Failure of ETeMS: The Teaching Courseware Factor?

Abstract

This study was carried out in response to the announcement of the reversal of the
ETeMS policy (English in the Teaching of Mathematics and Science) which had been
practiced by teachers in Malaysia since 2003. The Ministry of Education took a
drastic approach in gradually halting this controversial policy for several related
reasons, namely the poor performance of students and teachers in applying the
policy and also political pressure by Malay language activists. The main objective
of the study is to investigate whether or not the application of CALL (Computer
Assisted Language Learning), in this case is the application of teaching
courseware, is one of the contributing factors to the failure of ETeMS. This study
also investigated teachers’ perception of the teaching courseware
implementation in ETeMS. Fifty primary school key - personnel teachers of
Mathematics and Science were involved in answering the questionnaire because
they were experienced and fully involved in the policy implementation. The
findings showed that teachers were not committed to use the courseware for
several reasons. However, the teaching courseware is not the major contributing
factor to the failure of ETeMS.
Keywords: CALL (Computer