Esl Teacher’s Knowledge and Readiness on the Implementation of School-Based Assessment (SBA) in Malaysian Primary School

Abstract

In line with the Malaysian education transformation effort to keep up with the current nation needs, a new assessment approach has been implemented on early 2011 namely the school-based assessment or widely known as SBA. Nevertheless, after few years of its implementation, the SBA has caused rippled among educational stakeholders especially the educators. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify the English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers’ knowledge and readiness in regard to SBA in Sabah primary schools. A survey was conducted to 100 ESL primary school teachers in one of the states in Malaysia, Sabah. The data were collected using questionnaire and then analysed using descriptive analysis. Based on the findings, majority of the respondents are highly knowledgeable in regards to SBA implementation in English class. Similarly, the findings also indicated that majority of the respondents show positive level of readiness to implement SBA for English class in primary schools. Results of this study are able to give relevant picture to policy makers and Malaysian Ministry of Education on the current states of ESL teachers’ knowledge and readiness in regards to SBA implementation after being introduced in 2011.