The teaching and learning of English: Students’ Needs

Jowati binti Juhary, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Jowana binti Juhary, Universiti Putra Malaysia Malaysia

Abstract

English language classes in Malaysian schools and tertiary institutions have tremendous impact on students’ life. This is because many people blame students’ low proficiency in the language to be one of the contributing factors for the failure of securing jobs. Many researchers concentrate on the market or global needs. Higher learning institutions have been so worried about students not being able ‘to carry’ themselves in the real world. After looking and understanding the needs of the market, the reasons why students need to study English language must be discussed, especially from their perspectives. It is perhaps high time to look at what students or future graduates really need when they learn the language, rather than looking at the market’s needs alone. As students are the one who will be attending the classes, they need to be ‘self-motivated’ and ‘self-aware’ of the teaching and learning of English language. This paper attempts to identify students’ needs in learning English language and to discuss the needs in accordance to the global market. The methodology used in the paper is twofold: survey – questionnaires and structured interviews and also text analysis. It is expected that students want to learn English for various factors. The most important one will be the need to obtain suitable jobs after finishing their studies. However, preliminary finding shows that the most important reason for studying English is because they want to further their studies. Thus, as students have different value about English language, so do the employers. As such, the higher learning institutions need to find ways to ‘entertain’ not only employers’ needs but also students’ needs.