OUMH1103
FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SEMESTER JAN /2013
OUMH1103
LEARNING SKILLS FOR OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNERS The problems faced by students in higher education in Malaysia in mastering the English language and its impact on employability.
MATRICULATION NO IDENTITY CARD NO. TELEPHONE NO. E-MAIL LEARNING CENTRE
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691115105407001 691115105407 012-3303294
[email protected] Shah Alam
OUMH1103
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3&4 2.0 Problems to be Proficient in English ......................................................................................5 2.1 Lack of exposure ............................................................................................................ 5&6 2.2 Charters of the students .......................................................................................................6 2.3 Materials – Learning Resources ..........................................................................................6 2.4 Inappropriate teaching of English .......................................................................................7 3.0 Practical Suggestions to improve English proficiency..........................................................7 3.1 Increase the exposure of English language .................................................................... 7&8 3.2 Methods to improve English ...............................................................................................8 3.2.1 Reading ........................................................................................................................8 3.2.2 Watching and listening ................................................................................................8 3.2.3 Writing ........................................................................................................................9 3.2.4 Speaking ......................................................................................................................9 3.3 Materials – Learning Resources ..........................................................................................9 3.4 Recruit qualified English teachers ............................................................................... 9&10 4.0 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................10 References
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INTRODUCTION We are now in the 21st century and moving forward to achieve our mission 2020 to become advance development country. In line with the above, education is the main role for us to achieve our mission and with proper education system, we create knowledgeable nation to drive through toward our mission. In the meantime, globalization is now a fashionable buzzword (Stegar, 2009) which consciousness the world as whole (Robertson, 1992) and intensifies worldwide social relations (Giddens, 1990). English language plays a major role in the globalization process and become the pull factors for one another. English is the native language of more than 350 million people and is the international language of diplomacy, business, science, technology, banking, computing, medicine, aviation, UN & NATO armed forces, engineering, tourism, Hollywood films and arguably the best pop and rock music in the world. In the globalization situation, a common use language such like English will be very important for our business industries to be in line and compete with the global competitor as a communication tool. Therefore, proficient of English language becomes one of the most important skill along with others soft skills for employment. Unfortunately, now a day, our graduates and are unemployable due to poor command in English language which becomes the barrier for them to be employed and perform their talent on their respective field. This definitely affects and defeats our mission 2020 as we might not able to achieve with lack of talented manpower.
“Graduates unemployable due to poor English Outsourcing Malaysia (OM) chairman David Wong said a recent survey among 30 companies offering 220 jobs revealed that only 11% of the applicants were considered “employable”, adding that the respondents were members of OM. The Star, April 01, 2010.”. From the above news article, almost 90 % of our graduates are not able to cope up with market demand due to their poor command in English and that is a terrifying figure and it show that Malaysia students in higher education are not able to be proficient in English language.
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OUMH1103 The problem of our graduates and students in higher education are due to the environment surrounding them and also the characteristics of the individual. The factor of the environment will be a big impact as we are in the multi racial society and we tend to use our mother language or dialect to communicate daily even in the working environment. The situation will be worsening with the student who is lack of confident, anxiety, shy and fear to communicate in English. Base on the above fact, we will need to emphasis on the problems face by the Malaysia graduates and higher education student with positive suggestion to assist the students to overcome the problems in order for our country to face globalization and also to achieve our 2020 mission.
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2.0 PROBLEMS TO BE PROFICIENT IN ENGLISH
2.1 LACK OF EXPOSURE
Our country, Malaysia is a multi racial country and from the date of Independent, our Government already committed to maintain the culture and language of every race with the affirmation in our country constitution. The national language for Malaysia is Bahasa Malaysia and English is set to be the second language of the nation. In the meantime, other race such like Chinese and India are free to use their mother language of Mandarin and Tamil in daily communication and even in education. Therefore, we have three languages as teaching medium in primary and secondary school and each type of primary and secondary school are maintain their mother language as first language and others language as second or third language. In fact, the teaching hours for English language in primary and secondary school will be less than 10% compare to others language as all others subject are teach in Mandarin, Tamil or Bahasa Malaysia. Malaysia students will speech, communicate and writing in English during the twelve or thirteen years of primary and secondary education less than 10% of their total study hours. The exposure of the English language will not be sufficient for the student to be proficient in English language and they will suffer during the higher education time and also after graduation. The situation worsening when the local universities never enforce that the students need to pass the English language in order to get their graduation. Asia countries
such like Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and even Europe
countries such like France, Italy, Spain, Russia are facing the same problem like Malaysia as their main language in teaching medium are their mother language itself. The environment of the above countries are even worse than Malaysia as their media such like news paper, television programme and daily communication are almost all in their mother language. In the other hand, Singapore and Philippine will be different as their Singapore and Philippine Government use the English language as their main teaching language from the primary,
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OUMH1103 secondary to higher education and their mother language as second language. The exposure of English language for their student will be more than 90% of their total study hours which is totally reverse situation from Malaysia. Therefore, the more exposure to the English language for Malaysia students will definitely improve the proficiency in English language.
2.2 CHARACTERS OF THE STUDENTS
The characters of Malaysia students obviously play an important role of their poor command of English. The following characters will restrict them to be proficient in English:
1) Lack of confident – students are tending not to communicate in English as they are always feared that their pronunciations and grammars are incorrect. 2) Anxiety and fear – this is the barrier of the students from communicate in English. We will not able to speak normally while we have the feeling of anxiety and fear. 3) Shyness/shamefacedness – the feeling of shy/shame will restricted the students from asking for knowledge and thus lost the chances to improve their English language. 4) Lazy – students are not willing to spend their time to search and source for additional resources to improve their English. Students should eliminate the above characters if they wish to be proficient in English language.
2.3 MATERIALS - LEARNING RESOURCES
The books and learning resources used can seriously affect the performance of students. If the resources available are outdated or inappropriate, we are unable to get the right results. Therefore, students should get advises form their teacher on choosing the correct resources. In the other hand, the shortage of learning resources will increase the difficulty for the students to learn and improve their English, The percentage of television programmes, newspapers, magazines and books publishes in English are more lower than other languages. This will definitely affect the students to get more exposure to improve and learn English.
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OUMH1103 2.4 INAPPRORIATE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
English teachers also are learning resource and the best person to encourage the students to speak in English. If the English teachers are communicate with their students in languages other than English on or off English lessons, another resource is lost for the students to learn. It will be even worse as there are English teachers who don’t really know what they are doing, inexperienced, unqualified or unskilled. They are not familiar with the different techniques and methods of teaching and also cannot manage a class properly. Consequently, an important learning resource lost and students have difficulties to absorb the information and tend to lose interest in English language and thus unable to be proficient in English.
3.0 PRACTRICAL SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE ENLISH PROFICIENCY
3.1 Increase the exposure of English Language Languages are easy to learn if we practice and use since our childhood. Everyone is proficient in the language they use daily since childhood even though they seldom use after they grow up and change in language environment. Parents are playing an importance role in this. They can expose their children to the environment with English by speaking to them in English daily, send them to English medium kindergarten, let them watch English medium television programme such like Disney Channel, Cartoons Network and of course provide them story books which are in English medium. The increase exposure of English from childhood will help students to be more proficient in English even though the exposure of English will decrease during the primary and secondary school. That will not be enough if we want our students’ proficiencies in English language. The next step of exposure shall be in the primary and secondary school. Our Government did try to increase the exposure in English by instruct that the subjects of Science and Mathematics to be taught in English. Definitely, that is not enough and we shall increase the time for the teaching of English in primary and secondary school. The most drastic suggestion will be we change all the teaching language in our primary, secondary and higher education to English and our students will be 100% expose to English. Page 7 of 11
OUMH1103 In fact, the more practical suggestion will be we follow our neighbour country, Singapore, change the teaching medium to English and make the mother language second language in school. This will create win-win situation as our students can be proficient in English and in the meantime still maintain our mother language and culture.
3.2 Methods to improve English
Primary and secondary students are not confident to speak in English. We always say that students are "shy", but the main reason is because students do not neither practice speaking communicative nor memorize English. We will need to boost their confident in order to assist them to have positive attitude to improve and to be proficient in English. The following are some suggestion and methods to boost students confident and improve their English: 3.2.1 Reading Students should read books whose subject interest to them, watching English movies with subtitles and speaking, communicating in English regularly. Students should choose books whose language provides some challenge to them and learn the new words from the books. Students should make note on the new words learn to enhance the learning process. Students definitely will be improving on their vocabulary, words used and sentences. The use of dictionaries will further enhance the process of reading. Students need to get a good and reliable dictionary can lead students to understand the words easily and smoother the process of learning English. 3.2.2 Watching and Listening Students should watch English movies with subtitles and listen to English song. While they are fun time watching the movie and listen to songs, they can learn new words at the same time and knowing how to pronounce them. This is an easy way as students can easily access to movie and song through DVDs, VCD, CD, paid television channel, on line and etc.
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OUMH1103 3.2.3 Writing This is another method to be proficient in English. In line with reading, watching and listening, students need to write in English. Students can write in the following methods: I.
Students can start a blog in English to blog on something that they love such like write about favourite movies, favourite characters, what new movies to expect next year. Beside of blogging, students can join online forums, engage in online chatting to even enhance their English.
II.
Students can write to a pen pal or in the 21st century, join the internet such like Face book, Twitter in English. Students practise their writing skill and in the same time, practise their reading.
III.
Students can write their diary/journal in English. This will be an effective way to practise their English daily.
3.2.4 Speaking Students should speak the language whenever they can. They can speak it with their friends and family. They should not be shy and afraid to try speaking the language. The friends and family will be their courage and confidence for speaking in English. The more they speak, the more they can be fluent in English.
3.3 Materials – Learning resources We should provide reliable sources for the students to learn English. We should organize good library not limited to hardware like books, but also the digital library as we are now in the 21st century. We shall check before we category the library books and thus becomes the reliable resources for students to learn English. We have a lot of on line digital library open for the respective Universities students but we should expand the digital library service to all level of students. This will make our materials and learning resources reliable.
3.4 Recruit Qualified English Teachers. We shall not limited ourselves in the teachers recruitment as this is important for our students to have correct teaching method, grammars, vocabularies in learning English. The recruitment standard must high and shall not simply recruit due to shortage of teachers. Page 9 of 11
OUMH1103 In order to increase the standard of English, our Prime Minister even proposes to recruit the English teachers from India in addition to the efforts our Government has taken with the United States which had sent 75 teachers to Malaysia to teach English language. The more qualified teachers we have and with proper exposure to the students, we will have more and more students who are proficient in English language.
CONCLUSION Now a day, we are facing the process of globalization and English is the language which drives through the process. We, Malaysian, as the part of the world, must be realistic and prepare to face the change. We should notice that English is a powerful communication tool and commonly use worldwide. In order to achieve our country mission 2020, we must have enough professional manpower to drive us forward. Our country education system can generate the professional manpower needed but we have to equip them with important tools to face the world. Communication is the most import element in an organization. The messages must be passed down clearly and preciously for any organization in the world to achieve respective organization goals. In the 21st century, organization is facing the global issue of globalization and organization needs to adapt and find solution. Therefore, organization will need manpower which possess the most important tool for communication and that will be manpower who is proficient in English. Hence, the employability of the graduates will be base on whether they are proficient in English language. The world will not stop and wait for us. We should immediately start our steps to create more and more students and graduates who are proficient in English language for our organization and our country to adapt to the globalization. We have identified the problems of our students in higher education to mastering in English and also we suggest the steps to overcome it accordingly. We shall move and look forward to create students and graduates who proficient in English.
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OUMH1103 References
10 points why students in Malaysian students is weak in English is.(n.d)[Online]. Chok Sim Yee. (2012, June 9). 70% of graduates let down by poor english. The Borneo Post. Retrieved from http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/06/09/70-of-graduates-let-down-by-poorenglish/ Available:http://www.scribd.com/doc/55770942/10-Points-Why-Malaysians-Students-Weak-in– English [2013, March 01] EDUCATION: Enrich your language power (2013, February 27).NewStraitsTimes Post, p.A12. Fadzilah, Amin(2012, Aug 28). Ways to improve english. The Star. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2012/8/28/lifefocus/20120828085315&sec=lifefoc us Graduates unemployable due to poor english. (2010, April 01). The Star. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2010/4/1/north/5963162&sec=north Hafidzi Razali. (2011, November 16). The need of linguistic’s proficiency for malays. World Press. Retrieved from http://myrumbles.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/the-need-for-linguisticsproficiency/ HARIATI AZIZAN AND LEE YEN MUN . (2011, April 10). Minding our language. The Star. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp? Improve on english or lose out in job market, undergrads told. (2011, April 11). The Star. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp? 'Proposal to recruit English teachers from India needs deep study. (2012, December 22). The New Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/proposal-torecruit-english-teachers-from-india-needs-deep-study-1.190076 Shannon Teoh. (2011, July 26). Malaysian graduates struggle to get good jobs. The New Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysi..-straits-times/
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