Surly Secretaries, Poor English
Reading the article titled Surly Secretaries, English Lesson in The Jakarta Post (Sunday, June 29), I could not help laughing. I agree with what Suwara Sari wrote. It is true that most secretaries in our country are surly. Aren't they professionals? Some of them are.
But this is the fact we often have to face. Whenever I ask a secretary in Indonesian to put me through to her boss, she always says, "Sorry, my boss is busy and cannot be disturbed now". Sometimes, she says her boss is not in the office. If I ask when I can contact the boss she says "please call back later". When I call back, the answer is often an insulting "I have told him that you phoned, but, I am sorry, he couldn't say when you should contact him".
But when we speak in English on the phone, the surly secretary's response will be quite different. She shows respect to the caller.
As a journalist in Palembang, I sometimes have trouble getting comments from fairly important people because their secretary is uncooperative.
Sometimes I have to speak English and the result is remarkable. The secretary puts me through to her boss without argument, simply because she does not speak English well.
It is a sad fact the most Indonesians, even the well educated, speak poor English.
In 1990 my boss told me, "you know that our English is the poorest among ASEAN nations. Many businessmen or senior officials cannot speak English well. That's why many foreigners work in Indonesia. while many Indonesians are unemployed".
I think the English curriculum and the teaching system at schools have to be improved. We know that sometimes even English teachers at schools have not mastered the language.
We are happy that English is taught in elementary schools. But many students think English is the hardest subject. This fallacy makes them hate English or not want to study it. They then ignore English lessons. Moreover, many parents are not enthusiastic about sending their children to English courses, often for financial reasons.
ROSYIDAH
Palembang, South Sumatra