An evaluation of the implementation of Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program in Malaysian secondary schools

This study aims to evaluate the implementation of Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) Program in Malaysian secondary schools. The evaluation of the program is crucial to investigate the effectiveness of the implemented ETA Program in motivating and enhancing the students‟ interest to use English language (EL). This study employed both quantitative methods and qualitative methods in data collection, which involved a total of nine rural secondary schools in seven states around Malaysia. This study involved a total of 59 EL teachers and 399 students. Based on the findings gathered, there were discrepancies in the actual implementation as compared to the intended objectives of the ETA Program. A few of the intended objectives of the ETA Program were not achieved due to improper execution of the program in the schools. The written and oral test results showed discrepancies between students from the co-teaching classes and the students from the non-co- teaching classes. However, the differences between the total mean scores of both tests between the students from both classes were not significantly different from one another. Despite the flaws in the implementation of the ETA Program, most of the EL teachers and students mentioned that the program had a positive impact on the schools, particularly towards the students‟ confidence. As a conclusion, the findings of this study showed that the implementation of ETA Program has had a positive impact on the students‟ overall motivation and interest in English language but the impact was found to be minimal and did not have a profound effect on the students‟ overall English language proficiency, given the fact that the ETA Program had been implemented for at least two years in all of the schools involved in this study.