What’s the Remedy?

Abstract

In this article I am going to describe, and give extracts from, the exercise book of a student learning English in the Fourth Form of a Malay-medium school on the East Coast. The period covered in this exercise book is from January 20 to August 19 of one year and every example quoted is taken word for word as the student wrote it. Every exercise given by the teacher (or teachers) during this period has been commented on, although we realize that the students were almost certainly using one if not two other exercise books at the same time for other kinds of work. My intention is to show that the teacher’s choice of items to be learnt did not help the student to learn English at all.