‘BERTEHTUH’ ENGLISH: THE EXPERIENCE OF A TEMIAR GIRL IN ACQUIRING ENGLISH

Abstract

Despite being a community that is often associated with the terms ‘illiterate’, ‘marginalised’ and ‘educationally disadvantaged’, certain indigenous students demonstrate positive developments in their second language proficiency (English). This issue creates a centre of attention as it can highlight suggestions to better the education of indigenous people in Malaysia. Having this in mind, a study was conducted in a remote indigenous school situated in the jungle of Banjaran Titiwangsa. In an attempt to investigate why the subject, an indigenous student of the Temiar tribe, is able to demonstrate better language proficiency compared to her classmates, a micro-ethnographic research that employed interviews as its instrument was conducted. Themes are generated through thematic analysis where this study concludes that the following three factors have hugely contributed to her success: (1) positive teacher (2) integrative-instrumental motivation and (3) supportive environment at home. This study also highlights conflict in culture between teachers and the indigenous tribe which is a result of the parenting styles, practiced by the indigenous parents, instead of their culture as claimed by the teacher. This paper brings to the fore the importance of teacher’s attitude and parenting awareness in empowering the process of learning English in this school. Keywords: English as the Second Language (ESL), indigenous people, individual differences, parenting styles, TemiarCite as: Mihat, W. (2016). ‘Bertehtuh’ English: The experience of a Temiar girl in acquiring English. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 1(2), 25-37.