A RESEARCH PROPOSAL FOR Ph.D.

THESIS

TEACHING ENGLISH AS SECOND LANGUAGE

THE EFFECT OF NON-NATIVE SPEAKING ESL

WAN AIZAT BIN WAN HASHMI

2016

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1. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

In Ballard (2013), it was mentioned that Non-native Students (NNSs) were significantly less

able than Native Students (NSs) to identify the correct native-like fluency. It was also revealed

that the familiarity with English speaking accent has high connection with one’s

comprehensibility and acceptability of a certain English teacher. On average, only 68% of the

time did the NNSs correctly identified the speakers while NSs managed to correctly identify the

speakers’ native status 91% of the time.

In a research by Hiew in 2012, 31 respondents have problem in speaking English fluently

and they overcome their difficulty by mixing other languages with English in their conversation.

They based their difficulty on the lack of familiarity with certain English vocabulary. 18 of its

respondents cannot speak English with their friends because they are worried of making

mistakes, felt embarrassed of their low language proficiency and received negative reply from

using it. The next six respondents have no difficulty in using English language.

The next problem is rapport between teacher and students during ESL class. In building

rapport, most teachers will end up having two conflicting roles in order to implement it. For

example, a good teacher must be able to unite between building good relationship with

students and completing classroom tasks. In order to comply with instructional goals, such

teachers are required to perform actions that can obstruct social rapport. It also requires

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teachers to practice face threatening acts which endanger the desire to become friendly with

students (Boyens, 2011).

Some of NNESTs are not practicing English to the fullest and provide a disastrous effect to

students’ fluency in English. Hong Kong for example is a region which regarded English as a

second language but merely used by its students for academic purposes (Braine, 2010).

Furthermore, many of the NNESTs there cannot achieve the minimum proficiency of English

Proficiency Assessment Test (2001).

Since English is regarded as second language, the problem of code-switching is a norm for

most classes. The overuse of code-switching can resulted in overreliance on L1 which is

believed to hinder the acquisition of L2. Furthermore, it can negatively transfer L1 to the target

language (Selamat, 2014).

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2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

a) To find out the extent to which Malaysian ESL students perceive their NNESTs of having

native-like fluency and the correctness of their assertion.

b) To find out the extent to which Malaysian ESL students are able to speak fluently in English

language as what have been taught by their NNESTs and what types of fluency that have been

achieved.

c) To find out the extent of rapport between teacher and students.

d) To find out the extent of motivation been given by NNESTs on Malaysian ESL students.

e) To find out the extent of English usage by Malaysian ESL students who are under NNESTs.

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3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Qualitative Study

Qualitative study is the preferred strategy because it is an excellent design to discover the

cause and effect of an issue, and provide an extension to the superficial previous researches by

putting more emphasis on contextual analysis of limited data rather than focusing on numbers

or percentages (Warsame, 2005). This study will be highly focused on phenomenology which is

a person’s perception of the meaning of an event. In a simple term, it is describing “lived

experience” of a phenomenon (Waters, 2016). Phenomenology was firstly popularized by

German philosopher, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) who rejected the belief that objects in the

external world exist independently and information about objects is reliable. He also argued

that understanding of things can only be understood by one’s consciousness (Eagleton, 1983;

Fouche, 1993). In order to arrive at conclusion, anything outside immediate experience must be

ignored. In this way, the external world is reduced to the contents of personal consciousness.

Husserl called this theory as phenomenology (Eagleton, 1983, p. 55).

Site

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 The study will be conducted in Putrajaya, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. The national

secondary-type schools will be targeted.

Sampling

Criterion-based sampling will be used in this study. It is a selection of cases that meet some

predetermined criterion of importance (Patton, 2002, p. 238). Researcher will conduct this

study at three different public secondary schools. This type of school has been chosen for this

study for two reasons:

a) Using Malay as the medium of instruction for all subjects except English.

b) Attended by students from all walks of life.

Interviewees

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 The study target a sample of 24 stakeholders of public secondary school and it comprised

of:

i) Nine Malaysian secondary ESL students

ii) Three NNESTs

iii) Nine parents whose children are taking ESL

Selection of Interviewees

Below are some set of criteria that were set for the selection of participants:

i) The Malaysian secondary ESL students must be from public national secondary school.

ii) The NNESTs should at least have a degree in teaching.

iii) Interviewees from the parents should come among whom have children studying ESL.

Data Collection

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Three strategies of data collection will be employed and as the following:

1) Formal interviews with stakeholders of TESL.

2) Document Review.

3) Non-participant observation.

Ethics and trustworthiness in Qualitative Research

The permission to conduct this study will be applied to Ministry of Higher Education

through online application and pass it to the district education department. Moreover, all

participants will be ensured of their confidentiality and anonymity.

In order to provide trustworthiness in this research, a thick description of data will be used.

According to Holloway (1997), thick description is a detailed account of field experiences in

which the researcher makes explicit the patterns of cultural and social relationships and put it

in context. In this way, external validity can be achieved.

Data Analysis

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 The researcher is proposing to analyse the data in three strategies (Miles & Huberman,

1994). The three steps are as the following:

1. Data reduction

2. Data display

3. Conclusion verification

4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Theoretical Significance

The findings of this research hopefully will add up some qualitative information from what

have been done by previous researches in the field of teaching education especially on NNESTs

(Moussu, 2006; Boyen, 2011; Hiew, 2012; Ballard, 2013; Hadla, 2013).

Practical Significance

The findings will be significant as it will contribute to the improvement of NNESTs as ESL

teacher. It will provide an overview of researcher perception of the issue being discussed

supported by respondents’ experiences. Parents can also be benefited by this research on

understanding the importance of NNESTs in developing students’ communicative skill in

English.

References

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A. Hoey, B. (2014). A simple introduction to the practice of ethnography and guide to ethnographic
fieldnotes. Marshall University Digital Scholar, 29/3/2016.

Ballard, L. (2013). Student attitudes toward accentedness of native and non-native speaking English
teachers. MSU Working Papers in SLS, Vol. 4, 47-73.

Boyens, T. B. (2011). Establishing rapport in academic discourse (Master of Arts in Linguistics).

Braine, G. (2010). Non-native speakers English teachers . New York: Routledge.

Eagleton, T. (1983). Literary theory: An introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Fouche, F. (1993). Phenomenological theory of human science. In J. Synman (Ed.), Conceptions of

Hadla, Z. (2013). Student and teacher perceptions of native and non-native English speaking teachers
in the Lebanese context.

Hiew, W. (2012). English language teaching and learning issues in Malaysia: Learners' perceptions via
Facebook dialogue journal  . International Refereed Research Journal, III (1), 11-19.

Holloway, I. (1997). Basic concepts for qualitative research. London: Blackwell Science.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd. ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Publications.

Moussu, L. M. (2006). Native and nonnative English speaking English as A second language teachers:
Student attitudes, teacher self-perceptions, and intensive English administrator beliefs and
practices   (Doctor of Philosophy). Available from Purdue University.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd. ed.).Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.

Selamat, J. T. (2014). Code switching in the malaysian ESL classroom, Master of Arts (Linguistics).

Warsame, A. A. (2005). Capacity enhancement of the indigenous Qur'anic schools in Somalia: An

Waters, J. (2016). Phenomenological research guidelines. Retrieved from

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