Literacy Uses and Practices in English: Six Cases of Malay Primary Schoolchildren's Experiences in a Contemporary Malaysian Context

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate the uses and practices of literacy in English of a small group of students from Malay ethnic backgrounds. This is significant since Malay ethnic background students score the lowest in national English tests compared to students from other ethnic backgrounds in Malaysia.

The participants were six 10-year-old schoolchildren from a Malay and Malay-Minang background, their parents and their English subject teacher. Data collection included visual and verbal data generated by the students’ participation in Photovoice research. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the students’ parents and English subject teacher.

The conceptual and theoretical framework underpinning this research is social and cultural theory developed through Wenger’s (1998) notions of learning by belonging to a community which includes joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire, and the New London Group’s (1996) concept of multiliteracies. The findings of this qualitative study illustrate how the students were socialised into particular practices of their communities that were contextualised both in the classroom and out-of-classroom environments. The results reveal four major findings. First, the students’ experience with out-of-classroom literacies in English were largely afforded by new technologies such as the internet, smart phones and social media sites. Second, popular culture played a considerable role in the students’ out-of-classroom lives and it reflected the types of texts that they value. Third, the students’ engagement with out-of-classroom texts was influenced by cultural artefacts and social discourses, and fourth, there were also complementing and contrasting literacy practices reflected in their in-classroom and out-of-classroom environments.

This thesis argues that awareness of the students’ uses and practices of English as they participated in different communities may enable teachers to incorporate aspects of out-of-classroom literacy into the classroom, building on aspects of literacy that students value in different contexts. This in turn may facilitate the students’ learning in English. Additionally, it may also help teachers prepare the students to face the growing challenges of using English in the 21st century, an important aspect of the newly implemented Malaysia Primary Classroom Standard Curriculum (KSSR).