Improving Multilingual Education in Malaysia: Tailoring Language Teaching for SJKC Schools

Multilingual education plays a critical role in linguistic and cognitive development, yet its implementation varies across Southeast Asia. While countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand initially mandated national language instruction, challenges in literacy acquisition among minority groups led to the adoption of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). Malaysia’s Chinese National-Type Schools (SJKC) have long provided a form of multilingual education, yet the lack of a clear distinction between first-language (L1) instruction and second-language (L2/L3) acquisition has resulted in cognitive overload and limited linguistic fluency. This paper advocates for a differentiated approach in SJKC, where Mandarin (L1) is leveraged as the primary medium for cognitive and literacy development, while Malay (L2) and English (L3) are taught using second-language acquisition methods that emphasize functional communication over content mastery. Drawing on literature reviews and best practices, this study proposes a structured framework to optimize multilingual education in SJKC through differentiated syllabi, targeted pedagogical strategies, and curriculum reform. These measures aim to enhance linguistic proficiency while fostering higher-order thinking skills, ensuring that Malaysia’s trilingual education model remains effective, sustainable, and globally competitive.