Factors Influencing Malaysian Preschool Teachers’ Use of the English Language as a Medium of Instruction

Abstract

This study investigated Malaysian preschool teachers’ self-efficacy and attitudes toward the use of the English language as a medium of instruction (EMI) and proposed a model of how different variables were related to their use of English in the classrooms. In order to obtain a broad picture of the nature and scope of preschool teachers’ use of EMI, a survey study was undertaken. The research instrument was a questionnaire that was distributed to randomly-selected preschool teachers throughout Malaysia. The process of modeling was based on the empirical data and a theoretical model that was constructed on the basis of the two theoretical aspects, that is self-efficacy and attitudes-behavior relation. The theoretical model served as a bridge between the abstractions from theory and the development of the model. The model suggested that strong self-efficacy influenced preschool teachers’ use of English to teach. In addition, the model also indicated that those preschool teachers with positive attitudes also felt self-efficacious in using English to teach and negative attitudes had the opposite effect. Those preschool teachers who had a positive attitude that teaching using English would be useful for the children perceived that they had greater ability toward handling classroom management issues. In addition, they believed too, that they were confident to use appropriate assessment tasks in the classroom when English was used as the medium of instruction. It would appear that self-efficacy and attitudes were mutually related to preschool teachers’ use of English to teach.