A call for reform
The whole eco-system must be responsible for what students need to achieve.
TEACHER education needs to be reformed.
We blame teachers for all that’s wrong with our students yet they’re a result of the system we’ve put in place.
The Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (Melta), said its president Prof Dr S. Ganakumaran, was studying various teacher education models that may be suitable to update and improve the current system.
“We spend a lot of money on teacher training yet we don’t trust our teachers. We dis-empower them and then we blame them for not being empowered.”
Improving teacher education would be among the proposals to be presented to Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik soon, he said.
The Melta report, he said, would include ideas discussed during a national colloquium and roundtable on transforming English language education in Malaysia held on July 28.
“We’re also suggesting a collaborative system between English and Bahasa Malaysia (BM) language teachers. This will eliminate the sense of competition between the two languages, and whatever animosity people may feel towards the learning of English.”
He said both languages shared many similarities and could be more effectively taught if teachers worked closely.
Melta also aims to address the importance of giving parents and children a choice when it comes to the Dual Language Programme (DLP) in schools.
“We’re also calling for local content and context to be incorporated into the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
“We need to talk about how the CEFR is interpreted and applied, and how it effects society and the education community,” he said, adding that Melta had found tremendous shortcomings in the imported CEFR textbooks being used.
He, however, stressed that textbooks are not a “tool to solve all our education problems”.
Empowerment needs to go back to the teachers. They need to be educated on the curriculum and be allowed to make decisions based on that curriculum, he said.
During the full-day event, a panel session on English language policies and directions, was also held.
Among the panellists were Universiti Malaya’s (UM) Faculty of Education senior lecturer Dr Zuwati Hasim, and Prof Dr Hazita Azman from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s (UKM) School of Language Studies and Linguistics.
Commenting on the CEFR, Prof Hazita said in the last 60 years, the Malaysian education system has undergone six major reforms including the latest move to implement a CEFR aligned curriculum.
As part of the reform, the Education Ministry had announced in October last year that starting 2018, all preschoolers, pupils in Years One and Two and students in Forms One and Two, would start off their curriculum with imported English textbooks.
“What’s different about the current reform is that it’s evidence-based. Previously, we talked about student-centred learning and communicative language teaching in classrooms, but when a study was done, we found that these weren’t happening. So when we change, it’s to improve.”
What’s problematic, she said, is not the curriculum, but its implementation and how teachers interpret curriculum change and syllabus. There’s also very little support for English language teachers in the schools. Politicising English has divided views about the language to a point where you have one student telling another, ‘You ni action la, cakap English’. These are systemic issues that aren’t tangible yet they’re a reality in classrooms.”
Malaysians, she said, are critical of our students’ proficiency, yet language literacy has not been measured - until now.
So, the CEFR, she explained, was an attempt for us to benchmark our proficiency to an international standard.
“Now, let’s talk about the quality of our teachers. In terms of teacher-training, we adopt a cascading system because there are thousands of teachers to reach out to.
“Schools aren’t as supportive as they should be - they don’t allow their teachers to complete the full training course. When it comes to curricular reform, support at every level must continue after teachers leave the workshop or implementation will be impeded.”
The lack of proficiency, she said, was everybody’s fault - from the school right up to the industry. The whole eco-system must be responsible for what we want students to achieve.
She said the lack of maturity even among proficient students, was also worrying.
“This isn’t about eloquence or vocabulary. It’s about content - to what extent are they critical of things, and how do they view the world? That’s not in the curriculum. It’s beyond English. It’s what we expose them to.”
In February, StarEducate highlighted concerns that the imported CEFR textbooks introduced in January lack local context, making it difficult for students to relate.
“Take the word ‘blond’ for example. Everywhere I go, I see Malaysians who are blonds or redheads. So teachers really need to think about how they perceive things. Teachers are the bridge between content and student - don’t blame the textbooks.
“When you call it a foreign textbook, you’re distancing yourself from content and learning, but when you say it’s an international textbook, it opens up a new understanding which is that it’s globally used and well-received,” said Prof Hazita.
Addressing the debate surrounding English and the loss of national identity, Dr Zuwati, who is a Malaysian Academic Movement (Gerak) exco member, said it was a “non-issue”.
Citing the Federal Constitution, National Language Act 1967, and National Education Policy, she said there is no question of English eroding nationalism, national identity and nation building.
“BM is our national language but none of these documents state that English should be discarded. English is our second language and speaking it well doesn’t make you less patriotic. English has been given a place in our curriculum and learning it doesn’t effect the way a person learns the national language.”
The debate and mindset that English erodes nationalism and BM, she said, stems from the community, not policies.
“Our policies are clear. English should be accepted and used. Gerak recently met with Dr Maszlee and he welcomes multilingualism. He encourages the use of English without compromising on the mastery of the national language.”