In tandem with educational best practices the world over, School-based assessments (SBAs) were introduced in Malaysia in 2012 for secondary one students. This study investigated quantitatively and qualitatively matters such as the teachers' knowledge of SBAs and the issues faced when implementing SBAs. Whereas the factors contributing to the problems of SBA implementation was investigated only qualitatively. A sample of 60 English teachers in the district of Dungun, Terengganu, who were involved in SBAs from the beginning was used, out of this, 20 teachers were interviewed to obtain qualitative findings. It was found that teachers had satisfactory knowledge of planning an SBA tailored lesson. They also showed satisfactory knowledge of developing SBAs but appeared to have difficulty in the psychometrics of test analysis. As for issues faced by teachers, they were not indifferent to SBA implementation but team work and collaboration among SBA teachers needs to be improved. Teachers faced problems in SBA implementation but overall had a positive attitude towards SBA. Teachers voiced concerns over the lack of adequate staff numbers, lack of uniformity and a possible element of biasness in grading. Teachers also faced time constraints, lack of effective materials and methodologies and poor ICT facilities in schools. They also feared cheating by students in SBAs. Future researchers should investigate the success of SBA implementation after a few years.
This study is a survey investigating the factors that influence students to talk in English in English classes. The study found that students do have positive attributes towards talking in English in class. Besides, it was also found, using descriptive statistics, that students perceive that the lecturer attributes and the university settings are conducive towards students' inclination to talk English in English language classes. The student's motivation level was also found to be satisfactory. Inferential statistics using Pearson 'r' was used to establish the relationship between student attributes and their motivation level towards talking in English in English classes. It was also found that there existed significant relationships between lecturer attributes and students' motivational level towards using English in class. Significant relationships are also established between lecturer attributes and students' motivational level and also university setting and students' motivational level when it comes to students preponderance towards using English in the class. In addition to the above factors, factors such as the students' socioeconomic level and the motivation provided by their elementary school teachers should also be investigated. Future researchers should try to find out if those students who received powerful motivation from elementary school teachers end up talking more English in class later on.
This present study was conducted to reexamine motivation and attitude of language learners and its correlation to their learning achievement. Low English language proficiency among Malaysian students has drawn researchers' attention to conduct the study within higher learning institution. This cross-sectional study was carried out involving 329 participants those were required to respond for selfadministered questionnaire and taking four language skills test which was developed by researchers with the assistant of experience language lecturers. Descriptive and inference analysis were adopted to answer the research objectives. The finding has demonstrated that participants of the study have higher integrative motivation (8.07) and moderate level attitudes towards the learning of English language (6.81). However correlation test has shown a there is a low correlation (r = 0.111) between students' motivation and English language achievement tests. Whereby there is a moderately low correlation (r = 0.224) between students' attitude and English language achievement tests. In future investigations it might be possible to study other types of motivation such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in order to determine the success for language learners. 1. Introduction Many Malaysian students have poor command of English even after graduation (Engku Suhaimi, E.A., Zailani, J., Alia Nabila, A., 2012). Poor English proficiency may affect employment prospect since English is undoubtedly widely used in IT Communication and in commerce and industry not only internationally but also locally (The Star, Sept. 11/2013). Following this statement, The Federation of Malaysian Manufactures (FMM) requested that English be made a must-pass subject by 2018 (The Star, Sept. 11/2013). Low English language proficiency among Malaysian students is a never ending issue. Marlyna, Siti Hanim and Mohamad Subakir (2012) indicate that through their study a majority of the students' proficiency levels in English were below the entry level of the university's requirement. Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh claims that many English language teachers are "incapable" or "unfit" to teach the subject in schools when the results for the English Language Cambridge Placement Test sat by them showed that 70% out of the 60,000 performed poorly (The Star, Sept. 11/2013). Therefore this research is carried out to observe students' English language achievement in terms of their four basics English skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) at one of the universities in Terengganu. Many researchers have shown that students' attitudes towards the learning of English language are negative and less interest (
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.