PT3 Speaking Test

PT3 Speaking Test was finally over. Only a smattering of students demonstrated an acceptable level of competency in speaking the target language, while the rest muscled through the evaluation with fragmented, incoherent responses. 

The moment you posed a student a question, he or she would give you a pained, quizzical look, followed by fast breathing, inadvertent rubbing of the nose and uncontrolled twitches of facial muscles. The pregnant silence between you and the candidate was most unsettling. To ease the tension, multiples of prompts were given but what finally came out of the candidate's mouth was a faint 'tak tahu Cikgu'. 

The upshot of the test strikes home the fact that the students have not been well-prepared for speaking in the real world. Granted, speaking lessons at school have doubled over the years, but the fundamental problem - poor grasp of grammar, has never been properly addressed. 

Did you know that the current trends of education dictate that grammar should be taught unconsciously through hands-on activities? The idea is good but can it remedy bad grammar in Malaysia? Believing that good grammar can be internalized through trials and errors, many hands-on activities make allowances for the students to express their minds with their limited grammar. However, based on my observations, a plenitude of major grammar issues have always been left undiagnosed along the process . Only a few teeny-weeny errors are given attention. At the end of the day, most of the students still find it mentally challenging to string words into sentences. It cannot be gainsaid that student-centred lessons are important, but in my opinion, weak grammar can only be fixed through consistent drills, which, unfortunately, are being denounced as obsolete by education pundits.

Maybe Madam Sawaran is right, I am an prematurely old dog who does not learn new tricks.