Visual Novel...

I am so tickled by this. Literature (with a small L) was made a component of English in secondary school years ago in an effort to improve English among students. So, in Lower Secondary the students do poems, short stories and 'abridged' novels. It's the same for Upper Secondary, only a different set which is a progression of the lower secondary set. So with the little 'L', our 'under-the-coconut-shell' students are exposed to the works of literary greats like Roald Dahl, Shakespeare and a few others. It's supposed to be a journey into different minds and cultures via the minds of literary greats. But for those of us who teach in normal day schools, the kids are getting no where. Either we are such lousy teachers or the students are. But I think it's a combi of both.

So, I was tickled pink when I was told that they'd be introducing visual novel soon. It sounded kinda novel. Did a Google search and came up with this. Visual novel is supposed to be a game of some sort - something like anime, the Japanese thingy. But don't think the Ministry is supplying computers to every student to learn to play this game thingy.

So I think the curriculum people meant Comics (Visual novel)!!! LOL! Comics as novels! So much for literacy. We are continuing in our effort to improve English - by making the syllabus even easier. Maybe kids today need visual stimulation in order to learn. They can't sit and read through long pieces of passages, what more books. But whatever it is, the standard of English is so bad that now we really do need the visual aid... hence the visual novel.

This is also MUET season... MUET is an exam meant to gauge the proficiency level of students aspiring to take up courses in the universities. Candidates are placed into 6 bands, with Band 6 being the Highest Proficiency Level. In the last exam, Kedah had over 7000 candidates but none was placed in Band 6.

• 71 candidates made it to Band 5 and
• 4000+ candidates fell in the Bands 1 and 2.

If you are in Band 1 or 2, it means you are only capable of utterances... in other words, hopeless in English. At national level, from a total of about 76000 candidates

• only 9 candidates were in Band 6.
• 987 were in Band 5.
• 12000 were Band 1.

However, it's one of the few believable exams we have left. Our SPM results are so fantastic that we seem a nation made up of super duper geniuses. Compare that to our first world neighbour down south which only had only one top student with a lowly 10As, we should be super ahead of our neighbour. But we are not.

Whatever it is, one thing for sure.. our English is at a pathetic stage. Some people say this is nothing new... yeah, in a way. But we must remember that our English was not always this bad. We have regressed.... I hope we're bottoming out.

So this visual novel thing... it should be quite a novelty. Maybe it may even get students interested. Literature in comics... I guess maybe that's what we're capable of handling now. So yup!... nothing new except that Malaysians have lost out in the mastery of the current world lingua franca... and so many other things also.