Current English curriculum in Malaysia and in Thailand
According to Stauffer (2020), curriculum can be refer from many perspectives, teachers
who are involved in education refer curriculum as information that they teach throughout a class,
teacher also refer curriculum as resources to use in their class. Stauffer defines curriculum as a
collection of lessons, assessments and academic contents that are use in education by school,
program or teacher to be taught in the classroom. One of the important curriculums is language
curriculum, according to Bashar (2017), language has important role in learning, it ensures that
the content of what is being learned are comprehensible, so curriculum that focuses on language
acquisition is really important and should be included as main curriculum content in every country.
One of the important language curriculums is English curriculum, as one of the spoken languages
in the world, according to Mckernan (2015) nearly two billion people study English as a non-native
language. In this academic writing, two English curriculums from two different countries will be
compare and contrast, the two national English curriculums that will be compare are taken from
Malaysia and Thailand, according to the 2020 English Proficiency Index, Malaysia is on 30th place
with moderate proficiency while Thailand is on 89th place with very low proficiency. This result
may have been influenced by the National English Curriculum in both countries.
First content that play important roles in the national English curriculum for both countries
is the curriculum design which cover the concepts, principles and models. Let’s take a look a
Malaysia English curriculum design, the concept in English curriculum design according to
document prepared by Ministry of Education, that is the Dokumen Standard Kurikulum dan
Pentadbiran or DSKP, the English education in Malaysia is taught in primary and secondary
school in Malaysia as second language. The purpose was to provide mastery of English which
are essential for accessing information and knowledge that are written in English. The design of
the English education Malaysia is to equip student with skills that are required in daily life, to
further their studies and for work purposes. For Thailand curriculum design, the concept according
to Hiranburana, et al., (2017) English education in Thailand is one of the subject that are deemed
not compulsory until secondary school in order to prepare the student to face the National
University Entrance Examination as stated by National Education Act, 1999.
These two concepts for both of the country curriculum design stated what the purpose of
their curriculum design and how it served both Malaysian and Thai citizen in English education,
Malaysia English education can be said s consistent throughout the years while Thailand English
education going through some changes in order to suit the need of the country.
Now let take a look at Malaysia English Curriculum principles in curriculum design.
According to Choo,(2016) The principles in designing curriculum in Malaysia consist of five steps,
which is selection, grading, sequencing, staging, and recycling. In selection, the content are chose
based on a few principle which is the aims, goals and objectives. For grading, the content that are
selected should be appropriate with the students, the content should be appropriate with the age
level and skills of the students. After that, the content will be put in sequence that fosters
cumulative and continuous learning then the content will go through staging process and each
stage are build upon earlier knowledge and achievements. The last principles in Malaysia
curriculum desgin is recycling, in which the curriculum goes through ongoing evaluation of the
curriculum.
For Thailand principles in curriculum design are similar to Malaysia principle use in
curriculum design, according to FutureSchool.com (2021), the content of the curriculum for
English education consist of content that is appropriate with the age level targeted and for here it
can be seen that the content of the curriculum go through the same principles used in Malaysia
curriculum design. For model use in curriculum design, Malaysia adapt a model that is created by
Hilda Taba that is the interactional model which adapt 7 stage in developing curriculum, which
are diagnosis of need, formulating objectives, selecting content, organizing learning experiences,
selecting learning experiences, organizing content and evaluation while Thailand curriculum
design adapt the Tyler’s objective-centered model which focuses on evaluation by administrator
in each time period to make decision on the curriculum. So these is the curriculum design that are
used by Malaysia and Thailand education in selection content or the curriculum.
English curriculum in both Malaysia and Thailand goes through several changes that effect
the English Language education in both countries. Malaysia for example, according to Radzuwan ,
Shireena, & Kamariah (2016) English education in earlier age was influence by British
colonisation, English was the medium of delivery until it changes to Bahasa Melayu a step for
nationalism after the country achieve it independence from British, in 2012, Malaysian student
who has low profieciency in English struggle in subject that uses English as the delivery language
like mathematic and science this is when the MBM and MBI were introduced and extra hour are
given to Bahasa Melayu and English that are still practiced to this day. However English education
in Thailand were going through reformation on 2008 with the reform of the Basic Education Core
Curriculum which emphasized the importance of English in order to fullfill the Eleventh National
Economic and Social Development Plan (2012-2016). English are made to be compulsory for
early education stage which is grade 1-6 in order to equip Thai citizen with skills that benefits
them in life-long learning ( Hiranburana, et al., 2017).
Teacher also play important role in curriculum development, the role which are curriculum
designer and implementer are key role in making sure the curriculum is ready for use. In Malaysia,
teacher are indirectly involved in providing the feeback for curriculum design, they also test out
the curriculum on student (Malaysia Ministry of Education , 2013). In Thailand, according to
Hiranburana, et al.,(2017) teacher in Thailand are responsible in monitoring student progress and
act as key agents in the learning process, teacher makes their own lesson plans that cover ;
behavioural objectives and apply the contents to suit appropriate suitable situation, most of
educational institution develop their own curriculums.
As conclusion, Malaysia and Thailand have their own curriculum that has been developed
to suit what their country needed. English curriculum that has been created by both of the country,
are modified to suit the objectives that they have set.
References
Hiranburana, K., Subphadoongchone, P., Tangkiengsirisin, S., Phoochaeoensil, S., Gainey, J.,
Thogsngsri, J., . . . Taylor, P. (2017). A Framework of Reference for English Language
Education in Thailand. LEARN Journal :Language Education and Acquisition Research
Network Journal, 91-98.
Bashar, A. (2017 , July 15). Role and importance of language in the curriculum. Retrieved from
https://www.slideshare.net/: https://www.slideshare.net/abubashars/role-and-importanceof-language-in-the-curriculum
Choo, Y. B. (2016, september 3). Principles in Curriculum Design. Retrieved from
https://www.slideshare.net/: https://www.slideshare.net/YeeBeeChoo/topic-3a-principlesin-curriculum-design
EF. (2020). The world's largest ranking of countries and regions by English skills. Retrieved from
https://www.ef.com/: https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/#
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Malaysia Ministry of Education . (2013). Malaysian Education blueprint (2013-2025). Putrajaya :
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McKernan, B. (2015, November 5). These 15 countries speak English as a second language best.
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policy of English. Policy future in education , 101-107.
Stauffer, B. (2020, January 7). What Is a Curriculum and How Do You Make One? Retrieved from
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