PPSMI vs MBMMBI

I know I should have done this earlier, but I’ve been really busy with school, and the Internet is extremely annoyingly slow (Yes, I’m blaming it on others, but myself). Nevertheless, I have read a few articles and thesis.


I started this M.Ed TESL with a passion to do a research on the implications of culture, specifically Malay culture, towards teaching & learning English. But after some readings and thoughts, I decidedly change the topic. Then I decided to do ‘Cultural Discontinuity between School and Home’, but somehow when I search through KPM’s website (www.moe.gov.my), I found a few newspaper articles and a circular on MBMMBI.

What is MBMMBI?

OK, frankly speaking, I have to read more on this. All I can say for now is that MBMMBI (stands for Memartabatkan Bahasa Malaysia, Memperkukuh Bahasa Inggeris) is a policy which to replace the PPSMI (stands for Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris, or ETEMS). These policies are related to the medium used in teaching and learning Math and Sciences subjects. Inevitably, English plays a role this both policies.

In PPSMI, English is used to teach Math and Sciences subject. But the new policy, MBMMBI, is replacing English with Malay (or Mandarin and Tamil in vernacular schools). In order to ‘replace the lost’, more contact hours is put for English. As for the secondary schools, seven periods are allocated for English a week (previously were 5 periods).

*there are so much issues related to this, which I will discuss in the coming entries.

So, I have come up with a research title-

SEVEN PERIODS A WEEK: WHAT ARE ENGLISH TEACHERS DOING IN THE CLASSROOM?

Among others, this research will look into a few research questions, such as;
1. What are teachers do in the seven periods?
2. Do they teach according to the ‘hopes’ that have been outlined in the proposed policy?
3. How do teachers feel about this change(s)?

I will look more into this, and of course define it along the way (because I know the title is kinda vague and totally un-vogue!). I hope, this research will buy me ticket to London for my PhD. Insyallah.