me no spik englis

With two events coming up in less than a week, and a pre-planned weekend in Tioman coming up, I barely have time to breathe at the office. But I HAVE to write this because I'm soooooo sick of getting resumes/calls for interships from Mass Comm students who speak worse English than my 7 year old.

Every day, I'm just so appalled at the deteriorating command of English that of our Malay grads. It's amazingly appalling. And I don't know how or why this has become so bad.

I mean, if you say that these grads come from a "kampung" background, I really beg to differ. I come from a not-so-kampung kampung but my primary school friends came from very diverse backgrounds, some even from the lower income group. And we can speak English well because our English teacher, Mrs Tan made us SPEAK English in English classes. So yes, I believe teachers do play an important role in this. Also, our English teacher speaks impeccable English, with proper grammar... unlike English teachers nowadays.

And I hate it when Malays have this stupid notion that when you speak English it makes you less Malay. Bukak la mata sikit... if you work in a multinational company, how are you suppose to climb the corporate ladder when all you can say is "Watper beb? Katner beb?".

And nak kata these grads are SOOOOO excellent in Malay pun tak jugak. When they speak in Malay, they sound like minah / mat rempits. And to make it worse, they won't event ATTEMPT to speak English. I've dealt with so many Chinese suppliers/business partners or whatever, and their English is berterabur as well, but they will just bulldoze and speak as long as the other party can understand what they're saying, they're fine.

I've lost my point in writing this because I've digressed too much. I've just had it with our local Malay grads... the main reason why I'm writing this post is to share with you a snippet of a resume that was sent to me by a UPM Communications student who's majoring in Corporate Communications, in her third year. She's applying for an intership post in my department:

"DIRI SAYA
Saya adalah seorang yang rajin dan bermotivasi dalam mencapai matlamat yang saya inginkan. Saya juga seorang yang mudah dibawa berbincang dan mempunyai kemahiran berinteraksi dengan pelbagai pihak. Ini bersesuaian dengan pengkhususan saya di dalam bidang Komunikasi Korporat. Untuk mencapai kejayaan kita perlu mempunyai pegangan dan ayat ini adalah pendorong saya selama ini “ do or do not, no try-try”."

OUCH.