Trends in Malaysian ELT Research Presented at the Melta Conferences 2005-2009

Abstract

Research activities in the English language as taught at the various levels in Malaysia have been dynamic over the last two decades. The number of conferences held over the years in the country on English language alone is a good indication of this. This shows that awareness of a dominant second language is strong not only in the government policies over the years but also amongst the general population. The current paper reports on the types and topics of research that have been carried out on the English language and linguistics from 2005 to 2009 in Malaysia at the MELTA conference to see how our perceptions and reception of the English language have grown or changed over the years. Abstracts from the MELTA conference of the said years formed the data of the study and were analysed for general distribution of common topics. A discussion is provided to link past research to potential future research in the relevant areas of English language teaching in Malaysia.