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AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFL SECONDARY READING CURRICULUM IN

MALAYSIA: APPROACHES TO READING AND PREPARATION FOR


HIGHER EDUCATION

What the article about


The article is about The general of the emphasis on EFL reading in the
Malaysian EFL secondary reading curriculum, the EFL Curriculum Specifications
document and the EFL textbook were analyzed. This approach was utilized in
order to see the extent to which the instructional approach in the EFL textbook
and the EFL Curriculum Specifications document were in alignment. Then, the
data from the two documents were combined in the form of an overall percentage
in order to generalize the instructional approach to EFL reading in the EFL
secondary reading curriculum as a whole. The curriculum design were analyzed
by examining reading tasks that focused on lower level text processing, such as
phonological processing, word recognition, and word identification. The EFL
secondary reading curriculum as a whole seems to be lacking CLT characteristics
at the curriculum approach and design levels. The brevity of instructional
guidelines in the EFL Curriculum Specifications document seems to cause
misinterpretation of the intended communicative instructional approach. Such
misinterpretation could be the cause of misalignment in instructional approach
and design between the EFL Curriculum Specifications and the EFL textbook
(Richards and Rodgers’, 2001).
This article analyzes of emphasis on reading, types of reading tasks, and
cognitive demands for reading tasks provide evidence for the extent to which
secondary students are prepared to read effectively in the EFL at the university
level. At the surface level, the findings on emphasis on reading indicate that
reading skill is highly emphasized throughout the Malaysian EFL Secondary
Curriculum. However, emphasis on EFL reading solely might not guarantee the
success of EFL reading instruction in preparing students for university reading
involving the EFL without the curriculum appropriately addressing other
instructional elements at its design level. In terms of the types of reading tasks in
the EFL secondary reading curriculum, in general, the findings suggest that the
EFL secondary reading curriculum emphasizes important primary reading tasks
such as identifying main ideas, identifying details, and making inferences, tasks
that are important for effective reading comprehension (Sidek, 2011)
The levels of cognitive demand analysis for reading tasks show that the
reading tasks are primarily designed to require high cognitive demands. There is
also a coherent alignment in core cognitive skill emphasis between those in the
EFL Curriculum Specifications and the EFL textbook. This article suggests that
the cognitive demands of reading tasks in the EFL Curriculum Specifications
document and those in the EFL textbook are in alignment and therefore reflecting
a coherent design and effort in preparing students for EFL reading at the tertiary
education level. Nonetheless, although the curriculum emphasizes on high
cognitive demand reading tasks, a significant emphasis seems to be highly placed
on reading tasks that require students to analyze text information. Relating the
analyzing skill to Marzano et al.‘s (1988) core cognitive skills definitions, by
prioritizing the analyzing skill, the EFL secondary reading curriculum stresses the
importance of learners‘ acquiring cognitive skills such as identifying details and
identifying main ideas.
The EFL secondary reading curriculum addresses the importance of
teaching major reading tasks, Malaysian EFL readers at the university level are
still reported not to have the ability to identify and make connection among text
main ideas as well as to make inferences, the important reading tasks that students
are required to perform competently in content area reading (Nambiar, 2007).
It is significant for teachers to use these reading strategies mentioned
above to develop higher thinking skills among Six Form students, In order to
ensure that the teachers in upper secondary schools are moving in the right
direction, there is a need to carry out further study on the types of reading tasks
that are given by teachers in relation to the EFL secondary reading curriculum.
There is further a need to examine the types and length of reading passages used
in the classroom and what levels of cognitive demand of the reading tasks are
reflected EFL secondary reading curriculum Teacher’s and Student’s Book which
use communicative and structural approaches need to be examined and scrutinized
(Ahmed, 2015).
What you think about the article
The overarching approaches to the second language reading instruction
reflected in the Malaysian EFL secondary curriculum and how well this
curriculum prepares students for tertiary reading in EFL. The findings indicate
that the Malaysian EFL secondary reading curriculum frequently uses reading as
an explicit skill to achieve the listed learning outcomes in the EFL Secondary
Curriculum. Nonetheless, the curriculum is developed based on the cognitive
information processing theory of SLA, Top Down theory of L2 reading reflecting
Non-Interactive Whole Language instruction as well as learner roles that are
primarily in the form of individual tasks. The findings on passage analysis show
that the EFL textbook primarily uses narrative passages with the majority of
passages below grade-level length. The curriculum, however, emphasizes reading
tasks that require high cognitive demand as well as important types of reading
tasks (Sidek, 2011).
Every curriculum is based on a particular theoretical orientation about
language teaching and language learning. In order for an educational curriculum
to be effective and to achieve its goals, it has to be coherent at all levels including
at its theoretical level. A coherent curriculum should be reflective of the intended
approach. Many studies on curriculum found that an incoherent curriculum often
defeats the curriculum goals. Such a consequence may be due to the misalignment
between the classroom implementation, textbook development and the intended
approach of the curriculum (Rahman, 2014).
The ability to identify main ideas is crucial for reading comprehension.
Past studies have also found that teaching students with major reading skills such
as identifying main ideas impacts the efficiency of L2 reading comprehension
process. Hence, such ability may affect students‘ academic performance in the
content areas involving EFL reading (Ghaith & El-Malak, 2004).
According to Koda (2007) there have traditionally been two opposing
views of reading; a holistic view where reading is considered an indivisible
whole, and a componential view where reading is considered to consist of a whole
range of different components (Koda, 2007, p. 3). Koda argues that the
componential view gives the better picture, and that if reading is viewed as a
multifaceted activity it is easier to find out where the problem lies if there is a
reading difficulty. That way it might be possible to address the problem and solve
it instead of just saying that this person cannot read very well (Koda, 2007, p. 3).
What your critique about the article is (concept of curriculum in the article).
The issue of Malaysian graduates being weak and not proficient in the
English Language has been constantly talked about at the national level. Teachers,
lecturers and employers complain that students are way below the expected level
of proficiency. The issue of weak and non-proficient graduates suggests that they
are not well-equipped to deal with academic literacy. The curriculum was
comprehensive in the sense that it covered all the four skills of listening, speaking,
reading and writing. The teacher mentioned many times the ideal but sometimes
impractical objectives described in the curriculum, together with suggested
activities, which to her defined the curriculum. The teacher interviewed knew
about the curriculum specifications and she always kept a copy of it in the
teacher’s record book for reference. She claimed that the curriculum was well
designed whereby the goals and objectives were academically viable but at times
were too ideal to be accomplished in practice. Thus, on the part of the teacher, a
question of ‘how much can I apply?’ arose. Another vital issue raised by the
teacher was that the curriculum failed to meet students’ needs as the educational
system focused more on the orientation of examination, not really on the quality
orientated system. The foremost priority was to get higher marks. Teachers rarely
concentrated on the needs of students to master reading comprehension in
preparation for tertiary education since they wanted to help students to obtain
good marks in examinations (Sidek, 2011).
Regarding the text of reading material, many aspects of the text might
make the reading process difficult. Although the language of the text is known to
be the major variable, there are other factors like aspects of text content, text type,
text organization, and sentence structure. For instance, it is generally assumed that
abstract texts will be harder to understand than texts describing real objects. The
text will also be more readable if it is more concrete, imaginable and interesting.
Certain types of texts are more suitable for specific ages and purposes than other
types (Freahat, 2015).
A number of theories and models have also recently been proposed on
selected components and processes that occur while reading. Rayner and Reichle
(2010) differentiated models of word identification, models of syntactic parsing,
models of discourse processing and models of eye movement control. On models
that focus on the identification of component skills, e.g. word decoding and
vocabulary knowledge (Quinn, Wagner, Petscher, & Lopez, 2015). The second set
of models they reported is concerned with the identification of various processes
and the construction of a mental representation during reading, such as the
Construction-Integration model (CI; Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978), which has
become one of the most influential models among educators.
Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and methods in language
teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Harison Mohd Sidek. 2011. Methods of EFL Secondary Reading Instruction:
Preparation for Higher Education. International Journal of Humanities and
Social Science Vol. 1 No. 3; March 2011
Marzano, R. J. et al. (1988). Dimensions of thinking: A framework for curriculum
and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Nambiar, R. M. K. (2007). Enhancing academic literacy among tertiary learners:
A Malaysian experiences. 3L Journal of Language Teaching, 13. Retrieved
from pkukmweb.ukm .my/~ppbl /3L/.../5_Nambiar%203L2007revised.pdf
Ahmed. Hamsa Hameed. 2015. Examining EFL Secondary Reading Curriculum.
Jorunal of Applied Sciense. ISSN 1812-5654
Rahman, A., N. H. (2014). From curriculum reform to classroom practice: An
evaluation of the English primary curriculum in Malaysia. Unpublished
PhD Thesis, University of York.
Ghaith, G. & El-Malak, M. A. (2004). The effect of jigsaw II on literal and higher
order EFL reading comprehension. Educational Research and Evaluation,
10(2), 105-115.
Koda, K. (2007). Reading and Language Learning: Crosslinguistic Constraints on
Second Language Reading Development. Language Leaning, 1-44.
Nasser M. Freahat. 2015. Reading Passages and Skills in Jordanian High School
and University EFL Textbooks: A Comparative Analytical Study. Theory
and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 16-27, January 2015.
ISSN 1799-2591
Rayner, K., & Reichle, E. D. (2010). Models of the reading process. Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1, 787–799.
doi:10.1002/wcs.68
Quinn, J. M., Wagner, R. K., Petscher, Y., & Lopez, D. (2015). Developmental
relations between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension: A
latent change score modeling study. Child Development, 86, 159–175.
doi:10.1111/cdev.12292

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