Essays

Culture assumptions in the Malaysia secondary school English language classroom, programme and curriculum.

How does one perceive the culture of English language teaching (ELT) in Malaysia? There is no right or wrong answer for this and one could only make assumptions about it. It is hard to define the idea of culture in the ELT in Malaysia. The difficulty lies between the culture of the target language and cultures of the people. In fact, researchers such as Kaplan and Hymes cited in Stapleton  (2000), indicate that culture and language are intrinsically bound. Their research has attempted to show how, cultural knowledge is critical to communicative competence in a foreign language. There are also other researchers who have indicated that culture and language is inseparable. Rivers (1981) cited in Stern (1983) states that language could not be separated completely from the culture in which it embedded. In this essay, I am going to refer to culture in terms of Britlins’s (1990) definition cited in Kramsch (1994). He states, ‘Culture refers to widely shared ideals, values, formation and uses of categories, assumptions about life, and goal-directed activities that become unconsciously or subconsciously accepted as “right” and “correct” by people who identify themselves as members of a society’. This would mean that, culture is considered as shared customs, beliefs, habits and values of a group Therefore, in dealing with the idea of culture and language in the ELT in Malaysia, one has to agree that there are several assumptions adhered to it. However, in this essay, we will only look at three aspects of it. The first is about the culture mismatch, next is the attitudes of the learners in Malaysia towards the language and lastly the aspect of culture in the curriculum.

One difficulty of teaching culture in the English language classroom in Malaysia is down to the factor of culture mismatch. There are various aspects of culture mismatch here. Firstly, one has to take account into the mismatch of the ELT approaches. In Malaysian classroom, the P-P-P (Presentation-Practice-Product) approach is used predominantly which gives the teacher high controls in presentation and practice stages. While in the west, learning of English is more learner-centred and the curriculum is process-oriented. In Malaysian context, only some attention is given to pupils’ participation in the production stage. This perhaps explains the role of the traditional teachers in Malaysia where they impart information to students, who in turn expected to sit and to absorb the information. Consequently, students normally possess extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation to learn English.

    Another mismatch is evident in the culture of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach.  The culture of interaction in the classrooms in Malaysia is based on modesty. Thus, volunteering and answer maybe influenced by this. In the context of English subject, it is hard for the teachers to interact with the students. There is the silent classroom culture where students will only answer questions when the teacher calls their names. One would question the successful implementation of CLT at this stage. The reason for this silent culture is down to several factors. One of it is that there are social pressures not to speak English too well in front of one’s peers because if one displays open confidence in the colonial tongue, one might experience alienation within one’s peer group.  Although this culture is based on the collectivist society, we can also relate this aspect to other factors such as the attitudes of the learners towards the language.

            According to Stern (1983), the language situation is closely related to factors of socialinguistic and sociocultural. They are the social organization of the community and the different groups that constitute the society, its social classes and occupational, ethnic, cultural, and religious group. He refers to Mackey’s (1970) model of language differences between different social grouping which explains that, particular languages are sometimes held in either high or low esteem because of economic, political, or cultural values associated with them.

    In order to look at the language situation in Malaysia, we have to look at the attitudes of two types of learners: urban and rural. As the attitudes vary between these two groups, one has to take account of the learning styles and this includes the factor of motivation. Gardner and Lambert (1972) cited in Abu-Rabia (1995) are among the pioneers who established the relation of attitudes and social context to second language (L2) learning. They proposed the distinction between integrative and instrumental motivations. The attitudes of urban students might be influenced by the integrative motivation whilst the rural students is linked to the instrumental motivation. The former means that the learner identifies fully with the target language (TL) group, and is ready to be identified as part of it. It concerns with personal growth and cultural enrichment. The latter describes the motivation of the learner who is only interested in learning the language as an instrument for a better future and for social mobility; in this case, the learner does not identify with the TL speakers. This culture difference is down to the fact that urban students are more exposed to the TL because they are close to the development of economy, science and technology, which is growing rapidly in the cities. Therefore, there is a need to use English for a wider communication and this explains why the language is widely use amongst these students compared to the ones in the rural area.

      Moreover, most of the students in rural areas are Malays, and the attitude embedded in the rural Malay society is that, English is still a colonial language and one does not need to become proficient in the language as there will always be the fear of being colonised. This would also mean that the language would affect both the society and religion, in this case, the Malay people who are majority Muslims. In support of this, Lightbown and Spada (1999) state that, an individual’s identity is closely linked with the way he or she speaks. It follows that when speaking a new language one is adopting some of the identity markers of another cultural group. This depends on the learner’s attitudes. They continue by saying that  ‘learning a second language can be a source of enrichment or a source of resentment’

     The last assumption that needs to be address in this essay is the aspect of culture in the curriculum. It is essential that the curriculum reflect the culture of the TL. Unfortunately, in Malaysia, the implementation of this is not fully evident in terms of its materials and activities used in the ELT. Before we discuss this in depth, perhaps we should look at the background of the English curriculum in Malaysia. The ELT syllabus is planned in accordance with the goal of Kurrikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah/ Secondary School Integrated Curriculum (KBSM/SSIC). The aims of the syllabus are presented in global terms and take into consideration the roles and needs of English in the country. Therefore, the syllabus is taught using the Malaysian setting as a base, which implies that the teaching should emphasize the principles of good citizenship, moral values, and the Malaysian way of life. The students are taught the four language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Whilst the topics outlined in the syllabus do not reflect much of the culture of the TL. For example, the topics for form 1 are those of the home and school; in form 2, are those of the community, town and village and in form 3, the state and country. Only in the upper secondary students learn about the ASEAN region and the world but still, not much into the TL culture. This brings us to the question what type of English will the students produce at the end of their school years. From my experience, learning and teaching English in Malaysia, I think the people are producing Malaysian English rather than Standard English. This is probably due to lack of knowledge in the TL and poor implementation of ELT in the classrooms. Consequently, the people tend to use English sentences with direct translation for example, ‘Better you don’t throw rubbish in the streets’ or addition of the word ‘lah’ at the end of a sentence, for example, ‘ I didn’t buy the dress lah’. Some Malaysians constantly make these mistakes. However, this scenario has almost become part of the culture of the language scene in Malaysia. Eventually, the curriculum developers have decided to introduce the literature strand into the English syllabus. The aim of this is to improve the standard of English in Malaysia and probably to teach the culture. There is a mix of attitudes when the literature component is introduced in schools. The positive aims are that the students will be expose to the culture of people outside their own country especially of the TL natives’ culture, through reading short stories and at the same time learn the moral values behind the literature work. However, I think the curriculum developers are being too ambitious in this matter. Firstly, not all the literature works used in the literature strand are from an English native context. Here, one would question whether the students are learning about the culture of the TL or learning the literature work, again, for examination purposes. Furthermore, the short stories used, as the source for students to read and learn is the abridged version of the original work. Literature as indicated by Valdes (1986) is unabridged fiction, drama, poetry, or essay written for an educated audience of native speakers of the language in which it is written, purporting to represent life as it really is. Here, one would question if the curriculum developers really want the students to learn the culture of the native speakers of the language, why the students have to use the abridged version of the short stories. This implies that the use of literature in the language teaching in Malaysia is just to fill the faulty gaps in the curriculum. Consequently, this brings us to the conclusion, how the curriculum developers should go about teaching the TL culture in the English language classrooms in Malaysia.

  It is a complex task for the curriculum planners to decide the best way to plan second language learning. This is because learners come into the classrooms from different backgrounds and life experiences. Therefore, the curriculum developers should attend to the issues mentioned in previous paragraphs such as culture mismatches, attitudes of learners and the curriculum culture. In addition, there are other issues that need to be consider as well such as a lack of in-depth in teacher training, the failure to resource the innovation with appropriate teaching resources and so on.

Firstly, different aspects of western concept need to be matched with the characteristics and needs of the learner. For example, the problem solving activities through co-operative learning may well be suited in Malaysia since the society valued the principle of good citizenship and togetherness. Apart from that, peer tutoring is also a culturally suitable strategy to use with the students. All these are among the many activities that the teacher can apply in the classroom to contribute to the students’ attitude toward and motivation to learn the TL. This means that a positive motivation to learn the TL can successfully be achieved when there is a supportive environment in which students are engaged in interesting activities that are appropriate to their cultural backgrounds and interest.

Another aspect that the curriculum developers should think about is a strategy to change the culture of using the traditional product-oriented approach. As discussed earlier in this essay, teachers perceived this as a more effective method of examination preparation rather than the process-oriented methods. Therefore, curriculum change through changing examinations can be recommended as a change strategy for students’ success in language proficiency.

Other than that, the curriculum developers should give allowance for ‘more time’ to the teachers to deal with the English syllabus. The culture of trying to complete the syllabus or the textbook on time should change so that the teachers could concentrate more on carrying out the tasks for the students. This is because when teachers tend to cover the textbooks too much, they will neglect the ability of the students to develop their necessary skills in learning the language. Besides that, the tendency to use textbook so often in the classroom may also reflect that the teachers lack the confidence in their own English proficiency. Therefore, for an effective change, the next aspect that curriculum developers should be thinking about is the teachers’ ability.

Lastly, the teacher development is closely linked with the curriculum development. Following from the previous paragraph, it suggests that more training should be given to the teachers before carrying out certain new curricula like the literature strand. Carless (1999) suggests that curriculum planners should put emphasis on professional development for local staff than reliance on overseas advisers and if outsiders are used, one of the main role is to facilitate the development of local officers who can take over once outsiders have departed.

In conclusion, to have a successful learning of the L2, one has to take account of the aspects of culture of the TL. This means that the curriculum developers have to make sure that the content of the culture in the ELT product is synchronized with the process of its implementation in the classroom.  This may result in an adaptation of curriculum to the realities of the local classroom at the micro level and the societal culture at the micro level.

Bibliography

Abu-Rabia, S., Multicultural and Problematic Social Contexts and their contribution to L2 learning, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol.8: 2, 1995.

Carless, D. R., Perspectives on the Cultural Appropriacy of Hong Kong’s Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC) Initiative, Language Culture and Curriculum, Volume 12:3, 1999.

Kramsch, C, The Cultural Component of Language teaching, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Volume 8:2, 1995.

Lightbown, P.M., and Spada, N., How Languages are Learned (Revised Edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press (CUP), 1999.

Stapleton, P., Culture’s Role in TEFL: An Attitude Survey In Japan, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol.13, No.3, 2000.

Stern, H.H, Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching, Cambridge: CUP, 1983.

Valdes, J.M, Culture Bound, Cambridge: CUP, 1986.