English Language Teaching: The Reflective Practices of an Oral Communication Class

Malaysia has come to a point where second and third languages become part of the requirements to be employed especially in the multinational and international companies. After gaining its Independence, English becomes the second language in Malaysia, and Bahasa Melayu is recognised as the official language of the country. This move has greatly impacted the education sector in Malaysia, and one of the challenges is that younger generation lacks English language competency. This can be supported by some recent surveys about employability of Malaysian graduates, in that one of the issues which hinders graduates to secure jobs is the inability to converse in English (see Mohamed Khaled Nordin, 2009; Noor Azina Ismail, 2011). Therefore, this article aims to examine the teaching and learning strategies and assessments for an oral communication course at the Defence University in Malaysia. At the same time, this article attempts to provide a basis for Continual Quality Improvement (CQI) for the course.The findings of this article are a series of reflective practices, observed and experienced by the author. These reflective practices can be used for further improvements and future references of the course.