Teach Malay First (Part 2): A Multilingual Malaysian Family Story – Lessons from Real Life

 

This follows Part 1: The "Teach Malay First" Debate – where we covered Dr. Azizah Zain's push for Bahasa Melayu (BM) as the main language for young kids, the strong pushback from people like Sarawak's Datuk Dr. Annuar Rapaee, and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's order to include BM and History in every school, even private ones. If you missed it, check it out here (link-to-part-1).

Now, let's shift from big ideas to everyday stories. Policy is one side; family life is the other. And it often tells a different tale.

Can dyslexia be cured?

                                                               

Note: I have a Teaching Certificate in Dyslexia obtained in July 2005. So, don’t listen to anyone saying otherwise. Why do people lie about things they don’t know is beyond me. There is a Tamil proverb for this exact thing. Keep one’s large mouth shut to avoid getting in trouble. A not so polite version is, 'Don’t open your big mouth and get your backside hurt.'

From all that I have read since I started researching dyslexia, I understand that there is no cure for dyslexia. There is no cure for exactly what I am not sure. They say dyslexia is a lifelong issue.

It is said that the brain has trouble processing what it reads, especially breaking words into sounds or relating letters to sounds when reading. This is the only aspect that I am concerned with.

Is reading instinctive or natural? A revisit.

 

Dyslexia advocates somehow find out that there is a strong objection to their theory and start propagating through whatever means they can. Here is one such YouTube video that surfaced a few days ago. LINK

Interviewer: Ashlie Thomey, A Dyslexia Specialist

Interviewee: Pamela Taylor, Creator of Lexia Heroes.

I listened to the YouTube video by Pamela Taylor who spoke like she is an expert in brain study.

LinkedIn discussion - naïve or irresponsible (Part 2)

 

These are public comments on LinkedIn.

Phillip Chipping’s LinkedIn profile says he is an Educator, Inventor, Writer, Lover of People (philanthropist)

 

Phillip Chipping:

 

Although I don't discount the 80 kids you succeeded with (no small feat! I'm sure their parents are so grateful for your help!), have you taught your methods to others? Have they also implemented them with successful outcomes? Although technically statistically relevant, 80 kids is still a fairly small number, especially if we can't see anything regarding the research methods and the tutoring methods that were used. You are asking us to simply trust you. So, I'm curious what you are doing to build a body of evidence for your methods.

Why do kids shut down from learning to read?

 

Recently I posted a video broadcasted in over 100 countries that teaches the wrong sounds of the letters. Many toddlers listening to this video will shut down/disengage from decoding and blending. Those promoting this video claim it to be an entertainment video.

You can find the video here. LINK

I made a comment

According to some, this is an entertainment programme, not an educational one so it does not matter. These clowns have made many believe that kids can differentiate between what is entertainment and what is academic.

Is this how to teach the sounds of the letters? The British are the main culprits in creating 'dyslexic' kids.

Suri Charles commented as follows:

Pinyin misunderstood - Part 1

 

What are some reasons why some people believe that pinyin in Mandarin is not useful?

The above was a question on Quora.

Jojo Dennis Lee answered as below:

Pinyin is hard to read and write specially for English and Spanish speaking people. This is because the letters that are used are pronounced differently. For example, 北京 which was originally named in English as Peking and later changed to Beijing to adopt to Pinyin. But the pronunciation is actually “Pei Ching” or “Pay Tsing”. Another example is 道 (Dào in Pinyin) which means road but is actually pronounced as Tao. There are no B, D, G, J, V, X, Z sounds in Mandarin.

Pinyin was designed for people in China who don’t speak English. But for people who already know English, it is confusing and will mispronounce it.

A discussion on Quora

6 years ago, someone on Quora had asked: Which is better when learning Chinese: characters without Pinyin or Pinyin without characters?

Yong Wen San replied as follows.

If you are serious about learning the Chinese language, then you should aim to shed pinyin from your system as soon as possible.

For the beginner learner, especially one who is not immersed in a Chinese-speaking environment, pinyin does serve as a useful tool for learning the pronunciation of characters and words in Modern Standard Chinese. But that is all it should be seen as - a tool to aid learning pronunciation. I take issue with anyone who makes the sweeping statement that you can “learn Chinese using pinyin”. That will only help you with the spoken modern Chinese language, and even then, it will only take you as far as some basic phrases - ordering food at an eatery, buying something from a grocery store, asking for directions, etc. If your ambitions in “learning Chinese” only go that far, then fine, you can stop reading here.

Reading is unnatural - Jennifer Knopf

                                           

Here is a post on LinkedIn by Jennifer Knopf from Orlando that included the above image.

Jennifer is the President and Founding Director @ REED Charitable Foundation

Her post was reposted by 13 LinkedIn members. I commented on one of the reposts and had a discussion/debate with someone. A day later all our (hers, another member and mine) comments has disappeared. Why members do this is beyond me.

My 2019 project in Australia

In 2019, I dispatched a few copies of my book to a teacher in Australia and she got a few of her friends to teach kids to read. Unfortunately, Covid 19 prevented my project from being continued.

The following is a video of a dyslexic kid who was taught to read. This video shows him reading the Dolch words from the first 4 chapters of my book.

 

Reading to your children

 

There have been debates on Twitter about reading to children. There are those who say that reading to children helps them to learn to read whilst another group says it does not.

Let us examine this. 

Tamil does not require the same phonological awareness as English (Part 2) - Dr. Kathryn Garforth

Many teachers like Dr.Kathryn Garforth make statements which many believe simply because these people have an initial in front of their names.

Little does the public realise that half the time these so-called PhD's do not know what they are talking about. 

Tamil does not require the same phonological awareness as English (DR. Kathryn Garforth)

 

It a Twitter discussion on 15.10.2020 Dr. Kathryn Garforth had said:

I don't have the time to become an expert in Tamil, but it is my understanding that it typically represents words at the syllable level and not the phoneme level which means that, like Chinese, it does not require the same level of phonological awareness.

I do not want to travel down this road as it diverges from my main theme of my blog posts but since it has been twitted I think I should say a few things and hope Dr. Garforth will give us her views once her busy period is over.

Disengaged students - A comment from a friend

My friend and former boss Mr. Kandiah Namas had commented in my post yesterday. I have copied it below for your reading pleasure.

We have to ask ourselves as to why there are no disengaged students in the Tamil language. The simple answer is that, like my friend has put it, no two persons in the world will pronounce a word differently from another if he has been taught the Tamil alphabets properly.