Ready and willing to help as coaches

THE Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) in our country is planning to initiate a nationwide English language coaching programme to boost students’ command of English, “Wanted – English coaches to bring out the best in our students” (Sunday Star, Feb 25). This move is laudable as it intends to assemble a dynamic team of coaches to improve the proficiency of our 300,000 primary and secondary school students.

There is a large pool of serving and retired English language teachers and officers who have an excellent command of English and are able to offer their assistance in this grand project.

It should be pointed out that other things being equal, our retired teachers who have undergone their own education from primary to tertiary levels in English are the most suitable personnel, if not the best coaches, to help upgrade our students’ competency in the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

If TESL or TEFL is our main aim, our teachers are much better than native speakers recruited from overseas. Our local coaches know the students’ background better and understand their mother tongue interference in the learning of English in a more enlightened perspective.

Do make full use of these people. I am sure many are more than willing to do their best to render their service to this programme. A. Y. YONG Ipoh