Boosting English with newspapers?

How to increase fluency and enrich your English vocabularies?

Simple: consume English-centric media!

"Consume" of course does not mean that you'd have to eat the books, cassettes, CDs newspapers etc. (although I remember while completing my secondary school education at MRSM Balik Pulau that I was almost made to believe that you can liquify books and drink them to increase your memory... - DO NOT TRY THIS!)

Like Lady Gaga sings it, Just Dance, oops, I meant, Just Read:

Read books and periodicals!

And daily newspaper is one of the best ways to ensure you get your sufficient feeds of latest information from your community and the world, due to their availability frequency - local English-language prints like The Star and The New Straits Times (NST) are available every morning for only RM1.50 per copy as well as available for free readings at local libraries and many shops and offices while The Sun is available every weekday, freely from outlets like 7-eleven, Starbucks and McDonald's as well as several government offices.

Or so they say.... And they also kept saying how important English is for your business or your career!

But how many of us really read these newspapers -- despite their easy availability and low prices? How many of your friends actually bought or read newspapers, especially English-language ones around, at eateries, at bus stops, at office waiting areas etc.? One in ten, or less??

Having spent considerable years at a couple local public universities gave me an impression that Malaysians or those in Malaysia (foreign students in Malaysia) hardly read anything, not even daily newspapers!

While distribution of many print newspapers in developed countries exceeded millions per publication, not a single Malaysian newspapers reach the million number in distribution. In fact, all English-language newspapers in Malaysia are still well under the half-a-million mark, with the three most popular ones hovering at just slightly over 300,000 each. At the average rate of two readers per English-language newspapers, The Star, The Sun and NST combined only reach less than a tenth of Malaysian readers, or less than the number of all students in Malaysia combined!

So, how do we increase interest to read English-language newspapers among the rest of the population?

Existing efforts (usual stunts):-

1. Utilize the libraries, all thousands of them across the country
2. Free copies to students/schools, to public at popular spots etc.
3. Preaches by politicians and educators who happen to talk mostly just among themselves and their close ranks, considering that most others especially students reacted by way of "masuk telinga kiri, keluar telinga kanan" (enter through one's left ear, leave through one's right ear)
   

Possible additional efforts*:-

1. More places for free papers like The Sun
2. More publications of English-language newspapers, daily, weekly or bi-weekly
3. More local/community publications - towns, cities, states
4. Every major universities with more than 10,000 students should publish own newspapers
5. Start student newspapers project including in primary and secondary schools to enable students immerse themselves with journalism and publication industry - WHY JUST CONSUME WHEN YOU CAN ALSO PRODUCE!!
   

Note*: Consider that Malaysia today has among world's lowest number of newspapers per population, which turns out to be even lower than China despite the latter being much more frequently criticized for less of press freedom! For instance, nations with similar size of population with Malaysia, Canada and Australia have ten times more newspapers than Malaysia. While residents in developed nations like US, UK, Canada, Japan and Australia and even Asian neighbors like China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philipines enjoy a high number of student newspapers, there seem to be no student newspapers in existence in Malaysia. Looking nearby at the West to towns like Banda Aceh, Medan and Padang in the Sumatera Island of Indonesia with respective land size smaller than Penang with their respective local newspapers must make hundreds of thousands of us in Penang envious on how deprived we are of local voices and creativity outlets. Perhaps, that's the very reason why sales of (national) newspapers in Penang get to be rather low!

Related article Boosting English with NST from The News Straits Times which is also on twitter as @nstonline:

BALIK PULAU: Teachers and students of Maktab Rendah Sains Mara (MRSM) Jalan Pondok Upeh, here now have another English-language teaching aid -- the New Straits Times.

The MRSM has been a daily subscriber to the NST since March, thanks to chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Malaysia, which spent RM2,000 to sponsor 2,500 copies of the daily for a year.

AMD managing director Datuk Dr Mohd Sofi Osman, who presented copies of the NST to MRSM vice-principal Halimahtun Saadiah at the school on Tuesday, told some 40 fifth formers present at the ceremony that English was important as it was a universal language.

"It is important to master the language. When you go abroad, English is what you use to communicate with others."

Sofi told them not to be embarrassed when speaking English and not to tease their friends for speaking English.

Giving them a glimpse of the real working world, he encouraged them to be ambitious in order to succeed.

Halimahtun said the sponsorship was timely as the newspapers were helping the students, especially the fifth formers, improve their command of the language.

"We look forward to more partnerships with AMD and the NST in education-related programmes in the future."

It is the company's sixth year of involvement in NST's Newspaper-in-Education programme.