No abstract

Malaysia undertook a comprehensive reform of the primary education by introducing KSSR or the Primary School Standards-Based Curriculum in 2011. The curriculum change has largely driven by the setting of national standards for KSSR subjects. Accordingly, the Standards-Based English Language Curriculum (SBELC) was designed with significant changes in curriculum documents and organization. SBELC not only demands changes in teacher knowledge, attitudes, and instructional practices but also seeks teachers to design such activities and assessments that require pupils to comprehend the language input and answer questions with high levels of cognitive skills that emphasize on conceptual understanding and integration of many language skills and language focus rather than traditional rote learning skills. The purpose of this paper is to review curriculum change in the new English language curriculum in which higher order thinking skills and standards-based assessments are given due attention in Malaysian primary schools.

Learners differ from each other in many ways particularly in cognitive abilities. These factors eventually affect their learning abilities. Thus teachers should look into learner differences in intelligence before designing a teaching and learning program for them. Gardner proposed a much broader view of the definition of intelligence than a number of other theorists with his theory of multiple intelligences. The important of the idea of multiple intelligences in education lies in the fact that learners vary in their abilities, and thus teachers need to find out the best strategies to use related to their variations, or to develop programs that instruct students in different domains. This paper attempts to provide a brief overview of the eight multiple intelligences connected with Howard Gardner’s theory. The article also suggests some ways for teachers to incorporate the intelligences into their daily lesson planning for practical use in language teaching and learning.

Lesson Study (LS) is a professional learning strategy which originated from Japan and practiced extensively throughout Japan. It has captured the attention of the professional learning communities in Malaysia and is seen as an innovative strategy for teacher professional development (TPD). The purpose of this study was to explore secondary school English Language (EL) teachers' learning experiences as they engaged in LS as well as to explore LS as a strategy for teacher professional development at secondary schools. The research methodology adopted was a qualitative case study of a single site and involved four participants. Each participant completed two LS cycles in three months. Data was collected through classroom observations and document analysis. Analytic induction was used to analyze the data. The findings of the study affirmed the literature on the importance of peer collaboration and feedback, and improving instructional practices particularly teachers' professional knowledge. However, time-constraints, extra workload, and minimal school management support were some constraints noted during the implementation of LS in schools. Lesson study provides an alternative strategy for the in-service teachers to enhance their professional development as well as encourages the teachers to solve their students' learning problems in actual classrooms collaboratively.

Abstract-Approaching curriculum content through multiple entry points and integrating technology into classroom instruction which will help the educational system achieves the National Philosophy of Education to meet the challenges of the 21 st century. Thus, there is a need for a procedural model that could help teachers modify their lesson to address the student's intelligence by integrating multiple intelligences and instructional technology into classroom instruction. This paper provides an overview of the POMAT approach that gives due attention to a lesson's procedure includes instructional activities, objective or learning outcome, materials, assessment, and instructional technology in classroom instruction. It involved a step-by-step process of modifying the existing lesson and integrating multiple intelligences and technology into instruction. The process breaks up the lesson plan process into five steps that require teachers to think about how well their lesson maps out. Using this approach, teachers should look at a lesson's procedure first, and then maps back through the objective, materials, assessment, and technology to determine a consistency of purpose. The actual flow of a lesson should nicely match the objective, materials, assessment and technology. The entire procedure is designed to examine a lesson's consistency within the context of the eight intelligences.

Standard-based English language curriculum (SBELC) was fairly a new curriculum in Malaysian primary schools. The implementation of SBELC is a phenomenon affecting all teachers and pupils in primary education. Since curriculum implementation occurs mostly in the classroom and teachers are the key players in the implementation process, the initial concern should be teachers' perceptions towards the new language curriculum. Teachers' perceptions towards the curriculum determine their acceptance and readiness. Therefore, a multiplecase study was carried out that involved five teachers from five national primary schools to investigate teachers' perceptions towards the implementation of the SBELC and data were analysed from classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and corresponding documents. The findings suggested the participants had positive perceptions towards the new language curriculum which were the early indicator of their acceptance and readiness to implement the standard-based English language curriculum. This paper attempts to discuss teachers' perceptions of the standard-based English language curriculum as progressive, pragmatic and outcome-based curriculum in Malaysian primary schools.