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by REGINALD
RENAGI
How do we bridge to English?
By MESIA NOVAU
AARON Hayes and Dipa Gigmai both exposed the ill-conceived
adoption of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and the idea of
vernacular teaching at the elementary level which has direct
impact on children’s learning after elementary schooling.
Patricia Paraide, on the other hand, has been exalting the virtues
of vernacular teaching but seems to lack a broader understanding
of education issues.
I was trained to teach English in secondary schools. I have been a
classroom teacher and an education administrator.
Recently, I wrote a
District Education Administrators’ Operational Guidelines manual
which is yet to be published.
I have a fairly good idea of both the education structural and
curriculum reform and I support the views of Hayes and Gigmai.
Let us go back to East Africa where English was taught as a second
language. Bright and MacGregor identified grammar as the major
problem among the Africans.
They wrote that when an African learns English, he has
difficulties because his mother tongue and the English language
grammar flow in opposite directions.
They stated that there was a need to identify common grammatical
expressions in both languages and then teach the children from the
common grammatical patterns which will assist the learners of the
English language.
Paraide told us that China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and other
Asian nations were doing very well without learning the English
language. Her integrity as a researcher is now questionable.
First, it has been state policy in China that all children will
speak English. Taiwanese are also teaching their children English.
I was in a classroom in Japan sometime ago and they were teaching
children the English language using audiotapes.
There is a reason for this. Western nations have moved their
manufacturing to Asia because of the lower wages paid to workers.
The other advantage that Asian nations have is that many, if not
most, of their workers are conversant in English, enabling them to
work with Western expatriates.
Second, the economies of the Asian nations have been transformed
from socialistic economies to capitalistic economies.
China is a classic example of this transformation.
When China adopted Western models of capitalistic economic
production and marketing, its economy grew at 9-10% for 10 years.
Its requirement that all young Chinese learn English should
therefore not surprise.
While Paraide and
others follow John Dewey’s socialistic philosophy in education,
they failed to examine various types of education and their
philosophies before designing models for PNG.
The Matane Report is a classic report. Expatriate educationists in
PNG has described the report as “Mataneism” that should be left in
the National Archives to gather dust.
They were of the view that it emphasised on spiritual and social
development goals.
Disciples of Dewey, who is considered by some as our father of
modern education, will object to this because his philosophy of
education is that without experience there is no knowledge.
He also said that education was not about learning the three Rs –
he prefers for children to be allowed to experiment and experience
what they learned.
Christian churches, which are considered as partners in education,
should dig deep into Dewey’s philosophy because at the root of it
all is the total denial and abolishing of the Bible and God.
There is no absolute truth and no such thing as revelation.
This denies the Bible and rejects its authority as the word of God
yet many church schools implement the curriculum that is based on
this philosophy.
Teaching the English language has two approaches – the whole
language method and the phonetic method.
The whole language method is relevant for pictorial languages like
Chinese, Japanese, etc.
English is a phonetic language meaning that the learner must
recognise the sounds and their symbols.
This is not done in PNG schools at all.
It has been established by Dr Samuel Blumenfield, a phonics
expert, that children experienced reading neurosis when taught
English using the whole language method to teach the phonetic
based language like English.
How many more letters articles and expressions of frustrations
will have to be published before those that make policy decisions
will respond positively to the concerns raised by the parents
whose children become what one expert called “instructional
casualties”?
Thousands of Papua New Guinea Children have become instructional
casualties because teachers are not fully equipped, schools lack
many basic facilities, sub-standard materials are used to teach
the children, and procrastination at all levels of education
authorities.
Gross political interference have contributed directly to the
declining education standards.
We need to have clear guidelines from policy-makers with respect
to the theological presuppositions, philosophical foundations and
practical implications of policies of education that we are going
to implement in PNG.
Lack of consistent funding and knee-jerk input of shock funding
once in a while will not create and sustain education standards.
Considering the poor literacy rate and widespread poverty, it will
take at least three 10-year education plans before we can hope to
have a literate population.
However, we can achieve this faster if we can reduce the literacy
rate.
This means designing literacy programmes that will help learners
to attain literacy in the shortest possible time.
So far, we have no such programmes.
As soon as Paraide and company cease making instructional
casualties of our children and sit down to critically analyse
education programmes in the global market and adopt the most
appropriate programmes for implementation that can meet PNG’s
global interests, the sooner we will deliver our children from
being victims as instructional casualties.
English language as a phonetic language challenges learners to
think logically, analytically and systematically which are
intellectual skills that provide for them to think big as they
increase their capacity to think.
We do not think in blanks obviously but in words and sentences.
The more words a person has in his vocabulary the more will he
have the capacity to think big.
The English language has more than 45,000 words, 42 sounds and 75
phonograms.
When children learn the language from this level, they will build
up their vocabulary which will help them to think big and express
their ideas coherently.
It is time Paraide comes out and tells us the number of words in
the 800 languages, the sounds and the phonograms in those
languages.
She has to tell us if they have established the common grammatical
patterns in English and the 800 languages for the learners at
Grade 3-5 where children are expected to bridge into English.
What they are doing now is making instructional causalities of our
children under the pretences that they are the experts.
Parents must demand from these experts for the sake of their
children and investment into the type of education they are paying
for their children.
Note: The writer is director of LEM Phones Education Services.
 
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