Poor English: Weak Teachers, Weak Students

He may Make a Good English Teacher

This is a summary of an article that appeared in the Malaysian Insider on 7 April 2014.

Study after study have confirmed this deteriorating standard of English in our schools. In fact, you do not need to conduct any more studies as it will just benefit  consulting groups like Cambridge.

What is needed is an intensification of efforts in the teaching and learning of English. 

Teaching English grammar as well as vocabulary expansion is a must.

Also, making scoring at least a credit in English mandatory at the SPM level  is one concrete way  towards this direction.

The local politicians, particularly the Cabinet, must have a will of steel to steer the national education system so that English will find back its pristine position as in the past. 

Additionally, all English teachers  must go through continuous refresher courses and only those who passed out well can be allowed to teach English.

As an added motivation, such teachers should be paid exemplary cash incentives. 

Let us look at this article on the findings of this most recent study done by the government on the status of English in our schools.

" Monday, 7 April 2014

In a reply to Parliament, Deputy Education Minister, P Kamalanathan stated that a study commissioned by the government has shown that the English proficiency of the majority of both students and teachers had a weak command of the language,

This study, conducted by the Cambridge English Language Assessment on the teaching and learning of English in Malaysian schools has found out  that a majority of the students did not improve their basic level of English especially  skills. As for the teachers, their weakness in speaking skills had prevented them in the improvement of teaching pedagogy.

Carried out last year, this baseline project conducted by the Cambridge Group took place in  476 schools, involving 31,000 students and 1,000 teachers. In this study, teachers and students were tested through questionnaires and face-to-face interviews so as to gauge their English proficiency.

It was reported earlier in The Star that only 37% of English teachers in primary schools had high English proficiency.

The  deputy minister also discovered that the co—curriculum and assessments of schools did not conform to international standards focusing on only reading and writing than on communication and listening.

As such, as a follow-up, a special committee will be set up to evaluate the findings and to obtain  feedback from various quarters, including related non-governmental organisations on how to improve the standard of English in the country."