English titles popular choice at Book Fair

ENGLISH books are the predominant choice of reading material among customers of the Book Fair Exhibition 2010, several book vendors revealed yesterday at the exhibition which is currently held at the National Indoor Stadium.

Managing Director of TA & Morgen Distributors A Ganeson told The Brunei Times that there has been a crowd of teachers browsing his booth for research materials since the start of the exhibition on February 21.

With majority of the school curriculum taught in the English language, Ganeson said, "The emphasis today is on improving English, so there have been more specialised books on teaching English".

He added: "Reading has become important, especially at the lower primary level, as students tend to not read as much."

Ganeson said that according to the Language and Literature Bureau, this lack of reading habit among students come from parents, who are also not reading.

"There are a lot of subjects now that require understanding of English. Subjects like Maths is no longer the straightforward 'one plus one is two'," he said.

"Solving math problems nowadays require more comprehension because if they don't understand (English), it can be very difficult for them," he added.

Ganeson further said that nowadays, the school curriculum has slotted more time to foster reading among students and "this will improve their reading ability, hence, the ability to handle other subjects at ease".

Kimberly Lunag, a saleslady from Paul & Elizabeth Bookstore, said that there has been an increase in readers who buy cheap English paperback during the exhibition. "Our biggest hotcakes are the two for ten dollars paperbacks," she said.

"People tend to buy more English books because they want to learn more English. I know that in schools the curriculum is mostly in the Malay medium," she added.

Although there was an influx of English readers flocking the bookstore's booth, she also said that popular Malay teen novels were also a favourite amongst the customers.

"We get a lot of students buying the Malay paperback novels, teenagers from 13 to 18 years old coming in to buy the books," she said. However, she said that the older generation were more interested in reading motivational Malay books.

Mohammad Nazeer Saburdeen, Director of Pustaka Remaja Sdn Bhd, said that there were no real preferences in reading materials by customers when selecting books.

"Because of the government initiative to encourage more people to learn both English and Malay, there has been an even rise in the selection of books," he said of the visitors to his booth.

When it comes to English books, he said that kids tend to buy English storybooks whereas adults were more inclined to buy a lot of religious books and reference books for primary level students.

"Majority of my customers are parents and on weekdays, we get more school children coming in," he said.

The Book Fair Exhibition 2010 is held at the National Indoor Stadium and will end on March 2. The Brunei Times