LANGUAGE CHOICE AND PERCEPTIONS IN EDUCATION DOMAIN AMONG STUDENTS AND ACADEMICS IN A MALAYSIAN HIGHER LEARNING INSTITUTION
Veeramuthu A/L Veerappan, Ng Mindy, Assoc Prof. Dr. Habsah Ismail

Abstract
The sociolinguistic investigation reported in this study examines the phenomenon of language choice in the education domain among students at a private higher learning institution in Malaysia. These students sat for the SPM examination in the year 2009 and their English language perceptions towards learning mathematics and science in English is also investigated. It is seen as important and relevant to examine the factors that govern students’ choice of a particular language in a particular setting. Why do they choose to use one code rather than another, and why do they prefer to use this code in examinations are the questions that this study has attempted to answer. Language choice is a very complex issue and the factors which might influence language choices are equally complicated because the study of language choice is often linked to other factors like ethnicity, multilingualism, code-switching, language maintenance and shift. There are 182 respondents in this survey study and they are currently in the foundation programs majoring in Engineering and Computer Science. This study adopted a quantitative approach and a descriptive analysis was conducted using the SPSS. 9 subjects that include an administrator and 8 academicians are interviewed and data is also analyzed qualitatively. The findings seem to show that a large percentage of students have chosen to use English in learning science and mathematics but opted not to use English in examination for various reasons.

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