WHY AREN’T STUDENTS PROFICIENT IN ESL:
THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE
Fauziah
Hassan and Nita Fauzee Selamat
Universiti
Putra Malaysia
ABSTRACT
This study investigated teacher perceptions of the reasons for KBSM students’ low proficiency in
English. The study focuses on teachers’
perceptions of their classroom
practices, their students, the KBSM syllabus, and the PMR examination. The subjects employed were 58 KBSM teachers from the central region of
Malaysia. Data were collected through
the use of questionnaires and interviews.
The findings revealed that teachers, the KBSM syllabus and the national examinations focus mainly on two
language skills – writing and reading.
Another major focus was on grammar. Teachers were also found to be
teaching mainly for the national examinations. Not much emphasis was given to
listening and speaking in both classroom teaching and national examinations.
Introduction
The issue of English
language in schools has been one of the hottest topics in the country lately.
Gaudart (1987) states that Malaysian society is constantly regaled with
opinions about the falling standards of English but falling where and in what
way, is seldom mentioned. Nevertheless,
the declining standard of English among school children and the younger
citizens in general, has undoubtedly worried many quarters, so much so that the
Ministry of Education has taken a drastic measure in requiring Year 1, Form 1 and Lower Six students to
learn Mathematics and Science in English from 2003 onwards. This latest move is deemed necessary so that
time is not wasted in arresting the declining standard of the language among
schoolchildren.
When
addressing the deteriorating standards of English, it is important for us to
study the contributing variables to this issue. Perhaps, one of the reasons is
our teaching. The central focus of the
Secondary School English Language Programme in KBSM is the development of the four language skills i.e. reading,
writing, listening and speaking. In
fact, it is stipulated in the curriculum specifications that teaching is to
emphasise both the oracy (listening and speaking) and the literacy (reading and writing) skills. The objectives of ESL
teaching are to enable the learners to:
• listen to and understand spoken English in the school and in real
life situations,
• speak effectively on a variety of topics,
• read and understand prose and poetry for information and enjoyment and
• write effectively for different purposes.
(Ministry of
Education, 1989)
It is evident that these skills are outlined in the curriculum and
one would think that classroom practice would reflect the above. The purpose of this study is to investigate
if this is the case.
The other salient factor in Malaysian classroom
practice is the examination-oriented lesson.
It is common for teachers to
focus entirely on the examination especially for learners who are sitting for
national examinations such as the PMR. One of the main reasons given is that at the
end of the day, the school, parents and learners want good grades. Everybody and all schools competes for better grades each year. According to
Lewey (1977), the Malaysian education system is very examination-oriented. Even if there is a change in teachers’
attitude and they accept any changes in the curriculum employed, they are still
compelled by the examination and will teach according to what will be tested.
There have been several studies carried out
relating to the deteriorating standard of ESL in Malaysia. One such study carried out by Pillay and
North (1997), examined the role of the topics in an integrated approach and the
way it is handled in the KBSM syllabus,
textbooks and examinations. They found
that there is a perceived conflict between the official syllabus, the textbook
syllabus and the examination syllabus, leaving teachers in a dilemma over what
to teach. The official syllabus and the
textbooks stress topics or themes; whereas, the examination focuses on skills and grammar.
Ratnawati (1996) carried out a study to assess
the attitudes of ESL secondary school teachers in the state of Selangor Darul Ehsan towards the different aspects of
the KBSM English Language Syllabus.
Her results indicated that the majority (69.4%) of the respondents felt that
the syllabus would enable the learners to achieve a minimum competency in
English. Nevertheless, some (27.9%)
felt that the syllabus would enable learners to have a good command of English.
Lim (1994) studied fluency and accuracy in spoken English through
a survey questionnaire conducted among EFL in-service teachers. Her survey revealed 84.1% of the respondents
who taught at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, agreed that their
learners were not able to speak English well and that speaking is the weakest
skill among the four language
skills. The results also showed that
73.3% of the respondents named speaking as the skill learners got the least
practice in at the individual level and 50% cited speaking
as the skill in which learners needed more practice. She also identified certain classroom practices, which she
believed were the possible causes for low spoken English proficiency. The practices in classes were the widespread
use of Malay in teacher-talk, the use of mother tongue in peer interaction and
the motor-perceptive nature of speaking activities like reading aloud and
drilling.
Norrizan
(1992) writes about the issue of socio-linguistics, which she believes
is one of the reasons why learners are weak in English. The article discusses the importance of the
knowledge of socio-linguistics in a heterogeneous, multiracial/cultural
Malaysian setting to ESL teachers in order to understand learners, who may come
from communities of different language habits, cultures, socio-economic status
and backgrounds. This, according to
her, is essential as teachers should be wary of any stereotyping “so as not to
apply any miscalculated judgments on learners from different backgrounds”
(1992: 88). For example, learners from
remote and rural areas may not see the importance of learning English; thus
they lack motivation and also find it
difficult to learn this foreign language.
Rosli and Malachi (1990) investigated if there
was a significant difference between the English proficiency of rural and urban
school learners. They conducted a
comprehensive proficiency test on the learners and also analysed their English SRP results. It was found that the proficiency test results differed
significantly. Urban school learners were more proficient than their rural
counterparts. The same was evident in
the English SRP results, which showed
a higher percentage of failure (47.7%) in the rural schools, while there was
only 13.4% failure in the urban
schools.
The Study
This present study contributes to the relatively limited research
concerning the low ESL proficiency
among Malaysian learners. The study
outlined the following research questions:
1. What are
the ESL teachers’
perceptions of their classroom practices?
2. Do teachers regard the
KBSM syllabus as effective in developing learners’ language skills?
3. What are the teachers’
perceptions of the English PMR examination?
4. What are the teachers’
perceptions of the challenges faced by
ESL learners?
Subjects
The subjects for the study were 58 ESL lower secondary school
teachers in Forms One, Two and Three.
All these teachers were from government sponsored schools rather than fully residential schools,
technical schools, vocational schools or privately funded institutions. This is because most ESL teachers come from SMK and they therefore, represent a
sample of the target population. The majority of the subjects were female
teachers (49 female and 9 male). Most of them were experienced, i.e. there were
32 teachers who had taught ESL for more than ten years and only 6 teachers who had less than two years
of teaching experience. From this
sample, 5 teachers were randomly selected for the oral interview conducted.
Instrument
The study used two instruments: a questionnaire and a
semi-sturctured interview. The questionnaire aimed at gauging teachers’ perceptions of the following:
1. Their classroom
practice (for example, tasks employed and the development of different language skills)
2. The KBSM syllabus
3. Teacher-prepared
school assessment
4. The PMR national examination
5.
Challenges faced by ESL learners
The questionnaire was generated from a review of related
literature and insights from informal discussions with teachers. It
employed the 5-point Likert scale from “strongly agree” to
“strongly disagree”. The questionnaire
was piloted among graduate teachers
studying at Universiti Putra Malaysia and revisions were made as
necessary. Item analysis was carried
out and the reliability of the questionnaire was established through Alpha Cronbach (r = 0.7275). In order to
probe teachers’ perceptions further, an interview was carried out. The interview was semi-structured so that a
better insight into the issues at hand could be gained. The main focus of the interview questions
was on asking the participants to describe their teaching approaches, their
evaluation of the KBSM syllabus, the
focus of the English PMR and the
reasons behind the learners’ weakness in English.
Data Collection
A total of 70 questionnaires were distributed to selected secondary schools in the central
region of Peninsular Malaysia. The
questionnaires were left with the language coordinator of the respective
schools and were recollected about 2 weeks later. The response rate was 82.9% (n=58). A week later, 5 teachers who
were randomly selected were interviewed individually.
Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the responses in
the questionnaire. The SPSX was employed to calculate the
frequency, mean and standard deviation. The interview protocol was transcribed
to reveal the qualitatively different ways in which teachers perceived the
above issues.
Results of Questionnaire
Table 1: The materials used by the respondents
in their ESL Lessons
s.d.- standard deviation
n=58
The first section of the questionnaire focussed on teachers’
perceptions of their classroom practices.
From the questionnaire it was found that the 3 most utilized materials
in the ESL classroom were workbooks (mean=0.91; s.d.=0.28), followed by
textbooks (mean=0.81; s.d.=0.40) and newspapers (mean=0.79; s.d.=0.40). The 3 least used materials were listening
tapes (mean=0.14; s.d.=0.35), TV programmess (mean=0.0069; s.d.=0.26), and
videos (mean=0.0052; s.d.=0.22).
Table 2: The language activities frequently
included in an ESL lesson
s.d. – standard
deviation
n=58
Table 2 shows the language tasks employed in class. It is evident
from the table that the writing exercise is the most frequently used activity
(mean=4.38; s.d.=0.70) in the respondents’ lessons. This is followed by grammar exercise (mean=4.09; s.d=0.94) and
reading comprehension (mean=3.97; s.d=0.72).
Listening and speaking activities are the four least employed classroom
tasks.
Table 3: The role of KBSM in developing language
skills
Mean s.d.
Reading 3.45 0.82
Writing 3.31 0.90
Grammar 2.91 0.90
Speaking 2.87 0.92
Listening 2.87 0.98
s.d. – standard
deviation
n=58
Teachers’ perceptions on the effectiveness of the KBSM syllabus in developing the following skills – listening, speaking,
reading, writing, grammar is shown in Table 3. The respondents reported that
the KBSM is effective in developing
the reading skill, followed by writing
and grammar. The skills of
speaking and listening were ranked as least effectively developed. This suggests that teachers perceive the
KBSM to focus mainly on
reading and writing.
Table 4: The Perceived focus of language skills
and grammar in the school English examinations
Mean s.d.
Writing 4.07 0.79
Reading 3.72 0.85
Grammar 3.72 0.99
Speaking 2.18 1.22
Listening 2.00 1.10
Teachers’ perceptions on the focus of the different language
skills and grammar in the school English examinations is presented in Table
4. It is found that teachers reported
focussing most on the skill of writing (mean = 4.07; sd=0.79) in the
examinations that they prepared. This is followed by reading and grammar.
Speaking and listening are focussed upon least.
Table 5: The perceived focus of language skills and grammar in the
PMR English
examination
Mean s.d.
Writing 4.26 0.86
Reading 3.93 0.81
Grammar 3.88 0.99
Speaking 2.37 1.23
Listening 2.17 1.24
Table 5 lists the perceived focus of the four
language skills and grammar in the PMR English examination. The respondents
reported PMR examinations as evaluating learners’ writing (mean=4.26;
s.d.=0.86) and reading (mean=3.93; s.d.=0.81) abilities the most. This is
followed by grammar. The two skills
that were reported least tested were speaking and listening.
Table 6:
Learners’ weakest language skills
Skill
Mean s.d.
Writing 0.48 0.50
Speaking 0.48 0.50
Reading 0.0017 0.13
Table 6 and Figure 1 report the learners’ weakest language skill.
Writing and speaking skills are both thought to be learners’ weakest skills.
Table 7: Factors contributing to low english
proficiency among most learners
factor mean s.d.
Limited opportunity to
use Eng. outside the classroom 4.24
0.90
Negative attitude
towards Eng. 4.21
0.98
Lack of confidence 4.21 0.86
Lack of motivation 4.19
0.91
Insufficient exposure to
Eng. 3.74
1.10
Imbalanced focus of
lang. skills 3.37
0.88
Ineffective syllabus 3.21
0.99
Inadequate teaching
material 3.02
1.16
Ineffective teaching
methodology 2.95
1.06
Lack of time to study 2.76
1.40
The factors thought to be contributing to low proficiency in
English among most learners are listed in Table 7. The main reason reported is limited opportunity to use
English outside the classroom
(mean=4.24; s.d=0.90). The second
reason is negative attitude towards the English language (mean=4.21; s.d=0.98)
and lack of confidence in using the language (mean=4.21; s.d.=0.86). In third place is lack of motivation to
learn the language.
Interview
For ease of discussion,
only salient points gained from the interview protocol will be discussed. They
are classified into materials used in the lessons, skills taught, the PMR examination ,
examination-orientation, and learners’ weakest skill. Table 8 below summarises their opinions regarding these issues.
Table 8: Summary of interview responses
Teaching Material
To start with, let us analyse the materials used by the
respondents in their classrooms. Four
respondents did not use the prescribed textbooks during their teaching. They used other materials such as workbooks,
newspapers, and Internet articles. Most
of them said the prescribed textbooks were either too difficult or too easy,
did not match the curriculum specifications, were outdated and
inappropriate. Below are some of their
comments.
…the
textbook is very rigid, and some of the passages there, are very difficult..
…I hardly use the textbook because I feel it is not appropriate…it does
not challenge the learners’ thinking skills.
…I cannot
use the textbooks because they are so outdated…so irrelevant, so unauthentic …they do not match the syllabus…
Skills Taught
As reported in the questionnaire, interviewees also disclosed that
their lessons mainly focussed on writing or reading. They perceived this as
important since these were the major concerns of the examinations, as related by two participants:
…the writing skill
definitely because if we were to refer to the requirements in the examination, the biggest portion of
the marks is for writing…
…why writing? Because of the examination. To make sure students pass the
examination..
As for reading, the participants said that
reading was less demanding and complex, so reading was considered as input
before writing; thus, moving according to the logical progression from simple
to complex. The following excerpts
explain this:
…I focus on
reading. Because if they know how to
read, then they would have some ideas on what to write and to speak…
…so I work according to
progression – from easy to difficult ones…
PMR Examination
As far as the focus of English papers in PMR is
concerned, the interviewees unanimously
stated that reading and writing skills are given most weightage in terms of marks. Although speaking and listening are both tested in the public
examination (PMR oral examination), these skills are not given as much weight. The participants explained:
…actually
all skills are tested, but it’s the weightage that makes the difference…
…listening and speaking
skills don’t carry a lot of weight. As
long as they can pass the examination it’s okay…normally they don’t fail learners,
if they say something.. yes or no.. they get one mark…
…you must have the
writing skill and the reading skill, because that is the major part…the focus
of the examination actually is reading comprehension and writing…
An interesting comment about students’
preparation for the examination is that some learners memorise to answer the
examination questions in order to overcome their incompetence in the language—
…they memorise…they
don’t write because they are creative, they don’t write because they want to
express themselves…they write because they want to pass the examination…
…you know, a lot of
model answers are around. So they take
a model answer that they have
memorised. Then for the examination,
they just write…
… some learners can
really memorise a very long essay, word for word, when you assess them along
the marking scheme, they’ve got a perfect score…they can come very close…say if
you give 40 marks, they can simply get 35 to 36…because the grammar is so good
and their memory is so good…
Examination-orientation
Do the teachers orientate their teaching towards
the examinations? From the survey, most respondents agreed that “It is important for teachers to focus on
the examinations” (mean = 3.53; s.d.=1.327) and “Teaching learners to do
well in the examinations is the primary
goal of teachers” (mean=3.38; s.d.=1.565).
The interview revealed further insights as most of them reported
that they had no choice especially when
they taught a class that will be
sitting for a public examination like the PMR.
Teachers in schools face tremendous pressure to achieve good results each
year. The following excerpts describe
the reality in schools.
…I have to be
honest. I have to concentrate on the
examination. There are no two ways
about it..
…the school you know,
they need you to perform…of course they always remind you…ok…this is the TOV
(i.e. take-off value). For example, our
TOV last year was 70%, so the learners this year must score at least 70% or above,
not below.
…because if the results
go down, you know that you’ll be called up and the principal will say, “Ok,
look at all the other subjects, why is English the lowest?”…so teachers would
tend to focus on this…I don’t blame them.
…you know, the English
teachers were condemned because our passing percentage dropped. So, we had no choice but to help the
learners pass the examination. And we
have to achieve the target…
An interviewee
also stated that helping
learners to pass or to obtain better grades could make a teacher a better teacher
in the eyes of the learners.
…in the eyes of the
learners, yes of course they’ll say, so and so was the one who taught me
English…but if they get a C or B, they may not say I’m a good teacher…at the
end of the day, he’s also basing his evaluation on the grade he gets…
Another interviewee took a different view:
…I’m not much of an
examination-orientated person as I’m more for educating learners… trying to
help them… understand what they are learning…
However, when asked if she were to teach Form
Three learners, would she change her strategies, the participant explained:
…in the first semester,
perhaps not…I’ll teach them normally but perhaps in the second semester, I’ll
be examination orientated because that is more practical..
Weakest Skill
As far as learners’ weakest skill is concerned, almost everyone
agreed that it is speaking.
…the weakest skill would be speaking…because I realize that after
some time, they are able to write, especially the Chinese learners. Because we don’t test their speech, they may
not be able to speak well but they can write well, if you guide them…
The factors contributing to the low proficiency
in English were many - incompetent teachers, lack of motivation, too difficult,
low SES, negative attitude, lack of
exposure to the language and an imbalanced focus of the language skills. One participant related about speaking being
a neglected skill:
… because not a lot of
emphasis is given to speaking in the
classroom…they don’t speak at home...they don’t speak in class, where do they
speak?
KBSM
When participants were
asked about the effectiveness of the KBSM, most of them agreed that the
syllabus was good on paper. However,
most participants had their own constraints at school:
…if I had a good class,
then no problem, I’ll carry out all the skills there. But because I have a very weak class, it’s not appropriate…when
you require them to speak, they speak grammatically wrong sentence to the point
that you do not understand.
…because we don’t have
enough time, especially like some of us …we’re in the rural area, they can’t
speak well…we need more time to teach… when other teachers can take 2 periods
to finish something ... we need 6 to 7
periods.
…but in the real
setting, how much time do we have to focus on all the four language skills?
Discussion
The results of the questionnaire and the interview have
consistently shown one main finding—that teaching and testing, both in schools and in the national examinations,
focused mainly on two language skills: writing and reading. Listening and
speaking are found to be much neglected in the classroom. This is a major concern as it is through speech that children learn
to organise their thinking and focus their ideas (Lyle, 1993). The neglect of oral communication practice in
the classroom will hinder such an important language learning foundation to
emerge and severely obstruct the development of other aspects of language
skills (Zhang & Kortner, 1995). The
teaching and testing of the four skills
need to be well balanced, as proposed by one of the interviewees:
…so we got
these 4 skills to work on but you’ll find it difficult to give equal time
to all 4. So, you’ll soon realise that one skill will not be fully
exploited, will not be taught fully…especially when you have examinations. When you have 3 more months to go, to be
frank with you, most of us will focus on public examinations…in the public
examinations, where are you going to put listening and speaking?
It is also reported that
speaking is the learners’ weakest skill. This confirms the findings of
Lim (1994). The combination of both
lack of attention on speaking and this skill as one of students’ main
weaknesses is of great concern. Competent language learners are not just those
who are grammatically competent.
Learners also need to be communicatively competent where they learn
grammar as a rule of use. This will
enable them to know what to say, to whom, in what manner and when, so as to
enable them to function appropriately in the real world. Speaking proficiency
involves being able to produce autonomous utterances which are appropriate to
the context of the speech situation fluently and accurately (Lim 1994).
According to Long’s Interaction
Hypothesis (1985) and Output
Hypothesis (Swain & Lapkin, 1995), interaction and input are two major
players in the process of acquisition. The opportunity to communicate is essential for L2 acquisition.
Other than speaking, the students are also
reported to be weak in writing. Why are they weak in these two productive skills?
Perhaps because of two reasons: internal factors and external factors. The results indicate that the contributing
factors were:
• limited opportunities to
use English outside the classroom (external
factor),
• negative attitude
towards English (internal factor) and
• lack of confidence
(internal factor).
Many external factors to the classroom can affect learning of a
second language (Norrizan Razali, 1992).
These internal and external factors can influence each other; they are
by no means independent. For example, a
learner who has low self-confidence may refuse to use the language outside the classroom. The use of language in the real world is crucial as it creates
interest in learning the language, helps learners to identify themselves with
the target language and builds their confidence.
The next question is: Do teachers orientate
their lesson towards the examinations? Yes, they do. When discussing this issue, one cannot avoid talking about the backwash effect. Backwash or washback (the terms are
synonymous) can be both good and bad.
Buck (1988; in Bailey, 1996: 257) describes washback as:
... there is a natural
tendency for both teacher and learners to tailor their classroom activities to
the demands of the test, especially when the test is very important to the
future of the learners, and pass rates are used as a measure of teacher
success. This influence of the test on
the classroom is, of course, very important, this washback effect can be either
beneficial or harmful.
It is not the intention of the writers to delve more into this
washback issue as it involves more elaborated concepts of validity and
reliability of testing and the curriculum, but suffice to say that washback can
bring positive influence if the tests or examinations promote not impede the
educational goals. As Buck (1988; in
Bailey, 1996:268) says:
“Most educators would probably agree that the
content of classroom instruction should be decided on the basis of clearly
understood educational goals, and examinations should try to ascertain whether
these goals have been achieved. When
the examination does that, it forces learners and teachers to concentrate on
these goals, and the washback effect on the classroom is very beneficial”.
Conclusion
The results of the study suggest that teachers
perceive the KBSM syllabus as effective in developing reading and writing
skills compared to listening and speaking skills. Writing and reading also are reported to be given more emphasis
in both the school and the national examinations. These perceptions have an effect on their teaching approaches in
the ESL classroom. Most subjects
reported that they laid more emphasis
on reading skills, writing skills and also grammar in their
lessons. This is also seen in their materials
used and the activities carried out in the classroom. On top of that they believed that they orientated their lessons
towards the examination too. The
factors, which were thought to be contributing to the low proficiency of
English among learners were limited opportunity to use the English language and lack of
confidence. Further research on this
issue is required to match teachers’ perceptions with actual practice.
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