KUCHING: Sarawak Patriots Association (SPA) said it was good to learn that Sarawak would be teaching Mathematics and Science in English in primary schools next year. “To start with, we can always use Sarawak English rather than use United States of America or United Kingdom’s English provided that the grammar used is correct.
“In Singapore, there is Singlish and in Sarawak, we can have Saralish,” its president Datuk John Lau told New Sarawak Tribune yesterday. “When I was in primary school, I used to speak Foochow English with strong Foochow accent but when I grew up, I learned the right English pronunciation and sentence structure,” he added.
Lau was commenting on Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Datuk Seri Michael Manyin’s statement to primary school teachers, who were not good in English, to use “Sarawak English” first when teaching the subjects.
However, the SPA president felt that in the long term, Sarawakians had to uphold their standard and the Education Department should maintain a pre-determined standard. Lau said it was good to start from somewhere using Sarglish but in the long term, students had to learn the proper English.
“This is necessary so that people on the international arena can understand us when we converse with them. “For example, ‘kiasu’ is a word commonly used in Singapore but internationally, everyone understands what it meant and it is also included in English dictionaries because it is a commonly used word.
