THE APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATIVE PRINCIPLES IN THE TEACHING OF MALAY: CASE STUDY OF AN EXCELLENT TEACHER

This study was undertaken to determine how communicative principles based on the principle of communicative practices proposed by Littlewood is applied in the teaching of Malay language. The subject of the study is an excellent teacher from Malay primary schools in Terengganu with the experienced of 25 years. The researchers use qualitative research design to do observations on teaching, and supported by data from interview and documents analysis. Data from observations and structured documents were analyzed using were analyzed using the coded description. The transcribed interview data also have been coded.The result shows that the teacher applied all the five principles of communicative practices in the planning and implementation of lessons. The five communicative principles are; (1) language is studied in a meaningful context (2) language usage always involved actual situation (3) teaching and learning should be adapted to the needs and interests of students (4) communicative skills need practices to be acquired and (5) teacher should acts as a facilitator, manager, motivator and mentor. The analyzed data also shows that the communicative practices have been applied by the excellent teacher in the teaching of Malay language in the three instruments used in this study. This study shows the importance of applying the communicative principles in the teaching of Malay language. The application of these communicative principles in Malay language teaching will enable us to achieve the National aspiration in enabling our students to acquire various skills of communication.