Teaching English in The Malaysian Primary School Today

Malaysian is a multi-racial country with approximately 28 million people by 2010. With the most sensitive educational system, Malaysia is using Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil language to deliver content during learning process in school (government and private school). English is a big deal in Malaysia as Malaysia's official language is actively being criticize by not-aborigin-people because in Malaysia, the government urge the use of Malay during official ceremony, occasion or official event. Thus, they (the criticizer) tend to use English as a symbol of protest.

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 do 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 SJK (C) or Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (Primary Chinese Based School) where they are being taught in chinese language. The same thing happen to SJK (T). SJK (T) is stand for Sekolah Jenis

Kebangsaan Tamil or Primary Tamil Based School. There are also SK Convent, Sekolah Agama Bersepadu (SAB) and Madrassah which are using English, Arabic and also Malay as their medium delivering content in the classroom. However, above all these different, all school are using English, purely to teach English.

This is the basis of Malaysia Educational System, The National 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

Normally, all English teacher in Malaysia whether they are teaching in government school or private school, they are using all those bibles below to teach English :-

1. KBSR English Language Syllabus (National Level)
2. Curriculum Specification (National Level)
3. Schemes of Work (School level)
4. Lesson Plans (Individual Level)

All these reference are either being prepared by the government through school administration or the teacher need to buy or to prepare it by them self. Government has spend billion of Ringgit just to make sure that all the teacher got access to this references. They (the English teacher) can find all the resources from the library, buy it form the bookstore especially Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), download it from the Pusat Perkembangan Kurikulum (PPK) and also they can retrieve the file from ministry website.

KBSR is yesterday, and today is KSSR. ut now, we are talking about KBSR because there are still 5 bacth of pupils from year 2 to year 6 this year (2011) that is still using KBSR not KSSR. Only pupils of year 1 that now are using KSSR.

The aims of KBSR English Language Syllabus:-

to equip learners with basic skills and knowledge of the English language so as to enable them to communicate both orally and writing in and out of school

The aims has clearly stated it all; to equip 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. Nowadays, we are communicate 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.

With that aims, learners will be able to achieve learning English language objectives which are, as stated by the ministry, to help pupil acquire good reading habit, to listen to and understand simple spoken English in certain given context.