After 3 days of interviewing candidates for various positions in a multinational company, I am quiet disappointed as many Malay candidates were not able to impress my international colleagues.
The reason -- poor command of the English Language.
Yes, you can have all the "technical skills" but at the end of the day, if you can't convince a business partner from India who only speaks English and Hindi, then you are out.
And when you are in Senior position, and you can't sell an idea in English, then you are out.
Do I need to go on...?
And we are still debating -- should we teach in English or BM... Can't you see budak Melayu merana in climbing the corporate ladder because their English = BAD.
We want to be global players.
Thanks Mak and Ayah -- you taught me well. Today I am equally good in BM and English. If only more budak Melayu can join me to move up the ladder.
totally agree but who to blame? Seriously Im admiring your writing, your english is superb. To tell you the truth, I learn english tru your writing. Keep this blog cheerful pls.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely undeniable ... and I have to thank my parents too for emphasizing thorough use of English while growing up. Be it at home or at school. :D
ReplyDeleteche mie, how come you did interview sessions for a mnc? did you get promoted to big companies?
ReplyDeleteHi che mie! Yeah, i concur with u on that.
ReplyDeleteTechnically knowledgable is apparently not enough. The interpersonal skill which include the ability to converse in proper English is vital.
Huhu
Blah blah blah English this English that, moms and pops blah blah... My parents didn't speak English with my siblings and I when we were kids, but we all turned up fine, in terms of our ability to speak English, that is. My dad probably only knows like a few words in English, the basic ones. My mom probably knows none, NADA.
ReplyDeleteJay Chou didn't speak a single word of English and he had to learn the language for only a couple of months to star in The Green Hornet. And he was the one who got the role, not Lee Hom, whose first language IS English (and who obviously speaks fluent and perfect English). Why is that?
And what about the Japanese? English isn't widely spoken or used in Japan, but English speakers keep on coming to live or retire there. Look at the video games produced by the Japanese, they didn't even bother to make an "English version" of their popular video games to be distributed to the rest of the world. The rest of the WORLD would have to make an effort to license their video games to redistribute them in local language.
And what about football players? Many football players in the world play in the same team, in the same field, without knowing the world's language or even share common language for them to communicate with each other. Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't speak good English, but he's one of the greatest football players today. Heck, even Dato' Lee Chong Wei doesn't speak good English. Come to think of it, Lin Dan doesn't even speak a word of English.
My personal opinion is that, English is not a "tool" for you to "climb a corporate ladder" or to "get a good job" or to "land a deal" or whatever you think it should be doing for you. It's just a language for humans to communicate. I still think if you're good in something, then you're good. Not being able to speak English might be a hump. But it's a SMALL hump, nothing more than that.
After all, hey, everyone speaks good English in North America, no? But not everyone is successful. Even in our country, not everyone who speaks perfect English gets the best out of everything. I think it's still naive to think that by being able to speak good English, it could drastically change someone's life of career.
It's good to encourage the youngsters to learn to speak English more frequently and all, but at the end of the day, they'd still need to work hard just the same, to get to where they wanted, fluent in English or not. English is not that convenient tool for you to get there.