INTRODUCTION

English lately becomes a crucial language for students especially from higher

level education to be mastered with so that they can cope up with current job needs and

there is a must for them to find out ways to improve their languages. There are a lot of

ways to learn English and one of the best methods especially for the students at the higher

education level in Malaysia is by reading English newspaper as it can improved

languages and also updates student with current issues happening around.

The purposes of this recommendation report is to make a comparison between the

two papers for English learning at the higher education level and suggesting which one is

the best aid for students. The two most popular English newspapers available in the

market are The Star and New Straits Times. For this recommendation report, we are

choosing students at the higher education level as our scopes of studies. In order to find

out the results, we are using the internet as the main method of investigation to obtain

information such as price and content of both papers from internet.

Criteria:

The criteria needed to make comparison between NST and The Star are:

1) Price

2) Language styles

3) Interesting content

4) Collaboration programs

5) Availability

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DISCUSSION

There are several criteria that will be compered between NST and the Star. These

criteria have been considered as 360 degrees to influence students to learn English

through newspapers. The criteria are price, language style, interesting content,

collaboration programs and availability of both newspapers.

Figure 1

Price

Price is an important criterion that helps students to learn English through

newspapers. The affordable price will influence students to buy newspapers.

Criteria NST The StarPrice RM 1.20 RM 1,20Size Tabloid Tabloid

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The table 1 shows that the prices for both newspapers are the same with tabloid

size because of the government policy. They are reasonable and students are affordable to

buy both newspapers.

Language Style

NST The StarLanguage Style Formal English English with Manglish

Simplicity Moderate Simple

The table above shows the comparison of language style used by NST and the

Star respectively. NST comes out with formal English with correct grammar. Meanwhile

the Star is published in Malaysian-English (Manglish) style in some parts of the

publishing and formal in some issues. They choose to use Manglish because they want to

attract Chinese readers that like to use Manglish in their daily life. About language

complexity of language, NST are come with moderate language to keep grammar

correctly. In contrast, the Star comes out with simple language that helps readers to

understand.

Figure 2

3

Content

Interesting contents will attract readers especially students to read newspapers. In

general, any newspapers content have several common sections. The sections are

headlines, home affairs, sports, world news and entertainment and lifestyle. However,

some contents of newspapers are differ depend on their target readers. Because we are

discussing about students learning, we will focus the contents that would interest students

to read and learn from both newspapers.

The content for both newspapers look like same. However each of them has different

approach to channel their contents. NST always provide language games to enrich

readers especially students with new vocabulary and terminology.

Collaboration Programs

The both newspaper companies have been collaboration with other entities

including public and private sectors to provide education programs to students especially

for English learning. Since many years, NST have been collaboration with Ministry of

Education to organize spelling B contest that is Spell-It-Right. NST also have

collaborated with other private sectors to organize games programs that influence young

people and students to learn English via NST.

Recently, the Star has been collaborated with ASTRO to produce semi-English

sitcom namely Oh My English! The program purpose is to increase English knowledge

and courage students to avoid Manglish. The program is said successful and get good

responds from audience.

4

Availability

Availability to reach students will help English learning purpose through

newspapers will achieved. To make sure that objective, NST have been collaborated with

some institutes such as private and public universities including school to distribute

newspapers to students with special price. Not only that, the development of technology

have push NST to publish their newspapers through digital version. This digital version

can be accessed through smartphones and tablet computers.

For the Star, they are available around the country. Like NST, the newspapers

also available in digital version.

Figure 3

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CONCLUSION

As for the conclusion based on the criteria and discussion, we have concluded that:

1) Based on price of NST and The Star, both have same price which is RM 1.20.

So it is affordable and reasonable price for students to buy it which also helps

in educational purpose.

2) For language, we have set two characteristic which are on the style of the

language and simplicity. And from those characteristics, The Star newspaper

seems to be easy to understand because of its simple language which makes

education purpose more smoothly to adapted and also interesting. We knows

that most Malaysian students likely to use Malay language in their daily life.

So, better approach which easy to understand in English helps students in

learning process. Meanwhile, for the NST newspaper, it is quiet hard to

understand its language because of it is use formal English language. They use

formal language because they want to keep grammar correctly.

3) In interesting content aspect, both newspaper deliver different approach to

channel their content. However, NST seem to be productive because its

provide language games to enrich readers with new vocabulary and

terminology.

4) Comparing on collaboration program, it can be concluded that The Star

Company meet the specification that provide interesting way to promote

English learning. They collaborated with ASTRO to produce semi-English TV

show which called Oh My English! It is much related with young student life

that wants to learn English language. This show is very suite with younger age

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and also older age. The program is said successful and get good responds from

all audience.

5) For the term of availability, NST Company does have the criteria which give

support to the student by collaborated with some institution with special price.

And also in term of digital technology, student can reach their site in internet

by using smartphones, computer and also tablet computer.

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RECOMMENDATION

Based on all the comparison and discussion that have been made, we recommend

that NST newspaper is better for student to learn English than The Star. The main reasons

we choose NST is because NST use a formal English language while The Star use

Malaysian-English (Manglish). Although the Manglish language is easy to understand, it

is better for student to learn formal English with moderate language to keep grammar

correctly. This can help the student to improvise their grammar better. Besides that, NST

have more education programs to offer such as Spell-It-Right contest and other language

games to enrich readers with new vocabulary and terminology. In terms of availability,

NST is better because it has distributed newspapers to students with special price. This

will encourage the student to buy NST because of the cheaper price. In addition, NST can

be easily access by using smartphones, tablet, and also computer. With this simplicity

that NST has create, the students can access through NST anywhere, anyplace, and

anytime.

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REFERENCE

http://www.nstp.com.my/?p=514

http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/grads-falter-due-to-bad-english-1.94713

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/5/25/nation/

11358914&sec=nation

http://www.nstp.com.my/?p=481

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