Issues of ICT Usage among Malaysian Secondary School English
Teachers
Arumugam Raman & Abdul Halim
Mohamed
School of Education and Modern Languages, Universiti Utara
Malaysia
Information and Communication Technology or ICT has revolutionized
our lives, and this includes education as well. As a developing county and we
put all of our efforts to achieve the target in the year 2020, our nation
realized the importance of ICT, and there have been various ICT methods being
introduced in the education system. The Ministry of Education has already
started few campaigns such as Smart Schools, MySchoolNet, computer labs,
Educational web TV, Teaching Mathematics and Science in English , Access
Centre, and several others are some of the examples of these initiatives.
The paper’s
aim was to reveal the perception, usage and obstacles of using ICT in teaching
English Language among secondary school English teachers. Specifically the
objectives of the paper firstly, are to assess secondary school English
teachers’ perception towards integrating ICT in teaching English, to find out
the usage level of ICT among secondary school English Language teachers in
teaching English and to identify the dominancy of obstacles faced by secondary
school English Language teachers in integrating ICT in teaching English
Language. Through this aim, the paper can also help new teachers be prepared on
the real life situation that can help them prepare themselves better in future
time. As for the methodology, this is a quantitative study and it was conducted
by using a questionnaire which is suitable to collect data from teachers in
numerous schools. The researcher will allocate questionnaires to 30 trained
teachers from three secondary school. The type of research used in the article
was quantitative research as it includes numerical data and information. Survey
research was used because it is easier to collect data throughout
questionnaires. The questionnaire that was used in the article was taken from
Gulbahar & Guven (2008); Hutchison (2009). It contains two parts which is A
and B, where A is the question focuses on the teachers’ gender, race and
school. As for the B has three parts which was measured using a Likert scale.
As for the subject and the sample, the school that was involved are Sekolah
Menengah Kebangsaan Che Tom, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Pinang Tunggal and
Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Dato’ Bijaya Setia. The researcher came to all of
the three school to give out questionnaires in order to collect all of the
data. As for the result, it is found that teachers and the school management
have their own part in promoting ICT English teaching in schools. Most of the
teachers is having a positive perception about ICT being integrated in their English
lessons. However, teachers’ usage level of ICT showed that teachers only use
ICT for finding information on websites, making PowerPoint presentations and
reading. They do not appreciate about the benefits of other ICT applications.
In my humble opinion on answering the question
whether the research interest me, I have to say that I am quite interested in
the article. This is because as a future teacher, we have to stay updated with
the latest trends in technology so that we do not get left behind. Teachers
also need to use the advantages of the technology and benefit it in our
teaching and learning processes. ICT content in English will enables students to progress and develop new
skills, responding and presenting using the latest technology provided, and as
slice of the creative and critical thinking the undertake in English. In learning English or other second language,
students are able to improve and use their background knowledge of word
processing, multimedia, presenting texts, simulation software, graphics and
further grow their skills, familiarity and understanding of these technologies.
Thus, through research like this it will help us teachers on a real life
situation and we will know what to expect from the students themselves in the
classroom.
Upon reading this article, I can say that it is well
conducted due to many reasons. Firstly, it is because the sample of the article
are among the real life teachers in real context of Malaysian school. This made
me able to relate more to this paper compared to other articles on the net.
Furthermore, this article also base its research from an actual framework and
theories. It does not blindly doing the research without considering the
readers’ knowledge on the issues that are being discussed in the paper. Not
only that, the literature review done in the article is also very thorough, it
takes into consideration other people’s take on the issues from within this
country and also outside the country. The findings were also executed well as
it answers the research questions. Needless to say, I did not manage to find
any drawbacks from this article.
Based on the findings and the discussion made in the
article, there are indeed some implications of using technology in teaching and
learning. Firstly, it makes me realize that both teachers and administrators
have an immense role to play in promoting ICT integrated English teaching in
schools. This task does not fall solely on the shoulders of the teachers.
Nowadays, many people like to point fingers on the teachers for Malaysian
students’ achievement. However, it must be noted that there are many
contributing factors that affect students’ understanding and knowledge of ICT in
Malaysia. How can teachers conduct a technology-based instruction if they do
not have the equipment? Plus, the administrative board of the school system are
responsible in helping teachers to gain knowledge on how to use the technology
in order to make them realize the importance of the technology and the many
benefit that both teachers and students can gain from using it. We need to
increase teacher’s knowledge in using computers in order to rise the usage
level of ICT in classroom instructions. The activities does not necessarily
have to be for gaining information and power-point presentation. There are many
undiscovered tools that teachers can use. In order for the teachers to teach
students on the usage of ICT in lessons, they have to master the knowledge of
ICT. This, strengthened the importance for the Malaysian teachers to gain more
knowledge on the use of technology. Hence, it is suffice to say that everyone
has a role in revolutionizing the use of technology for teaching and learning
instruction in class.
