Language switching among Malay undergraduates in an English as a second language writing

Abstract

This research focuses on the influence of language switching on the second language writing performance of Malay engineering undergraduates. Specifically, this research addresses the use of Bahasa Melayu by these undergraduates while undertaking an English writing task and the function of Bahasa Melayu in the completion of the English writing task. This research also seeks to find out the undergraduates’ perceptions on the use of Bahasa Melayu in writing English compositions. This research is of mixed-method: utilizing questionnaire for quantitative method and interview, observation and text analysis for the qualitative part. The respondents of this study were 620 Malay engineering undergraduates selected through simple random sampling. Twenty-four (out of 620) undergraduates were selected using purposive sampling for the qualitative study and they represented different levels of proficiency based on the respondents’ Malaysia University English Test (MUET) scores. Research findings revealed that majority of the participants in this study agrees that they use Bahasa Melayu as they were completing the writing task in English. This research showed that Bahasa Melayu was used to serve different purposes at different stages of the writing process. Three most significant functions of Bahasa Melayu identified were: 1) generating ideas in Bahasa Melayu and later translate them into English; 2) looking up in the bilingual dictionary for the appropriate English words to use; and 3) making notes (e.g. mind maps) in Bahasa Melayu and later translate them into English. Bahasa Melayu was used extensively during the pre-writing stage compared to the other stages of writing, followed by the writing stage and the post-writing stage. Bahasa Melayu was also utilized to serve these purposes: 1) to enable them to think of what to write; 2) to clarify ideas; and 3) to enable them to find suitable English words to be used when writing. Majority of the undergraduates agree that Bahasa Melayu has helped them in producing quality written texts in English. This research indicates that using Bahasa Melayu significantly contributes to producing good and quality essays. Based on these findings, a framework for the teaching of writing to Malay students was developed.