Abstract:

A legacy of the British who once colonized Malaysia, English has been and is still the most important lingua franca for administrative, economic and academic functions in Malaysia. However, command of the English language among Malaysian graduates especially those who were locally trained has been deteriorating since the National Education Policy was implemented in 1970 when Bahasa Melayu or the Malay Language was set as the medium of instruction in National Schools. Various corrective measures have been implemented and millions of Ringgit Malaysia spent but to no avail. This paper presents part of the findings of a larger on-going study on the use of Electronic Problem-Based Learning (ePBL) towards improving communication skills in the English language among undergraduates in Malaysia. Using purposeful sampling, 223 students from Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) participated in the semester long study. As part of their bachelor degree programmes, all undergraduates have to learn and use English extensively across disciplines and in this context via ePBL. In small groups of 5-8, students worked with local communities on particular issues like entrepreneurship, education, crime, health and heritage. The tasks necessitated them or best said “provided them with lots of meaningful opportunity” to interact among themselves, their lecturers, relevant authorities and the respective target community in both face-to-face (F2F) and electronic settings using the English language. At the end of the study, students shared their experiences using a set of questionnaire administered online on Google Doc. Findings reveal that ePBL has a positive effect in enhancing proficiency of the English language among the students. Across the four language skills, they also improved in Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing respectively both in F2F and electronic settings. In conclusion, the infusion of electronic media or use of ePBL has tremendous potentials and should be seriously considered and adopted by all institutions of higher learning towards developing mastery of language learning

Keywords:

English, ePBL, Problem-Based Learning, e-learning, Communication, Project, Community, Knowledge Transfer, Generic.