JULY 2 — “Those who live in a civilization but have forgotten or
do not know what it actually took to build that civilization
will not long be able to maintain it.” ~James M. Kushiner We
read with interest the article entitled “Whither English,
whither the nation” written by Thomas Fann and published on June
21, 2012 in The Malaysian Insider. In essence, the author calls
for the raising of the standards of English in our country,
specifically the way English is taught in our schools, colleges
and universities. This is not a revelation by any stretch of the
imagination, as there is really no reason to lower any kind of
standard, and therefore should be rightly considered as a
tautology. The real issue worthy of contestation is the hidden
assumption by the author that it is only through the raising of
the level of English that our nation can “develop”. There is
nothing wrong in raising the standard of English; in fact, we
should raise the standards of all languages, but to suppose that
English is both the pre-r