Abstract:

Success in teaching depends on many elements realized by the teachers as they orchestrate their lessons within the classrooms. This paper discusses a portion of a broader educational research that had explored the experienced teachers’ views on the core linguistic and pedagogical skills, and the characteristics of a good teachers required for the literacy and numeracy teachers to be effective in the Malaysia context. Qualitative data, gathered via two different phases – the individual teacher’s views phase by using open-ended questionnaires and the focus-group reflection and discussion phase that focused on the teachers’ experiences within primary schools learning and teaching. These views, that were shared and debated within the focus-group sessions with the appointed moderator by the group members, contributed the ‘consensus thinking’ of these literacy and numeracy teachers. The profile of literacy and numeracy teachers was constructed by comparing and contrasting the elements pertaining to the structure, knowledge and understanding, strategies and skills, and values which primary school literacy and numeracy teachers need to endorse. The findings, among others, indicate that, within the profile, the values that teachers should advocate seemingly transcend these literacy and numeracy teachers. Nevertheless, within the profile, they seem to be distinctively different with regards to the core strategies and skills, and knowledge and understanding.

Keywords:

Profile, literacy, numeracy, reflection, teachers, focus group.