Teaching teachers

TEACHERS in Malaysia face a challenging task as they strive to help students acquire proficiency in English. It is a task not made easier by the move to have Science and Mathematics taught in that language.  

This move, introduced in 2002, has led to an urgent need to ensure that even more teachers became fluent and confident users of English. Not only must teachers of English be capable of teaching the language, they must now act as language reference experts in schools. At the same time, massive numbers of Science and Mathematics teachers have to be trained, or re-trained, to deliver content sufficiently well in English.