Issues in promoting communicative competence among Malaysian primary school students

Abstract

This paper intends to examine and discuss the issues that the Malaysian English language primary school teachers faced in promoting Communicative Competence among their students when teaching speaking skill in the classroom. It aims to draw attention to the underlying reasons given by the teachers about the issues that they face in promoting Communicative Competence (CC) when teaching speaking skill in the classroom. This study implied a qualitative approach in which four English language teachers from one selected Sekolah Kebangsaan took part in the case study and the data were collected through classroom observation and interview. Later, the data had been analysed and coded under three main themes: (a) classroom management; (b) classroom teaching; and (c) student learning. The teachers lacked of understanding of the CC concept, their difficulty in managing big classes and their students who had no interest in learning English were among the issues that they had to face every day. However, teachers should not lose hope in improving the primary school students’ communicative competence in speaking English. Teachers could adapt their teaching techniques and devise classroom activities that cater the students’ level of proficiency in order to attract the students’ interest in learning the target language.