Impact of Local Culture-Based Reading Materials on Students' Skill Development and Confidence in English

This paper discusses the impact of a local culture-based longitudinal English language reading program on secondary school students’ skill development and confidence. This program named as Your Language My Culture (YLMC) was the brainchild of a team of local university researchers from secondary schools in the state of Terengganu in Malaysia. Its main objective was to help in improving English competency while instilling local culture awareness among Malaysian youth. The underlying premise was that familiarity with cultural elements (in this case local culture) would provide the schema to facilitate learning and communicating in English. Three supplementary reading modules focusing on local culture and content were developed for use among students from Forms One to Three. After three years of exposure to the local content, a survey was carried out among teachers and students to examine the impact on students’ skill development and confidence in using English language. Furthermore, focus group interviews with teachers and students were carried out concomitantly throughout the three-year period. The findings revealed an enhanced understanding regarding the manner in which the module utilization impacted the development of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in English amongst these students. The responses obtained from the teachers and students alike depicted the students’ skills that were sharpened, attributable mainly to their increased level of confidence.