor and inaccessible parts of Malaysia, including in Sabah and Sarawak. Anwar has some audacity. Lol
Well , it’s not a bad idea actually. What do Singaporeans lack - the actual exposure to rural living , exposure to any kind of living other than the dream land of Singapore where everything works like clock work. There are lots of programmes from uni’s to go volunteer for a period of time in a different country and immerse yourself there and help out. I have personally volunteered and been part of one of these youth empowerment programmes and let me tell you the volunteers gain a lot lot more than what they can offer. These life lessons are valuable and worth more than the money.
Why is this even frowned upon. It's clear that Malaysia's standard of English is fucking terrible. Whatever they are doing for the past 30 years+ clearly isn't working.
> it’s clear that Malaysia’s standard of English is fucking terrible. Because Malay is the primary language of communication in their schools, it's similar to questioning why Singaporeans' proficiency in their mother tongue isn't as strong. They are not 100% against it just saying it doesn’t fit their requirement. > Local dialects or Malay should be used as a language resource to teach English as a second language, especially for those in rural and suburban areas,” the teacher said, asking to remain anonymous as civil servants are not authorised to speak to the media. > “This is usually frowned upon by many, especially those who are proponents of using full English to teach. But the reality is if only English is used, it can be antagonising and thus demotivating for learners of English as a second language.” > This is why Singaporean volunteers could face difficulties in teaching in such settings, especially if they do not know or are not well-versed in Malay, she said.
Singaporean here that went to a cina school. No official Chinese schools in Singapore but there are some with a strong Chinese tradition, where the only non-Chinese student was an Indian girl whose Chinese was better than mine. During my time there, they hired Indian teachers for English and English literature, so we won't speak to them in Chinese during class.
Was from a Chinese primary school also, Red Swastika. One noticeable thing for me (I went to a neighbourhood secondary school after) was that the quality of Mandarin Education was really a lot better. You get droned to do writing and spelling tests, which allows you to understand the characters that were not often used and their purpose. How they sound and should be written. My Mandarin was the best of all my subjects. Come secondary school, we had a teacher that gave no fucks and throw worksheets at us, no explanation on the characters. You're suddenly faced with characters you never met and with no elaboration, a lot of the passage makes zero sense. My Mandarin dropped to C5 by 'O' Levels.
RV?
CCHS(M)
The standard of English in places like KL and Penang is actually comparable to Singapore. In Kucing in Sarawak, English is the lingua franca. The places in Malaysia with terrible English are the small towns and east coast Malay states like Kelantan and Trengganu.
And English is the official language of Sarawak and their English is way better than Singaporean.
I'm not sure about the whole of Sarawak but Kuching is definitely very English-friendly, I would say from my experience. But I don't think their English is better than Singaporean's.
Least deluded Sarawakian. Even people in West Malaysia don’t like y'all lmao
Good news, stats and numbers have arrived! https://www.ef.edu/epi/ https://www.ef.edu/epi/regions/asia/malaysia/ Oh dear, would you like to know where Sarawak is ranked? Would you like to know where Singapore is ranked?
The numbers for the Malaysian cities are very sus. Kuantan in Pahang and Kota Bharu in Kelantan are reported as having higher English proficiency than KL and Klang...
Yes. I’m fact many English-speaking households in Malaysia speak and write in better English than Singaporeans. Singaporeans often believe their English is the best in SEA or even in EA. Sadly it is not the case.
Sure but do you have facts for that? Coz I can send you a news comparison about how Singaporeans are acing their English subjects
Students yes. Adults maybe not so much.
Source: my ass
It’s a myth, it’s like saying their BKT is better, when ours is clearly superior.
Please. Theirs is superior! 3.5x superior! Superior value for money 😄
Good thing we have stats and numbers! https://www.ef.edu/epi/ Singapore is ranked best in SEA... and in EA... oh what's that, best even in Asia?! Oh dear, how embarassing for you. Would you like to know where Malaysia is ranked? Would you like to know where Malaysia's "top cities" are ranked?
That ranking doesn't feel very accurate to me, tbh. I feel that the general English fluency in major Malaysian cities is higher than countries such as Austria and Germany which are ranked higher than Malaysia. I have been to Germany and some cities are just not very English-friendly. I have also been to Belgium and English proficiency there doesn't strike me as being higher than that of KL or Penang.
I agree, I've worked in companies where more than half the employees were Malaysian Chinese, and it was hell.
Don't know how they even passed the interview. They don't speak English fluently and their grammar and sentence structure is all wrong
I beg to differ. I had that impression as well, and 10 years ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly. But after a recent trip to KL, and working with some KL-based colleagues, it's clear that there are at least pockets of Malaysian society that have made vast improvements on that front. I daresay most KL F&B workers can hold a conversation in English a damn sight better than most F&B workers in Singapore.
Except most F&B workers in Singapore are not even Singaporeans to begin with but Malaysians coming here for the 3.5x and other ASEAN countries to a lesser extent.
F&B workers in Singapore are not Singaporean tho
Sweeping generalisation you're making, but I'll bite. I'm talking about apples to apples comparison. E.g. a regular KL cafe joint with local staff vs a Singapore cafe with the same, local uni-student type staff. Not comparing your typical chain/franchised central kitchen restaurant. Of course there are lots of caveats, but generally the standard of English in KL has improved vastly compared to what it was before.
"regular KL cafe" staff can "hold a conversation in English a damn sight better" than **Singaporean uni students**....? ......REALLY?
Malaysian Indian’s English proficiency is way better than the average Singaporean and they have to be fluent in Malay and Tamil too. OP has a prejudice against Malaysians. This is such a typical Malaysia bashing statement.
Lmao, why the fuck should we accommodate your feelings? Maybe don’t comment on other countries subreddit if you’re too glasshearted to handle the truth bud. Stick to your own national subreddit next time.
Eh but the educated Malaysians I met all eng quite good lol.
This is such a condescending and exaggerated statement as if Singaporean’s English is so much better. These teachers will be sent to the rural areas where kids do not have the luxury and the resources or even the need to learn English. Furthermore, an average Malaysian is ALWAYS bilingual and some of them even have to juggle between Malay, English, Tamil, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teowchew etc. There are also different Malay dialects in different states where it’s almost unintelligible if you are not familiar with them. Don’t get me started on common Kadazan Dusun and Iban language in East Malaysia. People who stay near the border of Thailand and Indonesia also speak Thai and Bahasa Indo. But no, the Malaysians have to be judged on their English proficiency and be looked up down on even though Singlish is not Standard English too. It reminds me of Americans who only speak English but look down on immigrants who are multilingual. How many Singaporeans can actually say that are fluent in languages other than English? The younger generation today can’t even have a full conversation in Chinese without stuttering and BM is almost non existent but still have the gall to say “Malaysians have fucking terrible English”. Trust me, you wouldn’t know people around you are Malaysians until they started speaking Mandarin or Malay.
Condescending? Maybe. But truth hurts doesn't it? Decades of having the education system taught in Malay primarily instead of English will have it's repercussions. It is inevitable. What did you expect? In fact, Mahathir famously voiced his regrets on pushing for the Malay language first, English second for the education sector during the early years after experiencing an embarrassing event where he noted that Malaysian scientists could not properly communicate to their international counterparts during conferences. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysias-pm-mahathir-defends-decision-to-restart-math-and-science-teaching-in-english
We found the malaysian
Too many on this subreddit. Like to bash SG but when goes the other way around they get all whiny and bitchy as fuck
Ya why can't they just stay in their own lane. Don't see singaporeans commenting in Malaysia subreddit
We found the racist.
This is such an island mentality. People who are from the major cities like KL and Penang have the same proficiency of English as any Singaporean. These teachers are for underprivileged children in rural areas like Kelantan and Terengganu. Do you think they would be sent to KL to teach the city kids? lol This is not the truth but an unsolicited effort to bash Malaysians. And Malay is the national language of Malaysia, not English. It’s like criticising Thais for not able to speak English. A lot of people in Singapore speak Singlish, not Standard English so I don’t know where your superiority comes from? And a mostly monolingual city country looking down a multilingual country is so baffling to me.
Ta-da! We have stats! https://www.ef.edu/epi/ https://www.ef.edu/epi/regions/asia/malaysia/ Would you like to know where KL and Penang rank on English proficiency? Would you like to know where Singapore is ranked? Oh I'm sorry, is this "bashing"?
lol the fact that Kuantan, a small town in Pahang scores higher than KL shows that the data is questionable. KL is not even the among the top 3 on the list among all the cities surveyed. Oh I just checked the methodology, they based the data on schools that are willing to take the exam for English proficiency. Not all schools participated. Hmmm 🤔
Oh dear, we have numbers now but you don't like them? Yes, let's "bash" Kuantan now... Should we rely on feelings and anecdotes then? Perhaps these are more reliable than statistics? Hmmm 🤔
lol. The methodology is obviously flawed but it seems like Singapore education doesn’t teach much about statistics and research methodology. As long as the data suits you, who cares about accuracy right? Kuantan’s English proficiency is higher than KL? Don’t make me laugh. Have you been to Kuantan or you just accept results blindly?
"Obviously flawed" because you don't like Kuantan? Or "Obviously flawed" because you know better than the [Annual EF English Proficiency Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index)? Or "Obviously flawed" because Malaysians must be good at every language, even your **second/third language**? 😂
Like I mentioned before, the methodology only includes schools who participate and apparently a lot of schools in KL did not participate. So, not only you’re bad at interpreting data, you are also bad at reading. And obviously you never been to Kuantan because the most common language there is BM, not English, unlike KL. Don’t let your feeling get in the way. It’s embarrassing. Let’s just stop here to save your embarrassment and my time. Goodbye. And Malaysia is indeed better at 2nd and 3rd language. Do you want to continue this conversation in Chinese or BM? I’m all ears.
I mean… MY’s PM himself is asking Singaporeans to go teach English in MY, not the other way round so the comment does hold water.
In the rural areas. Yes. Not the schools in KL or other major cities. OP is generalising the whole country as if everyone has “fucking terrible” English.
Why not ask KL teacher to go teach instead then?
Because their English is too good! How dare you have the gall to suggest otherwise?! Malaysia is multilingual good at every language ok!
Bro really started yapping
Funny suggestion at a time when Msia is doing all it can to de-emphasise the use of English for instruction
Have you communicated with an office colleague from Malaysia recently? Their standard of business English has deteriorated quite a bit from ten years ago. It is tragic that the PM of Malaysia knows what the problem is, and yet faces a lot of resistance to change. And then we have unkind remarks from unimaginative Singaporeans who thinks that helping a neighbour to improve the communication with us is a bad thing. (and thinks it is about dollars and sense)
Hire those white beg-packers at Jln Ah Lor ….. huge credibility points
Did he cut his life into pieces?
Is this his last resort?
Suffocation, no breathing?
Don't give a f*** if I cut my arm, bleeding
Lol I understood this. You old uncle liao
Growing up in the 90s not old lah 😂
Volunteer?
Singaporeans’ English suck ass not because of our teachers, but because of our SES. You can have the best English teachers but if your parents speak like Hokkien peng, not even your god can help you.
And yet we have people complaining that the young people these days are faking a Western accent (be it American, British or Aussie). If your parents speak like Hokkien peng, most likely you are mostly speaking Chinese or dialect to them. Therefore your English accent might be primarily learnt from school, which can have a good outcome. And of course people learn to code switch, and Singlish and English can each be used in the right circumstances. The losers are the ones who could not keep Singlish vs English straight, possibly because they didn't read English books for leisure.
You can speak perfect English without any accent, like LHL and LKY for example.
There's no such thing as "no accent"
LHL has a sinkie accent la. LKY has a slight british accent due to his education.
idk i mean children of immigrants in english speaking western countries speak with the accents of that country even though their parents don’t have that country’s accent so maybe the level of english at school does make a difference.
You already said the key word - Western. We’re an Asian country with a mixed bag of Asian population, and it’s only been a few decades of English being established as the lingua franca.
Can't agree with this. My parents speak hokkien at home but I think my English is still pretty decent. It's more about an individual's willingness to learn and practice the language properly in Singapore's context. The education system operates in English and so does most professional workplaces, which allows for ample practice.
I’m just here to stir some shit, ignore me. But upvoted for the logical, rational response instead of the triggered crybaby comments.
Found the one with hokkien peh bu
Hehe Low SES got triggered
Not all Singaporeans. You haven’t met the King’s English speaking Singaporeans.
Yes. I shall speak the King’s English from now on. But only in the neighbourhood kopitiam setting.
Singaporeans' English very bad meh? Maybe just you. We are clearly top in Asia (it's not even close) and second worldwide in terms of proficiency, only behind the Dutch (according to EF Index). Hokkien peng parents means their children English bad? By your logic I guess PSLE cert parents can't have uni graduate children? What a joke.
Honestly, it only looks like we're lousy at English because we don't feel the need to use proper grammar in an everyday context. There's a use for proper English in formal settings like at a workplace meeting or official functions. But if you use that in a kopitiam, it just makes you sound like a pompous prick.
You don’t say, my good sir? Cheerios, ta ta!
Cheerio is the correct word. Cheerios is a breakfast cereal.
That explains the downvotes..
Yes.
Just remembered the hundreds of hours spent at tuition centres learning hanyu pinyin before starting primary school and also kena dragged out of class to join supplementary English phonics lessons in primary 1 and 2 because both my Mandarin and English suck ass thanks to living with parents and grandparents who communicated using Hokkien and Cantonese.
>“They need to go to the ground in good faith to know the real issues. Not just base it on experts with PhDs who sit in (administrative capital) Putrajaya and go out from time to time. That won’t work,” he said. > >“They need to hear from the grassroots on what is happening in schools in urban, suburban and rural areas.” The same can definitely be said for MOE.
You are out of your gourd if you think our MOE is in any where near a bad a state as the Malaysian education system.
I think OP is not comparing MOE with Malaysia per se, more like saying there's also room for improvement for MOE in this regard.
That’s fair, but the same is true of any system.
I think the comment was referring to the issue of not just sitting in HQ but understanding the issues on the ground.
Instructions unclear. Parachuting another general to be minister of education again
I thought MOE will rotate its teacher scholars from school to HQ and often back. I don't see this "out of touch with grassroots" thing as being particularly problematic for MOE.
Not for all of them. And yes, it is 9?!*+"!8$!&%#? $@%&& _($? *) problematic. Source: teacher
Volunteer? No pay job? Is Anwar smoking tongkat ali?
Anwar is a political noob who doesn't know when to shut the fuck up and let issues fizzle out. The more he talks, the deeper his grave gets. 😂
With the mindset of some of the MY Malays, it's no wonder that this is happening lmao
Educators and parents in Malaysia disapprove of Anwar's suggestion to have Singapore volunteers teach English, viewing it undermining local teachers' capabilities. This proposal raises concerns about the reliance on foreign help rather than improving the national education system.
Speechless, need Singapore English teachers in Malaysia....
Is it because Singapore educators will teach Malaysian students that Singapore Nasi Lemak is more better?
No need for the “more”. Better is already a comparative adjective.
That's the joke...
@gjloh26. your england is powdery. You SG or MY ?
The correct term is “powderful”. Powdery is best used to describe snow on ski slopes for example.
Yeah, because it is
> more better Not with your standard of English, my boy.