TASK 1 : ACADEMIC WRITING

Our Malaysian government has tried their best to equip our students holistically to allow
them to succeed in the 21st Century with all the challenges and opportunities that this new era
proposed. According to Malaysia Blueprint 2013 2025, the government was inspired in
preparing better Malaysias children for the needs of the 21 st Century, and increased public and
parental expectation of education policy. According to Palmer, (2015), in the 21st Century's new
perspectives on teaching and learning, it is now necessary to open a new window for thinking
about how 21st century skills and standards impact these traditional teaching roles. The goal is
to make these roles relevant for today's students' evolving learning needs. Thus, the Malaysian
government visualizes the aim of 21st century teaching as the development of knowledge,
higher-order skills, such as the 4Cs of creativity; critical thinking, communication, collaboration
and character, as well as the establishment of lifelong learning habits and ability to learn with
technology as the central roles in the new picture of teachers effectiveness.
Basically, the 21st Century teaching and learning can be summarized as in, the teaching
and learning is students- centred, the learning is facilitated by teachers and teaching aids, and
the teaching and learning is techno- friendly or techno- based teaching. Technology has rapidly
changed the world around us, thus changing our childrens educational needs. Therefore,
teachers have also been following the changes by going through effective curriculum proposed
by the government. For example, in primary schools, teachers have to incorporate Virtual
Learning Environment (VLE) Frog in their daily teaching and learning session. It is a web- based
system that integrated conventional teaching with the usage of technology. By using Frog VLE,
teachers manage to give homework and check it virtually, and students are also able to send in
their completed homework and get their marks via internet. Each student is given a username
and password, and they have to log in the website themselves and complete the task given by
teacher. Then, teacher will check on their answers and send it to the students so that they can
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get the feedback from their teachers and identify their strengths and weaknesses based on the
marks achieved. According to Malaysia Blueprint of Education, it is stated that Malaysia is on its
way to produce a globalist individual who are competent in each aspect such as
entrepreneurship, technology and artistic. In a way, this Frog VLE has managed to equip the
students with technology in the early stage of schooling years.
However, the usage of Frog VLE is not relevant within the rural area because most of
the students do not have a computer let alone a laptop in possession. They also have a
restricted internet access. The Ministry of Education sets a high expectation for the teaching
and learning session to be conducted by using the application. Therefore, to achieve this high
standard, the teachers themselves have to sacrifice their time by log in using the students
account, and answer the questions which are supposed to be answered by the students. In
order to overcome this issue, firstly the government should be acquainted on the researchability
of the internet access, and upgrade the facilities in the computer laboratory so that it would be
easier and useful for the students to log in their FROG VLE accounts any time. For example,
they can provide an excellent and fast internet connection at each school, and keep track on the
maintenance of the computer facility, meaning that no broken computers will be left unfixed.
Besides, based on the research conducted by Mubarak (2013), it is stated that most of
the teachers are using traditional method in conversing lesson in the teaching and learning
session. They stick to the usage of chalk and talk, lots of drillings and homework and also less
usage of teaching aids. Most of the time, they would distribute a piece of work sheet as part of
their lesson, and it is not considered as teaching aids at all. Fortunately, 21 st Century Learning
give a lot of emphasize in the use of teaching aids in everyday classes. Hence, up to this hour,
primary school teachers all around Malaysia are slowly trying to maximize the usage of teaching
aids in their daily lessons (Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia, 2015).

As stated in Malaysia Blueprint of Education, there is a mismatch in the supply and

demand of graduates, with employers reporting that graduates lack the requisite knowledge,
skills, creativity and attitudes. This mismatch is only expected to get tougher to resolve as
technological disruptions reshape industries and alter the types of jobs available. Thus, the use
of teaching aids will surely promotes students who are competent and capable of everything
because based on Rudolf (2009), the use of teaching aids helps to provide real world insight,
which will be useful in positioning students to compete in the job market and bringing academic
theory to life. This can also be approved by the syllabus in the textbook. We have different
syllabus for different topic which always provide a hands- on experience to the students. The
combination of good teaching aids and the syllabus from the textbook created by expertise in
the field administers the requirement to produce a holistic student (Othman, 2002).
It also stated that teaching aids create vividness in the learning situation by making
abstract ideas to be concrete thus help in making learning more effective. In conclusion, the
incorporations of teaching aids in every day teaching and learning session helps to promote
holistic and balanced students that will be capable of doing anything in every aspect, which is a
natural extension of the goal of the Malaysian basic education system to develop values-driven
Malaysians (Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia, 2015).
However, the process in teaching aids making is time consuming and cost a lot of
money. Practical students have to spend almost RM300 per month for the purpose of buying
teaching aids materials (Noriati Rashid, 2014). Then, it will used up most of their free time
because it takes a lot of time to produce the piece of excellent and reliable teaching aids. They
have to take all aspects into consideration while producing a teaching aid, which are the
flexibility, reliability and validity of it in parallel with the syllabus provided in the textbook. It would
be much difficult for novice teachers because they have to teach up to 30 hours of lesson per
week, and they do not have much time to prepare the teaching aids. Moreover, they also have
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to entertain different classes and different topics for the week. It would be pretty hard for them to
cater the teaching aids needed in every class. Time management and cost has been their
mutual enemy at the time being. So, to overcome this issue, the Ministry of Education can
propose to minimize the hours of teaching and learning session for each teacher into 18 or 20
hours per week, and provide an additional allowance just for buying the teaching aids materials
purposes.
In conclusion, our Malaysian government has numerous plans in acquitting our students
holistically to allow their success in the 21 st Century world through an effective curriculum.
Teachers have also stand together to support the plans proposed by the government, and
acknowledging the Malaysia Education Blueprint. Therefore, now it is up to our generations to
comply with the needs and purposes proposed in becoming a holistic and balanced person in
life.
(1200 words)