Airil Haimi Mohd Adnan

The social functions of education in a developing country: The case of Malaysian schools and the role of Malaysian teachers

Employing a social constructivist approach, this article discusses the social functions of education in a developing country, Malaysia. These social functions are discussed and a background of the country is provided before looking at three specific functions: developmental, identity and economic, and how they are actualised through schools. Both positive and negative aspects of the three functions are highlighted to provide a comprehensive understanding. The current state of the teaching profession is examined before the role of teachers in realising the three functions is discussed. It is proposed that teachers need to fulfil a moral purpose to contribute positively towards intercultural understanding, nation-building, and advancing society. (Malay language) Menggunakan pendekatan sosial-konstruktivis, artikel ini memperbincangkan fungsi-fungsi sosial pendidikan di sebuah negara membangun, Malaysia. Kesemua fungsi sosial itu diperjelaskan bersama latarbelakang negara Malaysia sebelum tiga fungsi spesifik iaitu pembangunan, identiti dan ekonomik ditinjau dengan lebih mendalam menerusi proses persekolahan. Aspek-aspek positif dan negatif ketiga fungsi ini telah ditinjau untuk pemahaman yang komprehensif. Perkembangan semasa profesion perguruan juga dikaji, bersama dengan peranan guru berkaitan dengan ketiga fungsi ini. Adalah dicadangkan yang para guru harus memegang peranan moral untuk menyumbang secara positif ke arah kefahaman antara-budaya, pembangunan negara dan demi memajukan masyarakat.

A Disabling Education: The case of disabled learners in Malaysia

Currently there is a move by the government towards improving the state of education for disabled learners in Malaysia. It is believed that current policy and practice do not meet the needs and requirements of these learners, partly because of the different definitions of disability adopted by various government agencies that are empowered to assist them. Employing a social constructivist framework, these definitions are examined specifically in the way they have been developed into different practices. It is argued that some of the common practices in educating disabled learners are discriminatory and haphazardly planned. The material effects of these practices on the actual provisions of education for these learners are then observed and evaluated. It is suggested that the education system be improved by including disabled learners in mainstream education, so as to help instigate positive changes in the lives of these learners through the wider process of social inclusion.

Mother Tongue Interference in the Writing of English as a Second Language (ESL) Malay Learners

The objective of this study is to identify the errors in writing committed by Malay ESL learners which can be attributed to mother tongue interference. Twenty pre-degree quantity surveyor students from Universiti Teknologi MARA Perak campus participated in the study. They were instructed to write between 200- to 300-word essays on a given topic in English and in Malay. Their compositions were analyzed using the algorithm for conducting error analysis (EA) proposed by James (1998) which are practiced by current EA practitioners. Since the main focus of the study is mother tongue interference, only errors related to L1 interference were addressed. The paper presents and discusses the descriptive analysis of the results in relation to three major types of interference which are ‘transfer of rules’, ‘redundancy reduction’ and ‘overgeneralization’.