Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[safwan_teslian]

Hello everyone. I am a student from Malaysia and I'd like to share my point of view about the real position of English language in my country. Even though everybody knows that English in Malaysia is officially accepted as the second language after bahasa melayu, I believe that English is still a foreign language in some parts of the state. I live in that particular area, whereas English is totally unheard, strange and even worse it is unacceptable.

A reality that nobody realizes, English is deemed as a harmful language, all because of the language was a colonialist language. The local people especially the old generation still hold grudges of the old suffering of the colonialism era and therefore, they hate English language very much. Because of that, they are not allowing their children ti learn the language. Beside that, some people also believe that the language is a new weapon for the western to colonize our mind and culture. So in order to preserve the eastern heritages and culture, the English language needs to be thrown away from the society.

More over, English is also stigmatized as a kafir language or non-muslim language, so instead of learning the kafir language, it�s much better to learn Arabic language since it is the language of The Quran. All those happening in my place, and it is still happening until now. Even though everything that I just illustrated above doesn�t reflect the whole of Malaysia, but it I think we can not take this for granted. I�m wondering, why there are some people who cannot think on their feet, too much prejudice on the wrong thing, and it is such a waste, not just to themselves but also to the society as well.

I used to know nothing about English,I live in a confine environment of the language, but now I happen to be a linguist person, and English is my business. Why? Because I know that I need to be an open minded person, to step forward, to broaden my horizon, and I believe that English is the key of all branches of intellectuality. Thus, we need to keep on moving, not for the sake of the nation progressiveness, but also for the sake of international competitiveness.
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strike the excellence

[Snake777]

Uh , i 'm sorrie to hear that
wOW ! And how come English unacceptable and unheard at ur place ? Sooo you need to help them then since ur English is pretty good =]

[pugachevV]

It's a long time since the Brits had any influence in Malaya.
It's time to move on.
Ask yourself how many people in the world speak English, and how many speak Arabic. It makes much more sense to learn the language spoken by the most people.