The English Language Teacher Development Project is a British Council Project, funded by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, which aims to provide a sustainable development and support system for Malaysian primary teachers of English in Malaysia

Project AimThis project aims to enhance primary English teachers’ ability to plan and deliver quality English lessons based on the new National English Language Curriculum in 600 schools across East Malaysia and to set up support structures that will facilitate the teachers’ continuing professional development.

Project ApproachELTDP is different in that it involves one-to-one mentoring to help teachers explore and reflect on their own professional practice.  They will develop approaches themselves, which they own in order to bring about long-term change.

Project Objectives

Objective 1To improve classroom teaching and learning as

Sharing: An English mentoring programme empowers teachers and enhances their research capabilities

JENIFER Andrew Bugat recently hit a wall at work after eight years of teaching English at SK Abang Moh in Sessang, a small town in Saratok, Sarawak.

While she loves teaching her Year Three, Five and Six pupils, she admits to feeling overwhelmed and jaded.

She acknowledges that it is normal for teachers to feel that way “especially when dealing with pupils with low English proficiency and handling other non-teaching responsibilities in school”.

But Jenifer’s passion for teaching was rejuvenated when the English Language Teaching Development Programme (ELTDP), a mentoring programme for teachers, was introduced at her school two years ago.

“I get lots of benefits from it because there is a mentor with whom I can discuss my work,” she says.

Jenifer is one of the 87 teachers who attended a three-day symposium for teachers involved in the teaching development programme in Kuching, Sarawak recently.

Organised by the British Council, the symposium themed Teachers as Researchers was a platform for participants to share the teaching and learning methods derived from the mentoring scheme.

ELTDP director Tricia Thorlby says: “It aims to help develop new perceptions of teacher development, learning and change. This

demonstrated through classroom observations, mentor- and self-assessment.

Objective 2To improve the English language proficiency of the participating teachers as shown through mentor and self-assessment.

Objective 3To improve the participating teachers’ ability to source, assess, develop and utilise a range of appropriate teaching and learning materials that can be used inside and outside the classroom for both students and teachers.  

Objective 4To sustain ongoing development by encouraging participation and relationship building amongst pupils, teachers, parents, the wider school community and education authorities.

Facts and FiguresThe project employs 120 mentors working with 1200 teachers in 600 schools across Sarawak, Sabah and Labuan. Last Year the project mentors delivered over 90,000 hours of professional development input to project teachers.

symposium, which is part of the process, will showcase the work of teachers and mentors from across East Malaysia.”

Launched in 2011, the scheme comes under the Education Ministry’s Penutur Jati Bahasa Inggeris (English Language Native Speaker) programme, an initiative to uphold the national language and strengthen English language.

The project specifically targets 2,000 teachers in 600 primary schools in Sarawak, Sabah and Labuan.

Some 120 trained mentors — who are English language educators themselves — were assigned to teachers to guide them in reflecting on their teaching practices and taking ownership of their professional development.

The mentors are native speakers of English from the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada who are handpicked by British Council.

Empowering teachers through community engagement in teaching and learning, and enhancing their research capabilities lie at the core of English teaching development.

The scheme is much needed in the three areas. The fact that they are home to ethnic groups with unique identities and dialects poses a challenge to English Language teachers posted there.

For example, students in East Malaysia commonly have an ethnic language (such as Iban or Kadazandusun) as their first language, which is then followed by Bahasa Malaysia.English is not widely spoken at home.

Towards SustainabilityHaving supported a cohort of Malaysian teachers and trainers to deliver high quality Primary English and Literacy education in challenging contexts, the project aims to then facilitate skills development and mentoring within the wider teacher population.  The long term goal is to improve the quality of English language education to the pupils particularly in Stage 1 of primary education (years 1-3).

Timothy Hughes — who mentors up to 16 teachers from five schools in Kuching, Sri Aman and Lingga — finds that English proficiency among teachers is not a major concern in Sarawak.

“All the teachers I work with have an English proficiency level that is more than adequate to teach. What’s striking is how unduly shy and nervous they are about it,” says Hughes, who previously taught English in the United Kingdom, Japan and Thailand.

It is the mentors’ responsibility to make regular visits to the schools to give teachers the encouragement they need to be confident speakers and find solutions to problems they face in their line of work.

Cynthia James, who teaches English at SMK Kunak 2 in Kunak, Sabah says that mentoring helps her in administering and ensuring the success of her school’s reading project.

Cynthia, who presented a paper entitled Changing Children’s Perception Of Reading Through Parental Involvement  says: “I organised a series of reading workshops at my school and I was so happy to find positive response from parents.”

She began her study with the aim of raising parents’ awareness of children’s perception of reading.

“Based on my pre-interviews, I find that most of them don’t have the concept of reading for pleasure. They associate reading with studying. I then did the research on intervention and why parents need to be involved,” she says.She believes challenges will remain as teachers, for instance, need to cater to various classes when teaching.

“But I’m happy that at least the parents are involved in the process,” she says.

Jenifer, on the other hand, was inspired to experiment with ideas to make her lessons more exciting from interactions with her mentor.

At the symposium, she spoke animatedly about a game she introduced to her pupils in which they take turns to use a “fishing rod” to “fish” for letters on the floor.

“I use it to teach phonics. When I call out a phonic sound, the pupils have to ‘fish’ for the letters to denote that they understand my instruction,” she says.

The look of enjoyment on her pupils’ faces is motivation enough for her to work harder.

“It is a great feeling and I feel that a burden has been lifted,” she says.

She considers the symposium a celebration of what teachers can achieve with help from an experienced mentor.

“It is with the help of my mentor that I am able to help other teachers. When I learn something new through my teaching (from the mentoring process), I share what I learn with other teachers,” adds Jenifer.

Lis da Rocha, an ELTDP mentor from Limbang, Sarawak, shows a puppet she made to participants in a mentee workshop.

Read more: TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: It takes a village - Learning Curve - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/channels/learning-curve/teacher-development-it-takes-a-village-1.236113#ixzz2Z2M8EM7C