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4 First Edition 2008 NOR ABIDAH MOHD OMAR & ZAIDAH ZAINAL 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor Darul Tak'zim, Malaysia. Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Research in English language teaching / penyelenggara Noor Abidah Mohd. Omar, Zaidah Zainal. Includes index ISBN English language--study and teaching. I. Noor Abidah Mohd Omar II. Zaidah Zainal Pereka Kulit: MOHD. NAZIR MD. BASRI Diatur huruf oleh / Typeset by NORABIDAH MOHD OMAR & RAKAN-RAKAN Fakulti Pengurusan & Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai Johor Darul Ta'zim, MALAYSIA Diterbitkan di Malaysia oleh / Published in Malaysia by PENERBIT UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA 34 38, Jalan Kebudayaan 1, Taman Universiti, Skudai, Johor Darul Ta'zim, MALAYSIA. (PENERBIT UTM anggota PERSATUAN PENERBIT BUKU MALAYSIA/ MALAYSIAN BOOK PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION dengan no. keahlian 9101) Dicetak di Malaysia oleh / Printed in Malaysia by UNIVISION PRESS Lot 47 & 48, Jalan SR 1/9, Seksyen 9 Jln. Serdang Raya, Tmn Serdang Raya Seri Kembangan, Selangor Darul Ehsan MALAYSIA

5 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface vi Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 The Teaching of Science in English in the Malaysian Classroom Tan Hooi Koon Noor Abidah Mohd. Omar ETEMS: The Implications on Learners Faizah Mohamad Nor, Marzilah Abd. Aziz Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as a Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts Adlina bt. Abdul Samad, Marzilah bt A. Aziz,Tina bt. Abdullah Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Context Fauziah Ismail, MArzilah Abdul Aziz, Tina Abdullah The Holistic Approach: Using Drama in the Secondary ESL Classroom Abdullah bin Mohd. Nawi iv

6 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 The Role of Content Knowledge in the Use of Reading Strategies Faizah Mohamad Nor The Relationship between Reading Comprehension and Strategies of Readers: A Case Study of UTM Students Zaidah Zainal The Comparative Effect of Language Used in Recall Protocol in Reading Comprehension Zaidah Zainal Facilitating Content Acquisition through Language: The Wall Poster Technique Masputeriah Hamzah and Abdul Halim Abdul Raof Using Bahasa Malaysia while Writing in English: A Case Studyof Malay Students Mahani Stapa Chapter 11 Corpus Analysis of Primary One Science Textbooks for Designing ELT Materials Sarimah Shamsudin, Zaidah Zainal, Salbiah Seliman, 161 v

7 vi PREFACE This collection of writings will be useful for English language practitioners as it provides readers with some insights into what takes place in the classroom ranging from language used in teaching content subjects to useful techniques to enhance reading comprehension. It also provides a review on literature in English language teaching curriculum as well as how Malay learners write in English. For those interested in corpus analysis in discovering language patterns and how these could be used to develop teaching materials, the chapter on corpus analysis would be especially useful. The deliberations begin with a glimpse into what takes place in the teaching of science in English in the Malaysian classroom. This is viewed from the choice of language used by the teacher in imparting the content of the subject. Faizah Mohamad Nor and of the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English on learners. A description of how teachers perception on improving students creative writings in English by adopting the literature circle technique is the topic of Chapter 3. In the same vein, Tina Abdullah takes another look at literature in English language teaching focusing on the Malaysian context. Closely related to the creative side of learning is the use of drama in the secondary ESL classrooms which is critically reviewed by Abdullah Mohd. Nawi. For those concerned with improving reading skills among learners, the papers by Zaidah Zainal and Faizah Mohamad Nor will vi

8 be of some interest as the former looks at reading strategies while the latter discusses the role of content knowledge in reading. Zaidah Zainal again discusses the effect of language used to recall protocol in reading comprehension. The Wall Poster technique to facilitate content acquisition among learners is proposed by Masputeriah Hamzah in her paper This paper would be especially useful for instructors involved in the teaching of content subjects. Included in this collection is a paper on whether Malay learners switch to Bahasa Melayu when writing in English. This is the concern of the paper by Mahani Stapa in which it is suggested that teachers of ESL should view how the use of L1 could actually assist learners in writing in English. The book ends with a corpus analysis of textbooks, in this case primary one science textbooks, in designing and developing ELT materials. vii

9 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 1 1 THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE IN ENGLISH IN THE MALAYSIAN CLASSROOM TAN HOOI KOON NOOR ABIDAH BINTI MOHD OMAR INTRODUCTION In 2003, the Malaysian Government made a purposeful decision to change the medium of instruction for the teaching of Science and Mathematics from Bahasa Malaysia to English. This change was made as a step towards preparing the nation to face the economic globalisation (K-economy) as well as to develop the nation to be on par with the advancement of science and technology globally. This change poses a challenge to teachers who have been trained in Bahasa Malaysia and even for those who have been trained in English, as a large part of their professional experience involved the use of Bahasa Malaysia as a medium of instruction. What is more, teachers who were the products of the KBSM syllabus have learnt the subjects in Bahasa Malaysia and might be less familiar with the subjects in English. This unfamiliarity with the new medium of instruction might In spite of the directive given by the Ministry of Education that the entire teaching and learning process should be conducted in English, and thus, resort to the use of another language so as to compensate Since the teaching and learning process involves not only the teachers, students may also be affected by this change. Most school students (other than those from English private schools) have been

10 2 Research In English Language Teaching learning most of their subjects in Bahasa Malaysia other than the English subject. Schools that offer an English speaking environment are rare and usually limited to the premier schools as well as schools the use of the English language in three primary schools in the east coast of Malaysia, it was found that the use of the English language was limited only to the English subject classroom and English as an interaction medium outside the classroom was practically non- less exposure to an English speaking environment. Moreover, it is supposed that in areas away from cities, English is not a language that is commonly used as everyday language that there are serious issues of differences between the level of competency in English between urban and rural schools. It was found that students who have high levels of competency tend to come from English speaking homes, have greater exposure to English outside the classroom and tend to come from the higher socio-economic status group while those who are less competent in the language come from either rural schools where exposure to English is limited or from low socio-economic groups in urban areas. It is the concern of teachers and parents that these students learning process as they have less exposure in listening to spoken English for input. Students who come from non-english speaking environments have no scaffolding provided for developing their language classroom only. In addition to that, students are no longer learning English as a subject but they are now required to use English to learn a subject. Inability to understand the language might result in failure of coping with the teaching and learning process, which might cause loss of motivation and interest in the subject. In order to prevent these detrimental effects from happening, teachers might

11 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 3 resort to using a more familiar language to teach; one that the access the knowledge. In a study conducted by Ambigapathy and Revathi (2004), much has been revealed about the teacher s opinions on the use of the English language to teach Science and Mathematics. Although the teachers admitted that they were still prone to using Bahasa to explain concepts when students faced problems in understanding these concepts in English. These teachers maintained that students in class. In addition to that, a study conducted recently by Hamidah programs offered by the ministry to prepare teachers to teach Mathematics in English revealed that while there is improvement the teachers surveyed still faced problems in the area of speaking whereby they have problems in expressing ideas ( ) and some still be lacking in terms of the ability to manipulate the language one of the reasons for using Bahasa Malaysia as they are unable to comprehend the content of a lesson taught in English. Based on the concerns mentioned, this study was conducted to investigate if alternative languages are used in the teaching of Science and the reasons for using the alternative languages in the Science classroom. Although it seemed that alternative languages are needed to support and facilitate the learning of Science, the Translation bilingual teaching model which has its disadvantages

12 4 Research In English Language Teaching of translation is to ensure that all the students can understand what is being taught, students usually ignore the second language and wait instead for information to be provided in their native language likely to suffer as well. Therefore, it seems that teachers should be very careful when using different languages to teach content to bilingual or multilingual students. However, this does not mean that translation or the use of that one should have at least an understanding of the functions of switching between the native and foreign languages and its underlying reasons. This understanding will increase the awareness of the choice teacher s switching of languages is not always performed consciously; which means that the teacher is not always aware of the functions and outcomes of the switching process. Ferguson (2003), in Üstünel and into three main categories according to the pedagogical functions of classroom discourse. They are code switching for curriculum access, for classroom management discourse and for interpersonal relations. The reason for code switching in the classroom was found to be done usually out of concern for the students learning process. role in providing access to English medium text and in scaffolding knowledge construction for students with limited command of English-medium content classrooms, which are the History, Science and Mathematics classes, and found that code-switching was most common in History and then Science lessons, and least common switching was similar in that the teacher realises that students

13 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 5 problems. The second function of code switching suggested by Ferguson the classroom whereby the teacher switch from one language to the another to discipline a pupil, to attend to latecomers, (and) to gain of diversion from the lesson for the purpose of managing students behaviour and learning in the classroom. One interesting function highlighted by Ferguson (2003) was the use of code switching as an is usually done at the beginning of a new topic. Flyman-Mattson message in the utterances is so important that the teacher is not willing second was similar to Ferguson (2003) in that code switching is used social and affective classroom environment and found that code switching was also used to negotiate and establish relationships and used by the teacher to signal friendship and solidarity by using the may choose to use a different language when speaking to the students to create a more comfortable learning environment, and thus, lower teacher can also choose to switch back to the unfamiliar language to indicate seriousness in the next part of the class. Based on Soo s

14 6 Research In English Language Teaching make the command more serious and formal, and since the teacher in Malaysian classrooms are also bilingual or multilingual, it is not surprising that this choice of language is done sub-consciously and automatically. there is a role for code switching in the classroom; be it the content classroom or the language classroom and that the choice of using one language or another in the classroom has important pedagogical impact. METHODOLOGY This study focused on only one Science teacher, who himself studied and trained under the KBSM syllabus. This teacher, T, was teaching three Form Two Science classes - Form 2.3, Form 2.4 and Form weak. However, the general command of English is rather weak and intermediate with the majority at the beginner s level while only a handful belonged to the lower intermediate level. As a large part of the classroom activities and pedagogical role of a teacher require him to speak such as giving instructions and explanations, this study focused only on the use of alternative languages during the teacher s spoken discourse. T was audio-recorded, observed and interviewed over a period of two weeks. T was interviewed at the beginning of the data collection to gather information about his background and opinion about the use of English in the teaching of Science as well as about the classroom setting and composition. Later, another conducted by getting him to comment on what was happening using the transcribed lessons.

15 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 7 A basic transcription system was used because the focus of this study was on the use of the alternative languages and not on the Symbol Meaning Example T Teacher - S Student - Ss Students - La Lab Assistant Letters Raised volume HA? xxx = = xxx Overlap (two persons talking at the same time) Latching (immediate continuation from the previous speaker) T: Mana buku? = S:= Ah, buku apa? Prolonged sound T: Ah Xxx - Truncated sentence T: One black - (.) T: One black box (.) plasticine (.) (n) number of seconds. Ok, then Buku? SPS? Table 3.0: Symbols used for the transcription of the audio recordings

16 8 Research In English Language Teaching The transcribed data was later analysed and interpreted using a language was used and provided several reasons for the use of different languages during the teaching of a content subject. USE OF ALTERNATIVE LANGUAGE IN THE SCIENCE CLASSROOM recordings revealed that the teacher did use an alternative language during the teaching of Science, which is Bahasa Malaysia (BM). Extracts below are examples of use of BM during the teaching of Science. The number in the bracket () indicates the number of extract. is taken and the numbers after that indicate the lines at which the utterance can be found. (1) [T11:139-40] T: Ok. Sounds are produced by vibration. Ok, bunyi dihasilkan melalui getaran. (2) [T9: 75-76] T: Page twenty six checkpoint one point seven (.) do it now (.) Then, saya dah bagi latihan sebelum ini kan? K, buat mind-mapping dekat dalam buku nota.

17 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 9 It was also observed that T s use of BM varied in frequency study did not investigate in depth the frequency of BM used in the classrooms as it would require a different type of analysis. Nevertheless, a quick glance at the transcriptions showed that BM occurred in almost every line especially when the teacher is not teaching content. This was done by looking at the amount of lines which contained BM in each transcription. This suggests that BM in the class although T claimed that even with the use of BM, there were still some students who faced problems understanding him. T admitted that it is frustrating to teach when students do not seem to understand what he is saying. Since T does not speak any other alternative languages, he would resort to speak in BM; a language that all students are familiar with so that they can understand his lesson and communication can take place. The transcribed lessons also revealed that T s use of BM varied with the type of teaching and learning activities. Based on the observations, T was observed to use more BM when teaching and learning activities require T to move around during the lesson to monitor the students instead of speaking at the front of the class. Thus, BM was used mostly when students were working on the exercises and also during experiments. T explained that he had to use more BM during experiments because he needed to explain the steps to the students to make sure that the experiments are conducted correctly. REASONS FOR USING BAHASA MALAYSIA IN THE SCIENCE CLASSROOM

18 10 Research In English Language Teaching about matters related to the content taught for the day s lesson. It was observed that BM was used only when needed during content it was used less frequently in Form 2.3 but very frequently in Form development. (3) [T11:139-40] T: Ok. Sounds are produced by vibration. Ok, bunyi dihasilkan melalui getaran (4) [T8: ] S: T: Cikgu, apa maksud soalan ini? ( ) What s the connection between taste and smell? Ok. selsema, you ada selera makan? Ada tak? You kena selsema, you ada selera makan? Tak ada then only you have the appetite to eat. You ada selera untuk makan. understand the concepts in English. Although it was important to use English to prepare students for their examinations, T s main concern Nevertheless, he tried as much as possible to provide input in English and he is also very conscious of the use of BM during the lesson. Therefore, T uses BM for concept development only if he feels that students do not understand him. It is also possible that T s decision school principal to teach Science fully in English if possible.

19 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 11 In addition to content development, it was found based on observation that many of T s students were easily distracted, and therefore, T had to constantly ask questions to draw and maintain (5) [T4: ] T: K, jadi kamu, kedudukan kotak ini mempengaruhi kedudukan i dengan r kamu (.) dan juga sinar tuju kamu, incident ray, sinar tuju. Jadi kalau kotak kamu kat sini, adakah sinar tuju kamu kat sini juga? S: Ha. (6) [T9: 431] T: Yah, Goh. Why? Ada any questions? Ada soalan? BM was used to encourage students to participate and engage their attention in learning. BM was also used to ask questions as students can relate to the language and respond to the questions immediately. Some students might be able to understand the question It was observed that whenever T asked questions in English, the students would look down at their books but when the questions were asked in BM, they were spontaneous and responsive. This could be because when a question is posed in English, students would want to reply but their lack of ability to speak might hinder them from participating in the lesson. Besides giving explanations, it was found that instructions formed a large part of T s discourse and these were divided into two;

20 12 Research In English Language Teaching related instructions are those related to the subject and learning process such as instructions about the experiment procedures, which book to do their exercises in, which exercise to work on and so forth. These instructions were occasionally if not frequently issued in BM. The choice of language was dependent on the urgency of the instruction. If the value of the instruction is less important or not urgent, T can take the time to provide more language exposure. However, if the message or the instruction is of high importance and imperative, T will switch to BM so that the students can understand and act upon the instructions immediately. Two examples are taken from one same the urgency of the instruction is low. T was giving instructions on how to use the transformer and explaining which volt level to use. Note that the transformer is yet to be switched on. (9) [T 4: ] T: K, mula-mula saya nak kamu, k, switch the lowest current volt (.) Two. Not the high one ah, and therefore; students needed to be more careful handling the expensive device. Thus, his instructions were given immediately in BM. (10) [T4: ] S: T: Cikgu, tak terang kan? Ok, tak terang. Baru kamu naikkan sikit-sikit. K, naikkan sikit. Saya bagi maksimum sampai sepuluh saja. Jangan naikkan sampai dua belas.

21 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 13 Therefore, the value of the message is an important factor that affects T s choice of language when teaching as what is important is the effectiveness of the instructions. In order for the message to be delivered effectively, students must be able to understand the meaning of the utterance immediately. As was mentioned earlier, T s discourse in the classroom was not limited to content development and classroom management but it also included interpersonal conversations (formal or informal matters) which are not related to the content or the classroom context. It was noticed that these cues were mostly carried out with BM as the main medium of interaction. (11) [T8: ] S: T: S: T: S: T: Boleh kongsi? kongsi- kongsi apa? Boleh photostat buku? Mana boleh photostat? Ada cikgu, ni? Mana boleh photostat? You mau kena penjara ke? Ni siapa punya? Ni copy right lah, you mau kena penjara kah? It was noted that T moved around from student to student to monitor their work and while doing so, T tries to foster a good relationship with them by discussing matters other than the content. He tries to gain their trust by showing that he is as concerned about the individual as he is about their studies. In order to establish such solidarity, T uses BM as it is a common language used by the students. In addition to that, T mentioned that he is also more comfortable using BM to talk about things that are non-related to the content as that

22 14 Research In English Language Teaching is how he normally speaks. Even though the classroom is a formal and so uses BM for personal matters. Indirectly, the use of BM here helps T reduce the status gap between him and his students and this enables him to be more approachable. Teacher and student communication is important in the classroom and so T tries to foster a close relationship with the students by using this method. This is noted when T occasionally slips in some advice in BM to students during such interpersonal conversations to encourage them to study. For example, (12) [T10: ] T: You lain kali belajar tak berapa pandai kan, bukan bodoh. Tak berapa pandai kan, and then you can get good results, that s ok. You masih ada masa boleh perbaiki. Kalau you mahu perbaiki, you boleh repeat SPM. K, lepas tu dapat ok sikit punya result. Tapi not as good as yang lain kan. Tapi you ada sukan, you dapat medal semua tu ah. Ok, now syarikat swasta macam Maybank, TNB ambil juga orang yang boleh bersukan. Ok. Thus BM can also be viewed as a tool to establish rapport as well as to create a positive, comfortable and warm classroom climate. Besides these occurrences, there were other uses of BM which to control the students behaviour in the classroom. An obvious

23 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 15 and recurrent instant of such use was when T scolded, warned or reprimanded students as seen in the following extracts: (13) [T3: ] T: Quiet! One more time (.) Jangan melampau sangat. Jangan buat saya marah dulu. (14) [T7: 69-72] T: Kalau tak nak belajar, jangan datang kelas saya. K? Jangan buat kacau dalam kelas saya. Sama juga dengan perempuan yang sini. K, yang belakang sebelah sana. Jangan ingat kamu ni baik sangat. Pandai sangat (.) Tak nak belajar tak payah datang sekolah. Lepas tu kita boleh buang terus. Tak perlu datang sekolah lagi. (.) Tak faham-faham lagi! (.) EY, TAK HABIS LAGI? SAYA TAK TEGUR, SEMUA MAIN-MAIN! The purpose of reprimanding the students was so that they will stop their misbehaviour immediately and in order for this to Therefore, T used BM because the students will understand what he is saying and produce the desired behaviour. As was noticed in extract to keep quiet, there were no visible changes in the students behaviour but when T used BM with an increased volume, the students kept quiet immediately. It is interesting to note that when T used English to warn or scold students, they had the tendency to laugh it off and take it less seriously but when T used BM, they took heed of the warning and changed their behaviour even if only for a while. This

24 16 Research In English Language Teaching to use a more distant language is made to make the command more serious and formal. It could be possible that because the students could not understand what T was saying, they chose to ignore his admonishments. In addition, T did not like to reprimand in English because he felt uneasy doing so as English was almost like a foreign Therefore, BM was used to deliver the affective meaning of the Besides scolding and reprimanding students, it was also found that there was an extensive use of BM when T checked on students (15) [T9: ] T: Sekurang-kurangnya saya tengok dua orang ni da ada kemajuan (.) dah ada dua soalan. Yang ini? Baru apa? Chapter checkpoint one point seven? Apasal? Susah sangat ke nak tulis jawapan tu, mungkin susah juga kamu nak cari. (16) [T7: ] (Some girls just broke a beaker in the lab) T: WHICH GROUP? OK SIAPA NAK BERTANGGUNGJAWAB? Ok. Siapa nak tanggungjawab?... Siapa yang buat?... Siapa yang langgar? Therefore, it was important that students could understand what the teacher was saying or asking about, thus in order to therefore BM was used to check their behaviour. Another possible reason could

25 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 17 be because behaviour checks are not related to the content and they usually occur during the non-formal teaching and learning process during the lesson, which is why T might feel less compelled to use English than the extensive use of BM for such a purpose. from the data collected throughout the two week period. This paper has highlighted only the major occurrences of BM use in the teaching of Science but in general, it was found that BM was used as an alternative language for different reasons in the Science classroom. CONCLUSION main reasons for using BM as an alternative language in the Science classroom was because students could not comprehend the content as well as instructions delivered in English. Therefore, there was a need for an alternative language to deliver the message effectively attention and encourage their participation in the classroom activities so that the teaching and learning process can take place, thus, BM was used. However, a teacher s personal background could have affected his use of BM as it is his mother tongue so while he was naturally reverts to BM which is incidentally his mother tongue for certain purposes such as building rapport with the students or even to express his emotions. Several pedagogical recommendations can be suggested and feedback during the interview, it can be noted that the teacher is able to use English as a medium of instruction but an alternative language is needed to help students understand the lesson better. Hence, it is recommended that Science teachers be trained to use an

26 18 Research In English Language Teaching alternative language for designated purposes and only when really needed during the lesson so that the alternative language will not become a crutch for the students to depend on when learning in the unfamiliar language. Teachers who are professionally trained to use both languages can slowly reduce students dependency on the alternative language during content learning while at the same time create a need in them to learn or improve their command of the English language. reveals that there is a need for supplementary language support classes that could help students cope with this change from BM to English. It must be realized that the language taught in the English classes in schools are more aesthetic and communicative in nature subject. Students in the upper form are provided with the English for Science and Technology (EST) classes to help them learn the language of Science but students in the lower form are not exposed to such language input. It is recommended that the English classes provide language support to help students cope with their content learning. For example, a language teacher could spend a few minutes of the lesson to teach or review certain language items (tenses, vocabulary, etc) required in the particular chapter of the Science subject that the students are learning. Nonetheless, these conclusions and recommendations are study which focused on only one Science teacher. Therefore, it is recommended that this study be extended to a larger scale to include more subjects so that this situation can be investigated in more detail. also recommended that future research could look into the use of the alternative language according to race and gender. It would be affect the teacher s choice of language and if this choice is limited only in the content classroom or also found in the language classroom.

27 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 19 More detailed research could also be carried out to investigate whether the teacher will use the alternative language when placed in teaching students in the upper form who should have developed their cognitive ability of learning Science and have learnt Science in English since the beginning of their secondary schools. Lastly, this study has found that while the teacher is able to use English to teach and communicate in the Science classroom, very preliminary, this study has shown that the alternative language is useful and important in scaffolding students content learning as well as bridging communication gaps between teacher and students. of the larger population, future studies in this area, supported by larger corpora, are likely to shed more light on this area of language choice for the teaching of Science in English. REFERENCES teachers and their pupils: its functions and implications for teacher education. Language and Education. 7 pedagogical focus. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 15 Ambigapathy Pandian and Revathi Ramiah.(2004). Mathematics and Science in English: Teacher Voice. The English

28 20 Research In English Language Teaching Teacher. 33 classrooms: socialising bilingualism in Jaffna. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 6 pedagogical focus. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 15 Moore (eds.), Études de Linguistique Appliquée. 108 focus. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 15(3): The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. The Bilingual Research Journal. 20 Joinfostering Adapting Teaching For the Multilingual Classroom. 2nd. ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. contexts: functions, attitudes and policies. AILA Review. 16 and pedagogical focus. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 15

29 The Teaching Of Science In English In The Malaysian Classroom 21 Teaching of Mathematics in English in Malaysian Secondary Schools. Reform, Revolution and Paradigm Shifts in Mathematics Education Padilla, R. (Ed.) Ethnoperspectives in Bilingual Education Research Environment in Brunei. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 17 Second Language Teaching of French. Working Papers. 47 nglish Language Teaching in Primary Schools: Policy and Implementation Concerns. Available Research Methods in Language Learning. Fragments of a Vision: A Case Study of the Implementation of an English Language Curriculum Programme in Five Malaysian Secondary Schools.

30 22 Research In English Language Teaching Malaysia. The Language Teacher Online. 22 Handbook of Bilingual Education The Internet TESL Journal. 11 Malaysia and Singapore. The English Teacher. 16. Available

31 Etems: The Implications On Learners 23 2 ETEMS: THE IMPLICATIONS ON LEARNERS FAIZAH MOHAMAD NOR MARZILAH ABD AZIZ INTRODUCTION The ETeMS (or English for Teaching Mathematics and Science) was introduced in Malaysian public schools in 2003 with the main learners. This is because much has been said about the deteriorating level of English skills among Malaysian learners. It was felt that learners English was better off when English was the medium of instruction in schools in the 1960 s. When the national language, Bahasa Malaysia was made the medium of instruction in 1970, some quarters perceived this as the regressing point where the use of English language is concerned. Tun Dr Mahathir, the then Prime Minister, mooted the use of English in the teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science subjects, with the noble intention of producing Malaysians who are more linguistically competent and consequently, spearheading development and progress in education. Therefore, one of the ways of seeking knowledge would be through reading vast amounts of information which is mainly readily available in English, the lingua-franca. However, the move has sparked off some debate within certain affected by this regulation. Learners who do not have a strong are said to have fared badly in Mathematics and Science. If this is

32 24 Research In English Language Teaching academically due to their deteriorating performance in Mathematics and Science subjects, apart from their already poor performance in the English subject. A number of studies have been carried out to investigate how far these assumptions and views are true. Studies have been done on teachers involved in the ETeMS programme in order to get their views on the challenges faced due to this instruction (Salbiah et al, 2002; Norazman et al, 2006). However, till this day, it is not clear what the learners actually feel about having to learn these tough subjects in a second language, or in some settings, a foreign language. Hence, this study was undertaken with the main objective of determining the effects and implications of this regulation on a group of Malaysian learners. The researchers felt it was imperative to gauge the feelings of the learners themselves as they are the ones directly affected by the regulation. Thus it is crucial to investigate what the learners feel about this issue, as the Ministry of Education will soon be making a decision on whether the regulation persists or otherwise, to ensure that we will not be taking a step backward if we are already making improvements, since the move was introduced. In this study, the researchers attempted to seek answers to the following research questions: Do the learners feel that their performance in Mathematics and Science has improved as a consequence of learning these subjects in English? of the greater exposure to the English language, since Mathematics and Science subjects are now taught in English? What are some of the challenges faced by learners in learning Mathematics and Science subjects in English? authorities concerned to make an informed decision on the policy

33 Etems: The Implications On Learners 25 pertaining to the use of English in teaching and learning Mathematics and Science subjects. TEACHING AND LEARNING MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE IN ENGLISH Background of ETeMS The declining standard of English usage by students has set a chapter in the training of teachers to teach core school subjects in the English language particularly in Malaysia. ETeMS (English for Teaching Mathematics and Science) has been introduced as a platform to train teachers to teach teachers of Mathematics and Science (MST) in English. This effort is taken to help teachers understand how language is best used in the content area so that they can deliver their lesson effectively to students. It is also a mechanism used by the Government to encourage teachers to develop their English language competence The announcement to teach Mathematics and Science in English in 2002 and implemented in 2003 has motivated the of Mathematics and Science teachers so that they can conduct their lessons in English successfully in class. Five-pronged strategies have been adopted in the training program. These strategies are Interactive phase 1, Interactive phase 2, Self Instructional package for self-directed studies, web based and buddy support system. The interactive phases were meant for grouping teachers together to allow interaction with each other thus forming a favourable community. The self instructional package, grammar books, dictionaries with who needed further language support. The buddy system that was conceptualised on the belief that teachers learn best from each other

34 26 Research In English Language Teaching was also part of the assistance given to teachers who cannot be reached by the Teacher Education Division. Why teach Mathematics and Science in English? The knowledge of English that students derive from Mathematics and Science helps to develop students language competency. Being competent in the English language is an added advantage for students. For one, they would be able to perform internationally. This is based on the fact that English is used as a medium of instruction by many countries in the world. Being competent users of English also means that they are able to gain access to the resources in the Internet since most of the Internet resources are written in the English language. This sets the foundation for students to become independent learners in the future. The new language policy introduced in the teaching of the two core subjects aims at upgrading the nation s capability to play a bigger role in technological advancement. ETeMS therefore prepares teachers to develop students who are very competent in the English language so that they can keep pace with the rapid advances in science and technology, as English is considered to be the language of technology. Teachers teaching these core subjects in the English language are indirectly required to understand how language is used in the content area to enable them to deliver their lessons effectively. They become the resource persons for students who consistently need help to cooperate with, understand concepts and do things that they cannot do on their own. Good understanding of how language is used in the content area provides access to learning. It is in fact a window to develop students understanding of many specialist forms of language which they need as they progress in the education path. Complexity of language in Mathematics and Science A report prepared by the Australian Department of Education highlights

35 Etems: The Implications On Learners 27 the complexity of the language in Mathematics and Science. It states that the language of Mathematics is complex and is not similar to everyday language. It consists of specialist vocabulary, precisions and the use of symbols. Students learning Mathematics have to identify the word function before they are able to identify how mathematical problems can be solved. They also have to verbalise mathematical statements, putting words into symbols and graphs. They also have to work with lengthy descriptors and dense mathematical concepts. The report also states that teachers tend to make a lot of assumptions that students are able to understand the words despite the fact that some words may be too complex for students to understand on their own. The report also states that the language used for Science subjects comprises of a large vocabulary of technical terms, which training programs should not only focus on grading teachers language competency but also focus on strategies to help teachers deal with the language complexity of Mathematics and Science. Development in language across curriculum The concept of teaching through English, not in English is advocated Language Integrated Learning, when he addressed how Mathematics and Science can be best taught to teachers attending the Third TED- 2007, organised by the Education Ministry s Teachers Education. Marsh emphasised that teaching through English means making students conceptualise the lesson in English. This is possible when English becomes the medium of instruction. Besides receiving instruction in the English language, teaching through English also allows students to receive instructions and think in their mother tongue and while solving the problems in the English language. Though the concept has invited controversies, it has proven to be successful in some countries.

36 28 Research In English Language Teaching The future of ETeMS Though some quarters felt the teaching of Mathematics and Science should be taught in the national language, the conclusion drawn from the Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA) in English (Dec. 2007) shows that the present policy of teaching these subjects in English should be continued. The participants of the colloquium agreed that there is a need to continuously improve students English and learning these core subjects in the English language is a worthwhile strategy to meet the objective. Reverting to teaching Mathematics and Science in the national language may cause the country to be unheard of, in the international platform. In fact, it only results in students failing to perform globally because of the language barrier. In line with this, concerted efforts have to be taken to ensure that the aim of teaching Mathematics and Science is successfully achieved. These include designing more effective strategies in preparing teachers who are supposed to bring the change with adequate language and teaching skills, improving classroom instructions, enhancing teacher-student interactions, monitoring teachers and students progress with better mechanisms and encouraging specialisation among teachers. More user-friendly handbooks should be provided to the teachers involved to help them overcome their problems. Engaging content specialists as trainers and providing motivational incentives are also among the suggestions given by the participants of the colloquium as solutions to overcome related challenges. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in a boarding school in Johor. This school has charted a number of achievements in the academic performance of students in SPM examinations, at the national levels, in recent years.

37 Etems: The Implications On Learners 29 For instance, the school produced the highest number of students getting all A s in the SPM several years ago. The subjects of the study are Form Four students of the school. The study was conducted at the end of 2006, whereby these students have had about four years of learning Mathematics and Science in English. sets of questionnaires distributed to male and female students from ten different classes, all comprising learners of with similar levels of academic ability. These learners enrolled in the boarding school after achieving excellent results in their P.M.R. (Penilaian Menengah Rendah). Thus, the subjects of the study were high-achievers they all scored A s in English at the P.M.R. level. These respondents came from diverse family backgrounds; with parents working in different professions such as managers, accountants, teachers, study were selected at random, from the ten different Form Four classes. Of 50 questionnaires sent out, 44 were returned. The questionnaires were a combination of four-point Likert-scale items and open-ended items. The items were related to the learners perceptions of how learning Mathematics and Science in English had affected them academically. In the questionnaires, the term Mathematics was taken to mean both the Additional Mathematics and Mathematics subjects while the term Science denotes the three Science subjects taken explanation was included in the questionnaire given to the Form Four learners. FINDINGS OF THE STUDY

38 30 Research In English Language Teaching The implications of ETeMS on Learners Performance in Mathematics and Science English is that the explanation of concepts comes off easier when illustrated in English. Sixteen of the 44 (36.4%) respondents felt that it was easier for them to understand the mathematical and science concepts if they are explained in English compared to the national language. This is probably due to the familiarity with the terms used in English as they had been studying these subjects in English for four years. Not only did these students feel it was easier to study these subjects in English, six of them also revealed that their academic performance in Mathematics and Science subjects had improved as a result of studying these subjects in English. to follow when it is delivered in English. In the national language, long-winded. Sometimes, the text in the national language is a literal translation of the original text which is initially conveyed in English. Hence, it is not surprising that the explanation is clearer in its authentic form. Thus, learners with excellent English would be the ones who get to appreciate the language and visualise the content of the text. Although some learners felt positive about learning Mathematics and Science in English, there were some students who were not too happy with the move. Nine of the 44 (20.45%) students complained that their performance in the Mathematics and Science subjects had deteriorated since the subjects were taught in English. science concepts in English. Inaccurate comprehension of facts and information was formed as a result of their imperfect English. It appears then that the number of learners who performed worse (i.e. nine of 44 subjects) outnumbered those who performed better (i.e. six of 44 subjects) in Mathematics and Science after

39 Etems: The Implications On Learners 31 the regulation to teach these subjects in English was introduced. This possibly indicates that the academic performance of students in Mathematics and Science subjects, had deteriorated for some, after this move was made. This happened despite the fact that all these respondents have a good command of the English language, considering they had all obtained A s in the English language paper in PMR. On whether the students felt that their English language had improved as a result of the greater exposure to the language now that Mathematics and Science subjects are also taught in English, which 43 of the 44 respondents admitted that their command of the The only respondent who declared that her English did not improve despite the greater effort to teach students in English appeared to be a student who has a strong dislike for the language. The respondent stated that she did not like learning Math and Science in English and that she felt it has been a problem and a big disadvantage for her. She also felt that the teaching of these subjects should be conducted in the national language and text books for these subjects should also be written in the national language. On whether the students grades in English exams had improved as a consequence of this regulation, 21 of 44 (47.7 %) respondents stated that their English grades had improved. They related this to the fact that the move to teach Math and Science in English had offered them more opportunities to learn the language. If prior to the introduction of this regulation in schools, learners were only exposed to learning the language during English lessons, now, the move has offered them greater exposure to the language. Not only are they are now learning English in English classes, but they are also gaining more familiarity with the language that is used to

40 32 Research In English Language Teaching led to increased performances in their English exams. Students Level of Enjoyment of Learning Mathematics and Science in English 25 of these 44 students (56.8%) revealed that they enjoyed learning Mathematics and Science in English while 9 (20.5%) confessed that they did not like learning these subjects in English and would have preferred, the national language instead as the medium of instruction for these subjects. One respondent did not respond to this questionnaire item on whether he liked Mathematics and Science being taught in English. This probably meant that he was indecisive and did not mind either language be used as the medium of instruction for the Mathematics and Science subjects. Mathematics and Science in English, 25 out of 44 (56.8%) admitted learning Mathematics and Science in English, while one respondent students had mixed feelings on this issue. However, there was a higher number of students who perceived learning Mathematics and easy. Nonetheless, students who confessed to this being a tough chore admitted that they were able to take the challenges in their stride because they wanted to prepare themselves for bigger challenges which lie ahead, such as equipping themselves with good language skills to study abroad. in English When asked for the factors that made learning these subjects in

41 Etems: The Implications On Learners 33 English. An equal number of learners, i.e. 19 of them felt that learning these subjects in English had been tough because their teachers did the lessons easy for them. This shows that the learners attributed the to their own limitations, and those of their teachers. CONCLUSION This study concludes that 36.4% of the learners found it easier to understand the mathematical and science concepts in English compared to the national language. Very few learners; i.e. 6 out of 44 learners, felt that their Mathematics and Science grades had improved as a result of learning these subjects in English. In fact, 20.5 % of the learners complained that their Mathematics and Science grades had taken a plunge due to this regulation to teach Mathematics and Science in English. On a more positive note, a majority of the learners, i.e % improved as a result of this national policy. Another positive impact of this gesture introduced by the Education Ministry was that most learners (56.8%) enjoyed learning Mathematics and Science in English. Only 20.5% of the subjects would have wanted to revert to the former scenario in classrooms where Mathematics and Science subjects were taught in the national language. On whether learning these subjects in English have been an easy task, the respondents had mixed reactions. Most (56.8%), however, found learning Mathematics and Science in English, a daunting task. Those who viewed it as a challenge attributed the in English.

42 34 Research In English Language Teaching RECOMMENDATIONS Because learners English had generally improved, we feel that this regulation to teach Mathematics and Science subjects in English should be retained. This study also found that most learners had enjoyed learning Mathematics and Science in English and would have preferred to learn these subjects in English, compared to the national language. This provides more reason to continue teaching these subjects in English. However, these recommendations are useful in so far as that more studies should be carried out to determine if this move is viable and for that, more investigations need to be done to assess the real problems and challenges faced by learners and teachers in such schools. REFERENCES English, a must to go ahead. The Star.December 12, 2007 the Education Ministry s Teachers Education. Seremban and Science (ETeMS) Modules etemsmo.asp Ganakumaran Subramanium and Mardziah Hayati Abdullah (2007). Concerted effort needed. The Star. December 23, 2007 Language for understanding as a perspective (1997). Language

43 Etems: The Implications On Learners 35 Keywords: ETeMS, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics and Science, language

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45 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 3 TEACHERS PERCEPTIONS OF LITERATURE CIRCLE AS A TECHNIQUE TO TEACH CREATIVE WRITING USING LITERARY TEXTS ADLINA BT ABDUL SAMAD MARZILAH BT A.AZIZ TINA BT. ABDULLAH 37 ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Background of the workshop

46 38 Research In English Language Teaching s

47 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 39

48 40 Research In English Language Teaching

49 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 41 WHAT IS LITERATURE CIRCLE? s s

50 42 Research In English Language Teaching s

51 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 43 to conduct successful Literature Circles in the EFL classroom,

52 44 Research In English Language Teaching PRE-WORKSHOP SURVEY

53 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 45

54 46 Research In English Language Teaching literature; the second will enable them to describe, explain reverses this process.

55 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 47 POST WORKSHOP SURVEY

56 48 Research In English Language Teaching

57 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 49

58 50 Research In English Language Teaching s

59 Teachers Perceptions of Literature Circle as A Technique to Teach Creative Writing Using Literary Texts 51 CONCLUSION s REFERENCES LC_MOO. Orana

60 52 Research In English Language Teaching.. Literature Circles for the EFL Classroom. Circles in an EFL Classroom Cross. Literature

61 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 53 4 LITERATURE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING: A REVISIT IN THE MALAYSIAN CONTEXT FAUZIAH ISMAIL MARZILAH ABDUL AZIZ TINA ABDULLAH ABSTRACT

62 54 Research In English Language Teaching INTRODUCTION

63 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 55 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

64 56 Research In English Language Teaching THE OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY syllabus in the English language syllabus LITERATURE REVIEW

65 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 57

66 58 Research In English Language Teaching METHODOLOGY

67 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 59 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Items Yes No Items Yes No learning the English language literature 0

68 60 Research In English Language Teaching thinking Table 1 Items Yes No Items Yes No literature 0

69 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 61 syllabus Table 2 Items Yes No Items Yes No

70 62 Research In English Language Teaching I learn literature by using literature using Table 3

71 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 63 DISCUSSION

72 64 Research In English Language Teaching in

73 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 65 CONCLUSION IMPLICATIONS

74 66 Research In English Language Teaching REFERENCE Perceptions of Literature: A Comparison of Students and Educators Views ELT Journal Literature in the Language Classroom Teacher Mediation and Literature Learning in the Language Classroom LCS Personal Response and Social Responsibility: Responses of Middle School Students to Multicultural Lliterature The Reading Teacher sing Postcolonial Literature in ELT The English Teacher Effects of a Reader Response Approach on Students Ways of Thinking about Text Conference Report at the Annual Meeting of the National Reading Literature and Language Teaching: A Guide for Teachers and Trainers Teaching Languages, Teaching Cultures Literature in the ESL Classroom TESOL Quarterly

75 Literature in English Language Teaching: A Revisit in the Malaysian Contex 67 habits Reading Improvement Language vs. Litearture Integrating Literature into Foreign Language Teaching: A Sri Lankan Perspective Novitas- ROYAL ED eric.ed.gov Literature Programmes in Malaysian Schools: A Historical Overview MELTA Teaching Language Through Literature: Problems and Principes (Part 2) Yemen Time The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly

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77 The Holistic Approach: Using Drama In The Secondary Esl Classroom 69 5 THE HOLISTIC APPROACH: USING DRAMA IN THE SECONDARY ESL CLASSROOM ABDULLAH BIN MOHD NAWI INTRODUCTION Drama has long been part of the education curriculum in many parts of the world, and can in effect be considered a subject in its own right, complete with its own unique set of objectives and syllabi. In fact, using drama in education has been a concept that has been employed since before the time of Ancient Greece. However, the Ancient Greeks, notion that drama was a representation of real life, and similar to real life, man is able to learn from it (Heath 1996). In his treatise The Poetics, Aristotle outlines six elements of drama, which are: 1 PLOT what happens in a play; the order of events, the story as opposed to the theme; what happens rather than what it means. 2 THEME what the play means as opposed to what happens (plot); the main idea within the play. 3 CHARACTER the personality or the part an actor represents in a play; a role played by an actor in a play. 4 DICTION/LANGUAGE/DIALOGUE the word choices made by the playwright and the enunciation of the actors delivering the lines. 5 MUSIC/RHYTHM by music Aristotle meant the sound, rhythm and melody of the speeches. 6 SPECTACLE the visual elements of the production of a play; the scenery, costumes, and special effects in a production. (Ibid.)

78 70 Research In English Language Teaching drama techniques ) in teaching the English language, propound the notion that drama is in fact an integral part for teaching the language, due to the fact that drama activities draw upon the natural ability of each person to imitate, mimic, and express himself through gesture, and without which language lessons may appear to be dreary and drama to teach language by stating that drama can help the teacher to achieve reality in several ways. It can overcome the students resistance to learning the new language by making the learning of the new language an enjoyable experience, setting realistic targets for the students to aim for, fashioning a creative slowing down of real experience, and by linking the language-learning experience with the student s own experience of life. PROBLEM STATEMENT For many years, the mainstream of the English language teacher training programs (i.e.: Dip.Ed, B.Ed, and M.Ed TESL) in Malaysia has concentrated on training teachers on elements of teaching that have been successful in the past, and these include methodology, materials selection, using the communicative approach and so on. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, however, is an example of a teaching institution that raises the bar by making it mandatory for its B.Sc with Education (TESL) students minor in Information Technology (IT), to master certain programs that will enable them to incorporate these elements in their teaching. Nevertheless, in the course of integrating the teaching techniques of the past and those of the future, it can be seen that certain teaching techniques that do not directly conform to the mainstream of teacher training are given less priority, or even bypassed altogether. Such a technique would be training future teachers on using drama in the language classroom, where many

79 The Holistic Approach: Using Drama In The Secondary Esl Classroom 71 teachers and teacher trainers alike do not see the necessity of engaging in the frivolity of using such a teaching technique that would distance themselves from the accepted conventions of learning for examinations. Therefore, it would stand to reason that in most teacher training programs, teaching using drama is either rarely offered as an elective to be taken (as in the case of the UTM B.Sc with Education TESL program) or not offered at all. As a result, a vast majority of students all over the country have little or no exposure at all to being taught using drama or drama techniques in the language classroom. Consequently, when a teacher tries to use drama, he may face a certain amount of resistance in the students, especially in schools that have a tradition of academic achievement in the Malaysian context. Therefore, this may further depreciate the value of using drama in the language classroom, adding to the vicious cycle that drama is impractical in the Malaysian context, and that it may be considered frivolous to train future teachers in techniques. To further understand this phenomenon, this study was practicing teachers who were in various stages of completing their M.Ed TESL in UTM, and the second being a group of teachers who were trained in using drama and drama techniques while in a teacher training institution. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY With the implementation of this study, it is hoped that Malaysian in the language classroom, which would in turn affect the content of what they teach to their students the future teachers. With enough teachers trained in drama and drama techniques, the way should be

80 72 Research In English Language Teaching paved for a cultural change in Malaysian students, where the focus of learning does not just have to be in the form of students sitting down at their desks and waiting for the teacher to bestow knowledge to them. These students can be convinced that learning can also take place when they move their bodies about, utilise their imagination, and have a good time in the language classroom. DEFINITION OF THE HOLISTIC APPROACH IN USING DRAMA In context of the study, the term drama would apparently have to be taken into consideration that drama as an instrument of teaching encompasses many different aspects, and that a focal point has to be developed in order to fully utilise the study at hand. However, in limiting the scope of the area of study we may be blinding ourselves us examine the differences between two aspects of drama and they are stage drama and drama techniques. Stage drama or theatre can be seen as the more traditional front of an audience. The production is usually processed by a team of players (actors), stagehands, costume makers, technicians and so on. In the school context, because of the close ties to drama, literature and language, educational drama usually works hand in hand with English, and in some cases, is a part of the teaching of English. For example the works of Shakespeare are studied and acted time and time again as part of the literature curriculum. Students are exposed to the nuances is such an integral part of English that without it, English cannot be taught as effectively as it should be. This is because drama embodies the very essence of language, combining speech with movements of the whole body as part of making a memorable learning experience. Moreover, because stage drama calls upon the preparation of an end

81 The Holistic Approach: Using Drama In The Secondary Esl Classroom 73 of cooperation with one another, each playing a part in producing teachers and students in the Malaysian context are familiar with. every person to imitate, mimic, and express him or herself through gesture. Because of the rather limited scope of the meaning, the gesture is important, it is only a part of the whole process, and that drama activities encompass imitating, mimicking and expressing through any means necessary, including gesture and verbalisation. As a result numerous techniques become available, among them the use of role-play, dance-drama, mime and so on. The important point to note is that the activities are not minor performances in preparation for a major performance in a stage production, but rather they are isolated activities with the intent of focusing on the given task at hand. Inherently, this is the form of drama in education in which the majority of Malaysian teachers are not trained to implement. No matter how drama in education is seen as a stage drama or the employment of drama techniques, it is still part of the same For that reason, in this study both these terms shall be looked at as under the generic term drama, and the techniques used as drama techniques. The coined term holistic approach can be regarded as an umbrella term encompassing this single continuum of drama and THE STUDY There are two parts in the study, both surveys in the form of interview

82 74 Research In English Language Teaching These surveys were initially taken as data for follow-up research on drama, and were in fact initially independent from each other. The differences between two target groups and their perceptions towards using drama in the Malaysian ESL Classroom (MESLC). SURVEY A practicing teachers who were in various stages of completing their M.Ed TESL in UTM. These teachers were of no particular grouping, and came from a variety of schools in different Socio-economic (SES) old, hypothetically ensuring a demographical mixture of attitudes, training, and perceptions. Three questions were asked in the interview, and they are as stated below: Question 1: Are you aware of drama and drama techniques as a teaching tool? Question 2: Have you been trained in any way to use drama or drama techniques in your teaching? Question 3: Have you used any form of drama in your teaching? YES NO 39% 63% Table 1: Are you aware of drama and drama techniques as a teaching tool?

83 The Holistic Approach: Using Drama In The Secondary Esl Classroom 75 YES NO Table 2: Have you been trained in any way to use drama or drama techniques in your teaching? YES NO 5% 95% Table 3: Have you used any form of drama in your teaching? DISCUSSION ON SURVEY A of practicing teachers were not trained in the use of drama/drama techniques, and a vast majority of them did not use it in their teaching. What can be gleaned from this is that the teachers were not fully aware aware to a certain degree but did not carry out drama activities due to lack of training, thus resulting in the fear of uncertainty or even losing control of a class. This is most probably because the majority of these teachers were products of the traditional training in teacher training institutes, whereby they are given a good all-round education on being teachers. However, because of the current system that has been in place for a good number of years, they do not receive the necessary exposure to drama, or even the creative arts for that matter. Again, it has to be stressed that this is through no fault of the teachers, but is a result of a system that needs to be enhanced to cater for more enjoyment and motivation in the teaching and learning process.

84 76 Research In English Language Teaching SURVEY B of students who had graduated from teacher training institutes, and were fully trained in using creative drama in language teaching. Of came from all over the country, including the interiors of Sabah and Sarawak, and some were also posted in remote places. However, the majority of the returned responses came from the teachers posted in developed areas with access to telephones and computers. The questionnaire was distributed via , obtained from an internet mailing list. The questions from the questionnaire were as follows: Question 1: As school students, did your teachers ever carry out language activities that required the use of drama/drama techniques? Question 2: As practising teachers trained in using drama, do you use drama/drama techniques in your teaching? when you use drama/drama techniques? YES NO 24% Table 4: As school students, did your teachers ever carry out language activities that required the use of drama/drama techniques?

85 The Holistic Approach: Using Drama In The Secondary Esl Classroom 77 YES NO 14% Table 5: As practising teachers trained in using drama, do you use drama/drama techniques in your teaching? 92% Enjoyed lessons 96% More expressive Better learning 64% Table 6 when you use drama/drama techniques? DISCUSSION ON SURVEY B students had undergone any experience in learning English under a teacher who used drama as a medium of instruction, and this would an even smaller bracket for teachers who used drama). However, it can be visibly noted that a vast majority of the teachers in Survey B actually practiced what they were trained to do, which in terms perceptions and practices of these teachers. students, the highest ranking being that enjoyment factor. In line

86 78 Research In English Language Teaching Communicative Language Teaching that is theoretically practiced in Malaysian schools. Furthermore, an additional bonus was that many of the students became more expressive in the classes, which is always a welcome change from unresponsive students who look down every time a question is asked. the expected mark is better learning experience. Although 64% is moderately good, the expected percentage was initially projected to be Perhaps a better way to increase this number would be providing better training and more diversity in drama techniques used in the class. CONCLUSION In a nutshell, the benefits of applying the holistic approach to drama can be clearly seen, where the most of the students enjoyed course in their learning. However, a vast majority of teachers are using the holistic approach in using drama in the language classroom. Moreover, even though drama has been applied by teachers in the past, it has yet to become a norm in the MESLC. RECOMMENDATIONS Introduce drama as a subject in all teacher training colleges/ universities that offer TESL. The subject should include exposure to both stage drama and drama techniques. Carry out short courses that can be offered by individuals, colleges/universities, or government agencies. For trained teachers to apply and spread their knowledge via in-house training

87 The Holistic Approach: Using Drama In The Secondary Esl Classroom 79 REFERENCES Drama Activities for Language Learning. London: Macmillan Heath, M. (1996) Poetics By Aristotle. London: Penguin Classics The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. New York: Longman Drama Techniques in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press English through Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Drama (Resource Books for Teachers). Oxford: Oxford University Press

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89 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies 81 6 THE ROLE OF CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN THE USE OF READING STRATEGIES FAIZAH MOHAMAD NOR INTRODUCTION Many studies have been carried out to determine the causes of

90 82 Research In English Language Teaching 2.0 A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 2.1 The Role of Content Knowledge in Reading

91 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies Reading Strategies

92 84 Research In English Language Teaching Strategies

93 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies RESEARCH METHODOLOGY the Mekanik Pepejal 2 Mekanik Pepejal 2 Mekanik Pepejal 1 scores obtained for the Mekanik Pepejal 1 Mekanik Pepejal 1

94 86 Research In English Language Teaching 4.0 FINDINGS AND ANALYSES

95 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies 87 Content Knowledge and Poor Content Knowledge.

96 88 Research In English Language Teaching of RS Identify

97 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies 89 Monitor Summarise key information

98 90 Research In English Language Teaching

99 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies CONCLUSION REFERENCES

100 92 Research In English Language Teaching dissertations

101 The Role Of Content Knowledge In The Use Of Reading Strategies 93 Journal of Research in Reading Keywords

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103 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 7 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN READING COMPREHENSION AND STRATEGIES OF READERS: A CASE STUDY OF UTM STUDENTS ZAIDAH ZAINAL 95 INTRODUCTION Examining the dynamic process of reading is not an easy task, as reading is most of the time a private process. Researchers have attempted to examine the reading processes through qualitative studies employing techniques such as miscue analysis, introspection, retrospection, think-aloud protocol and verbal recall. These techniques have offered valuable contributions to the investigation of the reading process. Studies relating reading strategies to reading comprehension are quite limited. In the light of this issue, this researcher focuses on the relationship between a student s reading strategies and comprehension of texts. In exploring the psycholinguistic processes involved, a qualitative approach is used to analyse the data. This study seeks to individual student s reading strategies and reading comprehension? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN READING COMPREHENSION AND READING STRATEGIES A limited number of studies have investigated the relationship between reading strategies and reading comprehension. Many past studies tend

104 96 Research In English Language Teaching to focus on the effect of one type of strategy on reading comprehension rather than on the relationship between general strategies used and comprehension. For instance, Close (1993) investigated the effect of inferring the meaning of unknown words on reading comprehension. Amer (1994) studied the effect of knowledge-map and underlining strategies on reading comprehension. A number of studies investigated the effect of making inferences strategy (Kembo, 1997; Chikalanga, 1992, Horiba, 1996) and metacognitive strategies (Li and Munby; 1996, Auerbach and Paxton, 1997) on reading comprehension. Nevertheless, these studies did not really include an investigation on the relationship between the overall use of reading strategies and reading comprehension. Pritchard s (1990) study, for instance, attempts to investigate the differences in the use of strategies and the level of comprehension between L1 (American) and L2 (Palauan) readers. A difference was observed between American and Palauan subjects use of strategies. For instance, the subjects had the tendency to use their cultural background knowledge in comprehending the texts. The focus of the study, however, was not on the relationship between reading strategies and reading comprehension. He notes that A great deal remains unexplained regarding the relationship between the strategies readers use and the comprehension they achieve. Preliminary results from this study suggest that differences in comprehension may be related to differences in the strategies readers employ. However, future research 291) A similar situation is observed in a study conducted by Amer (1994) who investigated the effect of two reading strategies namely knowledge-map and underlining on the reading comprehension of Results suggest that there is no significant difference between knowledge mapping and underlining strategies on open-ended

105 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 97 questions. Both strategies were equally effective in helping students investigated the causal relationship between these strategies and reading comprehension, it did not investigate the correlation between the use of these strategies and the level of comprehension achieved by the subjects. Therefore, whether or not there is a relationship between these strategies and reading comprehension remains unanswered. Other studies by Kobeil (1999), Hassan (1999) and Zainal (2003) suggest that the relationship between comprehension and imply that reading strategies and reading comprehension are two separate factors that are not necessarily related. Hassan (1999) provides further evidence that reading comprehension and reading strategies may not be associated. Although Hassan contends that there are some tendencies for positive correlations between reading strategies and comprehension when subjects read texts in their L1 and L2, the results indicate very weak relationships between reading A study conducted by Taillefer and Pugh (1998) shows counter evidence to the studies by Kobeil (1991) and Hassan (1999). Taillefer and Pugh (1998) investigated the correlation between the reading strategies and reading comprehension among French social science students. In terms of the correlations between reading strategies and comprehension in both L1 and L2, overall results suggest a strong association for L2 but less so for L1. These results contradict Kobeil s In sum, many empirical studies have attempted to investigate the relationship between strategy use and comprehension. These studies have also tended to test the effect of one or two types of strategies on the subjects reading comprehension. Kobeil (1999), Hassan (1999) and Taillefer and Pugh (1998) are among the few who investigated the correlation between reading strategies and reading comprehension of L2 readers. The overall results from these

106 98 Research In English Language Teaching three studies are inconsistent. While Hassan s (1999) and Kobeil s (1999) results show a lack of correlation between strategies and comprehension, Taillefer and Pugh s (1998) results show a strong correlation. As the issue of the level of association between reading comprehension and strategies is still open to question, we make this a focus of investigation in our own study. METHODOLOGY This study, conducted in UTM, is part of a larger study. For the purpose of this paper, the data used was elicited from four subjects through think-aloud and verbal recall techniques. These subjects were All-Water Systems, Text 2-Transformational Leadership Behaviour, Text 3-Air-conditioning and Text 4-Conceptions of the Manager. The results were described through case study approach which conducting these case studies were to examine in detail the reading processes of the subjects in terms of the strategies used (through the think-aloud technique) and the level of comprehension (through the verbal recall technique). This researcher took a qualitative approach to the analysis of these individual cases by providing excerpts of processing behaviour of these subjects. The subjects think-aloud and recall protocols were taped and transcribed verbatim. From the think-aloud data, a checklist of strategies was drawn up and became the coding scheme. In analysing the data, the protocols were matched with the original texts to ascertain the strategies used by the students. Then, to measure the students level of comprehension this researcher adapted and employed Johns and by the students. According to Kroll (1977), idea units are propositions

107 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 99 of relationship between ideas and the grammatical surface form. In meaning preserving and meaning transforming idea units. Meaning preserving idea units refer to the correct recall made while meaning transforming refers to distortions made by the reader. This study attempts to answer the following research Is there a relationship between the subjects reading strategies and reading comprehension? In this study, this researcher first examines the reading processes of individual students. Then, a comparison is made between high and intermediate students. RESULTS reading comprehension? strategies and reading comprehension - the greater the number of produced. A closer examination of the protocol suggests some aloud pointed to the understanding of a text, he also produced Meaning Preserving idea units on the same content matter. One such example can be seen in Excerpt 1 below.

108 100 Research In English Language Teaching Excerpt 1 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #7 The development In 1930s they created aa the invention of refrigerant gases Freons which is a carbon of low toxicity compound containing known as Freons (carbon compounds or bromine which is also known as CFC and and chlorine or if I m not mistaken it bromine) in the is also harmful to our early 1930s was an important step. environment which creates a hole in our harm our health. And a Freon or a carbon or chlorine and chlorine which is also known as CFC and non-toxic compound was devised in 19 about Now it s considered as a dangerous gas. And this aa and it is an important step in modern air-conditioner development. about Freons, the carbon compound used in an air-conditioning system, of the carbon compound as CFC. He also included information concerning the danger of CFC to our environment and health. The same kind of information was also revealed in his verbal recall when he mentioned that CFC, a non-toxic gas at the time it was devised, is think-aloud is also found in his verbal recall. When he preserved the meaning of the text in his think-aloud, there was also the tendency to preserve the meaning of the text in his verbal recall. However, when he transformed the meaning of the text in his think-aloud, he also tended to do the same in his verbal recall. the tendency that he would produce Meaning Transforming idea units for the same content matter in his verbal recall. This correspondence between think-aloud and verbal recall is shown in Excerpts 2 (with

109 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 101 highlighted material focusing on the example in question). Excerpt 2 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #33 Former British This means that And there are some Prime Minister aa former British prominent leaders are in Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister the world. And some of took over an Margaret Thatcher is a aa one of them aa industrially drifting nation and by the transformational leader because aa because there are some famous transformational power of her will she transformed the leaders in this world, helped to transform nation the British the aa the one example it into a nation United Kingdom aa of them is former a more privatised, while to aa nation that is more aa competitive English Prime Minis Prime Minister aa competitive, hardworking and hard working. Aa the former British nation. before she takes over, the nation is industrialised Prime Margaret Minister Thatcher industrially drifted aa who successfully drifting which means aa aa the nation concentrated more on industrial rather than aa interpersonal relationship. Aa no I mean aa the employee of the aa in the company for example, pay more attention in achieve achieving the goal of organisation in order to get good aa good rewards rather than they feel that aa they they are responsible to have good performance. transformed the nation from an industrial nation to a hard-working and competitive nation with her power.

110 102 Research In English Language Teaching suggests that he understood the information about Margaret Thatcher being one of the transformational leaders in this world. The later part of the think-aloud, however, suggests that he might not have understood the original content of the text, since he tried to explain the meaning of the phrase industrially drifting nation as the nation concentrated more on industrial rather than interpersonal relationship in his think-aloud. The same kind of misunderstanding can be seen in his verbal recall when he mentioned Margaret Thatcher who successfully transformed the nation from an industrial nation to a hard-working and competitive nation. He, in fact, produced a Meaning Transforming idea unit (MT IU- 4a) which refers to an idea unit that has changed either the NP (noun phrase) or VP (verb phrase) of the original text which resulted in the alteration of the meaning of the text. In this respect, he had transformed the NP industrially drifting nation to an industrial nation. There may be two reasons as to why he interpreted the original text differently. First, he might not have understood the meaning of the word drifting and therefore ignored it. Second, it is a common knowledge among Malaysians that United Kingdom is an industrialised country. It may be that his background knowledge was being brought into play. This example, therefore, adds further support to the notion of a relationship between On the other hand, there are also instances of a lack of correspondence between the think-aloud and verbal recall protocols. sentence 12 of Text 4-Conceptions of the Manager in his think-aloud protocol but this was not shown in his verbal recall.

111 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 103 Excerpt 3 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #12 Practising managers and students of business in business schools, at least until recently, were likely to have little familiarity with the Weberian approach to managerial behaviour This means that em those studying management in business schools can recognise the formulation of Weber and the Weberian they can they are familiar at least a little familiar with the Weberian approach to managerial behaviour The students of business school should have familiarity with the model of Weber. In the example above, the researcher may summarise that familiar. However, in stating that the students of business schools should have familiarity with the model of Weber, he seems to be verbal recall protocols do not correspond. To summarise, the data described in this section suggest strategies were predominantly text-based, he made use of background knowledge-based strategies especially when reading Mechanical discipline texts were in large measure associated with clause/sentence level units in the source texts. A difference between the two discipline areas is also observed in the processing strategies associated with word/phrase level with more in the case of Mechanical Engineering than Management texts. A closer examination of the data suggests than

112 104 Research In English Language Teaching in moving from one type of strategy to another suggests the different route he took to understand the meaning of the texts. Furthermore, a number of instances in his think-aloud and verbal recall protocols suggested a correspondence between the frequency of strategies and production of idea units in the verbal recall. RQ2. Is there an association between Hani s reading strategies and reading comprehension? Hani was a second year female student majoring in Close observation of Hani s idea unit production reveals more Meaning Transforming than Meaning Preserving idea units for both discipline texts. It is not clear why this happens. Firstly, it may be that when reading engineering texts she could not really understand the content of the texts and therefore transformed the meaning of the texts in her protocol. When reading the management texts, however, she tended to use her background knowledge to go beyond the content of the texts and therefore also transformed the meaning of the original texts in her protocol. Secondly, she produced more Meaning Preserving and Meaning Transforming idea units for within- than outside-discipline texts. This suggests that there may be a background knowledge effect occurring when Hani processed within- than outside-discipline texts. The protocols are examined in order to explore any possible relationship between Hani s think-aloud and verbal recall protocols. The following Excerpt 6, taken from sentences 1 and 2 of Text 2, illustrates instances of the data where there seems to be a relationship between the two types of protocol.

113 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 105 Excerpt 4 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #1- A number of years ago, James McGregor Burns wrote a book called Leadership that had a major impact on the course of leadership theory. #2- Burns argued that leadership could be viewed as either a transactional and a transformational process. A few years ago there s an author named James McGregor Burns who wrote a book called Leadership that had an aa very major big effect on the leadership theory He argues that leadership could be seen as aa transactional or transformational process. If transactional that means aa aspect aa business or a business and transformational is to transform things or to do let s say there s a thing that we create them aa we create them we the thing that we transform em using our innovative thinking. A few years ago an author wrote a leadership book I mean the author is called his name is Burns okay. He wrote that generally there are two types of leaders; one is transactional leader and the other is transformational leaders. The protocols of sentences 1 and 2 illustrate that when Hani showed signs of understanding the text in her think-aloud, the same content also appeared in her verbal recall protocol. When interpreting sentence 1, Hani attempted to paraphrase the text in her think-aloud by stating the name of the book author, James McGregor Burns.. This same information was also found in her verbal recall. As for sentence 2, although Hani tended to produce a long

114 106 Research In English Language Teaching think-aloud, the same kind of information could also be found in her verbal recall. In both cases, it is noted that the verbal recalls are shorter than the think-aloud. This may be due to the presence of the original text during the think-aloud task but not during the verbal recall task. However, there are also instances of a lack of a relationship between the two types of protocol. One such example can be seen in Excerpt 5 which is taken from sentence 3 of Text 2. Excerpt 5 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #3- Leader behaviours like initiating structures and consideration, he suggested, are essentially based on quid pro quo. Okay, leadership behaviours are essentially based on quid pro quo XXXXXXXXXX In this example, although Hani tried to interpret the text in her think-aloud, she seemed to have a problem in understanding the phrase quid pro quo, and she did not proceed with interpreting further the meaning of the sentence. In her verbal recall, the content was not recalled. It may be that Hani could not understand the phrase quid pro quo which prevented her from recalling the content in her verbal recall. This example suggests that although Hani mentioned the content in her think-aloud, the content did not appear in her verbal recall. This indicates a lack of relationship between Hani s think-aloud and verbal recall protocols. It is noted, however, that her inability to understand the original text may have hindered her from recalling the content in her verbal recall.

115 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 107 The evidence highlighted earlier indicates that Hani varied her processing behaviour. The types of strategies she commonly used included reading aloud, repeating text, paraphrasing, making inferences and using background knowledge. Of these paraphrasing and using background knowledge strategies. While she employed more paraphrasing strategies for the Mechanical Engineering texts, she also tended to employ more activating background knowledge strategies for the Management texts. In terms of the level of processing, Hani s processing strategies were more drawn on information at clause/sentence level. However, it must be noted that the frequency of strategies prompted by word/phrase level is moderate. With regard to the sequence of strategies, Hani employed a similar number of limited-strategy and multi-strategy sequences for texts of both discipline texts. Overall, she employed many strategies and produced a high number of idea units, indicating the possibility of a relationship between the number of strategies she used and the idea units she produced. However, it must be noted that there were also instances where little relationship were observed between her think-aloud and verbal recall. In conclusion, Hani showed the characteristics of a good reader. She not only used many strategies, the type of strategy also by Hani; reading aloud, repeating text, paraphrasing, making inferences and using background knowledge. It is noted that making inferences and using background knowledge are two types of strategy commonly reported in many studies (Kobeil, 1999; Therefore, these strategies may be naturally employed by readers in processing a text. However, strategies like reading aloud, repeating text and paraphrasing are the types of strategy which may occur due to protocol method employed in this study. For instance, when we observe the data closely we discover that paraphrasing strategy occurred after Hani employed either the reading aloud or repeating text strategies. This seems to indicate the Hani was processing the

116 108 Research In English Language Teaching text closely, part by part. The reading aloud strategy was used mainly to indicate to the researcher at which point of the text she was thinking-aloud. and reading comprehension? recall data indicates that he was able to recall the content of a text when it was verbalised in his think-aloud, but was not able to recall it sentences 7 to 9 of Text 1 is an example. Excerpt 6 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #7- A fan-coil system applied without provision for positive ventilation or one taking ventilation air through an aperture is one of the lowest perimeter systems in use today. #8- It requires no ventilation air ducts, is comparatively easy to install in existing structures, and as with any central station perimeter system utilising water in pipes instead of air ducts, its use results in considerable space savings throughout the building. A fan-coil system is the one of is one of the central station type perimeter systems in use today. XXXXXXX Fan-coil is one of the lowest central station type systems being used nowadays. XXXXXXX

117 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 109 #9- All-water systems have individual room control with quick response to thermostat setting and freedom from recirculation of air from other conditioned space. Thermos thermostat setting is used to control the water system. All-water systems have their own control. They use thermostat setting to control the systems. and verbal recall. When the content was verbalised in his thinkaloud, he tended to verbalise it in his verbal recall. In the examples of content of the text by using paraphrasing and making inferences strategies. This content was also shown in his verbal recall. For the same kind of information could be seen in his recall. However, evidence from sentence 8 indicates that when he skipped the content of the text in his think-aloud, his verbal recall data do not show evidence of the same content matter. This suggests that there may be some level of association between his strategies and idea units. A substantial number of examples from the think-aloud and verbal recall data indicate a lack of association between the two protocols, however, where the contents of the texts were verbalised in the think-aloud protocol but not in the verbal recall protocol. For Text 2 in his verbal recall protocol although his think-aloud showed that these sentences were processed. Looking more closely at the not have understood the texts since he employed repeating text and changing sentence structure strategies. Excerpt 7 illustrates the lack for sentences 7 to 8 of Text 2.

118 110 Research In English Language Teaching Excerpt 7 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #7 Transformational leadership refers to the major changes in the attitudes and assumptions of organisation members and building commitment for the organisation s mission, objectives and strategies. #8 Transformational leaders are those who brings about change, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The process of changes in the attitude and the assumption of organisation members and building commitment for the organisation s mission, objectives and strategies is a transformational leadership. Em transformational leadership have to bring out the change, innovation and entrepreneurship. XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX perspective this processing behaviour, to a certain extent, may be instrument induced. For instance, there were four types of strategies substitution, paraphrasing and making inferences. Of these four commonly used strategies, it is felt that repeating text and earlier he employed the repeating text strategy because he was having problems in processing the texts. Therefore, repeating text strategy indicates that the strategy may be instrument induced. Furthermore,

119 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 111 one of the ways he used to inform his understanding of the text was paraphrasing the text. If, for instance, he was reading for pleasure where thinking-aloud was not required, the need to paraphrase the texts might not arise. As noted by Kobeil (1999), it is possible that in natural reading in a normal setting, readers may not feel the need to paraphrase. unskilled reader. He employed very few strategies and produced very few idea units. Evidence from his think-aloud protocol shows that he restricted himself to text-based processing. In processing Mechanical Engineering texts he did not employ background knowledge-based strategies at all, and only once for each of the Management texts. predominantly employed limited-strategy sequences compared to multi-strategy sequences. This indicates that he was not using many strategies in order to interpret the text at a deeper level. While there are some examples from the data which suggest some levels of there also exists some which suggest a lack of relationship as shown by excerpt 7. RQ4. Is there a relationship between Irnie s reading strategies and reading comprehension? Irnie was a second year female student majoring in There seems to be little difference between Irnie s processing of the texts. No difference is observed in the frequency of strategy types between the two discipline texts. In terms of the overall number of idea units, Meaning Preserving and Meaning Transforming idea units, the mean differences between the texts are small. In general, all texts. One possible explanation for this result may be due to Irnie s overall processing behaviour, that is, in general the data suggest a passive interaction occurring between the reader and texts. She employed very few strategies and in turn produced very few idea units.

120 112 Research In English Language Teaching Her limited linguistic ability may be a major hindrance to the text processing. In general, she had the tendency to employ a repeating text strategy for both discipline texts which did not seem to help her in understanding the texts. In general, there seems to be a subtle relationship between Irnie s think-aloud and verbal recall. There is evidence showing that when she verbalised the content of the text in her think-aloud, she also tended to recall the same content matter in her verbal recall. One such example can be seen in the following excerpt 8 (sentence 2, Text 4). Excerpt 8 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #2. Classical Actually no distinction However, the classical economists made between the manager economist makes no no distinction and the entrepreneur distinction between between the because aa they the manager and the manager and the always cooperate with entrepreneurs. Besides entrepreneur, the each other and brings that they are make person who brings together land labour and cooperation to achieve together land, capital and put them to aa objective, aim and labour and capital and puts them to work. work create a strategies for organisations. In this example, Irnie began the think-aloud task by repeating the initial part of the sentence using the repeating text strategy. From there she inferred that the manager and entrepreneur cooperated with each other in putting together the resources in question. The same kind of content was verbalised in her verbal recall task, in which Irnie produced MP1a-replicating idea unit, followed by MT5-adding new information to original IUs that alters meaning.

121 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 113 On the other hand, there are a number of instances from Irnie s data which suggest a lack of a relationship between her think-aloud and verbal recall as shown in the following excerpt 9. In this example, Irnie seemed to be facing problems in understanding the texts, and therefore, repeated the original texts in her think-aloud. In her verbal recall, the contents were not verbalised. Excerpt 9 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #20. Alternate systems of cooling include the use of chilled water #21. Water may be cooled by refrigerant at a central location and run through coils at other places The alternative system of cooling includes aa the use of chilled water. From this method water may be cooled by refrigerant at a central location can run through coils at other places XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX To summarise, there are many instances in Irnie s data which suggest both a relationship and a lack of relationship between her think-aloud and verbal recall. Irnie predominantly used limitedstrategy sequences in her processing. She had the tendency to skip some sentences of a text especially when the sentences were long and complex. She commonly employed repeating text, paraphrasing and making inferences strategies. In general, there seemed to be little differences observed between Irnie s processing within-discipline texts and outside-discipline texts. This may be partly due to the limited number of strategies employed by Irnie. She tended to repeat the texts when she could not explain the meaning in her own words.

122 114 Research In English Language Teaching read, since she did not inform her failure to understand the text. In fact, she did not use the stating failure to understand text strategy at all. Although Irnie did not express her frustrations when she faced problems in understanding the meaning of a text, she tended to give up easily and abandon the processing as shown by the following examples in Excerpt 10. Excerpt 10 Text Think-aloud Verbal recall #7- To Weber, bureaucracy did not have the negative connotations often heard in the term simply to point to a phenomenon of growing the large organisation with in a hierarchical pyramid, with specialisation and division of labour and with established rules and regulations governing behaviour. Weber said bureaucracy they don t have the negative connotations often heard in casual conversation 1. repeating text Overall, Irnie did not employ many types of strategies; only two types of strategies were commonly employed, namely repeating text and making inferences. As noted earlier, although she used making inferences strategy she did not attempt to process the text at a deeper level. Her processing strategies were mostly at the surface level and predominantly text-based. In terms of the number of strategies used in one sequence, Irnie tended to employ limitedstrategy sequences more than multi-strategy sequences. Because she employed few strategies and produced few idea units, the difference between reading the Mechanical Engineering and the Management

123 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 115 texts could not be detected. In general, there seems to be no difference in her processing between the two discipline texts. From the perspective of psycholinguistics, it is noted that two types of strategies seem to occur fairly frequently, repeating text texts. She therefore tended to repeat the text in order to process it. One of the ways used to explain her understanding of the text through the think-aloud method is by paraphrasing. It is felt that both these strategies may not occur frequently in Irnie s natural reading. CONCLUSION In general, some relationship can be claimed between the students that the more strategies they employed the more idea units they produced. In the case of Hani, however, more Meaning Transforming idea units than Meaning Preserving idea units were produced, which may have affected the overall relationship between her think-aloud resulted in their limited production of idea units. A closer observation of the think-aloud and verbal recall data of all the subjects suggests that when they verbalised the text content in their think-aloud task, they recalled the same content in their verbal recall. Although some levels of relationship are observed between the think-aloud and verbal recall data, there are some instances in the data which suggest a lack of relationship between the subjects think-aloud and verbal recall. REFERENCES Amer, A. (1994). The effect of knowledge-map and underlining, 13, 1, Auerbach, E. R., and Paxton, D. (1997). It s not the English

124 116 Research In English Language Teaching TESOL Quarterly, 31, 2, Chikalangka, I. (1992). A suggested taxonomy of inferences for the reading teacher. Reading in a Foreign Language, 8, 2, Close, C. A. (1993). NNS readers strategies for inferring the meanings of unknown words. Reading in a Foreign Language, 9, 2, Hassan, F. (1999). Language, Reading, Discourse and Malaysian Secondary School Children in L1 and L2. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. The University of Manchester. language competence, textual coherence and inferences. SSLA,18, Johns, A.M. and Mayes, P An analysis of summary protocols of university ESL students. Applied Linguistics, 11, 3, Kembo, J. (1997). Inferencing in a Second Language: How Far is? Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. The University of Reading. Kobeil, M. (1999). on the Reading Strategies and Reading Comprehension of Tertiary Level Readers of English as a Foreign Language. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. The University of Manchester. look at subordination and coordination. In E. O. Keenan and T. Bennet (Eds.), in Linguistics, 5, Li, S., and Munby, H. (1996). Metacognitive strategies in second, 15, 3, Pritchard, R. (1990). The effects of cultural schemata on reading processing strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 25, 4,

125 The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension And Strategies Of Readers: A Case Study Of Utm Students 117 Taillefer, G., and Pugh, T. (1998). Strategies for professional reading in L1 and L2. Journal of Research in Reading, 21, 2, Zainal, Z. (2003). An investigation into the effects of discipline. Unpublished Thesis. The University of Reading.

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127 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 8 THE COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF LANGUAGE USED IN RECALL PROTOCOL IN READING COMPREHENSION ZAIDAH ZAINAL 119 INTRODUCTION This study raises the issue of language of protocol used as an instrument for data collection, particularly in a study of reading comprehension and strategies. The question raised is whether the language of protocol, either L1 or L2, will make a difference in the performance of readers when recalling information from a text. Protocol methods, unlike other testing methods, used in reading comprehension studies have intrigued many researchers because they indirectly reveal a reader s cognitive process when reading. Alderson (2000) notes that the study of reading can be divided into two: the process and the product. The product of reading is concerned with what understanding of the text a reader has reached. This can be achieved through some form of a comprehension test. The process of reading, on the other hand, is concerned with how the reader reaches the understanding of the text. Alderson (2000: 3-4) notes that understanding the process of reading is presumably important to an understanding of the nature of reading, but at the same process is a silent and private activity, methods such as think-aloud protocol, recall protocol or miscue analysis are used in many studies of reading. Studies of reading comprehension have used a number of

128 120 Research In English Language Teaching different methods of collecting data, such as cloze (Koh, 1985), true/ false statements (Clapham, 1996), multiple-choice questions (Kasper, 1996), short-answer questions (Hsiu & Grave, 1995) information (Oliviera, 1988) and recall methods (Johnson, 1982; Lee, 1986 and Kobeil, 1999). The question arises as to the validity of these tests or methods in measuring the constructs in question. Urquhart and Weir (1998) provided some criticisms regarding the testing methods used to measure reading comprehension, particularly gap-filling, cloze and multiple-choice questions. They claim that these tests focus on local comprehension at the microlinguistic level rather than global comprehension of ideas encoded by the writer across the text as a whole (pp 157). While as a bottom-up process of decoding words at local or sentence level, multiple-choice questions have other disadvantages, in particular, in potentially distracting the readers through the presence of different options which otherwise might not have been thought of (Urquhart and Weir, 1998). In the case of multiple-choice test, Bernhardt (1991) notes that the readers may be able to guess a correct answer without reading the texts, indicating that multiple-choice questions may not be measuring readers comprehension of the text. The methods discussed above tend to measure comprehension in terms of the product but not the process of reading. For this reason, results from these tests may not reveal how a reader comprehends a text either at a local (or sentence level) or at a global level. Since our study focuses on the cognitive processes of the readers, this researcher selected verbal protocol method as the research tool. VERBAL REPORTS Verbal reporting is often used to gather information regarding a person s mental processes as the workings of the human mind

129 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 121 endeavours can be. (Jaaskelainen, 1995). Three common terms are assigned to describe the mental processes of a learner: Introspection, Retrospection and Think-aloud protocols. According to Nunan (1992), Introspection is the process of reasoning processes and mental states with a view to determining the ways in which these processes and states determine our behaviour. Retrospection, sometimes referred to as delayed recall, on the other hand, refers to reports which describe the cognitive processes of a person after he/she has performed a task (Ericsson and Simon, 1980; Jaaskelainen, 1995; Kobeil, 1999). Think-aloud protocol refers to the process through which the readers verbalise their thoughts while processing a text. They are encouraged to disclose everything they think about, whether related to a task or not (Rankin,1988). Jaaskelainen (1995) notes, thinking aloud differs from classical introspection and aloud is undirected and concurrent. In other words, when thinking aloud is used to elicit data, the subject is not, as verbalisations are produced simultaneously with the task performance. In the past, these verbal reports have received criticisms regarding their reliability as research instruments (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977). Nevertheless, these instruments have gained respectability as research tools due to efforts in providing models and guidelines in establishing their reliability (see Ericsson and Simon, 1980). THINK-ALOUD AND RECALL PROTOCOLS The think-aloud tasks used in real-time comprehension processes studies can be categorised into three kinds: sentence-by-sentence

130 122 Research In English Language Teaching talking, selective talking and after-the-fact talking (Olson et al., 1984). In sentence-by-sentence talking, a subject is required to talk after reading each sentence of a text. In selective talking, the subject verbalises his thought at a certain point of the text. In after-the fact talking, the subject verbalises his thoughts after he has read a text (cf. retrospective method). Of the three, sentence-by-sentence talking is most popularly used in reading comprehension research because it reveals the reader s real-time cognitive processes and does not heavily depend on the reader s LTM. Furthermore, it is suitable for investigating a reader s strategies and comprehension process of long and complex texts. Recall protocols also come in several forms depending on the task or the type of readers who participate in the study. For instance, Kobayashi s (1995 cited in Urquhart and Weir, 1998) notion of recall protocol covers a range of modes. She suggests that: terms of the language mode, or either immediate or delayed in terms of time of recall, or either free or probed, i.e. with or without cues for recalls. (cited in Urquhart & Weir, 1998: 166) Generally, studies employing recall protocol as a measure of reading comprehension incorporate a wide range of recall types as outlined by Kobayashi (1995). For example, Gambrell and Koskinen (1991) employ immediate, oral and free retelling of stories after subjects (L1) have read four texts, while Bernhardt (1991a) employs immediate written and free recall in measuring the reading comprehension of L2 subjects. Fransson (1984) also provides three categories of recall which relate to the different approaches adopted by the reader in recalling the text, namely, Mentioning-type author

131 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 123 Description-type: provide moderate description of the points in the text Conclusion-oriented type: provides conclusions when discussing problem or concept. These recall types may indicate whether a subject is a surface level reader or a deep-level reader. Readers who tend to use the mentioning-type and description-type of recall are considered as surface-level readers. They usually fail to see the connections between the facts in the texts, such as how information presented in a diagram can be integrated with the texts. Of these two types of recall, the description-type is considered more extensive than the mentioningtype. The conclusion-oriented type of recall, on the other hand, is produced by deep-level readers who tend to search for conceptual meanings of a text. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF PROTOCOL METHODS Both think-aloud and recall protocols have a number of advantages as research tools in studies of reading comprehension and strategies. The advantages of these methods mostly stem from their unique role in revealing the cognitive processes of a reader. Rankin (1988) notes that the think-aloud method differs from introspection or retrospection, in that in the latter methods the reader basically responds to prompts, making him/her to report selectively according to the prompts. However, in think-aloud procedures the reader indiscriminately talks about his thoughts, whether related or unrelated to the reading texts. It is the role of the researcher to analyse any emerging patterns from the data rather than the subject becoming the analyst of his own cognitive processes (Jaaskelainen, 1995). In contrast to methods which use of the process (less is forgotten) more reliably (less is distorted)

132 124 Research In English Language Teaching (Jaaskelainen,1995). Similarly, the recall method is able to reveal the cognitive processes of the readers which other methods may not be able to. In contrast to testing methods such as multiple-choice or cloze, the recall protocol is not directed by the questions set by the researcher but rather is directed by the readers own understanding of the text. Think-aloud and recall methods also take into consideration the interaction that takes place between a reader and a text, or a reader and a writer (Rankin, 1988). A reader is free to question and judge the text information, to predict the forthcoming content on the premise of earlier content or even to criticise both the content and the writer of notion that reading is not an unidirectional passive process. Other data elicitation methods using testing procedures such as multiple-choice questions or cloze procedures which are extremely product-oriented do not do this. In general, think-aloud and recall protocols allow the reader to reveal his cognitive processes and interact with the meaning of the text and the writer. Despite these advantages, think-aloud and recall protocols have some limitations. One of the issues is whether these methods can really elicit complete information about the conscious and unconscious cognitive processes of a reader. While the conscious processes may manifest themselves in the think-aloud or recall, the unconscious processes largely remain hidden, inaccessible and probably unreportable (Jaaskelainen, 1995: 218). Likewise, recall protocol, either written or verbalised, may not really be representative of the subject s total understanding of the text since the subject may know more than has been recalled. Therefore, results based on the recall data may misrepresent the actual level of comprehension. Another limitation of think-aloud and recall methods is that they are easily moulded by prompts and instructions (Pressley think-aloud method, in particular, potentially has an intrusive effect.

133 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 125 By requiring a subject to think-aloud after reading each sentence of the text, the reading process becomes unnatural. The subject s thinkaloud may intrude in the otherwise continuous reading process. With reference to recall protocol, the time gap between the reading task and the recall task may be a problem. A researcher like Bernhardt (1991) strenuously supports the use of immediate recall protocol to measure subjects reading comprehension, since delayed recalls may result in interference of knowledge from other sources outside the text. In addition, delayed recalls may also cause subjects to forget some information in the text. Sometimes, ideas verbalised are fragmented and disjointed and do not really disclose the actual meaning that was intended. Interpretation of data collected through these methods is merely the result of the researcher s inferences. In addition, differences in text processing can also be seen between L1 and L2 readers or readers LANGUAGE OF PROTOCOL One issue regarding think-aloud and recall protocols which remains unresolved is the problem of the language of protocol. In the 70 s and early 80 s, many studies of reading comprehension using recall protocol tend to use L2 as the language of the protocols. This was partly due to their focus on how L2 or foreign students read texts written in English (see Steffensen et al., 1979; Carrell, 1984). However, Lee (1986) conducted a study with Spanish subjects, with the aim of testing the effect of using L1 and L2 as the language of the recall protocol. Results suggest that there was a main effect of the language of protocol on the quantity of idea units in the recall. Lee concludes that more information is yielded from subjects when their Donin and Silva s (1993) study which indicates that subjects tend to recall less material in their L2 (French) than in their L1 (English).

134 126 Research In English Language Teaching Further studies conducted by Roller and Matambo (1992) and the recall protocol. In Roller and Matambo s study, which replicated Carrell s (1983) study, the subjects were found to recall better in their L2 (English) than in their L1 (Shona). Although this seems to support Upton s (1993) investigation with Japanese students produced comprehension as revealed by the subjects recall, when the subjects use their L1 or target language. The subjects comprehension did not appear to differ according to the language used in their recall. It can be claimed at this point that the issue of language of recall remains unresolved. Further investigations need to be conducted in order to ascertain the effectiveness of recalling in L1 over L2 or vice versa. METHODOLOGY The subject of this study comprises 30 third-year TESL students from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. They were required to read two short texts of about 450 words and write their understanding of the texts subjects were Malay students. The written protocols or retrospection was analysed according to meaning preserving idea unit analysis (Johns and Mayes,1990). MP1 (replicating idea units or sentences), MP2 (paraphrasing/ summarising), MP3 (combining idea units within paragraphs), MP4 ((combining idea units across paragraphs), MP5 (text or paragraph generalisation) and MP6 (inferencing or using background knowledge but preserving the meaning/gist of the text. question:

135 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 127 Is there a difference in performance when the subjects recalls the texts in English and in Malay? RESULTS Table 1.0 shows the frequency of Meaning Preserving Idea Units produced by the students in Malay and English. Types of Idea Units Malay % English % MP 1 replicating IUs or sentence MP2 paraphrasing/summarising MP3 combining IUs within paragraphs MP4 combining IUs across paragraphs MP5 text or paragraph generalisation MP6 inferencing or using background knowledge but preserve meaning/gist of text Total number of Idea Units Table 1.0 : Distribution of Idea Units In the case of protocol in L1 (Malay), three types of idea units had relatively higher proportions; MP2 paraphrasing/ summarising (63.5%), MP5 text or paragraph generalisation (7.42%) and MP6- inferencing or using background knowledge but preserve the meaning/gist of text (17.38%). The results from the protocol in L2 (English) also shows three types of idea units with relatively higher proportion than the protocol in Malay, although the difference is

136 128 Research In English Language Teaching combining IUs within paragraphs (2.17%) and MP4-combining IUs across paragraphs (2.02%). The highest percentage of idea units for protocols in L1 (Malay) (63.5%) and in L2 (English) (57.6%) is MP2 (paraphrasing/ summarising). This indicates that subjects attempted to comprehend and interpret the meaning of the text through paraphrasing or summarising. In comparison to English, the Malay protocol yields more MP2. This suggests that while focusing on the reproduction of idea units at local or sentence level, they also tend to produce idea units that are at the macro-propositional level. The production of more assisting fuller comprehension of these texts. A higher percentage of MP2 in L1 than in L2 suggests that subjects demonstrate their conceptualisation of the meaning of the text by paraphrasing and summarising. Results of MP6 idea units (making inferences/using background knowledge) also show a high percentage for both protocols, with slightly more units being produced in L1 (Malay) (17.38%) than in L2 (English) (16.9%) protocols. This type of idea better understanding of the text in L1 than in L2. In contrast, results show that subjects tend to produce more MP1 idea units (replicating IUs or sentences) when they recall in L2 (English) than in L1 (Malay). Replication of text may occur for information or concepts were important but could not rephrase the information using their own words in their L1; and secondly, they might purposely avoid paraphrasing the text using their own words in order to prevent losing the original meaning of the text. Although this researcher notes that memorising may not necessarily mean comprehending, it appears to be one of the learning behaviours adopted by the students. In Johns and Mayes (1990) study with respect to summary writing, the same behaviour was reported. Overall, the results show that the number of idea units of

137 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 129 protocol in L1 (Malay) is higher than that in L2 (English), indicating that the students were able to recall more idea units in their L1 than in L2. There may be two reasons why the results are such. Firstly, this can be explained through the concept of interdependence hypothesis which suggests that subjects are able to use both languages to recall produce more idea units in L1 (Malay) than in L2 (English), although in general they may not have problems in conceptualising the meaning of the texts. Secondly, this can be explained through the interaction that takes place between a reader and the texts. In this case, the readers may feel freer to question, predict or explain the information in the text, in their L1 than in L2. CONCLUSION In conclusion, this study suggests that protocol methods can be used as a tool to collect data in reading comprehension study. The protocol methods have the advantage of revealing the cognitive processes of a reader, besides the interaction that occurs between the reader and notion that reading is an active process. As reading is a complex process involving both lower level and higher level processes, the protocol methods enable researchers to investigate the levels of processes, such as making inferences, paraphrasing, summarising and using background knowledge. The methods are said to be the best methods to capture the higher level processes as they come to consciousness while the reader is processing the text. Results from this study suggest that subjects produced more idea units when they verbalised their understanding in L1 than in promotes that readers tend to recall better in L1 than in L2.

138 130 Research In English Language Teaching REFERENCES Alderson, J. C Assessing Reading. Cambridge University Press. Bernhardt, E. B. 1991a. Reading Development in a Second Language. Norwood, N.J. Ablex. Bernhardt, E. B. 1991b. A psycholinguistic perspective on second language literacy. In J. H. Hulstijn and J. F. Matter (Eds.), Reading in Two Languages, AILA Review, 8, (31-44). (Amsterdam). Carrell, P. L Three components of background knowledge in reading comprehension. Language Learning, 33, 2, Carrell, P. L. 1984a. The effects of rhetorical organisation on ESL readers. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 4, Clapham, C The Development of IELTS: A Study of the Effect of Background Knowledge on Reading Comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. second-language reading comprehension of occupation Language Learning, 43, Ericsson, K. A., and Simon, H. A Verbal reports as data. Psychological Review, 87, Fransson, A. (1984). Cramming or understanding? Effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on approach to learning and test performance. In J. C. Alderson and A. H. Urquhart (Eds.), Reading in a Foreign Language. (86-115). London: Longman. Gambrell, L. and Koskinen, P. S. (1991). Retelling and the reading Journal of Educational Research, 84, 6, July-Aug Koh, M.Y The role of prior knowledge in reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 3,1,

139 The Comparative Effect Of Language Used In Recall Protocol In Reading Comprehension 131 Hsiu, C. C., and Graves, M. F Effects of previewing and providing background knowledge on Taiwanese college students comprehension of American short stories. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 4, Johns, A. M., and Mayes, P An analysis of summary protocols of university ESL students. Applied Linguistics, 11, 3, Johnson, P. (1982). Effects of reading comprehension on building background knowledge. TESOL Quarterly, 16, Johns, A. M., and Mayes, P An analysis of summary protocols of university ESL students. Applied Linguistics, 11, 3, Kasper, L. F. (1996). Using discipline-based texts to boost college ESL reading instruction. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 39, 4, Kobayashi, M. (1995). Effects of Text Organisation and Test Format on Reading Comprehension Test Performance. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. The Thames Valley University. Kobeil, M. (1999). on the Reading Strategies and Reading Comprehension of Tertiary Level Readers of English as a Foreign Language. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. The University of Manchester. Jaaskelainen, R Thinking aloud as a data collection method. In H. Nyyssonen and L. Kuure (Eds.), Principle of Accessibility and Design in English Texts- Research in Progress. Text and Discourse Studies, 12, Lee, J. F On the use of recall task to measure L2 reading comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 8, Verbal Protocols of Reading: The Nature of Constructively Responsive Reading. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Nunan, D Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

140 132 Research In English Language Teaching Oliviera, V. Q. S. F The relevance of background knowledge or schemata in EFL reading comprehension. ESPecialist, 9, 1/1, Rankin, M. J Designing thinking-aloud studies in ESL reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 4, 2, Roller, C., and Matambo, A. R Bilingual readers use of background knowledge in learning from text. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 1, Steffensen, M. S., Joag-Dev, C., and Anderson, R A crosscultural perspective on reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 1, Upton, T. A Use on the Comprehension and Recall of Written English Texts by Japanese Readers. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Minnesota. Urquhart, S., and Weir, C Reading in a Second Language: Process, Product and Practice. London: Longman.

141 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique FACILITATING CONTENT ACQUISITION THROUGH LANGUAGE : THE WALL POSTER TECHNIQUE MASPUTERIAH HAMZAH ABDUL HALIM ABDUL RAOF INTRODUCTION The wall poster activity is one of the tasks conducted in English for Civil Engineering (ECE) classrooms aimed at facilitating learners acquisition of the content area of the subject in their specialized discipline of civil engineering. The English for Civil Engineering programme is based on Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The research was an attempt to create a programme which is derived from and integrated with the Faculty of Civil Engineering s mainstream academic programme through collaboration between the English language instructors and the subject specialists. (Please refer to Khairi et al, 1995 for a description of the programme; Masputeriah et al., 1995 and Abdul Halim et al., 1996 for a discussion on the approach to materials preparation, nature of activities and the role of language instructors and language learners). THE ENGLISH FOR CIVIL ENGINEERING PROGRAMME (ECE) (refer Khairi et al., 1995) which aims to prepare learners for effective

142 134 Research In English Language Teaching civil engineers. The objectives of the project include the following: (a) (b) (c) To develop the communication skills and English language competence of Civil Engineering undergraduates so as to To assist the Civil Engineering Faculty, via the development of language competence, in its effort to prepare the learners for effective participation in the professional community of Civil Engineers. To enhance the marketability of the Civil Engineering graduates through the development of communicative competence and the inculcation of attributes such as THE WALL POSTER ACTIVITY The wall poster presentation is an activity which is conducted to achieve the main objective of the ECE programme, which is to enhance English competency of Civil Engineering undergraduates to to independently extract relevant information from Civil Engineering texts, take down main points from their reading and subsequently present key information concisely and accurately. These skills are regarded as vital to enhance learners understanding of concepts and principles related to their academic subjects. The reading skill is also seen as an essential part of the learning process in the academic training of civil engineering undergraduates before they embark on more demanding tasks of oral and written communication both for academic and professional purposes.

143 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique 135 The task of preparing the wall poster is part of an enculturation task which aims to assist learners in the process of initiation and assimilation into the academic culture of civil engineering. Being exposed to the subject matter of civil engineering subjects to ensure that relevant linguistic and conceptual data are made available to the learners. The learning activity is built around conceptual areas / topics of a reading based on a civil engineering subject. The civil engineering which is one of the key subjects towards the understanding of civil engineering principles and applications. The wall poster activity is thus generated by and built around terms of key texts to be used, conceptual areas to be covered, notes to be taken and vocabulary and structures to be acquired. With the practice provided in skills such as identifying relevant information and taking down key information from their reading, this activity lectures are conducted in Bahasa Malaysia and that the medium of instruction is also in Bahasa Malaysia, it is imperative that learners refer to reference books which are mostly in English and gain access to key information in their academic subjects so as to become more competent in their studies. The reading task for the wall poster activity is thus purposedriven. Learners treat the reading texts as vehicles for information where they extract relevant information, share and exchange key points from their reading before deciding which information to include in the posters. The process of gathering information is done through group work activities which allows for interaction and negotiation of meaning. The acquisition of content is facilitated by creating the conditions necessary for reading in class rather than teach the skills in isolation.

144 136 Research In English Language Teaching THE PROCEDURE INVOLVED The various stages of work involved in the process of accomplishing the wall poster activity are outlined below. Please refer to the task sheet and procedure for the task in Appendix 1. Explanation on the objective of the project As mentioned earlier, this activity is part of the enculturation task aimed at assisting learners in the process of initiation and assimilation into the academic culture of the civil engineering course. Exposure to the content area including the conceptual and linguistic data related to the subject is useful to enhance learners understanding of the subject matter in their civil engineering course. The objectives of the project work are highlighted to the students namely to develop skills of team-work, initiative, independence and time- management. This is to enhance learners confidence and autonomy in the learning process. Thus, the training provided in the ECE programme not only aims towards the development of communicative skills in English but the underlying objective is also aimed towards the inculcation of attributes such as In preparing learners to be able to participate effectively in the academic and professional community of civil engineers, it is necessary that learners are given training within the larger educational context of human resource development to include the inculcation of need to go beyond linguistic skills can be seen in studies conducted by Anie Atan and Louis (1993) where they discovered that in addition to linguistic skills, initiative and independence are highly valued in industry. By making students aware of the objectives of the project, they will see the relevance of the exercise as part of the learning process.

145 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique 137 Team spirit among students In order to accomplish the task, learners are required to work in groups aiming towards common goals. This is to encourage independence and responsibility in learners to take charge of their own learning. To ensure group coordination and foster team spirit, learners are required to work closely under the leadership of a group coordinator. Group effort and team spirit are prerequisites for success in the completion of the task. A group mark of 10% will be awarded, hence, the need for team work, careful planning, group collaboration and cooperation, peer editing and exchange and sharing of information among learners. Reading of simple texts Before learners embark on the task of preparing the wall posters, they are exposed to simple texts, the content of which relates to the subject with the conceptual and linguistic data on the topic before they are exposed to more challenging conceptual and linguistic data. For this task, learners will be required to work in their groups, some to read Text A and some Text B. Based on their reading, learners are asked to make notes and exchange information. They could also be asked to prepare a semantic map showing the main ideas of the two texts. Although the content of the simple texts might be of a general nature as compared to the key texts that learners have to refer to, the background information does provide learners with exposure to new knowledge they might not have or, they might build upon existing schema which they can take with them into their reading experience. This can help to facilitate content acquisition that can lead to increased comprehension and understanding when dealing with key texts related to their area of specialization.

146 138 Research In English Language Teaching Strategy to implement the task The task is learner-centred with the teacher playing a more secondary role as a facilitator and manager of learning. Learners have to work out the action plan for completing the task based on group discussions and negotiations. They are given the freedom to decide on the topics and sub-topics they wish to work on. With a time duration of about two and a half weeks for this wall poster project, learners have to manage their time, draw up a work schedule, and decide on roles and responsibilities of each member of the group. The group will also determine how best they could present the information on the posters. Thus, through support and coordination among group members, learners independently take responsibility for the direction of their own learning. Information gathering and content selection Having discussed the strategy to complete the task, students will be sent to the library to gather information from relevant sources of information. Both primary and secondary sources of information are acceptable. Thus interviews with senior students and lecturers are encouraged as methods of collecting data apart from information gathered from key references, magazines, journals, etc. Learners are also made aware of the fact that they have more authority than the language instructors in terms of content. The language teacher s role is made clear right from the beginning as a facilitator in the learning process, assisting the learners with any problems related to language and not assisting them on content matters. Further explanation on the role of the language instructor is and their peers in the civil engineering course. They might also refer to civil engineering texts as accurate sources of information. After gathering the relevant data that they need, students their plans and submit the written plans to the instructor. Learners are

147 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique 139 encouraged to nominate their own categories of information although suggestions have been given by the lecturers. The training provided in library skills, referencing work, information and data gathering, exchange and compilation of information can help learners to be more autonomous in taking responsibility for their own independent learning. Preparation of Posters working on the posters. Each group will be given a marking scheme. This will make learners aware of the mode of assessment so that they the posters. As such, learners will be more prepared in handling the tasks given as they can work towards achieving the targets they have set for themselves. The criteria for assessment include adequacy and clarity of information, grammaticality and appropriacy of language, careful product, peer editing, group responsibility and team effort are called for. The Wall Poster Presentation Once the task of preparing the wall poster is completed, the different groups will hang their posters on the walls of the classroom. Each group is asked to prepare a duty roster so that at least one participants. The learners are encouraged to ask questions. While the language instructor is going around assessing the learners posters, learners are also asked to assess their friends posters based on the criteria given. They are asked to give comments on positive aspects of the posters and other aspects which could be improved. What is important is that learners learn from one another as they go through the other groups poster to enhance their understanding of the concepts

148 140 Research In English Language Teaching and principles related to the subject matter. THE ROLE OF THE LANGUAGE INSTRUCTORS In this activity, the role of the language instructor is that of a facilitator or manager of learning. The language instructor is responsible for creating the necessary conditions for learning to take place and managing activities in the classroom. For classroom management, the instructor prepares a schedule for individual groups to meet him or her. At the same time, the other groups will be working in the library, discussing and exchanging information based on the data they have collected. Through consultation with the language instructors, learners are helped in the preparation of the written outline to be submitted to the language instructor. The language instructor will also help address language problems to facilitate learners acquisition of technical content through language while assisting learners in the preparation of their draft posters. It is however stressed to the learners that the language instructor is not a disseminator of knowledge on the content area of the learner s discipline. As mentioned earlier, the learners have more authority than the language instructor in terms of content. In the ECE programme, learners are not merely passive recipients of the learning process but they are active participants of learning. Learners are expected to take a much more active role in directing their own learning and to bear responsibility for the success of the learning task. This is part of the training given to make them more independent in the learning process. PRINCIPLES AT WORK Based on the earlier discussion, some of the principles at work in the wall poster activity can be summarised as follows:

149 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique 141 Learners are placed at the centre of activities with this student- centred approach. The language instructors play the role of facilitators and managers of learning, creating the necessary conditions for learning to take place. The wall poster activity provides the basis for an enculturation activity to assist the learner in the process of enculturation and assimilation into the academic culture of civil engineering. Learners have more authority in terms of content knowledge. The language instructors are not disseminators of information but their role is to address language problems that impede comprehension of content. The task is purpose-driven aimed towards enhancing learner s performance in the academic subject. Learners are trained in note-taking skills which will help towards meeting academic needs. Learners motivation is increased as marks are awarded not only for relevant information but also for creativity in the presentation of information and visuals. Learners are encouraged to present facts accurately and concisely. Learners determine the topics/ subject areas they wish to work on and include in the assigned task. Learners invest their responsibility, initiative, time, energy, effort and creativity to ensure successful completion of the task. Learners discuss strategies to complete the task, to draw up an action plan and work schedule and to manage their own time. Learners cooperate and negotiate in activity groups through discussion and exchange of information. Group interaction and collaboration foster team spirit, learner independence

150 142 Research In English Language Teaching Learners who are more independent are helped towards greater autonomy through support from their more independent peers. Learners thus become less dependent on the teacher. Learners are trained to inculcate leadership qualities by becoming group leaders and coordinators. Learners are given the freedom to take charge of their own learning and set the direction of their own learning paths. Learners have more control in planning, organizing and implementation of the learning task. Learners are active participants in the teaching - learning process and not merely passive recipients of learning. CONCLUSION The wall poster activity is aimed not only to enhance learners understanding of concepts and principles related to the civil engineering subject. It is also designed to promote interest and creativity among students while immersing them into the content area of their academic subjects. Most importantly, the activity promotes team spirit, group coordination and learner independence and responsibility to ensure successful completion of the task. These are traits deemed important for learners to acquire towards becoming more independent and become effective team players. REFERENCES Abdul Halim Abdul Raof, Louis, AF, Masputeriah Hamzah and Khairi Izwan Abdullah Relevance through integration and collaboration. Paper presented at the Malaysia International Conference on English Language Teaching

151 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique 143 (MICELT 96), Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, Penang, May Anie Attan and Louis, AF customer needs. Paper presented at the Regional Language Khairi Izwan Abdullah, Louis, AF, Abdul Halim Abdul Raof and Masputeriah Hamzah Towards a framework for curriculum design in ESP. ESP Malaysia Journal, Vol.3 Issue 1 Masputeriah Hamzah, Abdul Halim Abdul Raof, Khairi Izwan Abdullah and Louis, A.F Designing learning materials for civil engineering students. ESP Malaysia, Vol. 3 Issue 2 APPENDIX Phase 1 Enculturation Activity AIM To assist students in their process of enculturation or assimilation into the culture of the academic and professional community of Civil Engineers, the task assigned will help students in discovering for themselves the scope of Materials in Civil Engineering and its TASK Make notes on the topic Materials in Civil Engineering based on the reading texts given and on information collected from other sources.

152 144 Research In English Language Teaching a) b) c) Use the notes to prepare for a wall poster presentation on the same topic. explanatory information appropriate for someone new to the subject. Prepare a glossary list of at least 10 key terms in Materials in Civil Engineering. Use the following format: GLOSSARY ENGINEERING SURVEYING Word/Phrase Bahasa Malaysia Equivalent 1 Sentence: Procedure for wall poster presentation Study the requirements of the task and discuss your understanding of what you are required to do. Plan out a strategy to complete the task. You could include the following in your discussion: (a) categories of information which your group would like to collect (e.g. main topics covered, types of assignments, etc.)

153 Facilitating Content Acquisition Through Language : The Wall Poster Technique 145 (b) (c) (d) methods of collecting information (e.g. reading, interviewing, etc.). distribution of duties among the group members the work schedule for completing the task Collect information in the library and/or in your faculty resource room to get a general idea of the chosen topic. When you have collected the necessary information, meet to share the information with your group members. As a group, plan for and prepare the posters. All members of the group should be prepared to answer questions on the posters during the wall poster presentation session. On the presentation day, display your group s posters on the walls. Take turns to be stationed near your group s posters and to go round the class Excerpt 4

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155 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students USING BAHASA MELAYU WHILE WRITING IN ENGLISH: A CASE STUDY OF MALAY STUDENTS MAHANI STAPA INTRODUCTION Writing in a second language (L2) is a challenging process (Wolfersberger, 2003:1). He continues to explain that this is because content, drafting ideas, revising writing, choosing appropriate vocabulary, and editing texts, writing in L2 involves all of these elements jumbled with second language processing issues. In addition to that, L2 writers are also faced with other challenges that can affect the L2 writers composing competence. Factors such as linguistic competence, cognitive ability as well as social aspects also need to be addressed by ESL practitioners in order to understand L2 writing better. However, because of the constraints of limited second-language knowledge, writing in a second language may be hampered because of the need to focus on language rather than content (Weigle, 2002: 35). It is true that form or language does play an important role in L2 writing but it should not be the only element that needs attention. Writing in a second language classroom should not be impeded in lieu of too much focus on the language. As such, a shift in paradigm is needed so as to address other important elements that underly L2 writing such as background knowledge, writing strategies, writing processes, the role of L1, and others.

156 148 Research In English Language Teaching LANGUAGE SWITCHING AND L2 WRITING Various studies have compared L1 English essays and ESL essays written by groups of students with different L1 background to investigate L1-L2 transfer of cultural rhetorical patterns (Uzawa, 1996, Kubota, 1998, Wolfersberger, 2003, Wang, 2003). The assumption is that if distinct patterns emerged from English written texts written by different L1 groups, they would provide evidence that such rhetorical patterns exist in their L1 and carry over into L2 writing. Kobayashi (1984) in Kubota (1998) conducted a study on Japanese students and observed that essays written in Japanese were similar to essays written in English in terms of rhetorical pattern, (1984) cited in Kubota (1998) examined essays written by Japanese students writing in Japanese and English and found evidence of L1 to L2 transfer based on similarities in some lexical features and organisational patterns. Thus, it can be concluded here that transfer from L1 to L2 does exist and further studies on this will be of great help towards understanding the nature of L2 writing. ESL practitioners need to have a clear understanding of the unique nature of L2 writing in order to deal effectively with L2 writers (Silva, 1993:657). Silva (1993) further commented that: There is evidence to suggest that L1 and L2 writings are similar in their broad outlines; that is, it has been shown that both L1 and L2 writers employ a recursive composing process, involving planning, writing, and revising, do develop means to express them. (Silva, 1993:657 The above statement demonstrates that there is not much difference between L1 and L2 writers and a close examination of both L1 and L2 writing is needed to explore this further. This can be achieved by means of an empirical research comparing ESL and

157 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students 149 native-english-speaking writers as well as that comparing L1 and L2 writing of L2 subjects (Silva, 1993:658). Edelsky (1982) conducted a study on the relationship between L1 writing processes have been used in L2 writing. In addition to the basis of new hypotheses rather than interferes with writing in another language. Therefore, knowledge of L1 writing should be seen as assisting L2 writing rather than hampering it. Similarly, Qi (1996), in his study on a Chinese subject, discovered frequent switching between L1 and L2 even during the development of a single thought. This particular subject often switched quickly to the language in which an idea could be most comfortably expressed (Qi, 1996:427). This switch, according to Qi (1996), resulted from the subject s need to use a language that could articulate her ideas most effectively, expressively, and with the least possible interruption in the process of thought development. promote L2 writing rather than hindering it since the use of L1 is seen as helping L2 writers in the process of composing especially in the idea generating phase. This is further supported by Qi (1996) who claimed that, based on his research, language-switching enabled an initiated thought to continue to develop and helped generate content which the subject of his study sometimes felt less competent to produce when she used L2 only. In relation to the above, Woodall (2000) ascertained that any model of L2 writing skill needs to incorporate this behaviour. This ultimate discovery acknowledges the importance of language switching so much so that any L2 writing model should include this behaviour as it is seen as an important aspect of L2 writing. Quite possibly, according to Woodall (2000), language switching is essential for representing the development of L2 writing skills, as opposed to merely describing the development of L2 writing processes. Woodall (2000: 185) goes on to explain that:

158 150 Research In English Language Teaching it seems like a good pedagogical practice to recognise that a student s native language can be an important resource in L2 writing. As a tool, the L1 can be used in the writing processes, like generating content and organising ideas. Students who have troubles generating content in their L2 might use their In a much more recent study, Wang and Wen (2002) discovered that the L2 writing process is a bilingual event; L2 writers have two languages (i.e. L1 and L2) at their disposal when they are composing. This study also found L1 involvement in various composing activities; process-controlling, idea-generating, and idea-organizing activities (Wang and Wen, 2002:239). When investigated further, it is found translate from L1 to L2 throughout their L2 composing process. The advanced subjects, on the other hand, appeared to use their L1 strategically for idea-generating, monitoring, and lexical searching point in their attempt at composing in L2. In another related study, conducted on eight adult Chinese speaking writers, Wang (2003) found that all participants in the study switched language frequently while composing in the L2. Furthermore, processes while they were composing (Wang, 2003). Ultimately, this did while composing in two writing tasks required of them. This indicated that, as far as L2 writing is concerned, regardless of their L2 purposes during the composing process.

159 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students Research Questions The main questions that this research attempts to answer are: 1. Do Malay university students with different levels of English in English? 2. If yes, how, when and for what reasons. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS semester engineering undergraduates at the Universiti Teknologi on their Malaysian University English Test (MUET) scores, ranging scores is further illustrated in the following table: MUET Scores Frequency Not stated Total 620 Table 1: Respondents MUET scores

160 152 Research In English Language Teaching The distribution of the questionnaires took almost a month to complete. They were distributed to those students taking their Communication. Since the focus of this study is on the engineering students, the questionnaires were then circulated among students from these engineering faculties, namely 1) the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, 2) the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, 3) the Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resource Engineering, and 4) the Faculty of Civil Engineering. Some of these questionnaires were distributed personally by the researcher and some were distributed by the lecturers teaching the different cohorts of students. After all questionnaires have been returned, I then started to do a thorough check on them to make sure that they had all been completed in full. After this, the responses to the 620 questionnaires were coded and analysed. This involved the application of the SPSS statistical package where all information obtained from the questionnaire were coded, keyed in and later analysed using descriptive statistics to obtain the relevant information. related to the research questions that this study is trying to address. The most striking result was that 87.42% (542 out of 620) of the a writing task in English, while only 12.58% (78 out of 620) said they writing task in English. There was however, considerable variation with the samples in a writing task in English, as illustrated in the following table:

161 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students 153 Description Frequency Percent Rarely Sometimes Always Total Table 2 The above table indicates that almost 50% of the samples (268 when dealing with producing texts in English. Very few students assignments in English (10 out of 542). A further quarter of the out writing tasks in English. The next interesting finding that emerges from this was used by these respondents when they were in the process of completing a writing assignment in English. The following table respondents. Description Frequency Percent translate them into English 2. Looking up in the bilingual dictionary for the appropriate English words to use Melayu and later translate them into English

162 154 Research In English Language Teaching 5. Discussing aspects of the English text in family member Total Table 3 A closer look at the above table demonstrates that the initial ideas for a writing task which they then translated into English. English words to be used when writing in English. Thus, using a bilingual dictionary was ranked second by these respondents as one writing in English. As shown in the above table, the respondents said that they actual writing. This was placed as the third most frequently mentioned writing in English, for example in interpreting assignment questions as shown in the above table, was by discussions of aspects of the This is probably due to the fact that much of the students writing was done in the classroom and not as home work, hence the lack of opportunity for discussion. by these respondents, I turned my attention to the stage of writing

163 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students 155 below clearly exhibits the different stages in writing in which they Description Frequency Percent 1. When I brainstorm for ideas (pre-writing stage) 2. When I draft and write my essay (writing stage) 3. When I edit and proofread my essay (post-writing stage) Total Table 4 was mostly utilised by these respondents when they were brainstorming Melayu when they were editing and proofreading their essays, for example checking lexical items in a bilingual dictionary. was used by the respondents when completing a writing task in English. They were seven reasons altogether and they were ranked accordingly by the most utilised to the least utilised.

164 156 Research In English Language Teaching Description Frequency Percent 1. To enable me to think of what to write (idea generation) 2. To clarify ideas to be included in the writing used when writing. of thoughts 6. To enable me to understand the task that I have a writing task in English had become a habit Total Table 5 reported to be used mostly during the idea generation phase (19.38%). ideas for the writing which were then translated into English. It also correlates with Table 4, item 1, which referred to the brainstorming Melayu was evident. Melayu included: clarifying their ideas to be included in their writings to be used when writing (e.g. by referring to a bilingual dictionary)

165 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students 157 (reported by 15.84% of the samples), ensuring the continuation of could help them in their writing later on (e.g. through the use of a bilingual dictionary, as mentioned earlier )(reported by 14.91% of the samples). Similarly, use of a bilingual dictionary was also implied by facilitating understanding of the required task (reported by 12.86% of Melayu had become a habit. Lastly, the vast majority of the students in the samples responded positively to the question which was designed to determine produce texts in English for their university studies. The following table summarizes the pattern of answers to this question. Description Percentage Yes 96.3 No 3.7 Total 100 Table 6 these respondents as facilitating them in completing writing tasks in English. Contrary to the views that predominant in ELT circles, most in the accomplishment of the required tasks. CONCLUSION

166 158 Research In English Language Teaching This study is far from conclusive. More analysis needs to be done on a variety of reasons as well as in different ways and stages of their writings. Therefore, it is imperative that teachers of ESL writing look at how one s L1 can actually help while undertaking a writing task in English. REFERENCES L1 and L2 Texts. TESOL Quarterly. 16(2): Kubota, R An Investigation of L1-L2 Transfer in Writing among Japanese University Students: Implications for Contrastive Rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing. 7(1): Qi, D An Inquiry into Language-switching in Second Language Composing Process. The Canadian Modern Language Review. 54 (3): Silva, T Toward an Understanding of the Distinct Nature of L2 writing: The ESL Research and Its Implications. TESOL Quarterly. 27(4): Uzawa, K Second Language Learners Processes of L1 Writing, L2 Writing, and Translation from L1 into L2. Journal of Second Language Writing. 5(3): Journal of Second Language Writing. 12 (2003): Wang and Wen L1 Use in the L2 Composing Process: An Exploratory Study of 16 Chinese EFL Writers. Journal of

167 Using Bahasa Melayu While Writing In English: A Case Study Of Malay Students 159 Second Language Writing. 11(2002: ) Weigle, S. C Assessing Writing. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Wolfersberger, M L1 to L2 Writing Process and Strategy TESL-EJ. 7(2): Language Switching in Second Language Writing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Washington: University of Washington.

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169 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials CORPUS ANALYSIS OF PRIMARY ONE SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS FOR DESIGNING ELT MATERIALS SARIMAH SHAMSUDIN ZAIDAH ZAINAL SALBIAH SELIMAN YASMIN HANAFI ZAID INTRODUCTION To make use of words or lists of words in various forms for various purposes is not new. We have been using lists of vocabulary words for tourists and students from various levels of education in the form of glossaries, lists of jargons, indexes and the like. Such lists are called corpus. The government s recent policy on the teaching of Science in English calls for a fundamental support from language practitioners issues regarding the use of English as the medium of instruction for the teaching and learning of Science in primary schools. Among others, the language issue related to the lexical, syntactic and semantic patterns of English in Science and Technology (EST) has been under-researched. This, therefore, sets the focus of our study which undertakes to examine the language patterns existing in science authentic texts. Among the many conventional methods that can be adopted, such as communicative method (Wilkins, 1976), approach (Chomsky, 1965), procedural approach (Prabhu, 1987) or instrospective and

170 162 Research In English Language Teaching times are limited and unsystematic, we propose to employ the method which involves the making of corpus of this subject area using lexical approach (Lewis, 1994). The lexical approach (Lewis, 1993; Willis, 1990, Willis & Willis, 1988, 1989) is chosen for a number of reasons: 1) it emphasises on the importance of co-text (i.e. language is not de-contextualised), 2) it provides a range of awareness-raising activities that direct the learner s attention to chunks text composed, 3) it focuses on different forms of lexical item. The corpus produced can then be used by other researchers in this area for teaching and learning purposes. In this paper, we will discuss the preliminary stage of an ongoing research which aims to design teaching and learning materials through an analysis of a corpus of texts taken from Science textbooks for Primary One students in Malaysia. The topic of our research is EST Teaching and Learning Materials via WWW Based on Corpus Analysis of Mathematics, Science and English Text Books in Malaysian Primary Schools. This paper, however, only focuses on the use of the frequency list and corpus of Science texts to develop teaching and learning materials for English language learners of Primary One students. CORPUS AND CONCORDANCES collection of texts (Barlow, 2003) in machine-readable form. It is the program (concordancing program ) for analysis (Barlow, 2003: collection of texts, of the written or spoken word, which is stored and processed on computer for the purpose of linguistic research. Today, there has been a growing interest and need in corpus making and use. These interests, among others, are based on the following reasons (Svartvik, 1992: 8-9):

171 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials language practitioners require large amounts of easily accessible and authentic data. Language complexities may alone. Corpus, in comparison to random introspective observation, is deemed necessary to objectively examine data. corpus is necessary in describing the different language uses and in establishing between frequency of occurrence of linguistic items. corpus is a general source of information for indexing key words and concepts. some subject areas, e.g. science and technology, adhere to captured through corpus analysis. Corpus is, therefore, a collection of naturally-occurring language text, chosen to characterize a language variety or discourse. As the lists of words are often extensive and bulky, analysis of corpus through the use of software such as Monoconc is sought. Monoconc enables language practitioners to instantly work out the frequency list of words and phrases in the corpus and patterns of their occurrence. Such patterns of occurrence can be in the form of concordance. What is Concordance? Sinclair (1991:32) defines a concordance as a collection of the occurrences of a word-form, each in its own textual environment. It is basically an index to the words in a text. Concordancing is the technique of locating the occurrences consequently listing its context very quickly and reliably. In other words, concordance gives access to important language patterns in side of a word or phrase selected for study. It gives access to important language patterns in texts and word or phrase selected for study. An example of the concordance

172 164 Research In English Language Teaching of the word pupils from a corpus of science texts for Primary One students in Malaysia is shown in Figure 1 below. Concordance is also a Co-text. The Co-text of a selected word or phrase consists of the other words on either side of it. For instance in Figure 1 below, the Co-text of the word pupils are get-to, let-know, ask-to/which etc. Figure 1: Co-text of the word pupils [Concordance of pupils] CONCORDANCE Concordancing software or computer concordancers such as MonoConc Pro 2.2 (MP 2.2) can be used to rapidly search for patterns in a corpus using its search query. It can be used to analyse lexical,

173 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials 165 grammatical and textual structures of a corpus. Concordance has several advantages. For instance, by using the software Monoconc Pro 2.2 (MP2.2), it is possible to search for frequency lists of word occurrences rare instances of words or strings of words strings of words in the context of other strings particular patterns of words and sorts them to focus on similar occurrences to reveal their properties Corpus analysis studies have been numerous (see Tribble and Jones, 1997; Murison-Bowie, 1993; Willis and Willis, 1988, 1989, among others). For instance, Willis and Willis (1988, 1989) attempt to design course books for English language learners through authentic evidence found in the COBUILD corpus. Most useful words and language learners in order to give them a good start with instances of real and most frequent patterns of the target language. An ESP web-based courseware called UNITEKMA ECE courseware for Civil Engineering students at the tertiary level of education has also been designed based on computational linguistic analysis of a corpus on Civil Engineering materials (Sarimah Shamsudin, 1997; Sarimah Shamsudin et al. 2002) Research conducted on the use of the web-based ECE Courseware indicated that the courseware is able to provide students with authentic and real examples of the language in the context of Civil Engineering materials. The glossary available in the courseware helps the students engineering area. Currently, there are many different collections of corpora of English, especially general written and spoken corpus. A few examples are the Collins Birmingham University International Language Database (COBUILD) of English, Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen (LOB) Corpus of British English and the Brown Corpus of American English.

174 166 Research In English Language Teaching METHODOLOGY OF THE ONGOING RESEARCH Let us begin to describe the on-going research which aims to design teaching and learning materials through an analysis of a corpus of Science textbooks for Primary One students in Malaysian schools. The main study intends to include texts from the areas of Science, Mathematics and English primary one textbooks. First, text books and workbooks in the respective subjects used in Primary Schools in Malaysia were gathered and copyright permission was sought out. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) was very prompt in giving the copyright of the titles they published. The other publisher has not given the permission to date although permission was sought at the same time with DBP. For the purpose of this presentation, only Science text books were analysed. The procedures taken to get the data for this paper were similar to those that we took for the whole research and they were as follows: each page of the science textbook was scanned using C-pen to get the results that are useful for our purpose A frequency list was produced using MonoConc (See Figure complete frequency list is found in Appendix A.

175 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials 167 Figure 2: Frequency list The list produced mixed results and the words that were words and content words, as shown in Table 2 below. Grammar Words Content Words Frequency Words Frequency Words 294 The 201 pupils 262 To 133 point 172 And 133 things 157 They 109 ask 148 A 107 teaching 144 That 97 animals 135 In 55 see 132 Is 52 sound 126 Are 48 make

176 168 Research In English Language Teaching 120 Of 46 water 119 Them 44 eat 112 We 44 plants 106 What 44 food Table 2: Frequency of Grammar and Content words From frequency lists (Appendix A, Table 2) and their concordance, teachers can develop learning and teaching materials for English language learners. DEVELOPING TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS This paper further discusses how to use the frequency list and corpus of Science texts to develop teaching and learning materials for English language learners of Primary One students. For instance in Appendix A, the content word things is one of the common words in the corpus. It can be considered as an important concept for Primary One learners of Science as its occurrence in the corpus consists of words is In addition, we may design exercises based on the collocation of the words found in the frequency list such as things (frequency: Figure 4) and animals (frequency: 97 Figure 3). To collocate is investigation. Thus a collocation is the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a text. Usual measures of proximity are a maximum of four words intervening.

177 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials 169 Figure 3: The collocation of the word animals The frequency list (appendix A) determines which word we need to collocate. Our decision should be based on the necessity of the word. The more the frequency of occurrence, the more important the word will be. After the word is decided on, it is run through the MonoConc to work out the collocation, ie the context the word actually appears in the science texts analyzed. For instance the word things is found to be frequent. Figure 3 below shows the collocation of the word things.

178 170 Research In English Language Teaching Figure 4: The collocation of the word things From the following figures we can see that the words surrounding the target word things include the, then and the like. Nevertheless, the most important information that we should know here is the co-text of the word in question.

179 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials 171 Figure 5: The collocation of big things The words big and small seem to be very salient with the word things

180 172 Research In English Language Teaching Figure 6: The collocation of small things After we found out that the words small and big were very salient with the words things, we were able to use the same method to work out the collocation of these words. The result of the collocation for these two words with the word thing can be expressed in Figure 7 and 8. From Figure 7 we learnt that the next salient word to small is the word and from Figure 8 we learn that the next salient word for big things is sink.

181 Corpus Analysis Of Primary One Science Textbooks For Designing Elt Materials 173 Figure 7: The collocation of

182 174 Research In English Language Teaching Figure 8: The collocation of sink referred to by the word things. Figure 9 lists some examples of words which were meant by things. Figure 9: The frequency of those we can call things and other salient words that collocate with it such as and sink.