DLP not as I expected it to be

AS a Dual Language Programme (DLP) student for three years, allow me to share some challenges I had faced.

I enrolled in the programme during my first year of secondary school in 2020. My parents encouraged me to sign up for it after hearing how awesome it was from their friends.

Starting out, I was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, especially since the school had vaunted the merits of the programme. I soon discovered the less rosy side that everyone seemed to conceal.

During one of our Science classes, the teacher, to my surprise, started teaching in Bahasa Malaysia. I remember thinking, “Shouldn’t teachers assigned to DLP classes teach in English?”

The same thing happened during our Mathematics lessons, as well.

This made it extremely hard for everyone to follow because our textbooks were in English but the syllabus being taught to us was in Malay. Can you imagine how difficult that made learning for us?

My friends and I had to translate every keyword the teachers were saying from Malay to English.

When we raised the matter with our teachers, they gave reasons like “I can’t teach properly in English” and “I don’t want to confuse anyone”.

While they may have their concerns, the whole point of having a DLP class in the first place is to help students learn Science and Mathematics in English.

Another challenge I did not expect to face was the higher expectations other teachers seemed to hold us to, just because we were in a DLP class. Some made remarks such as: “This is a DLP class, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you all get good grades?”

Many of us had actually joined the programme with the intention of improving our command of English. It’s understandable that teachers want the best for their students but we found it unfair to work on the assumption that just because we were DLP students, we would understand subjects faster than others.

Our teachers would even skip some chapters in our textbooks because they thought we had already understood the subjects enough.

Being in a DLP class also somehow earned us a different “status”. Other students assumed that we would speak English with them and thus, were nervous to interact with us.

It came to a point where none of the students in my DLP class had friends from other classes. I remember us spending recess with only our classmates and not with anyone else. It bothered me because I would have liked to get to know my peers from other classes.

Since I have moved on to upper secondary, I’m no longer in the DLP as my school only offers it to Forms Four and Five students in the Science stream.Being in the DLP taught me that even though one is placed in a “good” class, one must not expect everything to be perfect. I overcame the challenges by avoiding procrastinating on my schoolwork.

No matter how hard a situation seems to be, you always have the option to make the best out of it.

Natalie*, 16, a student in Selangor, is a participant of the BRATs Young Journalist Programme run by The Star’s Newspaper-in-Education (Star-NiE) team. *Name has been changed to protect the student’s identity.