FROM SELF-EVALUATION TO SELF-REFLECTION: TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Teachers have been said to be the backbone that will determine the future of the country and the success of Malaysia’s plan to be a developed nation by the year 2020. In order to improve students’ performance in schools, teachers are required to be ‘innovative, creative’ and prepared for any changes. Teachers, especially in the Malaysian context, are thus encouraged to enhance and enrich their teaching competency in order to deliver better and more effective teaching, especially if this has to be done using the English language. By enhancing and enriching teachers’ own competency in the language, teachers themselves will make the classroom teaching and learning process much more effective and efficient. This paper thus discusses the experience of a group of teachers at a boarding school in enhancing and enriching their language competence in teaching, using English as a medium of instruction by participating in a three-month course. It especially highlights the influence the course has on the teachers by reflecting on their proficiency, motivation and confidence in the language before, during and after the course. Feedback was obtained using three survey forms to accommodate the three phases of the course. Findings are mainly based on the teachers’ perspectives from evaluating their own competency (before the course) and to what they realised (after the course). Observations from the trainers in terms of the participants’ attendance, commitment, enthusiasm and interest in carrying out the tasks given are also discussed.