Hi, I would like to take suggestions from fellow lowyat members.

Long story short, I've never been fond of Malay language and my understanding for it has been below average, which gave me a terrible SPM scores (1 A, 1 B, 2 C+, 3C, 1 D, 2 E) with my only A being exactly, my english. My struggles for Malay studies have been a pain to deal with so I have been hoping to advance to English universities, when I got out of SPM I was so excited to apply for colleges because I get to have english studies, but my passion for IT was too strong (it just occured that my Math got a D) so I was denied by every colleges to study IT. I was eventually given minor number of choices to study IT including APU (Business IT) and Swinburne (Foundation in IT) but my family's financial has been facing issues lately with the universities I mentioned being highly expensive. Without a choice, I eventually surrendered and applied for form 6, because I was excited to know that ICT was bilingual subject in form 6 and are mainly in English. To be fair, I wasn't actually qualified to study ICT in form 6 either because they also have a "MUST HAVE MATH CREDIT" rules applied, but I managed to convince my way to a class with Economics, Geography, ICT, General Knowledge (Pengajian AM) and MUET. Sadly, MUET, also mainly known as English, does not apply to Form 6 CGPA, that makes 3 out of my 4 subjects being in Malay. What pains me more is that my ICT teacher also mainly uses Malay materials and language to teach us because malay students outnumbers us chinese students (only three including me, while the other two are good at Malay). So far I have spent two weeks in Form 6 and it has been really awful to me, I could barely understand my teachers and I kept dozing off because I find it difficult to focus at things I don't have an idea of.

That being said, can anyone give me a valuable suggestions? Should I proceed and yolo anyways with Form 6, or make an alternative route out of my study plans?

Sorry, even though I said 'long story short' it still seemed long. Thank you if you took your time reading this article

This post has been edited by pongpong12: Jul 12 2017, 05:02 PM

1st, may i know how many years you have studied in national school, wonder why you still have issue with the national language.

I entered a chinese primary school where the main language was Chinese, and my secondary school era (consisting of five years) mains Malay. It is in fact ironic how five years of learning the language yet I am still weak at it.

Unfortunately, in Malaysia you can only skip "Bahasa Malaysia" if your family is financially strong. Otherwise all public education will fall back to BM...

If you can afford it, you can even skip all forms of BM and not study a single subject in BM....

IT is a very wide term. do you have any idea what you like actually? may be you can consider getting some professional certs instead.

but as long as you are in local school or college, there is no way to run way from BM

Hi,

Are you from science stream? I think some school conduct science subjects in English for form 6?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sijil_Tinggi_...olahan_Malaysia

Btw, try to read this http://malaysianstudent.com/how-i-improve-...ithin-5-months/

This post has been edited by clickNsnap: Jul 12 2017, 08:11 PM

I have a friend who cannot talk malay until now but he score BM in SPM because he study.

Apparently, it has nothing to do we your ability to talk. It's all about know how to write the correct spelling & grammar.

He passed oral test too btw.

Sadly, I am from Art Streams, I did know that most subjects in Science stream were in english.

And no, I wish this had something to do with study. I scored C+ with my BM during SPM not because I understand the language but I understood the formulas and ways of writing their essays and Q&A using simple malay tatabahasa. It is quite different when it comes to studying something using malay language, because you learn about different subjects which are deep and complex, which involves deeper use of Malay. You do understand how ridiculous they can do by translating english words into complicated stuff in their language? Example includes Netherlands being called Belanda (I struggled remembering this for Sejarah).

This post has been edited by pongpong12: Jul 13 2017, 03:10 PM

I studied in chinese primary and Chinese secondary school too, but it is no excuse to be weak in BM.

I'm sorry to say this, but like it or not, BM is very important in Malaysia. If you want to work in Malaysia, you'll need to master BM.

My suggestion is that since it is still months away from STPM, give all your effort into brushing up your BM.

Trust me, even if English is a dominant language in your future work environment, as long as you're in Malaysia, BM plays a relevant central role.

If you are going to study in Malaysia after you graduate (especially IPTA) , then you need to brush up your Malay language A LOT. Even though some universities claim that they use English as teaching medium, but most likely the lecturers will use Malay to conduct the lessons.

Have you considered institutions such as UTAR or TARC? They are cheaper relative to other private colleges and less of a burden when you apply study loans (e.g. PTPTN).

If all else fails, then we're talking STPM. You're taking Economics, Geography and IT (and PA) yes? Frankly, you can pass these subjects with some effort, given you don't slack off and have the intention to improve your Bahasa Malaysia. There's really no other way around this. Ask questions, work with people, learn how to focus in class, quit whining, be competitive and study hard, real hard.

Ask questions, and get your answers right away so you don't get confused and eventually doze off as your lecturer dive deeper into the subject.

Work with people, look for classmates who're better with the language and study with them, ask help from that one mate in your class who is better at mathematics than everyone else and don't forget to help others. If you want to excel at STPM you need to work in a group because there are so many things to read and with so little time.

Learn how to pay attention in class, what I described earlier is one of the methods you can use, ask questions to keep things interesting.

Quit whining, this isn't directed to you, just for those who happen to be guilty. When I first started f6 I was always complaining about how difficult the subjects were, how little time we were given, how other people have it easier doing their foundation or matriculation (I was salty, can't help it, I'm sorry.). I didn't realize I was wasting time until my first semester result came out shitty.

Be competitive, find a competitor. I can't stress just how important this is, it helps, at least for me.

Study hard, extra hard. This is obvious. If you think you've worked hard enough, then you haven't. Before SPM I was studying only sporadically, during STPM, I spent at least 2 hours studying every single night, and it still wasn't enough because I knew someone who works much harder than I do.


If it doesn't work out, just retrace your steps and start from the beginning, don't force yourself through f6. A friend of mine had difficulties coping with the stress that comes with f6 and ended up failing his STPM after a year and a half, hope he's doing alright. He did pretty good in SPM mind you.

You can also look for other subjects that are much easier to understand or perhaps more appealing to you, that way you'll be more comfortable learning despite the language.

By the way, can you tell us exactly what interests you in this diverse field of information technology? The popular ones that I know of require Mathematics in STPM, you need to do more research on your side, be specific, or you might end up working for nothing.

I knew nothing about BM when I was 10. I foresaw my miserable future if I don't study hard in BM. So I spent nights and days on self-learning until I spoiled my eyes