Bandar Seri Begawan - Local children in primary schools who have little or no knowledge of the English Language and are forced to study subjects in the said language have been condemned to fail.
This was the stance taken by Dr Hj Azmi Abdullah, as he presented his working paper in a public lecture yesterday afternoon at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD).
In his paper, he presented the several academic views that have surfaced regarding second language or foreign language in teaching and learning in terms of the education system, curriculum and methodology.
A child`s language is closely associated with his cultural identity, he said, citing other works.
Immersing a Malay child with no knowledge of the English Language except to the little that he is exposed to in school is detrimental to his or her educational progress, especially as most subjects in the primary school curriculum are conducted in English.
When a child attempts to attain both his first language and his second language at the same time, he or she is less likely to achieve full competency in either language, Dr Hj Azmi Abdullah added, citing a few neuropsycholinguitic studies to support this theory.
In Brunei Darussalam, the English Language and English-medium subjects were only introduced in 1984 as part of the Bilingual Educational System.
Source: www.brudirect.com (18 April 2008)
