Malaysia: ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS: POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION CONCERNS

[Harold Schiffman]

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS: POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION CONCERNS
Posted on April 22, 2008 by myself

DR. MOHD SOFI ALI
International Languages Teacher Training Institute Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur

1.0 Introduction

My main interest is to examine the state of English language teaching
(ELT) in primary schools.I want to understand what is happening in the
primary schools. In particular I want to understand why after six
years of ELT, the pupils still face difficulties in learning the
language. I begin with the ELT scenario in the primary schools, where
I portray the reality of ELT as shown by my three case study schools1.
Next I look into the policy context of ELT, in particular the status
given to English language in Malaysia. I examine the current primary
English language syllabus in the primary schools: its structure, aims
and organisation, the stated, which has been mandated to ESL teachers
to implement in the classroom. I explore the possible issues of
conceptualising to teaching to the test phenomenon in those primary
schools. I set out to find a way reconciling the dilemmas I discovered
in the ELT agenda; but I found that I could not do this without a
total shaping up of the expectation of the Malaysian community towards
ELT.
5.0 Conclusion

As I examined the stated and the expected, and as I looked at the
reality, the practice, as portrayed by my three case study schools, I
discovered that there was a policy-practice mismatch; the policy as
envisaged in the ELT curriculum could not be implemented in the
primary schools. The reason was obvious and a direct one, but a
significant one - I discovered that tests and external examination
were the over-riding concerns – and they led to teaching to the test
phenomenon in the primary schools. This concern; i.e., the over-riding
concern for examination in the primary schools apparently turned out
to be one of the dominating factors shaping the context in which the
English language teaching is been done in primary schools.

english1.pdf from IPBA E-JOURNAL 2003

http://kajianberasaskansekolah.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/english-language-teaching-in-primary-schools-policy-and-implementation-concerns/


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