A Personal Critical Review on KSSR/KBSR

It never strike me even once that being a teacher especially an English Language teacher would require more inner strength than I imagined. I embraced the idea of being an English Language teacher with simple concept. Speak and master the language and that would be enough for me to survive in this profession. The moment of truth hits me when I actually immersed myself to be a good English Language teacher by learning by heart to be one. The period of preparation is actually a dramatic one for me because of the transition from Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah (KBSR) to Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah (KSSR) for the elementary school. All I need to do is to actually understand the concept and objectives of KSSR so that I would be able to teach the students accordingly.

            First of all, what is the drastic change between KBSR and KSSR other than the different acronyms? KBSR being the pioneer for many trials that the National Education Board wanted to perform on Malaysian students. KBSR was more about integrating all the skills especially in English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms where the language skills such as Speaking, Writing, Listening and Reading are emphasized at a very basic level. I, myself experienced the curriculum where it practically more about working on ‘language across curriculum’ objective. This refers to having the national language, Malay Language used as the medium of instruction for all the subjects except English Language subject. As a future English Language teacher, I’m going to touch on KBSR and KSSR in the aspect of English Language alone.  KBSR focuses on how to prepare students with basic language skills that can be used in daily life communication meanwhile KSSR focuses on improvising the already basic learned skills to a better and effectively communication accordingly. Being this as the aim for KSSR, it was implemented in early 2011 with new-to-Malaysian’s approach, the Modular based syllabus. For primary school, the syllabus of English Language is divided into two main components, Level 1 compromising Year One, Year Two and Year Three and Level 2 compromising Year Four, Year Five and Year Six. Four modules such as Listening and Speaking (Module 1), Reading (Module Two), Writing (Module Three) and Language Arts (Module Four) will be taught in Level 1 whereas grammar will be added to these four modules in Level 2. To be honest, I wondered what kind of grammar is being introduced to students at later years. Is it advanced or is it only from Year Four onwards the grammar is actually being taught properly? If it’s the later one, I believe it’s really hard to produce young learners who can master the language as what the government wants, being the communicate user of the language. As what I learned in another subject named Child Development, children at their very young age tend to pick up on languages so efficiently if they are taught appropriately. I believe this is when the educators in primary schools should focus on building a very strong foundation in English Language grammar so that the students will be able to remember the rules and it will be natural for them to construct words in their mind before communicating using the right grammar and vocabulary.

            Both curriculums use textbook as their primary source of knowledge guidance in classrooms as it provides the standard content and learning for the students. The method of English Language teaching might be slightly different but attractive and at the same time, interactive for the students. Since Language Arts is introduced to this curriculum, I believe it provides an alternative for the teachers to actually come up with various ideas to convey a meaningful lesson in a way which all the students enjoy. This leads to student-centered lessons where activities such as forum, debate, role-play and even some language games for example Scrabble and Boggle for the students to learn the language by heart. I personally experienced a very radical increase in learning English Language when my teacher actually used all the methods above to provide an efficient lesson for us. This is why I believe with a curriculum like KSSR, it will help the students to actually learn the language as natural as it can be and also for enjoyment purpose. The noticeable change would be the elevation from 3M as in Mengira (Arithmetic), Membaca (Reading) and Menulis (Writing) to 4M by maintaining the 3M but adding one more, Menaakul (Reflection) to it. I honestly believe that this extra component actually helps to build a positive minded student since he or she can reflect on the potentials and works on it to be successful. This is a good thing because not everyone has the chance to realize their potentials and end up making more wrong decisions than they actually should.

            The revolutionary change in KSSR from KBSR is the assessment and the amount of exposure one student gets out from their syllabus. KBSR is very much exam-oriented approach where the students are assessed formatively according to their academic performance in examinations meanwhile KSSR is a combination of both formative and summative assessment where the teacher will assess more on development of skills and it is done more individually. This is a great feature of KSSR, I would say. Throughout my twelve and half years in school, I was judged based on my results. As harsh as reality could be, I couldn’t pursue my dreams because of the results and has to opt to my second option as I’m doing what I’m good at, teaching. I believe with KSSR being implemented students will have more chances to succeed as they can develop many skills and assessed accordingly to land themselves in a satisfaction side of life.  The amount of exposure I meant here was the themes that are integrated in lessons such as Science, Technology and Humanity for a better understanding. Based on what I learned in English Teaching Methods, this part of the curriculum is more or less like the Content-Based Approach where the teacher focuses on the target language and how it is used effectively to convey the lesson using the bigger scale content. For example, during my Form 4 and 5 I have to take on the English in Science and Technology subject where I have to learn the scientific terms and how they are used in academic writing and at the same time, being exposed to a completely different field of study.

            To put it in a nutshell, as a future educator who is going to teach the students according to KSSR, I believe that KSSR is a practical solution than KBSR in order to produce all-rounders that excel in various fields without much hassle. Dreams will be more realistic and the curriculum itself will help to drill the students to prepare themselves to achieve their dreams.

REFERENCES :-

Online Sites

1.    Nanthini Vayapuri. January,16,2012. Implementation of Five Classic Creative Methods in Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah (KSSR). Retrieved on December,11,2012, from http://www.anthrajae.blogspot.com/2012/01/implementation-of-five-classic-creative.html

2.    Cynthia C. James. October,13,2011. KSSR and the Modular Approach. Retrieved on December,11,2012, from http://cindyjbj79.blogspot.com/2011/10/kssr-and-modular-approach.html

3.    Maryannie Iskandar. April, 7, 2011. KBSR vs KSSR. Retrieved on December,11,2012 from http://langlitmaryannie.blogspot.com/2011/04/kbsr-vs-kssr.html

Academic Books

1.    John W. Santrock. (2011). Child Development (Thirteenth Edition). Mc-Graw Hills Humanities/Social Sciences/ Languages.

2.    Diane Larsen-Freeman. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.