Reflective Essay Teaching English in the Malaysian primary school also a big deal since primary school is where

small Malaysian kids from many races are being taught. In Malaysia, parent can choose what school they want to send their children depending on social status, language being used in school, demography and affordability. If they want their child to master Chinese language, they can send their children to Chinese school which is also called SJ SJ !C" or Sekolah Jenis ebangsaan Cina !#rimary Chinese $ased School" ebangsaan Tamil or #rimary Tamil $ased School. where they are being taught in chinese language. The same thing happens to SJ !T". !T" is stand for Sekolah Jenis There are also S Con%ent, Sekolah &gama $ersepadu !S&$" and Madrassah which

are using English, &rabic and also Malay as their medium deli%ering content in the classroom. 'owe%er, abo%e all these different, all school are using English, purely to teach English. This is the basis of Malaysia Educational System, The (ational Curriculum)* +aspires to provide world class education to the present and future generations in fulfilling the National Education Philosophy towards preparing the pupil of Malaysia for the educational challenges in the 21st century.. (ormally, all English teachers in Malaysia whether they are teaching in go%ernment school or pri%ate school, they are using all those bibles below to teach English)* ,. $S- English .anguage Syllabus !(ational .e%el"

/. Curriculum Specification !(ational .e%el" 0. Schemes of 1ork !School le%el" 2. .esson #lans !Indi%idual .e%el"

&ll these reference are either being prepared by the go%ernment through school administration or the teacher need to buy or to prepare it by them self. 3o%ernment has spent billions of -inggit 4ust to make sure that the entire teacher got access to these references. They !the English teacher" can find all the resources from the library, buy it from the bookstore especially 5ewan $ahasa dan #ustaka !5$#", download it from the #usat #erkembangan website. $S- is yesterday, and today is SS-. ut now, we are talking about $S- because urikulum !## " and also they can retrie%e the file from ministry

there are still 6 bacth of pupils from year / to year 7 this year !/8,," that is still using $S- not SS-. #upils of year , until year 0 that now are using SS-. The aims of $S- English .anguage Syllabus)* +to equip learners with basic skills and knowledge of the English language so as to enable the and out of school The aims has clearly stated it all9 to e:uip learners with basic skills and knowledge of the English language, but why; To make sure that they are able to communicate both orally and writing in and outside of the classroom. (owadays, we are communicating with other people from other parts of the world with English. If you want to use internet, you need a minimum amount of English language skills and knowledge. That is absolutely true. 1ith that aims, learners will be able to achie%e learning English language ob4ecti%es which are, as stated by the ministry, to help pupil ac:uire good reading habit, to listen to and understand simple spoken English in certain gi%en conte<t. to co unicate both orally and writing in

&s I prepared the lesson plan and obser%ed the micro teaching, I can say that there are more things should be done to enrich the style and method in teaching English in school, especially in Malaysia. Essentially, in discussing the problem faced by our learners in reading English te<t and learning English in general, a number of studies associate the causes of the problem to Malaysian education system. $ecause of its strong orientation towards national based assessment, our education system has generally produced students who are unable to operate autonomously ! oo, /88=" >whereby learners assume the part of empty %essels? !(aginder, /887", presuming that teachers will teach them all the lessons they need to know. This characteristic indeed discourages and inhibits independent language learning. The strong tendency to depend on teachers for their own learning is further worsened with the pre%alent discourse of e<amination throughout their school e<perience !&mbigapathy, /88/". The high importance placed on scoring good grades in the e<amination further establishes the need to memori@e and regurgitate e%en in the discourse of assessment in higher learning institutions !.ee ing Siong, 'a@ita &@man A oo Bew .ie, /8,89 oo,/88=". Most teachers retain a strong sense of commitment to teaching and learning, despite workload pressures and often unwelcome e<ternal re:uirements. Many work assiduously to impro%e the effecti%eness of their practices, for instance through undertaking classroom in:uiry and other reflecti%e acti%ities. Crom this perspecti%e, the role of education policy is to pro%ide guidance, resource and accountability to support high :uality teaching and learning. Educational research complements it by using careful description and analysis to offer insights and new knowledge about educational processes and outcomes. In our own work as a teacher, we did ha%e the opportunity to analy@e the De%eryday pedagogyD of teacher education. It led us to conclude that the traditional %iew of

teacher education has basically not changed and e%en that many DnewD approaches often take the form of sophisticated procedures to try and interest student teachers in a particular theory, or bridge the gap between the theory presented and teaching practice. This means that the traditional approach, in which teacher make an a priori choice about the theory that should be transferred to students, represents a %ery dominant line of thought. The fundamental conception inherent in this line of thought is that there is a gap to be bridged. Ene often forgets that it was the a priori choice that created this gap in the first place. 1e should look for ways to impro%e English language learning and ha%e largely focused on the teaching and learning of English in the language classrooms. It is important now to look beyond the language classroom>s in order to understand the position of English literacy to the learners. More studies are needed to e<amine learners? ways of using different linguistics repertoire when they are outside of the classrooms. Studies are also needed to find ways to situate English language among the a%ailable linguistics codes our learners ha%e. Most of the studies re%iewed in this paper are situated within the structure of autonomous model !Street, ,F=2". 1ithin this perspecti%e, learning is %iewed as concrete, cogniti%e skills that are transferable to any conte<t. The re%iew here howe%er points towards the need to look at language learning as 4oining or >membership into a discourse community?. Crom the cogniti%e perspecti%e, Thompson et al. !,FF7) ,," state that Gcogniti%e theory concentrates on the conceptualisation of students? learning processes. It focuses on the e<ploration of the way information is recei%ed, organi@ed retained and used by the brainH. In the same %ein, 3hanaguru et al.!/887)0" point out that Gcurrent cogniti%e theories of learning emphasi@e the importance of learners? thought processes during learningH. &ll in all, cogniti%ists treat the learners as thinking beings and put them firmly at the centre of the learning process, by stressing that learning will only take place when the matter to be learnt is meaningful to the learners. &s .efoe !,FF=) 266" a%ers, in this learning paradigm, Gmore attention was gi%en to the learning process and a greater

degree of

autonomy and initiati%e was gi%en to the learnerH. Therefore, it is of prime

importance to understand learners? preferences of the learning styles. The students participation in the acti%ities helped make them reali@e that English language learning can be interesting and fun using simple and useful tasks and acti%ities that could be incorporated within any English language lesson. The teachers were also made aware that e%en within an e<amination*oriented syllabus, such tasks and acti%ities could be in4ected into the routine of Ddrill and practiceD for the e<amination. Students re:uire a break from the monotony of e<amination*format e<ercises through short, fun*filled acti%ities which at the same time help reinforce items learned in the drill practice sessions. The in*class and out*of*class acti%ities ha%e to be related and continuous. Cor e<ample, in practicing grammatical items in role*plays, students can be further encouraged to use the language learned in a drama or short skit presented as part of the schoolIs teachersI day celebration. #oems created in class acti%ities could be read at the schoolIs general assembly. There is lot of theories that linked with each other 4ust to make the acti%ities in class meaningful and understandable. I suggest that teachers shouldn?t attach to one simple theory but link some theories into one meaningful teaching learning acti%ity.

REFERENCE &smah 'a4i Emar.!,FF/", !"he #inguistic $cenery in Malaysia% , 5ewan $ahasa dan #ustaka. uala .umpur. Celder, -. M, A 'enri:ues, E. -. !,FF6", !#earning and "eaching $tyles in &oreign and $econd #anguage education%. Coreign .anguage &nnals, Jol. /=, (o. ,, pp. /,*0,. 3odleski, E. S. !,F=2", !#earning $tyle 'o patibility of Engineering $tudents and &aculty%, #roceedings, Crontiers in Education Conference, pp. 07/*072. 3riggs, S. &., A 5unn, -. S. !,F=2", !$elected 'ase $tudies of the #earning $tyle Preferences of (ifted $tudents%, 3ifted Child Kuarterly, Jol. /=, Issue 0, pp. ,,6*,,F. 'adley, E. &. !,FF/", !"eaching #anguage in 'onte)t% , 'einle A 'einle. $oston. 'onigsfeld, &., A 5unn, -. !/887", !#earning*$tyle 'haracteristics of +dult #earners% , The 5elta appa 3amma $ulletin, Jol. L/, Issue /, pp. ,2M0,. rashen, S. 5. !,F=,", !$econd #anguage +cquisition and $econd #anguage #earning% , #ergamon. E<ford. Malaysian E<amination Council. !/887", GMalaysian Nni%ersity English Test !MNET"H, uala .umpur. Malaysian Curriuclum Specification. !/880", GCorm 2 English .anguage Curriculum SpecificationsH, Malaysian Ministry of Education. uala .umpur. E<ford, -., Ehrman, M., A .a%ine, -. !,FF,", GStyle 1ars) Teacher*student Style Conflicts in the .anguage ClassroomH. In S. Magnan !Ed.", GChallenges in the ,FF8?s for College Coreign .anguage #rogramsH, 'einle A 'einle.$oston.