The Learning Teacher

Wawasan Open University (WOU) will hold one-day workshops on teaching the 2nd Cycle of Literary texts for KBSM for teachers. I will conduct the workshops on 9 January 2010 (Form 1 ) and 16 January 2010 (Form 4).

The workshops will be held from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. at WOU, Level 3, Menara PGRM, 8, Jalan Pudu Ulu, Cheras, KL.

The fees are RM125 per workshop (includes morning refreshments only).

Please contact either Mr. Mohan/Mr. Daniel Leong (03-92817323) for registration.

All cheques/payment must be made in favour Wawasan Open University Sdn Bhd.

Alex, at your request! Click on the link for highlights on the forum

http://www.wou.edu.my/news_gal_4July2009.aspx

All others are welcome to view and comment.

Teaching and learning of English is back  in the news again. The School of Education, Languages and Communications and the Centre for Professional Development and Continuing Education at Wawasan Open University will hold a forum to get feeback on comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister who is  the Minister of Education. Among the things he mentioned was whether to have a mandatory pass for the English Language subject at the SPM level.

Of course there is still the other nagging question of whether Mathematics and Science will be continued to be taught in English.  I have no desire to go into any discussion about the merits about using English as a medium of instruction for these 2 subjects. Nor do I want to fuel the fire to the rumours that are going around about that policy.

However, I like to consider an option. Instead of an either or policy - teach in BM or English, why not give students, parents and teachers a choice. We now have resources in both languages. Millions of ringgit have been spent on training etc. Let’s allow certain schools to teach in English and others in BM. Testing has been bilingual for a few years. In fact most teaching, I think has been bilingual despite the present policy. So teaching in either language is still viable.

This is not reverting to Malay and English medium schools as all other subjects will continue to be taught in BM.

Again there will be teething problems - which schools teach in BM or English. School PTAs can be given the responsibility of determining the choice. If we go buy what is reported in the Press, the most rural schools will pick BM. That will be their choice. Those who continue to study in English and are proficient in English will not lose the competitive edge we want to create for our students who want to be players in the global scene.

On another note, what does it mean to make English Language a compulsory pass in SPM? Are we ready for such a decision? The disparity between rural and urban schools is a major concern. But besides that, we need to ask what competencies should our students have in order to get a pass grade. Let’s not talk about marks. The cynic in me and my experience seem to fear that the passing marks might become so ridiculously low that students will pass but the standard of English might just get worse.

Anyway, I am looking forward to the forum at WOU on Saturday. I might blog on what transpires.

English language education in Malaysia is again in the focus of attention. It is a good thing that there is great concern for Malaysians to be proficient in the English language. Even as the government is considering whether mathematics and science should continue to be taught in English, the Minister of Education was reported in the local media of considering making “English Literature” a single paper at the primary school level. This news would have now sent alarm bells to another group of primary school teachers. There is already much concern about how the mathematics and science teachers are coping with their teaching in English! And now another surprise for primary school teachers.

I strongly advocate the teaching of literature. I am glad that we have a literature component in the language paper at both the primary and secondary school levels. Teachers seem to be getting comfortable with the idea of teaching literary texts in the language classroom. However, we have not seen of any findings from research conducted by the Ministry of Education on the implementation of the literature programmes at both the primary and secondary school levels. There have been some piecemeal researches done by university academics and graduate students which seem to suggest that teachers generally feel less threatened to teach literature now. They seem to have become comfortable teaching the prescribed texts and preparing students based on the present examination format. I dread to think how they will react when the next cycle of texts is announced and should there be any changes in the examination format.

I am sceptical about the call to make literature a single subject in the primary school curriculum, as reported by a local news agency. There are so many complaints about our students being overburdened at school. Do they need yet another subject? I don’t think so. The crux of our concern is the students’ proficiency in the English language. To help our students improve in their language ability, I think we need to look at the English language teacher and English language teaching.

What we could think of is on how to make English language teaching more effective. There is a need to look at English language teaching in both primary and secondary school levels and go to the cause of the problem. Introducing new programmes or subjects may not be the way forward.

I would like to highlight some of my concerns regarding the teaching of English in Malaysia. Although it will be wrong to blame teachers as the cause of the poor standards of English, I believe they have to take the bulk of this blame. First, we need to consider the English language proficiency of the English language teachers themselves. There is no denying that we have many teachers who are competent and proficient in the English language. However, there are many other English language teachers who need to improve their standard of English. There are teachers who have neither the competence nor the confidence to teach English.

Over the years to meet the need for English language teachers, we have had to lower our requirements and standards and accept people into the profession who are not equipped to teach the language. We need to work with these teachers. If we want our English language programmes to succeed, we need teacher who can speak, read and write well in English.

There are many English language teachers who are not trained to be English teachers but due to various circumstances have found themselves teaching English, many reluctantly and others for the lack of other options. These teachers lack pedagogical skills and often have low language proficiency too. They too need to be dealt with.

The effectiveness and the ability of numerous English language teachers who have been produced through “conversion” programmes have to be researched into. How effective are one-year programmes that attempt to produce English language teachers? There are already so many challenges with teachers that we produce in our four-year programmes, one can only imagine what these quick-fix teachers will face. The candidates chosen for these one-year programmes opt to teaching often not for the love of the language or teaching but as a last recourse to find a job. We need more teachers who see the profession as a vocation not a convenience.

Introducing literature in English as a subject in the primary school, I believe will only cause more problems than help to raise the standard of English among our students. Let us improve the existing literature component in the language programme. Let us even give more time to reading appropriate literary materials in the language classroom. But more importantly, let’s have teachers who are truly competent and proficient in the English language.

It was quite an experience listening to my teacher trainees talk about their experience in schools. They are in the tail-end of their 12-week teaching practicum. Having taught them four courses over a period of three semesters, I having seen quite a lot of them, and now listening to them speak, was like seeing some new beings. The last few weeks at school has definitely had a growing up effect on them.

It was good to hear them speak, which was sometimes quite hard to get them to do in my classes. And now they speak with a new confidence that seems to have emerged with their school experience. Their new persona as teachers is an important development in their professional development. And I am really happy to see it.

As they speak, it becomes apparent that they are beginning to discover certain things that cannot be taught in the lecture halls. Foremost of these is surviving the teachers’ staffroom. It can be a minefield for novice teachers and teacher trainees and they need to tread carefully. Hearing them talk about it. I can sense how some have been successful while others intimidated. How quickly they have discovered the cliques and groups - those who they can trust and those who will judge them, often quite unfairly. They wonder why their new colleagues seem more concerned in the way they dress more than the way they teach and the new ideas they bring to their classrooms. Should I dare ask: Why do some things never change?

These teacher trainees seem to be coping better with their students. Maybe students can see that these teachers are genuine in their efforts to teach the language. Hopefully, they are less concerned about their grades and more concerned in the education of their new wards.

It was quite heart warming that some these teacher trainees had actually requested that the duration of the practicum be extended so that they can stay on still the end of the students’ semester. I was more familiar with students who wanted to flee from schools and get over the stress of school life and the teaching practicum.

What I found even more surprising that some of these teacher trainees wanted to be posted in the schools where they were doing their teaching practicum. Surprised because these schools were not urban schools but were some rural schools, with no great facilities. One of them told me they could not get Internet connection for over two weeks!!! So what’s the attraction, I wonder. And on that note, it is still a wonder that the government spends millions of ringgit bringing technology to schools and then there they often remain quite unused if not in a state of repair.

We send our teacher trainnees into schools, with the hope they will contribute to the ELT profession. Some may. And other may leave quite quickly, rightly so, for themselves or the sake of the profession. Soon another lot of teachers will join our ELT community, I wish my students well as they begin their careers as teachers and look forward to their development. Hope they and the schools they go to are prepared for each other.

Should anyone of you from this cohort (and you know who you are!!!) read this blog, drop me a line from time to time.