Kids taught to say ‘chu-chum-ber’, ‘hee-bis-coose’ in Kelantan

Senator says unqualified teachers in Kelantan are teaching students the wrong pronunciation for simple words like cucumber and hibiscus.

KUALA LUMPUR: The pronunciation of seemingly simple words are being distorted by teachers unqualified to teach English but who are doing it all the same due to a dire lack of English teachers in the state.

As such students are being taught to pronounce cucumber as “chu-chum-ber” and the national flower hibiscus as “hee-bis-coose.”

Making this shocking revelation at the Dewan Negara was Senator Khairiah Mohamed, who said pronunciation was just one of the many other issues because grammar was taking a beating as well, the News Straits Times reported today.

Claiming this was the case in many schools in Tanah Merah, she added, “They do not have enough English teachers and as such, assign any teacher to teach English.”

She said the situation was regrettable as it was the students who were paying the price by being taught grammatically incorrect English as well as the wrong way to pronounce words.

Responding to Khairiah’s call for the government to remedy the situation, Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan said, “We are aware that such problems exist. We have taken immediate steps to tackle it.”

He said that among the remedial measures was the move to train 13,000 teachers to teach English in schools that were experiencing a shortage of qualified teachers.

“The programme will continue and we will see better quality of English taught in schools,” he said.

He added that re-employing retired teachers was another option that had been considered but that this initiative had not been successful as most wanted only to teach in areas in which they currently resided.

“We are also seeking the help of housewives who are proficient in English to help teach the subject,” the newspaper reported him as saying.

Other initiatives include the introduction of virtual learning programmes and providing additional learning materials to schools in need of it.