‘English competency requires highly immersive language-rich environment’
KUCHING: There is a need to initiate a highly immersive English-rich environment in schools in order to ensure that every individual is competent in the use of the language.
State Education Department deputy director Abang Mat Ali Abang Masagus said one of the Education Ministry’s efforts to create such an environment is through the Highly Immersive Programme ( HIP) introduced under the ‘ Upholding Bahasa Malaysia and Strengthening English’ ( MBMMBI) policy that will improve students’ proficiency through increased exposure to English.
“HIP, which is aligned with student aspirations highlighted in the Malaysia Education Blueprint ( MEB) 2013-2025, aims to inculcate positive behaviours towards the learning and usage of the English language.
“By allowing a highly immersive language-rich environment to be developed for the students, they are deliberately and recurrently exposed to the English language through a variety of activities of high-quality linguistic input both within and beyond the classroom,” he said at the closing of the Sarawak Zone HIP Discourse 2018 held here yesterday.
In Sarawak, HIP has been implemented in stages where it commenced in 2016 at 271 primary schools and 51 secondary schools, and eventually expanded to 1,265 primary schools and 192 secondary schools this year.
Abang Mat Ali pointed out that the success of HIP largely depends on the combination of four fundamental factors namely school heads, teachers, students, as well as parents and community.
“Each factor plays a critical and supportive role in the learning process of students and is crucial to the improvement of students’ learning outcomes.”
He said for an education system to be effective and able to deliver quality education, it is of utmost importance that all educators, especially school leaders, take ownership of the implementation as it needs to go through a continuous development evolution process as well as transformation to meet the demands of current and future needs.
“To further enhance the capability and quality of school leaders, the three- day discourse is timely to prepare potential school leaders towards excellence as it provides a platform for them to move forward in addressing their challenges, best practices and compliance which eventually contribute to their continuous professional development.”