Learning Languages

I was looking through Daughter's English and Bahasa Malaysia test papers.

In English, this is one of the questions..... What is the number of twenty three plus seventeen? It's English that's for sure but we seem to have lost something here. It feels more like Maths. Missing from the test paper are grammar based questions - singular/plural, tenses, verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives kinda stuff. As for the questions... my gal answered something like this The number forty. It's a 2-mark question and the teacher marked her wrong. Zero mark! Not even one mark for getting the addition correct!

Communicative English we teach, but many students cannot even communicate in them even after 10 years! PPSMI (Teaching of Maths and Science in English) helped a bit in upping the command but it's days are numbered! What little progressed will regress again.

In BM, they get questions like.... Ibu negara kita ialah _______. Makes me wonder whether they are testing knowledge or language. In SPM if you are tested on a topic like Water (Air), you have to write it from a factual point of view it seems. That means you define water, write about its importance, etc. You cannot write about water as an imagery. Eg, write about Water as a goddess who takes various forms. You will flunk. That's what I was told.

Language is a tool to knowledge. I see my 9-year-old girl memorizing Simpulan Bahasa. She has not even grasped the language, yet is already expected to know the more advance aspects of the language. It's the same for Chinese. Instead of drilling on the basics and building vocabulary in a fun way, the kids are forced to memorize. I find Chinese text books more interesting than BM, though. There are stories in them which are actually quite interesting. BM's passages seem to ramble on the mundane. But the standard is high.

I also am a little confused about why we're setting such high standards for certain languages at primary level. There aren't many fun things for the kids. Young kids learn better via their environment. But our texts and teaching don't seem to engage them that way... and after so many years teaching language I am still trying to figure out how to...