malaysia

News of changing policy in Malaysia

http://drchua9.blogspot.com/2009/07/teaching-maths-and-science-in-english.html
Malaysian government reverts back to Malay for teaching Science and Maths. The decision will come into practice in 2012
Dr. Chua Soi Lek blog
July 8, 2009
 
http://educationmalaysia.blogspot.com/2009/07/science-and-maths-to-be-taught-in-bm.html
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
- Science and Maths to be taught in BM again
http://educationmalaysia.blogspot.com/2008/09/two-letters-on-science-and-math-policy.html
Sunday, September 07, 2008
- Two letters on Science and Math policy
 
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16085607/The-mediumofinstruction-debate-in-Malaysia?autodown=pdf
article on EMI Malaysia, P Tan, added to Scribd 06/03/2009
The medium-of-instruction debate in Malaysia: English as a Malaysian language?
Peter K. W. Tan
National University of Singapore
 
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/71584
Pin Pan Dan
Aug 24, 2007
Еarly history of Malaysian language medium education
 
The medium-of-instruction debate in Malaysia: English as a Malaysian language?
Peter K. W. Tan
National University of Singapore
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issues_in_Malaysian_Education
A wiki on EMI in Malaysia
 
I'll try to update them and add others if and when I find anything new. But do send me other links if you come across them.
 

Science Across the World, Malaysia

Wednesday 26 January

The week began with an evening discussion in one of the foyer bar areas of the Rennaissance Hotel. There were around 30 participants, from all levels of education, from museums, from educational publications, there were parents, and learners all interested in the issues related to English-medium Science education.
It was a good way to start the week giving me an insight into some of the issues and concerns of a representative group of the Malaysian population dealing with education. On the background of more than two years’ experience of English-medium Science and Maths education in Malaysia. The programme is working its way through the system and now after an initial period of very difficult implementation, I get the impression that things are settling down and schools and teachers are getting on with the everyday process of the teaching and have managed to cope with the heavy job of implementation so far. There are many concerns. A parent of Chinese origin expressed worries about his children coping with the learning through the medium of English and that his own English wasn’t good enough to help his children, ‘what can I do?’ he asked. It’s a common concern.

Café Scientifique
https://www.britishcouncil.my/

Thursday 27 January


Dr Cheah opens the event


Mme Ho – Supertaster!

Thursday was an all-day workshop with teachers & officers from the Curriculum Development Centre at the Arcade Room, again in the Renaissance Hotel. These master trainers are responsible for the training of English-medium Science and Maths teachers regionally and I was invited to present Science Across the World to this group as well as present a review of some of the materials which are to be used by Science teachers.
The programme included an introduction to Science Across the World (www.scienceacross.org), materials and website and all of the trainers were offered the chance to sign up for free to the programme. John Clegg (jclegg@lineone.net) and I had carried out a review of some of the materials and guidelines for Form 1 Science. Our conclusions included suggestions for supplementing the materials with activities for supporting the production of language, in both spoken and written form. These conclusions formed the basis of activities presented to the group of master trainers.


Colleagues discuss diet and disease


Colleagues clustering arguments on genetics

There is only so much we could hope to achieve in the space of one day but there was a lot of interest in the language support activities and there were suggestions from Mme Ho, Dr Cheah, and Dr Yeap, colleagues from the Ministry of Education for further meetings with a practical materials supplementation focus. Other suggestions included expanding on the review to include a whole unit and then piloting this unit, recording the practice and using this material for further training.
There are some interesting links at the Ministry website including a guidebook on developing thinking skills in primary children. This article makes use of the skills.

Friday 28 January
In a short gap in the day’s programme there was time made for busy British Council Teacher Centre teachers to attend a presentation on Science Across the World and ideas for incorporating the programme into language teaching.

Saturday 29 January
On Saturday I had the privilege of attending the Teachers’ Club 2nd Anniversary Event which was held at the Renaissance Hotel. This was a meeting to celebrate the 2nd birthday of the Teachers’ Club in Malaysia and Scott Windeatt presented on the use of ICT in language teaching while I presented Science Across the World to the 200 plus teachers present. The new Teachers’ Club portal was also unveiled.

Take a look at the BC website, there’s lots of news on events for teachers and educational projects
http://www.britishcouncil.org/malaysia.


Birthday balloons are released!!!

 The programme was warmly received and a number of colleagues approached me afterwards to ask for further information.
All in all the week was full of opportunity both for Science Across the World and for teachers in Malaysia looking for contacts in schools in other countries around the world. I think there will be a large takeup among teachers from this week. The next step would be to bring them together again at a later date to share their experiences with the programme and also to offer more practical activities for the classroom.
There’s certainly a lot that Science Across the World can offer teachers in terms of techniques for developing communication in Science as well as opportunities for making contacts with teachers in other countries. On top of this, the Malaysian English-medium Science and Maths initiative is one to watch in the near future. With each year that this programme grows, there will be another year of materials, of experience, of challenges.
Watch this space!
 

PBL and SAW

This is an article sent from colleagues in Malaysia.

As usual FACTWorld is happy to host materials sent from teachers and colleagues related to CLIL.

If you have anything published or not that you'd like to share with the world, send it along and we'll try and publish here.
Malaysia has always been an active participant in the Science Across the World programme. It's great to be able to share the good work!




Using Science Across the World in the classroom

Article page 1



Article page 2


 

Integrating Maths with project/problem-based learning, Nov-Dec 2007

This is a short report in a mail to me on a valuable and interesting initiative from Ng Khar Thoe, the Science Across the World representative in Malaysia.

Dear Keith,
Thanks for the info. I had informed Marianne earlier that we had tried to integrate Mathematics lesson with project/problem-based learning. The article was published in Nov. 2007 issue of "Learning Science and Mathematics" (LSM) on-line journal with the following URL: http://www.recsam.edu.my/lsm/index.htm



Attached also herewith the pdf version of the article with adapted exchange form
and abstract for the paper presented in the recent International Conference on Science and Mathematics Education (CoSMEd): 


Redefining mathematics classroom incorporating global Project/problem-based learning programme
 
Tan Khan Aun
Tun Syed Sheh Shahabudin Science Secondary School
khanaun@gmail.com  

Ng Khar Thoe
SEAMEO RECSAM
nktrecsam@gmail.com

Ch’ng Yeang Soon
Penang Free School
yeangsoon1960@yahoo.com.sg

Teoh Boon Tat
SEAMEO RECSAM
teohbtat@gmail.com  

Since 1990, “Science Across the World” (SAW) international web-based learning programme aims to raise awareness of the ways science and technology interact with society and environment. Numerous research conducted based on social constructivist learning theories has revealed that SAW is an exemplary e-learning programme promoting project/problem-based learning (PBL) activities. Students’ interest in learning science related topics was enhanced tremendously. Seeing the importance of cross-curricular teaching to redefine mathematics classroom via global PBL programme, the researchers had devised a mathematics lesson incorporating human-values via SAW web-based programme. They tried out the lesson with a group of Form 3 secondary students in TSSSS Secondary School on 29th October 2006. In addition, an evaluation questionnaire was also piloted with 25 students to explore the possibility of evaluating students’ enhanced values/attitudes towards PBL via SAW global mathematics project. This article will briefly report how the school tryout was conducted with the mathematics lesson plan being illustrated. Findings from observation and interviews with selected students involved in the study and sample students’ output of learning will also be delineated including the “Global Mathematics project” exchange form entitled “Water, Precious Water”. The form was later sent via SAW database to a group of in-service mathematics teachers attending the “online mathematics teaching and learning” training course at RECSAM (6th November to 1st December 2006). The piloted questionnaire was also refined for use in a subsequent study. The researchers concluded with discussions on the implications of the findings of this study including suggestions for future tryouts of mathematics project/problem-based learning classrooms.

We have also successfully conducted CoSMEd pre-conference SAW workshop on 12/11 (with 40 seats officially) funded by GSK, Malaysia. Many teachers had registered for an account for their schools as informed by the website they will be given free for life registration before 31 December. Many thanks for the support from ASE again. I will also be involved as facilitator for a PBL workshop for educators from 13 to 15 December organized by SMJK(C) Chung Ling and Vision Academy (M) Sdn. Bhd. I will keep you informed of the outcome later. Thanks.

Regards,
Khar Thoe

08 Dec 2007





 

Training course for teaching Maths and Science in English

The English Language Teaching Centre, Malaysia

It's great to see that colleagues in Malaysia have published online a course for the training of teachers of Maths and Science through the medium of English.

The overall aim of ETeMS is as follows:
To enhance the English language skills of Mathematics and Science teachers to enable them to teach effectively using English as the medium of instruction



The programme of training is 240 hours and covers three broad areas of language in Maths and Science:
A. Language for Accessing Information
B. Language for Teaching Mathematics and Science
C. Language for Professional Exchange

The writing of such a course is timely in a climate where English medium education is enjoying a growing popularity around the world. Malaysia is well-known in content and language integration circles for the ambitious projects undertaken to set up national programmes for the teaching of Maths and Science in English, for the very rich resources and hardware available to teachers as well as the training programmes created to prepare teachers for integrating their content with language.
What is of particular interest with this course, however, is how the grammar of English has been linked directly with areas of content of Maths and Science. The course lays out topic areas within Maths and Science and then goes on to describe language structure giving example sentences from these subject areas. The examples are set upon exercises for teachers to do practicing the structures.
If you find other courses like this online, let us know.

21 Oct, 2007
 

ZCC Malaysia and English-medium Science Education

Young Ambassadors for the Climate – YACs came to Kuala Lumpur this week when the British Council, Malaysia organised a week of activities around the ZCC Exhibition from March 6-10, 2006 http://www.britishcouncil.org/malaysia.htm.

Monday
The programme of activities included Facilitator Training for the MUTR climate change kits at the National Science Centre in KL which focus on alternative sources of energy, sustainable living and the dangers of ultra-vilolet radiation from sunlight (www.mutr.co.uk).


…facilitator gismo creations…

       
…UV-warning badges…

Colleagues were introduced to the new Science Across the World topic in writing ‘Climate Change around the World’ producing their own biodiversity maps of Malaysia as an example of surveying the local impact of Climate Change.

   
…local teachers and colleagues from the National Science Centre, Kuala Lumpur…



Tuesday


…Debbie preparing for the YAC Day…


…Deputy Minister YB Dato’ S. Sothinathan officiating the launch of ZCC Malaysia…

The week included the launch of the ZCC exhibition at the Central Station in KL attended by a large audience, partners from HSBC and was officiated by Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment YB Dato’ S. Sothinathan.

This is the first of a number of locations for the ZCC Exhibition in Malaysia and the launch itself included a YAC Day where young Malaysians from KL schools invented solar powered gismos with the view to attracting public attention to the issues of Climate Change.
It was particularly significant that the Deputy Minister stressed his appreciation of the involvement of young people in the campaign, the aim being to make them ‘ambassadors’ for the climate through their work at the event and in explaining what they were up to to the passing public curious to see what was going on at the railway station on their daily commute.
       
The creativity and inventions were impressive…

   
…but for innovation and marketable potential …  the prizes of British Council clocks went to a solar-powered fan cap…

   
…YACs handling media attention…

Presents were also donated by BP Malaysia and these included educational CDs which you can find at www.cetdem.org.my.

Wednesday
Further training involved colleagues looking into preparing there own YAC events for popularising Science in their working contexts.

         
…Colleagues debated pros and cons of renewable energy…

   
…and practised communicating Climate Change issues…


…here’s the first attempt at a solar-powered car I’ve met in 7 ZCC campaigns which actually runs!!!

 
Thursday
There was an important meeting with the Ministry of Education curriculum development section and a team of local Science teachers looking into the writing of a module on climate change with participation from BP.
Science Across the World will provide the draft materials on the new topic Climate Change around the World and I’ll contribute support on the language of Climate Change for the module.


…Mr Cheah, Principal Assistant Director of the Science and Maths Section of the Curriculum Development Centre chairs the meeting on preparing a Climate Change module for Malaysian Science Education…

Friday
We also met with the Ministry of Education ELTC – English Language Teaching Centre, with a workshop for teachers on Science Across the World Climate Change and English-medium Science Education.


…introduction to Science Across the World…


…getting to grips with the Science Across site…


…40 colleagues signed up to Science Across…

This was followed by a round table discussion with the ELTC team on CLIL Teacher Training around the world and the situation in Malaysia.


 …The ELTC team…

It was agreed to arrange a SAW link on the ELTC website and participating colleagues received free subscription to the programme. I also promised to provide ELTC trainers with SAW TT materials from other contexts and trainers will be networked with CLIL TT colleagues in other contexts.
There is also a Regional CLIL TT week in preparation for next year – an opportunity to bring agencies together to share their work and resources.
Colleagues throughout the week were also added to factworld network at www.yahoogroups.com to network with CLIL colleagues around the world.
It was an exhausting timetable, but a truly fulfilling professional experience for me personally. Many thanks to Deborah Singh from BC Malaysia for her help and support shadowing me throughout the week and providing me with a host of insights into the local context and also in her work in training for English-medium Science in Malaysia.

Best wishes

Keith

Keith Kelly (Language Education Consultant)
FACTWorld Coordinator (www.factworld.info)
NILE Associate Trainer (www.nile-elt.com)
SAW Consultant (www.scienceacross.org)
Home address: 146 St Leonards Rd, Leicester, LE23BZ, UK
Home tel: 0044 1162700962
Mobile: 0044 778 2356776
email: keithkelly@factworld.org

The Forum for Across the Curriculum Teaching - Supporting and Developing Content and Language Integrated Learning