The English language is introduced to the Malaysian child as early as preschool, at the tender age of 5-6 years old. It continues to be taught as a compulsory subject in the national curriculum at the primary (6-12 years old), secondary school (13-17 years old), as well as post-secondary and tertiary levels of education (18 plus onwards). In sum, the ordinary Malaysian who completes his or her formal education from preschool to tertiary levels (undergraduate degree) averages between 14-15 years of English language education. The inclusion of the English language as a subject in the national education curriculum of Malaysia is compulsory and guided by the language in education policy. However, it is not compulsory for students to pass the subject in order to complete their education at the primary or secondary levels. Even so, the role and status of the English language is institutionalised as an important second language (L2) (Darus, 2009).
The discourse of ‘privileging examination’ (Koo, 2008, p.56) is dominant in Malaysia. Furthermore, classroom teaching is highly characterised by teacher-centred approaches and chalk-and-talk drill method (Ministry of Education, 2003). The most popular teaching method is drilling using past-year examination questions, worksheets and exercise books (Ambigapathy, 2002). The teachers conduct summative assessment two or three times a year, checking and recording it as a one-off report for the students and parents and for the school’s record (in the form of letter grades). Whether dealing with formative or summative assessments, the teachers consider them both basically as means used to measure the ability and competence of the students in answering questions and to prepare individual learners for national standardised examinations. Consequently, the majority of the students learn by rote, memorising rules, and are unable to use what they have learned.
Some argue that grades correlate with the effectiveness of teaching and learning (Biggs, 2001) but I would argue otherwise as, in my experience, learners in teacher-centred classrooms are usually passive recipients, with a tendency to absorb and then restate all of the information received when assessed. Being able to reproduce information learned from a particular course subject and achieve high scores in some cases, does not indicate that learning has taken place. Grades alone are therefore not an effective yardstick to evaluate effective teaching and learning (Ume and Nworgu, 1997).
The Malaysian English language curriculum expects teachers to teach using the target language entirely in the teaching and learning process. Listening to the teacher modelling the spoken language is hoped to develop learners’ interest in articulating and learning English. However, in the Malaysian education context, code-switching is a common phenomenon in the ESL classroom (Lee, 2010). Translating English into the Malay language or into the students’ mother tongue (the language in which the pupils were brought up with at home by their parents other than the Malay language) is mainly to increase learner understanding of the subject matter and to help learners with low levels of English proficiency (Chen and Maarof, 2017). A typical Malaysian ESL classroom consists of bilingual learners from different linguistic backgrounds who communicate in two or more languages to convey their personal experiences, negotiate meaning and engage in meaningful conversations with their peers and the teacher. The communication process usually takes place in languages other than the target language or language of instruction. In most ESL classrooms, Bahasa Malaysia is used for code-switching purposes because it is the common language shared by learners (Ahmad and Jusoff, 2009; Mohd. Saat and Othman, 2010; Then and Ting, 2011).
From the teachers’ perspectives, the use of code-switching is viewed as an effective teaching strategy (Creese and Blackledge, 2010; Lucas and Katz, 1994). It helps teachers to achieve the desired learning outcomes and at the same time, provides the necessary language support for learners. Ali (2008) claims that teachers primarily use Bahasa Malaysia to teach English because of the pressure to get good grades in examinations. To make a particular task understandable and clear, the teachers tend to use the language which both the teachers and students feel most comfortable with and which is most convenient.
The actual teaching of the English language as a subject starts from Year One. Pupils in Year One will experience formal teaching and learning of the English language in the form of the four English language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. At this stage, pupils are not yet used to the type of assessment (formative assessment) that I am investigating in this study. This potentially lays down a challenge for teachers of younger age groups in providing feedback for learners, an issue which I am also investigating in this study. Furthermore, learners in the same class may have different levels of fluency in their L2.
In terms of class size, it is normal for Malaysian primary school teachers to have thirty to forty (sometimes more) pupils in a classroom. In dealing with large class sizes, pupils in each school are usually screened and placed in different classes according to their abilities or according to their literacy and numeracy performance. In addition, Malaysian English teachers usually teach more than one class daily (sometimes 3 or 4 groups of classes in different years or levels). Most primary school classroom in Malaysia are built with either wood or concrete walls and floors (in a rectangular shape classroom). The windows in the classrooms (the right and left side view) take up most of the walls which means that wider windows are built and with two exit doors to make ventilation system more effective for the Malaysian hot climate weather (fans and lights are supplied in each classroom; the numbers of fans depend on how large the classrooms are). Therefore, the acoustic environment is challenging- Malaysian primary school teachers may not hear their pupils clearly and may hear noise from other classrooms.