Opening The Minds Eyes: Language Awareness for Malaysian Teachers of English

Abstract

We are witnessing increasing concern on the part of parents, politicians and educators about the English language proficiency of English teachers. The New Straits Times, 26th. June 1990 issue quoted our Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad stressing the importance of proficiency in the English language as vital to Malaysia's development particularly so for those involved in the teaching, diplomatic and business professions.

On careful analysis, we cannot deny that the standard of English of Malaysian teachers has started to deteriorate. The English language teaching profession in Malaysia has now, more than ever been imbued with a large and increasing number of "no option", usually low proficient language learners, who have chosen to become language teachers as "something rather than nothing". Their "option" or higher proficient counterparts have chosen programmes other than teaching to major in disciplines like Medicine, Law, Engineering and Business Management. This group of teachers, now has the formidable task of teaching the English language which they themselves are insecure in or even uncomfortable with. It is therefore not surprising to know that learning English while using English, learning English while teaching English and learning English while using and teaching English are ongoing and overlapping activities for these teachers. Hence, taking the above situation the reality is that we have inherited the arduous task in teacher English language development of not only providing for the link between enhancement of user linguistic and communicative competence, but also providing for pedagogical competence and self- development competence, more specifically that of self-confidence and self-esteem building, for these teachers.