Teaching Struggling Readers of English as a Second Language in the Malaysian Classroom

Abstract

Teacher plays an important role in students’ reading growth through the implementation of various suitable instructional strategies in the classroom. This study contributes to the existing literature pertaining to the way the teacher worked with the students who were identified as struggling readers of English as a second language (henceforth ESL). This is a qualitative study involving one primary teacher as a research participant. Data was obtained from classroom observations, interviews and documents collection. Inductive analysis was carried out and the process incorporating a co-construction of meaning between the participant responses and the researcher’s own understanding. Two main themes emerged in the study namely “involvement” and “challenges”. In this paper, one of the themes namely “involvement” that incorporates “classroom environment” and “instructional methods” will be discussed. The findings of this study suggest that the Ministry of Education (henceforth MOE) can look into how support can be given to the teachers to assist them to have more effective teaching strategies in the ESL classroom.