The Participants

Five participants were interviewed and observed for this study. They were selected based on the following criteria: (1) the different education background, (2) the length of teaching experience and (3) adequate and complete understanding about the English Language curriculum, its syllabus as well as its objectives. The first criterion was set in order to get a more thorough investigation of the possibility of discovering different beliefs based on their educational background. Participants who went through comprehensive teacher training courses might hold different beliefs on the teaching of pronunciation as compared to participants who underwent a short teacher training course or not exposed to teacher training at all. The second criterion was set to investigate a thorough belief of teachers of different years of teaching experience and to uncover any change of beliefs which took place throughout the years of teaching experience. All of the participants have had between three to twenty two years of teaching experience and are teaching in various secondary schools in Selangor. The third criterion was set in order to take into consideration of their familiarity as well as how well they have accommodated to their teaching responsibilities which includes their experience in organizing various school events, and possess adequate understanding of the Malaysian school policy, organization and culture.

Table 4.1

Participants’ Particulars

Name Age Years of

teaching experienc e Education (Teacher training) Education (Non teacher training) Position in school Anita 28 4 KPLI M.Ed TESL B.Sc I T English teacher

Laily 45 22 Dip. Ed. B.A Linguistics M.A

Linguistics

English

teacher & data teacher

Suzana 30 6 B.Ed. TESL Nil English

teacher

Mary 27 3 Nil B.A

Business Administration

Untrained temporary teacher

Linda 39 16 KPLI B.A

Mass Communication

English teacher

Note: KPLI – In Service / Graduate’s Teacher Training Course (A short – one year

teacher training course usually conducted by the local universities or teacher training colleges).

For the purpose of this study, the participants’ real names are not used.

Pseudonyms are used in this report to refer to the participants and other individuals referred by the participants. The following section describes the results of the within- case analysis.

4.1.2 Anita

This is the story of Anita, a 28 year old young teacher who was carrying her first child at the point of this research’s interviews and observations on her. Despite her fragile condition, she had open heartedly accepted the researcher into her classroom and her work environment. Anita was the first teacher who agreed to be involved in this study. She was indeed very excited upon taking the role of a research participant and

was ever willing to help the researcher in providing the relevant information needed for the study.

A series of four formal interview sessions were conducted at various locations at her school mainly the library, an empty classroom and the staffroom. The conditions of the places however, were quite noisy. Even the library was not spared and according to Anita, the school is generally noisy, and convinced that she had chosen among the most conducive place to conduct the interview sessions.

Six of her English Language lessons were observed. However, out of the six lessons, the researcher decided to choose only four lessons as the other two lessons did not yield information related to the focus of this research. All the interviews with Anita were audio-recorded and the lessons were video-recorded without much objection from her as the researcher managed to convince her that all the information which includes all audio recordings is strictly confidential and not for public viewing.

Before the observations were carried out, Anita explained that she was currently teaching summary writing and will continue teaching it for at least a couple more weeks. Due to that, she has expressed concern on the possibility of integrating pronunciation into her writing lessons. She was worried that she was not able to incorporate pronunciation into her summary lesson. However, the researcher explained that she should just proceed with her actual lesson plans and was not obliged to cater to the needs of the study as the intention of the observations was to explore how teachers deal with pronunciation problems whenever they occur in the classroom and to find out if there is any evidence of pronunciation teaching in a normal daily lesson.

The first lesson observed was a lesson that had an integration of pronunciation in a summary writing lesson. Her second lesson was a continuation of the previous summary lessons but started her lesson with a group dictation exercise so as to also try to include a pronunciation activity in her lesson. The third lesson was a vocabulary

lesson in a form of a game which was incorporated in a summary writing lesson. The final observed lesson was a reading lesson which was intended as a practice before the students sit for their first term examination to be held three weeks from the day of the observation.

At the time of the study, Anita has just gone into her fifth year of her teaching career, mainly teaching the English Language subject. She is also currently in the pursuit of improving her career as well as trying to equip herself with a more updated knowledge of teaching English where at the time of this study she is pursuing a Master in TESL at a local public university. She graduated from a private university with a degree in Information Technology. She worked for six private sector organizations immediately after she graduated. However she did not pursue a career in Information Technology, instead she entered into the teaching career. It was her parents’ continuous persuasion that made her change her career path to teaching. She half-heartedly agreed and later applied to do a KPLI (In service Teacher Training) course at one of the local teacher training colleges. KPLI is a one year training course to prepare graduates who intend to teach in the public schools. After she completed her KPLI, she was posted to a school in Kinabatangan, a rural area in Sabah, East of Malaysia. Here, she taught for two years and later managed to get a transfer to a school in Selangor where she is currently teaching. This is her third year of teaching in this school. The school that Anita is currently teaching is situated in a suburban area with a population of approximately 1500 students. The majority of the students come from a middle income family and discipline is a problem in the school. Anita holds several responsibilities including being a class teacher, the teacher advisor for the English Language society and the president for the Teachers’ Club in that school. She teaches the upper level

secondary students from form 3 to form 5 students. Besides teaching the English Language subject, she also teaches Arts and Moral Education. Based on her

responsibilities description, it seems she has a load of duties to fulfill added with her fragile state of being in the second trimester of her pregnancy. Occasionally she sighed over the heavy workload as well as her physical condition during the informal conversations.

Growing up in the city, Anita studied in schools located at the city areas throughout her primary and secondary schooling years. She was born and raised in the Klang Valley and had mixed with mostly English speaking friends. Her exposure to the English Language was really rich as she spoke the language at home and in school. She also seldom used her mother tongue even with her family members and could only converse in the mother tongue but was not able to read and write in her mother tongue. Being the president of the Teachers’ Club in that school, and in the midst of preparing for the Principles’ retirement ceremony, her name is often called by the teachers across

the staffroom.