Nowadays English was an international language, it was widely used; it was not just for education purpose, but was gradually spread in other sectors, especially in the economic sector. On 6th May 2002, the then Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir announced that government willing to reintroduce English as a medium of instruction. And on 11th May 2002, the then Education Minister Musa Mohamad established a bilingual system that set up with English used for teaching science and mathematics (Tan, 2005, p. 50).
Before this announcement was made, the Education Art 1996 stipulate the national language (Malay language) shall be the main medium of instruction in all educational institutions under the ...view middle of the document...
Most of the student in Malaysia has limited English proficiency; Due to this factor it has affected their performance of Mathematics and Science in English. If someone has an interested to learn certain subjects .They are required have a fully understanding of the subjects. Such as learning mathematics and science in English, students are required to understand the scientific terms and mathematical terms which written in English. Moreover, lack of English proficiency lead to difficulties of learning Mathematics and Science in English.
Result of a survey shown that the 20.45% respondents complained that their performance in Mathematics and Science had got worse due to the lack of proficiency in English language which cause those faced difficulties in understanding the explanations of Science concepts in English (Faizah Mohamad Nor, Marzilah A. Aziz & Jusoff, K., 2011). According to the study carried out by Aziz bin Nordin (n.d.), he stated that respondents were having problems more obvious in learning Science since Science subject comprises a lot of factors, concepts and principles as well as problem solving process in its content.
Cheah and Nor Azmi Mostafa (2009) discovered that language was the barrier for students to learning Mathematics and Science. Then, students who have poor attitudes and thinking skill are main cause of learning any subject in whatever language. Research of Tan (2007), mention that most of the students who cannot understand the science concept that are being taught in English language was affected by their attitudes toward learning of Science. Besides, he also found out that gender also influence attitudes of students toward learning of mathematics. The research proven that attitude of female students towards leaning of Mathematics was positive as compared to male students.
Research that carried out by Norudin Mansor, Mohamed Ishak Badarudin and Azman Che Mat (2011) explained that environment plays an important roles, it consists of environment in the classroom, school and home itself. Teaching method is the key factor it includes teachers experience, teaching methodology, teaching facilities and teaching materials. Furthermore, attitudes of students were a key factor such as do students pay attention in class and hand in their homework in time. Attitude of teachers will reflect the result of the students such as teachers who are strict in their duties and always give extra effort to improve teaching skill and it might affect student performance.
We support the research above that carried out by Khalid (1997), he state that confidence, socioeconomic status, gender beliefs, drive, enjoyment, peers, location of school, school environment, ethnicity beliefs and previous achievement were important predictor of Mathematics achievement among Malaysian schools (Liew & Pong, 2004, p. 10).
Educators claimed that they have difficulties of teaching Mathematics and Science in English. Hudson (2009) point out that...