Malaysia is a multilingual and multiethnic country with a substantial population of ethnic Chinese, who use standardized languages such as Malay, English, and Mandarin, as well as various Chinese dialects in their daily lives within and beyond Chinese communities. Cantonese is a community language that significantly impacts the lives of local…

This study investigated the factors that lead the Novice Teacher (NT) towards selection, development, and use of learning-teaching materials for classroom use. The participant in this study was a teacher trainee who had completed four years of the teacher training program in the university. She was randomly selected. The researcher (supervisor,…

Despite the not-so-distant negligence of lexicon in language instruction, it is currently taking on a core role in designing ELT materials. Selection of the lexical content is usually informed by a set of pedagogical and non-pedagogical factors like learnability, usefulness, the level of proficiency targeted, frequency, range, coverage, etc. With…

Malaysian tertiary students are reluctant readers of English texts, a condition which can impede the development of their English proficiency. In any ESL/EFL reading programme, particularly programmes for lower proficiency students, it is essential to provide materials that students can comprehend without difficulty. This paper discusses the…

Research in materials evaluation has been an important focus in ELT since the 1980s. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the general attributes of the textbooks and to evaluate the learning-teaching content. In this study, 944 male and female English teachers (Year 1 to Year 6 & Form 1 to Form 5) evaluated the English books using…

This paper attempts to show the use of lexical borrowings in ten teaching materials used by the English as Second Language (ESL) teachers in the ESL classrooms in the National Secondary Schools in the Klang district in Selangor, Malaysia. It also discusses the general and pedagogical implications involved in using lexical borrowings. This paper…

This paper is a study of the reading trends and perceptions of Muslim Malaysian undergraduate students towards Islamic English websites as pedagogical materials in English language classrooms. Data was collected through a set of questionnaires to 180 students from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and Universiti Sultan…

This paper seeks to highlight perceptions of students undergoing the Teaching of English to Young Learners (TEYL) programme jointly run by UUM and KPM since 2004. It focuses on their level of satisfaction from both academic amid non-academic aspects, particularly on the effectiveness of teaching methods employed by both local and international…

Blended learning has been described as a pedagogical approach that combines effectiveness and socialization opportunities of the classroom with the technologically enhanced active learning possibilities of the online environment (Dziuban, Hartman, & Moskal, 2004). It has also been depicted as an approach that combines traditional learning with…

This article examines the role of language policies in mediating access and equity in education. By examining a range of research and case studies on language policies, the authors explore how educational language policies serve as a central gatekeeper to education itself, as well as to quality education that may fundamentally depend on language…

It is undeniable that learning the articles "a," "an," and "the" presents serious difficulties to the learners and teachers alike in the English Language classrooms, but previous studies done on the teaching of articles have shown that there are many techniques of teaching the articles that can be employed in the…

Describes practical guidelines constructed by the staff of a large-scale self-access English language instruction project in Malaysia, focusing on the production of self-access materials in a situation where staff have limited resources, where both quantity and quality are required, and where there is a need to provide an in-house look to the…

The role of English and the status of English language instruction is reported for Burma, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Lesotho, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar, and Malaysia. The profile for each country contains a summary of English instruction within and outside of the educational system, teacher supply and qualifications,…

Briefly describes reading standards in Malaysian schools, outlines a class reader program, and provides samples of teaching files designed to help teachers implement the program. (one reference. (GLR)

Implementation of a language modernization process such as one occurring in the Pacific basin is as important as the policy development behind it. Three critical factors in implementation are teacher training, the development of good teaching materials, and a plan for evaluating program effectiveness. Attempts to meet the need for good…