Early exposure key to mastering English

PETALING JAYA: Learning English early at a young age would allow children to have better overall competence and understanding of the language, said the Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (Melta).

Its president, Prof Dr Ganakumaran Subramaniam, said the main reason why children should learn English early is because of the status of the language as a language of knowledge and international communication.
"The faster they attain competence in the language the bigger the edge they will have acquiring globally current knowledge not available in their textbooks.
"The reasons why learning English at a young age is better because children can use their innate language-learning strategies used to acquire their mother tongue/first language to also pick up English," he told theSun.
Ganakumaran said children who acquire language rather than consciously learn it, when older, are more likely to have better overall competence and understanding of the language.
He said children acquire language in the same way regardless of what language they use or the number of languages they use.
"Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults.
"What they need for language learning to take place are the right or encouraging context, support, motivation, opportunity and need. In other words the condition must be right," Ganakumaran said, explaining the importance of acquiring proficiency in English at a young age.
Many experts have supported the call of Sultan of Johor Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, who said Malaysia should emulate Singapore, which uses English as the medium of instruction and have a single-stream education system in Malaysia.
Ganakumaran, who has widely commented on the level of English proficiency among Malaysians, said the Johor Sultan's statement must be read from the perspective of a ruler and leader who is not only concerned by the struggles of the national education system but also the increasing ethnic and race based polemics that threatens to divide the nation.
"His is a view that seems to re-vision that nation building and nationalism needs to be approached from a new radical perspective because the existing approach has not proven successful in spite of being in use for six decades.
"It appears that the Sultan has been able to make the necessary comparisons to ascertain the outcomes of the two systems at multiple levels because of the geographical closeness of Johor to Singapore and the regularity of contact and communication between the people of Johor and Singapore," he said.