educational discourses and literacy in brunei darussalam

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Educational Discourses and Literacy inBrunei Darussalam

Peter MartinUniversity of East London, London, UK

Over the last century, the small Malay Islamic Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, onthe northern coast of Borneo, has moved away from an oral tradition, to a printculture and towards mass literacy. Discovery of oil in the early part of the 20thcentury transformed the economic situation in the country, and led to major changesand developments in the country. This paper explores one of the major transforma-tions in Brunei, the development of education and the rise of literacy. Theintroduction to the paper briefly describes the multilingual ecology of Brunei, anecology which is much more complex than official discourses would suggest. Thepaper then provides an historical contextualisation of language and educationdiscourses in Brunei, specifically the discourses around the promotion of dwibahasa(‘two languages’) in the education system, following independence in 1984, as wellas literacy in two languages, Malay and English. The final part of the paper focuseson microethnographic analyses of classroom literacy practices, and these practicesare linked to the broader sociopolitical and educational transformations in Brunei.

doi: 10.2167/beb494.0

Keywords: Brunei, literacy, education, dwibahasa, Malay, English

IntroductionBrunei Darussalam (henceforth Brunei), a Malay Islamic Monarchy on the

northern coast of Borneo, and South-east Asia’s newest independent state, hasa population numbering 348,000 (http://www.bruneipress.com.bn/brunei/brunei.html). Despite the small population size, the country is linguisticallydiverse. There are several varieties of Malay in use, including the officiallanguage Bahasa Melayu, and Brunei Malay, a form of which is the language ofeveryday communication. There are four other indigenous languages: Tutong,Belait, Dusun (and Bisaya) and Murut (or Lun Bawang) used mainly in theoutlying regions of the country. In addition, the non-indigenous languagesinclude Iban, Penan and a number of Chinese languages.

In 1984 Brunei achieved independence from Britain after 96 years as aBritish Protectorate. One important legacy of this period of British presencewas the English language. With independence in 1984 Brunei was declared a‘sovereign, democratic and independent Malay Muslim Monarchy’ (Saunders,1994: 175). Following independence Brunei has maintained its close ties withBritain, although it has also begun to play an emerging regional andinternational role. At the same time, it has retained and even emphasised itstraditional Malay monarchical structure based on the three tenets of ‘Malay’,the Monarchy and Islam.

1367-0050/08/02 206-20 $20.00/0 – 2008 P. MartinThe International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Vol. 11, No. 2, 2008

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This paper examines one of the major transformations in Brunei, thedevelopment of education and the rise of literacy in Malay and English.After first describing the multilingual ecology of the country, the paperprovides a historical contextualisation of education in Brunei, and examinesthe discourses around language and education, with particular focus on thepromotion of dwibahasa (‘two languages’) in the country. The final part of thepaper focuses on microethnographic analyses of classroom literacy practices,and links these practices to the wider sociopolitical and educational transfor-mations in Brunei.

The Multilingual Ecology of Brunei DarussalamIt is only in the last two decades or so that research into the language

situation in Brunei has moved forward sufficiently to allow us to begin todescribe the multilingual ecology of the country. Prior to the 1980s there wasvery little information on the languages of Brunei, exceptions being thewordlists in Ray (1913) and the brief discussion in Cense and Uhlenbeck(1958). Other, mainly ethnographic, sources do make brief mention of thelanguages and language communities of Brunei, but their usefulness forlinguistic or sociolinguistic studies is limited. One example is the well knownstudy of Hose and McDougall (1912) on the Pagan Tribes of Borneo, in whichthere are a number of references to language use in territories controlled byBrunei at the time.

A number of more recent ethnographic studies have made a significantcontribution to our growing knowledge of the language ecology of Brunei (forexample, Horton, 1985, 1987; Maxwell, 1980; McArthur, 1987), and theyprovide indispensable information with regard to the ethnic make-up ofBrunei and the historical and ecological relations between the variousethnolinguistic groups in the country. The first study entirely devoted to thelanguages of Brunei, however, and which set the scene on the contemporarylinguistic situation in Brunei is the article by Nothofer (1991). This study, withits inclusion of wordlists for each of the languages of Brunei and a chartshowing cognate percentages between these languages and Standard Malay,clearly highlights the multilingual nature of Brunei. More recent, socio-linguistic and sociopolitical sources on the languages of Brunei include Martinet al. (1996) and Gunn (1997).

The languages of Brunei Darussalam can be categorised as supraregional,indigenous and non-indigenous. The supraregional languages in Brunei areBahasa Melayu and English. The former, which closely resembles BahasaMalaysia, the national language of Malaysia, has been the official languageof the country since 1959 and, since 1985, one of the media of instruction in thecountry’s bilingual system of education. English, due originally to thehistorical links between Brunei and Britain, and subsequently to its role inthe bilingual system of education, also plays a significant role in the country.

The indigenous languages are those of the seven puak jati or ‘indigenousgroups of the Malay race’ (Government of Brunei 1961: 118�120). With theexception of Brunei Malay and Kedayan, the other five languages are,linguistically speaking, not dialects of Malay. Although all seven languages

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belong to the Austronesian language family, five of them (Tutong, Belait,Dusun, Bisaya and Murut) are not closely related to Malay (cf. Nothofer, 1991,who provides cognate percentages between these languages and standardMalay). Significantly, none of the seven puak jati languages has a writtentradition, a point to which I will return.

There are certain groups in Brunei which are not constitutionally consideredto be indigenous, and the languages of these groups are usually referred to as thenon-indigenous languages of Brunei. These are Chinese, Iban, Penan andMukah. The largest of these communities, the Chinese, with around 50,000speakers, has received little attention (although see Dunseath, 1996). There isalso a paucity of information on the Iban in Brunei, though a considerableamount of work has been published on the Iban in the neighbouring Malaysianstate of Sarawak where Iban is the largest indigenous group (cf. Asmah, 1981;Ariffin & Teoh, 1994). It is surprising that Iban has received so little attention as itplays a significant role in the country, not only in intraethnic communication,but also in interethnic communication in some inland areas of Brunei (Martin &Sercombe, 1994). The two other language groups are very small and there areonly a small number of studies on the Penan, a formerly nomadic group (Martin& Sercombe, 1994; Sercombe, 2003, 2006).

A number of macro-level factors have had an important influence on thelanguage ecology of Brunei. Historically, a considerable number of ethnicgroups have come under Brunei’s sphere of influence. Pringle (1970: 44), forexample, cites an early Chinese source which lists 20 separate ethnolinguisticgroups. However, there is a dearth of historical information on these groups. Itis clear though that there has been a significant merging and fragmentation ofethnic groups, and factors such as increased mobility, intermarriage andconversion to Islam have played a role. This has, in part, led to large numbersof people to be classified as Malays (cf. Brown, 1971; Maxwell, 1980). Majorfactors in the changing demography of Brunei over the last century include thelarge-scale economic changes and rapid development since the discovery of oilin Brunei in the 1920s. Linked to this has been a movement away from theinterior towards the coast, where salaried labour, often in the oil industry, wasavailable. Settlers along the coastal strip in Brunei adopted the culture of thecoastal population and large numbers intermarried and converted to Islam.Space does not allow detailed discussion about the change in the humanecology but it is worth noting the comments of Hughes-Hallett who, in 1938,remarked, with reference to one of the indigenous groups, the Belait, that‘intermarriage with other peoples will before long submerge their identity’(Hughes-Hallett, 1938: 102).

Of the seven indigenous languages of Brunei, two are actually varieties ofMalay, spoken by the majority Muslim population. Kedayan is spoken by atraditionally agricultural group living in the northern part of the country.Brunei Malay is the most widely used variety of Malay and is spoken by thepuak Brunei, historically and politically the most important group in thecountry. Brunei Malay plays a pivotal role in Brunei and the symbolic power ofthe variety is associated with the hegemony of the puak Brunei over the othergroups in the country. Brunei Malay functions as the de facto national dialect ofthe country. I have suggested elsewhere that a colloquial form of Brunei Malay

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is used by a majority of the population in all areas of the country, apart from inisolated inland areas. Use of this variety counterbalances the roles of the twosupraregional and exoglossic languages in the country (English and BahasaMelayu). It is an important marker of Bruneian identity (especially sinceindependence in 1984), of solidarity, prestige and spontaneity (cf. Martin,1996a: 34).

The speakers of the five other languages have a rural base. Tutong speakers,a Muslim group of approximately 12,000 people, live mainly in the Tutongdistrict of the country. Belait speakers, a predominantly Muslim group of lessthan 700 individuals, are scattered in the Belait district, in the west of thecountry. Dusun speakers, approximately 12,000, are located in the Tutongdistrict and in the interior of the Belait district. Significant numbers of thisgroup have become Muslim in the last few decades, although actual numbersare not available. Bisaya speakers (approximately 600) live in a number ofvillages near the Sarawak border with the Brunei-Muara district. Finally, thereare around 1000 Murut speakers, a predominantly Christian group, found inthe Temburong district of the country.

Although estimates for the number of speakers of the five ‘non-Malay’indigenous languages are provided above, actual figures are unavailable. Inthe four censuses prior to 1960 (1911, 1921, 1931 and 1947), population figureswere provided for each separate indigenous group. However, in 1960 aconsiderable number of people from several indigenous groups were classifiedas ‘Malay’. Since 1971, all seven groups have been categorised as ‘Malay’ forcensus purposes (Government of Brunei, 1987: 18). This situation is clearly inline with the Nationality Enactment of 1961 (Government of Brunei, 1961: 41a),which, according to Kershaw (1994a: 180), serves ‘to attract or gently push allgroups towards self-identification as indigenous ‘‘Bruneians’’’ (cf. Kershaw,1998).

I now turn to a brief discussion of literacy in Brunei in order to contextualisethe multilingual ecology in the country in view of the educational transforma-tions which have taken place over the last century.

Literacy in Brunei

This section starts with a tale of early literacy and language ecology in 16thcentury Brunei. Although there are few existing descriptions of relations whichexisted between languages and their speakers, it is nevertheless possiblethrough the writings of travellers and the analysis of early manuscripts tocomment on early literacies and the ecological relationships between languages.Collins (1996), for example, has described and analysed, in a persuasive way,manuscripts from the 16th century which allow us to make tentative claimsabout the relationships between languages and their speakers in Brunei at thattime. Such manuscripts are, according to Collins (1996: 140), a ‘virtuallyuntapped source of information’, and can provide us with a glimpse of theliteracy practices in 16th-century Borneo, and the relative values attached tolanguages in use at the time. As Collins notes, Carroll (1986) has suggested thatat the time of the Spanish invasion of Brunei in 1578 there was some literacy inArabic, Brunei Malay and Tagalog. That these languages existed in the Brunei


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court at that time is clear (Collins, 1996). What is of interest in this study isthe relationship which existed between them. Collins’ (1994, 1996) analysis ofthe treatment given to two letters from the governor of the Spanish colony of thePhilippines and the leader of the invasion of Brunei, Francisco de Sande, tothe Sultan of Brunei is illuminating. The two letters were handed over to thecommander of the Brunei fleet in the estuary of the Brunei river. One letter,written in Tagalog (in the Tagalog syllabary in use at the time), was read by thecommander of the galley and was destroyed. The other letter, written in a formof Brunei Malay (in the Jawi script), was conveyed to the Sultan and read aloudto him. According to Collins, this demonstrates an unequal status relationshipbetween Tagalog and Brunei Malay, and the esteem given to Malay literacy inthe Brunei court. Use of Malay defined what it was to be Malay, and a letterwritten in another language was not fit to be seen by a Malay ruler. The incidentalso provides an early example of the appropriation of Malay by a colonialpower, what Collins (1996: 156) has referred to as the ‘kidnapping [of] Malayand repackaging it as a colonial commodity’.

It is not possible, due to space constraints, to provide a detailed analysis ofliteracy in Brunei over the last few hundred years. Gunn (1997) has providedsome considerable discussion in this area, identifying the origins of a literatetradition in Brunei and the role of Islam in this tradition. With the arrival ofIslam came the adoption of Jawi (an Arabic script adapted to the Malayphonological system). Gunn (1997) then traces the rise of what he calls‘bureaucratic literacy’, linked to the origins of formal education in Brunei, andthe beginnings of a Brunei media (initially in Malaya and later in Brunei), aswell as the formation of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Language andLiterature Bureau). Gunn also considers the rise of literacy linked to post-war education, a topic which is discussed further in the next section.

In contemporary Brunei, as will become clear from the next section, literacyin Malay and English is highly valued. The other indigenous languages ofBrunei, however, have no literate tradition and there has been no institutionalsupport in the country to promote these languages. The Dewan Bahasa danPustaka (Language and Literature Bureau) was established to support Malayliteracy, and it published a variety of literature in this language, includingbooks, anthologies, journals and periodicals. Of the minority indigenouslanguages, although a simple Tutong�Malay dictionary was published in 1991(Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1991), there has been no attempt to publish texts inthe Tutong language. On the contrary, two volumes based on oral texts told inthe Tutong language were translated into Malay and published in thatlanguage (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1986, 1987). A collection of Dusunfolktales in the Dusun language was published in the USA (Kershaw, 1994b)after it was suggested to the editor that it would not be possible to publish thevolume in Brunei. One of the minority languages, Murut (Lun Bawang), hasappeared in print, in the form of a Lun Bawang New Testament, Bala Luk Do’(Bible Society of Singapore and Malaysia, 1982).

In the media, there are both English and Malay newspapers. The dailynewspaper, the Borneo Bulletin, is in English, with its sister publication MediaPermata in Malay. Brunei also has access to the daily Malaysian newspapers,Berita Harian and Utusan Melayu, New Straits Times and The Star, and these are


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popular and are, arguably, the most important sources of reading materials forthe adult population in Brunei.

I now turn to a discussion of probably the most important ‘sponsor’ ofliteracy in Brunei over the last century, ‘education’. The following section oneducation and language, and their associated discourses demonstrates thetensions between, on the one hand, official government monolingual ‘Malay’rhetoric and, on the other, the macro-political discourses linked to globalisa-tion, technology and the importance of English. In relation to the former, arethe processes of assimilation and fragmentation, and the neglect of theminority languages of Brunei. With reference to the latter are the sociopoliticaldynamics of trying to value two languages simultaneously and the introduc-tion of the Bilingual System of Education.

A Historical Contextualisation of Language and Educationin Brunei

Education in Brunei can be described in three main phases during the lastone hundred years. These are the Residency Period (1906�1959), the periodbetween the ending of the British Residency Period and Independence(1959�1984) and the post-Independence period (1985�). It is clearly importantto highlight the early education policies, as these have had a major effect onhow education in Brunei has evolved and the broader sociopolitical educa-tional transformations in Brunei, including the importance attached to literacyin some, but not other languages.

The Residency Period (1906�1959)

Following the Protectorate Agreement of 1888 between Brunei and Britain, aBritish ‘Resident’, M.S.H. McArthur, was appointed in Brunei. This markedthe beginning of a 53-year Residency Period during which time educationalprovision for young Bruneians increased. Before this time instruction for boysin simple Arabic literacy and Koranic recitation was available in the houses ofvillage headmen or in the local mosque. In 1912, the first Malay vernacularschool opened, and by 1929 there were four Malay schools. In 1938, schoolattendance became compulsory for all boys between the ages of 7 and 14 livingwithin a two-mile radius of a school where the language of instruction wastheir own language. It was also noted at the time that it was ‘impracticable’ toprovide education in the other languages of Brunei, and that it was ‘inevitablethat, linguistically at any rate, the other races must be assimilated to Malay’(Annual Report for the State of Brunei for the Year 1938, 1939: 33�34). In thefollowing years, there was subtle shift in the classification of the languages ofthe indigenous groups. By classifying them as Malay ‘dialects’ there was noreal need to plan for them and, as noted above, these languages remainunwritten.

By the middle of the 20th century, there was a growing need for an English-educated workforce. This was not only required by the rapidly developing oilindustry but also by the civil service. The first government English primaryschool was established in 1951, and two years later the first secondary school


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class was opened. Jones (1995: 101) notes that the introduction of English at thePrimary Four level in 1951 determined for future generations at what stage inthe country’s schooling the teaching of English would begin. Jones alsodescribes the introduction of English-medium education as ‘a hazardousventure’ given the shortage of trained staff.

A number of concerns about Brunei’s first venture into English educationwere expressed around that time. The British Resident in Brunei in 1951,J.C.H. Barcroft, enquired what ‘repercussions [English medium schools] wouldhave in respect of the languages and cultures of the two main racial groups inBrunei, i.e. the indigenous races and the Chinese’ (Annual Report for the State ofBrunei for the Year 1951, 1952: 33). In addition, he was of the opinion that the‘great majority’ of parents preferred their children to acquire their ‘first andearly education’ in their mother tongue in vernacular schools, acquiring Englishas a second language (Annual Report for the State of Brunei for the Year 1951, 1952:33�4). Such concerns have continued to be aired by others at different stages inthe evolution of Brunei’s education system (cf. Gunn, 1997).

By the end of the Residency Period, there had been a large increase in thenumber of schools and in the school population, as well as the beginnings ofan educational infrastructure laid down, but there was no real centralised orunifying education policy. Ahmad’s (1992: 7) assertion that the period ofBritish administration fostered separatism and made no progress in theformulation of a national education policy aimed at providing a unifyingemblem for the population of Brunei is therefore well founded.

The post-residency�pre-independence period (1959�1984)

Although the period between the end of the British Residency and theIndependence of Brunei saw tremendous developments in certain aspects ofeducation in the state, it is ironic that despite two important commissionedreports, there was actually little change in education policy during this 25-yearperiod. The period began in 1959 with the official recognition of Malay (BahasaMelayu) as the official language of the country. Article 82 (1) of the Constitutionfurther stipulated that English might be used alongside Malay for a furtherperiod of five years for all official purposes and thereafter until dictated bywritten law (Government of Brunei, 1961).

Steps were taken to establish a National Education Policy following thepublication of two education reports (Aminuddin Baki-Paul Chang Report,1959; Government of Brunei, 1972). However, the major recommendation inthese reports, to make Malay the main medium of instruction, was notimplemented. One reason for this, suggested by Jones (1995), was thedeteriorating political and diplomatic relations between Brunei and Malaysiain 1974. At that time, any attempt to make Malay the medium of instruction inschools would have required a major input in corpus planning from Malaysia.It is also likely that, politically, Brunei was not ready to take the step of achangeover from a dual system of separate Malay and English-mediumeducation to a single system using Malay. As a small country with fewinstitutions of higher learning it was, and still is to some extent, necessary tosend considerable numbers of students overseas for training in various fields.


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Clearly, then, there were also pragmatic reasons for maintaining two separatesystems.

In the quarter century between the ending of the Residency Period and theIndependence of Brunei, there was a continual expansion in the number ofschools in the country, but there was no major change in direction of educationpolicy. The pattern had become established in which the highest achievingstudents were siphoned off for English-medium secondary education. Lessacademically gifted students, on the other hand, continued in Malay-mediumsecondary schools, the first of which had been established in 1966. The dualsystem of separate streams of education strengthened ‘the belief amongstBruneians that English was a language with higher academic and social statusthan Malay’ (Cane, 1993: 8; see also Ozog, 1996).

The bilingual system of education or Dwibahasa (1985)

In January 1985, one year after Brunei’s independence, the Sistem PendidikanDwibahasa or Bilingual System of Education was implemented, replacing theold system of division into either English- or Malay-medium education. Theaims of the new system (referred to throughout this study as Dwibahasa)closely resembled the aims and recommendations of both the 1959 and the1972 reports. The major difference was the emphasis on ‘a single system ofeducation, to be known as the Education System of Negara Brunei Darussa-lam, which will no longer comprise different mediums of instruction’(Government of Brunei, 1985: 1). The concept of a bilingual system ofeducation was ‘a means of ensuring the sovereignty of the Malay Language,while at the same time recognising the importance of the English Language’,with the declared aim that ‘a high degree of proficiency in both languagesshould be achieved’ (Government of Brunei, 1985: 2).

The 1985 policy document makes a clear statement about the relativepositions of Malay and English in the hierarchy of languages in Brunei andthis has been reiterated in subsequent documents. However, the actualallocation of time to the two languages in the classroom, especially in thesecondary classroom, clearly legitimised English as the major language ofinstruction. Dwibahasa was introduced in stages starting in 1985. In the newsystem, the language of instruction in the lower primary school (Primary I�III)was Malay, with the exception of English language taught as a subject.However, from Primary IV onwards, two languages were used as languages ofinstruction: Malay for ‘subjects which are not closely related to the majority ofdiscipline studies at the higher levels of education overseas’ and English for‘subjects which are heavily dependent on the English language’ (English,Geography, Mathematics and Science) (Government of Brunei, 1985: 2). At theend of Primary VI, all pupils took the Primary Education Examination in foursubjects: English Language, Bahasa Melayu, Mathematics and General Paper.Pupils achieving ‘A’ grades in all subjects could expect to be selected for themore prestigious schools.

Much of the discourse in the 1985 document about the Dwibahasa system(Government of Brunei 1985), and subsequent official documents from theMinistry of Education, emphasised the ‘dominance’ of the Malay language.


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Despite the rhetorical correctness, the system clearly legitimised English as thedominant language. One stated reason for recognising the importance ofEnglish was ‘based on an assumption of its importance for academic study,and thus its ability to facilitate the entry of students from Brunei Darussalamto institutions of higher education overseas where the medium of instruction isEnglish’ (Government of Brunei, 1985: 2). There was a further note stating thiswould be subject to review ‘should Brunei Darussalam itself be able, in thefuture, to provide its own facilities for higher education’. Less than a year afterthis report was published, the Universiti Brunei Darussalam was established asBrunei’s first university, but there has been no change in policy and Englishcontinues to dominate.

In the period since the implementation of the Dwibahasa system, there hasbeen considerable debate in Brunei about its efficacy. Proponents of amonolingual system of education with Malay as the language of instruction(cf. Mohammad Jamil, 1992) see the Dwibahasa system as an anomaly: whilethe government continues to emphasise the Melayu Islam Beraja (Malay IslamicMonarchy) concept, the Malay language has to share the stage with English.Indeed, in the post-primary phase of education, Malay is very much pushedout into the wings. Braighlinn (1992: 21) refers to the ‘extraordinary paradox’in the way that the Dwibahasa system has thwarted the ‘development of theMalay language as a medium of literary expression and analytical thought’.He goes on to argue that ‘the majority of non-middle class youth receivevirtually no education at all, because the medium of instruction [English]cannot be understood’. According to Braighlinn (1992: 21), the Dwibahasasystem provided ‘an illusion of equality’ compared to the former situation inwhich there were separate streams of education.

Having considered the educational discourses in Brunei, in the final part ofthis paper I turn to actual educational practice, focusing on the how teachersand students ‘implement’ the policy at the level of the classroom. The aim hereis to show how the choice of a bilingual system of education (Dwibahasa) is‘translated’ into actual classroom practice by the teachers and students.

Literacy Practices in Brunei Primary ClassroomsThe discussion of the major educational transformations in Brunei above

ranges from the beginning of the Residency Period in 1906 to the current time,exactly one century further on. The evolution of the educational languagepolicy in Brunei can be seen as a struggle between the ‘sovereignty’ of Malay,the rights of the speakers of the smaller indigenous languages and the globaldominance of English. It will be apparent from the discussion above that thereis a certain tension inherent in the Dwibahasa system, a system which attemptsto construct two parallel, but clearly demarcated, monolingual orders. TheDwibahasa policy is based on the principle of bilingualism through mono-lingualism (Swain, 1983: 41), that is, the use of separate languages for differentsubjects, as well as the use of monolingual textbooks in the classrooms. Acorollary of this is the institutional pressure on classroom participants toconform to the fiction of two parallel monolingual orders. The discussionbelow provides examples of how classroom participants actually manage this


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through a use of two languages. The particular focus of the section isclassroom literacies. Several extracts, taken from a range of primary levelclassrooms, are discussed.

The first two extracts are taken from history lessons in two primaryclassrooms in 1994. At that stage in Brunei’s Dwibahasa system, the language ofinstruction was English. Two years later, the medium of instruction for historywas changed to Malay. In Extract 1, the teacher and students are focusing on aparticular section of the history textbook. The section is reproduced below:

In the early period of his rule, Brunei was still a dependency ofMajapahit. At that time, Majapahit was a strong kingdom. Manycountries paid tribute to the kingdom. Before Sultan Muhammad Shahembraced Islam, Brunei also paid tribute to Majapahit. (CurriculumDevelopment Department, 1992: 12, original emphasis)

Extract 1: Primary 5 (History)Ss: [Reading from textbook] ‘In the early period of his rule, Brunei was still

a dependency ofT: dependency . . . apa itu?Bwhat’s that?�Ss: [No response]T: Write in your books . . . dependency ialah

jajahanB is dependency� . . . Brunei was still under the jajahan

Bdependency� of . . .Ss: [Reading from textbook] ‘of Majapahit. Many countries paid tribute . . . ’T: Now what is tribute?Ss: [No response]T: Find the word ‘tribute’ . . . put there penghormatanB tribute� . . .

OK . . . ‘BeforeSs: Before Sultan Muhammad Shah embraced IslamT: embrace.. apa maksud?Bwhat’s the meaning?�embrace. it means

memeluk agama IslamBembracing the Islamic religion�(Source: Jainap, 1994, cited in Martin, 1996b: 136�137)(Transcription conventions are provided at the end of the paper.)

In this extract, the teacher is providing glosses for three difficult words in thetext, ‘dependency’, ‘tribute’ and ‘embraced’. The first two of these words inthe text are highlighted, and English ‘meanings’ are provided at the end of thechapter. However, the teacher chooses not to refer students to the meaningsprovided on page 20 of the textbook but instead to unpack the meanings of thewords by providing the Malay equivalents. In addition, the teacher specificallyinstructs the students to write the Malay equivalents in their books.

Another example is provided in Extract 2 below, also a history lesson, butthis time at Primary 4 level. In this extract, as is usual in history lessons, thestudents are reading aloud from the text book and the teacher is annotating asthe reading progresses.


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Extract 2: Primary 4 (History)Ss: [Reading from the textbook] ‘The King of Brunei sent three envoys to

China in 977AD. These Brunei envoys were Moslims. They brought aletter and gifts to the Emperor of China. The gifts were camphor,tortoise-shell, sandalwood and iv’

T: ‘ivory’Ss: ‘ivory. They went to China by sailing ships.’T: Now sakarang ani.. kalau kitani kan macam Bnow.. if we for

example� for example. macam nageri kitani.. tau kamu B like ourcountry.. do you know� diplomat.. ah.. envoy.. atu maksudnya Bthat’sthe meaning of it� .. diplomat. Now the King of Brunei manghantarberapa urang Bsent several men� .. envoy. how many envoy?

Ss: ThreeT: Three. envoy atu macam diplomat bah Ban envoy is like a diplomat�

OK. ia manghantar urang ani Bhe sent these men� ia mambawa letterand gifts Bhe brought� .. ah.. barang Bthings� . . . ah mambagibarang kapada Raja Cina Bhe gave things to the King of China� . RajaCina. macam kitani bah.. kalau pergi ka rumah urang. kita selalumambawa barang kan buah tangan B like us.. if we go to someone’shouse we always bring things or gifts� sama jua macam diurang ani B itwas the same with these people� they brought camphor . . . tortoise-shell. tau Bdo you know� tortoise-shell?

Ss: YesT: Apa? Bwhat� kulit . . . kulit kura kura ah B tortoise-shell� sandal

wood and ivory. ivory ialah gading gajah B is ivory� . buah tanganmacam ani dibawanya ka mana? Bwhere were these gifts brought?�. . . Malaysia?

Ss: Bukan Bno�T: Ke mana? B to where?� ka Thailand Bto Thailand�

S: Ka Cina B to China�T: ‘They went to China by sailing ships.’ Now . . . read(Source: Jainap, 1994, cited in Martin, 1996b: 135�136)

There are several interesting features in Extract 2. The whole extract showshow the teacher, with some help from the students, unpacks the meaning ofthe written (English) word, using Malay. But in this classroom, rather thanformal Bahasa Melayu being used, the variety used is a colloquial form ofBrunei Malay. The variety of Malay used here is different from than in Extract1. The particular features include the use of Brunei Malay pronouns (‘kitani’,‘us’, ‘we’; and ‘diurang’, ‘they’, ‘them’).

What do these two extracts tell us about the way teachers and studentsinteract with monolingual English text in the classroom? Clearly, the Englishability of the majority of the classroom participants is not sufficient to allowthe learning/teaching and comprehension of the text in English. Additionally,the use of two separate and compartmentalised monolingual orders in theclassroom is a myth. Teachers, and learners, seem to understand the pragmaticusefulness of switching to a language which the majority of the participantsunderstand in order to unpack the text and to ensure that some learning takes


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place. However, there is a lingering feeling that, in resorting to or encouragingthe use of the first language, the teachers are doing something wrong. There isa negative value associated with ‘lapses’ into the first language which, asAuerbach (1993: 14) notes, are seen as ‘aberrations, a cause for guilt’. Thisnegative value has its ideological roots in what Phillipson (1992) has referredto as the ‘monolingual fallacy’.

Two more examples are provided below. Extracts 3 and 4 are from twodifferent primary four classrooms in different regions of Brunei. In both casesthe teachers are talking around a piece of text from the Primary 4 sciencetextbook, and attempting to unlock the meanings in the text. The text isreproduced below:

Vitamins and minerals also protect us from certain diseases. Theycontain much fibres. This roughage helps us to pass out the unwantedfood waste from our body. Eating a lot of these foods helps our bowels toopen and prevent constipation. [sic] (Ministry of Education, BruneiDarussalam, n.d., Primary Science for Brunei Darussalam. Darjah 4, pp. 67)

The vocabulary load of this text is very high, especially when it is consideredthat the students interacting with the text have only been in English-mediumeducation for a few months. One study which focuses on the readability ofEnglish-medium curriculum texts in Brunei concludes that they were ‘toodifficult and generally insufficiently interesting for whom they were designed’(Burns & Charleston, 1997: 290). This, then, needs to be taken into account indiscussing how teachers and learners actually negotiate the content ofthe texts.

Extracts 3 and 4 below show how the teachers struggle to get across themeaning of the text to their pupils. The word ‘struggle’ is chosen carefully.Both teachers, in discussing their teaching strategy after the lesson, were of theopinion that their annotation and translation of the key concepts and lexicalitems in the text was the only way of getting the message across to the pupils.

In Extract 3 from a rural school, the teacher is reading the text andannotating and translating into Malay as he goes along. After the lesson, thisteacher said he could not have asked the pupils to read the text on account ofits difficulty. He felt it was better that the reading was managed by himself.After reading a section of the text, ‘helps us to pass out unwanted food’, theteacher begins a long exposition on the meaning of ‘unwanted food’. Thisleads the teacher on to the term ‘constipation’. Despite the long teacherexposition on the subject of ‘constipation’, the pupils were not really given thechance to show whether they understood the meaning of the term. Of course,there could be several reasons for this, including the monologic style of theteacher, the nature of the topic, as well as problems with language.

Extract 3 (Primary 4, Science)T: ‘They contain much fibres’. ah. which ‘helps us to pass out the

unwanted food’. tahu kamu. Bdo you know� tahu Bdo you know�unwanted food ani.B this� kalau dimakan B if eaten� . ada makanyang inda baguna kan. B there are foods which are not really useful�


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ah. kan jadi baria atu bah. Bwill become faeces� menyenangkankamu baria. Bwill help you to defecate�makan. B food� supayakamu senang baria. Bso that it is easy for you todefecate� [T LAUGHS]you have to know that ah. makanan macam ani penting. Bfood such asthis is important� ah. faham tu. Bdo you understand�ada orangbaria keluar darah. Bthere are people who bleed when they defecate�tahu. ah.. Bdo you know� tahi itu makan adalah makanan yang indabaik. B faeces is the food which is not used� ah. yang inda baik atu.Bwhich is not good� dibuang B it is thrown out� . yang baik untukbadan.B the good food is for the body� faham tu.. baik.. Bdo youunderstand..good� di bawah ani Bat the bottom (of the book)� adaByou will find (the word)� constipation . . . constipation. ertinya. B itmeans� bila kamu jarang baria . . . Bwhen you seldom defecate�constipation. lambat baria. B it takes a long time to defecate� tahinyakeras dan susah mahu keluar . . . B the faeces is hard and it is difficult todefecate� baik. Bgood� OK. di bawah lagi ada gambar Bat thebottom there are pictures of� vitamin. vitamin A. B. nampak kamu itu.Bcan you see them� penting kamu tahu. B it is important thatyou should know� apa makanan yang mengandungi Bwhat foodscontain� vitamin A. vitamin B. vitamin C. ah

(Martin, 1996b)

In Extract 4, from an urban school, the teacher initially involves the pupils inreading aloud the text and she helps them when they stumble overproblematic lexical items, such as ‘bowels’ and constipation’. The teacherthen begins a long exposition of the term ‘constipation’, switching between thelanguage of the text, English, and standard Malay and colloquial BruneiMalay. At the end of her exposition, the teacher involves the pupils, invitingthem to complete her response, in chorus.

Extract 4 (Primary 4, Science)Ps: [Reading from the textbook] ‘Eating a lot of these foods helps our bow.’T: bowelsPs: ‘bowels to open and prevent constip.’T: constipation. now when we eat too much . . . eh . . . no . . . when we eat

these foods . . . these vegetables . . . OK kalau kitani makan B if weeat� vegetables . . . are you all listening . . . I don’t think you arelistening . . . I can stop you know . . . when we eat these foods . . .OK . . . when we eat these foods . . . a lot . . . kitani makan tu ah Bweeat these� . . . ah . . . do you know what it means? kalau kitani makanatu banyak banyak sanang kitani kan B if we eat a great amount of theseit is easy for us to� . . . you know . . . the word . . . kan baria bah . . .sanang bah B to defecate . . . easily� because . . . apa yang inda baikatu . . . yang macam Bwhat isn’t good . . . such as� . . . what youeat . . . macam ada yang unwanted atu . . . yang inda baguna . . .barang yang inda baguna di badan kitani lakas keluar Bsuch as


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that which is unwanted . . . which is no use . . . which is no use to our bodiesis quickly expelled� . . . you know why . . . because kitani makan

ani . . . anu ani menolong Bwe eat this and such and such a thing tohelp� that thing . . . ah faeces keluar dengan cepat . . . inda macam

urang kadang kadang jarang baria . . . tau kamu urang yang jarang

pergi ka toilet tu kan B faeces be expelled from the body quickly . . . not likepeople who sometimes never defecate . . . you know what I mean about peoplewho rarely go to the toilet� . . . OK . . . artinya makan atu masih lakat

dalam badan . . . yang inda baik atu masih lagi tahan tahan Bthatmeans that the food is kept in the body . . . that which isn’t good is still keptin� . . . OK . . . faham kamu tu Bdo you understand that� lagi pun

menolong kitani inda sakit B it also helps to prevent us from gettingsick�

Ps: parut Bstomach�T: now . . . constipation . . . maksudnya sakit parut . . . Bmeans stomach-

ache� now we stop(Jainap, 1994)

The linguistic resources used by the two teachers in the two extracts above areremarkably similar. This is not surprising as the topic of the text underdiscussion is the same. What is significant, however, is the fact that bothteachers make use of a similar strategy of annotating key terms and concepts,switching between English (the language of the text), standard Malay andcolloquial Brunei Malay, in order to attempt to get their message across, and toprovide contexts for the pupils to understand the term ‘constipation’.Although the teachers invest a relatively long period of time explaining theconcept of ‘constipation’, it is not clear whether the pupils have actuallyunderstood its meaning. Significantly, the standard Malay term for ‘constipa-tion’ (‘sembelit’) was not provided by either teacher. This is a term that wouldnot be in the pupils’ vocabulary. Indeed, one of the teachers later confided thathe was not aware of the term. This suggests that the main aim of using Malayis to annotate key terms and concepts from the textbook, and not necessarily toprovide the pupils with bilingual knowledge of academic terms.

The four examples above show how communication around text occurs inmore than one language, that is, English and two varieties of Malay. Suchpractices are a widespread feature of primary level classrooms in Brunei.Although there is a considerable literature on talking around texts inclassrooms in monolingual settings (see, for example, Mercer, 1995) and theteacher as mediator in such settings (Luke et al., 1989), there is a paucity ofresearch on classrooms in multilingual contexts. It is not surprising, then, thatbilingual teacher education is rarely informed by such practices. The languagepractices described above clearly show that when it comes to implementinglanguage policy inside the classroom, it is the teachers (on their own and incollaboration with pupils) who are the gatekeepers, not the language plannersand policymakers. It is therefore essential that teachers are equipped with thenecessary skills and knowledge of the sociolinguistic and multilingualcontexts in which they live and work.


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What, then, do the bilingual practices discussed above tell us about the waythat classroom participants connect or disconnect with the policy set in place, apolicy which is based on the principle of bilingualism through monolingual-ism? As the extracts show, the teachers and students are contesting the policyin their use of bilingual strategies, where the policy dictates separatemonolingual orders. In other words, the micro discourses of the classroomare competing against the macro-political discourses which have beendiscussed elsewhere in this study.

Studies in other contexts where there has been competition between acolonial language and indigenous languages show a similar struggle forlinguistic resources in the classroom, and similar tensions between policy andpractice. For example, in the African context, Brock-Utne (2005), Bunyi (2005)and Probyn (2005) have discussed the deviations in the policy of using Englishonly in the classroom. Resonances and differences in the tensions betweenpolicy and practice in Africa (in this case Botswana) and Brunei are also notedin a recent comparative study of how lessons are accomplished in the twocountries (Arthur & Martin, 2006).

In other parts of the world, language in education policy and practice hasrarely been out of the news. For example, in one of Brunei’s close neighbours,Malaysia, there has been a recent change in policy. Since 2003 the medium ofinstruction for mathematics and science changed from Malay to English. Thisswitch has introduced new tensions into language policy and practice inMalaysian schools. A recent editorial in a major Malaysian newspaper, forexample, accuses teachers who switch into Malay in order to accomplishteaching of being ‘guilty of sabotaging the [language] policy . . . and short-changing their students’ (Martin, 2005: 76). Within such a statement, I wouldsuggest, lurks an ideological viewpoint that the classroom can be disconnectedfrom the sociopolitical context in which it exists, and the fact that knowledge isbest taught and learned monolingually (cf. Phillipson, 1992).

And yet, returning to the African context, with specific reference to Namibia,the important point has been made that if educational goals in that country areto be met, the classroom must be language-friendly, and first language literacymust be encouraged. Of course, the concept of ‘first language’ is not always asstraightforward as it might seem. Harlech-Jones is of the opinion that switchingbetween languages in the classroom should ‘take place freely’, and that what isimportant is ‘not compliance with a language agenda’ but ‘maximization oflearning’ (Harlech-Jones, 1995: 202). In Brunei, and in other contexts, whereteachers and learners share a stronger language, such as Malay, it isstraightforwardly obvious that a language other than English is available tothem to bring to bear on a given problem or text. They are also well aware that itis completely artificial to totally exclude their stronger language and some couldconceivably even come to resent the exclusive use of English as a barrier to theirgaining certain kinds of knowledge.

In the Brunei context, some fine-tuning has been carried out to educationalpolicy since the establishment of the bilingual policy. Certainly, the educa-tional authorities have begun to take into account what is happening at theclassroom level but, at the same time, they have reaffirmed the bilingual


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policy. It has been mooted that one solution to the unequal access toknowledge in Brunei schools is that, contrary to the situation in Malaysia,the cognitively demanding subjects such as mathematics and science shouldbe taught in the pupils’ stronger language, Malay, and cognitively lessdemanding subjects be taught in English (Baetens Beardsmore, 1996); but todate, this has not been taken forward.

SummaryBrunei’s investment in literacy in the contemporary period is contingent on

the historical processes over the preceding centuries. On the one hand, literacyin Malay and Jawi is valued in line with the state ideology of Melayu IslamBeraja (Malay Islamic Monarchy). At the same time, as Brunei took its place inthe modern world following its independence from Britain in 1984, it sought toinvest heavily in English through the introduction of a bilingual system ofeducation. This system, as noted earlier, clearly legitimises English as themajor language of instruction. The other indigenous languages of Brunei,conveniently categorised as dialects of Malay, have been neglected, and youngspeakers of these languages have not been able to have their early literacyexperiences through their own languages.

Although the majority of Bruneians learn a form of colloquial Brunei Malayas their first language, educational success is dependent on literacy instandard formal Malay and on English, and there is unequal access to theseresources among the population. As noted earlier, Braighlinn (1992) hasargued that the majority of middle-class students in Brunei do not receive anyeducation as they are unable to understand the language of instruction.However, literacy practices in classrooms in Brunei show that teachers andstudents evolve their own strategies to ensure that some learning does indeedtake place. Brief extracts from several classrooms in the fourth section of thispaper demonstrate some of these practices. Essentially, what teachers andstudents are doing is competing against the macro-political discourses throughtheir own classroom micro-discourses.

Transcription conventions

Conventional punctuation has not been used. Full stops are used to indicatepauses, and question marks to indicate questions.

T: TeacherS: StudentSs: StudentsPlain font EnglishBold font MalayBItalics� BTranslations into English�[] Commentary on what is happening in the classroom‘Ali is . . . ’ Indicates reading from the textbook or other resource


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CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Peter Martin, University of East

London, London, E15 4LZ, UK.

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educational discourses and literacy in brunei darussalam

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