Learning Bahasa Malaysia — Yew Lee Kim

SEPTEMBER 02, 2011

SEPT 2 — “Bahasa Malaysia is one of the easiest languages to learn in this world.”

That was how my headmaster and Bahasa Malaysia teacher in primary school used to encourage his students to pick up the language.

To this day, our hearts are still filled with gratitude whenever we mention about the headmaster in gatherings. “Had he not improved our Bahasa Malaysia level, I’m afraid our chances of furthering studies and our lives would have turned out quite differently,” a peer quipped.

As the official language of Malaysia, Bahasa Malaysia has a special position in this country. However, how many students from Chinese schools can actually master the language? Taking our former class as an example, the Bahasa Malaysia teachers assigned to teach us before Standard Three were all Malays with no Mandarin proficiency, which subsequently resulted in our failure to understand their lessons.

From Standard Four to Standard Six, everything changed for the better when a new headmaster was entrusted to teach us Bahasa Malaysia.

The language is neither difficult nor easy to learn. The affix words (imbuhan) alone have multiple usages.

Besides emphasising on learning and applying the acquired knowledge with full vigour, the headmaster also adopted diversified teaching methods and created various formulas that facilitate correct grammar usage.

He stressed that students must be further exposed to the language by listening to it and practising it by writing. Every day, students were also required to take turns to tell stories in front of the class while debates were sometimes held so that students could be trained to become eloquent and brave.

The headmaster himself had a very good command of the language. He had collected all kinds of Bahasa Malaysia proverbs, pantun, poems and riddles so that everyone could appreciate and recite them. He set a regulation prohibiting students from speaking other languages while attending his classes.

By taking advantage of the hostility existing at that time among boys and girls toward each other, he had the students monitoring their peers and reporting on any wrongdoing. At the same time, students were divided into groups according to their command of the language so that they could help and complement each other.

During that period, we also read a number of extracurricular books, such as the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Sherlock Holmes series. Apart from that, the headmaster encouraged us to watch classic Malay films on a weekly basis in order to enhance our listening skill.

For him, the most important teaching tool was the dictionary. He taught us the unique approaches to use dictionary and take notes, making it possible to achieve maximum results with little effort. I have been using his methods in other learning processes ever since and believe that they are going to benefit me for life.

It was especially commendable that he did not overlook the use of other languages while he was teaching Bahasa Malaysia. At times when we got it wrong when taking down our notes in Chinese language, he would still rectify the mistakes.

Under his distinctive tutelage, students were able to improve their Bahasa Malaysia by leaps and bounds and subsequently enabled us to achieve brilliant results and unprecedented success in the language.

Most importantly, the headmaster made us realise that every language has its own beauty. Each proverb, expression for everyday use and poem reflects the wisdom of every ethnic group. Being proficient in an additional language can also further broaden our view.

Therefore, we should never develop a disdain for any language or adopt utilitarian approach when learning it. Only when we learn it with all our heart and passion can we attain a higher goal. That was the message delivered to us by the headmaster.

Lastly, we must persevere if we were to master a language. Due to my working environment where Bahasa Malaysia is rarely used, my command of the language has deteriorated and I feel that I’ve let down my headmaster who had been teaching wholeheartedly! — mysinchew.com