Suggestions presented at the colloquium:

Pre-school ● Should start at age four.

● More training and mentoring for teachers, especially in special education.

Primary school ●

Include elective subjects in English lessons to increase English hours.

● Create a Malaysian framework for English proficiency benchmarking.

● Textbooks to include current issues.

● Better teacher training mechanisms.

● Professional teacher-development must be continuous and consistent.

● No assessment for Years One and Two.

Secondary school ●

More interaction on the CEFR at grassroots level.

● Review implementation of policies based on proper feedback.

● Expand DLP and enhance the Highly Immersive Programme (HIP).

● Train teachers to be problem-solvers.

● Empower teachers, schools and communities.

● Get help from NGOs to train students. ●

Motivate teachers.

Teacher education ●

Sabbaticals for teacher trainers.

● Ensure visibility and transparency of research.

● Teachers to determine own professional development.

● Develop online pooling of sources, materials and methodology.

Pre-university ●

Address manpower, administration, training and cost issues.

● Proper infrastructure for rural schools.

● Educate parents about their children, especially those with special needs.

● Set systems for subjects instead of streaming.

● More time for language acquisition.

● Refresher pedagogy courses. ●

Teacher-training selection to be based on merit.

● Need for process-orientated assessments.

● Assessments to be performance-based with emphasis on listening and speaking skills.

University ●

Learning of English across subjects.

● Content and language integrated learning approach.

● Internship should match industry needs.

● More selective when employing English lecturers.

● Parents given a choice of English medium schools.

Technical and vocational education (TVET)

●

Reform polytechnic curricular plans.

● Revamp syllabus to merge communicative English and English for Specific Purposes (ESP).

● Gather stakeholders, including experts, industry, academics, schools, teachers, parents and policy makers, to revamp syllabus.

● Teachers to focus on facilitating learning.