I still remember how my primary teacher(which in return, i tuition under her for 3 good years) groomed my BM from dustbin to a standing ovation of honor to her. First, she forced me read a lot of Malay language materials(includes books, newspaper, and anything which I can find, even magazines). From there, I proceeded to own a malay dictionary, and simpulan bahasa and peribahasa collection of books, which improved my vocab tremendously. For the essay, I started of with fill in the blanks, proceeded with simple essay. From there onwards, she will gave a random question, and told us to use our own creativity to write a essay from there. She will correct the error that we made, and in return, we will do the correction(writing down the essay from start to end) again.Failing to do her homework, you will be punished by caning on the spot, and humiliated in the class but her method of teaching is one good way, and at least we(the batch that tuition under her) gained a lot from her.

My advise to thread starter, write more and give it to someone who have experience to check for error. From there, learn your mistake. And always have the good old buddy, dictionary with you. Malay language is a wonderful language to learn with, especially with bahasa kiasan, simpulan bahasa and peribahasa. A lot of good essay comprise of this thing. It never turns down the reader to not to read it.

and to newcomers to Malay language, I highly encouraged you guys to learn to bersajak, berpuisi, berpantun, berbahas, and etc which is part of Malay language learning skills. Those mentioned above are a rare scene nowadays. to her for guiding me on those stuff, and if any one of you needs some tips or wants guides to start, I would be gladly help.

This post has been edited by stevanistelrooy: Apr 9 2007, 02:19 AM

MF2, it's around 8-10 essay per week
er..tuition twice a week, 1 time 2 essay
while in school, 3 classes weekly, with 1 need to be completed in class, another one to be submited the next day or the next class.

and don't use the modernise alienated malay vocab, those words that you usually speaks with your friend in one way. Instead, try to widen up your writing with words which are deemed pure malay language and not those converted directly from english language will helps you too.