MUET Band 4..

A fellow teacher came to me today with a daughter, currently doing foundation course in Law in UiTM, asking me to brief the young lady on how to answer the writing paper of MUET. The first issue that popped out in my mind was, how UiTM, setting the MUET Band 4 as part of the requirement to do its degree course in Law, could not prepare its foundation students for the test. As an alumni member, (back then it was ITM), I know that this university has an outstanding Language Faculty, which at my time was called the Language Centre. Well, its a good thing that I was free, as the upper six students were taken by the Sejarah and PA teacher for the so-called Jadual Anjal. Spending a few hours for her will do no harm.

Explaining the technical part of answering the stimulus writing, on how to create the overview from the graphics given, the difference between analysis and synthesis, and later on  the aspect of developing ideas on argument over the extended writing topic, took less than 2 hours. The moment she left after thanking me politely, I was left with this question; Now why, out of the hundreds of students that I've taught all these years, none is at the level of this one? Looking at the way she responded I can easily say that this young lady will have little problem getting at least Band 5 in her MUET! So much so for the upholding of the Form 6 management in schools, the quality of the sixth formers, especially the 'kemanusiaan' stream, seems to deteriorating by the year, where English Language is concerned. What can I expect when 20% of them failed  English in SPM, and 50% only managed to pass! With even the few A achievers are still  low for the MUET  level, can I ever dream on getting a Band 5 from at least, one of my present students?

Well,  its not a crime to dream. If you are reading this, Saiful Azlan, Ali, Shukri, Nor Rahima, Erna, Munirah, Sameera, Nazirah, Fatah, Fazilah, Rasyada and everybody else (sorry it would take some time to write everybody's name), take it as a challenge, if not a motivation. It would be very sad to know next year that you are not able to do your dream course in your dream university, only because you do not reach the MUET band required!

Bye for now.