Volume 8, 2008, Paper 2
Paper 2: The significance of sociolinguistic backgrounds of
teachers of IELTS Test preparation courses in selected Malaysian
institutions
Authors
Carol Gibson
University of South Australia
Anne Swan
Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
This research investigates the teaching of IELTS Test preparation
classes in Malaysia. It focuses on the linguistic, social and
cultural values which different teachers bring to the classroom and
to washback into the curriculum.
ABSTRACT
This research investigated the teaching of IELTS Test
preparation classes in Malaysia. Malaysia has been ranked 7th in a
list of top 25 IELTS Test locations worldwide (IELTS Review 2002).
This ethnographic study focused on the linguistic, social and
cultural values which different teachers bring to the IELTS Test
practice classroom and to washback into the curriculum according to
the requirements of IELTS Test preparation and associated academic
and social language skills.
We visited six institutions which held IELTS Test practice
classes. These were both public and private, located in and around
the Kuala Lumpur area and in the state of Pahang. Within these
institutions, 92 students completed questionnaires and we
interviewed nine teachers. As the student questionnaires were
researcher-administered in all centres but one, the return was high
(90%). Of these 92 students, 47 claimed Bahasa Malaysia as the
first language (with most having English as another language), 30
claimed Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese as the first language (with
most having English as another language), the remainder claimed a
mixture of Tamil, Punjabi, Indonesian, Burmese, Persian, English
(one student) and Malaysian ethnic languages.
Within this context, the relevance of the term ‘non-native
speaker teacher’ was revisited alongside the suggestion that the
richness of multilingual speech communities should be better
appreciated by centre-based researchers than is currently the case.
We found that the teachers’ varied linguistic and cultural
backgrounds enabled them to understand the relevance of the IELTS
Test in their programs, institutions and in their country, and
hence to teach its skills appropriately. Furthermore, despite not
being familiar with the term ‘washback’, both teachers and students
commented in detail on the positive effects they perceived the Test
to have on the Malaysian teaching/learning environment.
Finally, we discovered that teachers working in this region had
a strong desire for more specific information about the IELTS Test
and candidate assessment; they felt that such information would
enable them to provide better guidance for their students.
