EXPERIENCED TEACHERS PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES IN CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION CONTEXTS Intan Safinas Mohd Ariff Albakri 1 , Noriah Ismail 2 , Ainon Omar 1 , Raja Nor Safinas Harun 1 , Nor Haniza Zainal Abidin 3 1 Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (MALAYSIA) 2 Universiti Teknologi Mara (MALAYSIA) 3 Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (MALAYSIA) safinas@fbk.upsi.edu.my, noreezphd1@gmail.com, ainon@fbk.upsi.edu.my, nor.safinas@fbk.upsi.edu.my, mshani@yahoo.com Abstract This paper presents a case study that investigated and compared the pedagogical strategies used by two experienced teachers with regards to language teaching in content-based instruction subjects in a secondary school in Malaysia. The respective content-based subjects are the teaching of Science in English Language and the teaching of English for Science and Technology. This study looks at both teachers’ practices and how they converge and diverge from one another. This study also explores the rationale behind the teachers’ pedagogical decision making. Examining the teachers’ actions and their retrospective reflections on them can provide invaluable insights into teachers’ underlying conceptions about teaching and learning and the tensions they experienced in teaching. Keywords: pedagogical strategies, content-based instruction. 1 INTRODUCTION The English language is undoubtedly one of the most popular languages used throughout the world to serve communication and education purposes. Its significance has been further enhanced with the extent of globalization today. Due to that, the English language has become an important tool in the advancement of knowledge specifically in science and technology due to the multitude of resources written in the language, in print as well as digital forms. Realizing the importance of English, The Ministry of Education, Malaysia took a bold step of announcing that the teaching of science and mathematics at primary and secondary level would be conducted in the English Language from 2003 onwards instead of the official national language, Bahasa Malaysia. Apart from that, A new subject was introduced that is English for Science and Technology. A major concern being highlighted in relation to the policy change is on the teaching of the CBI subjects as in-service teachers of the subjects have not been trained to teach them in the English Language. They also pointed out their difficulties in teaching the subjects as they are not proficient users of the language (Ong and Tan, 2008). Many reported that the English for the Teaching of Mathematics and Science (ETeMS) program that they attended to increase their English language proficiency was not entirely effective (Tan and Ong, 2007). Realizing that the program was not sufficient in providing the CBI teachers with input in increasing their language proficiency, a ‘buddy system’ was introduced in schools. In the ‘buddy system’, Maths and Science teachers (MSTs) are assigned a ‘critical friend’; someone who is a proficient user of the English language. This ‘critical friend’ is a source of reference for the teachers when they encounter problems related to language use. However, some reflected negatively on the ‘buddy system’ saying that they did not have time to see their ‘critical friend’. Hence, the ‘buddy system’ also did not fully achieve its objective in promoting language ability among the mathematics and science teachers. Similarly, in-service English Language teachers are also affected by the new policy as they are instructed to teach the subject science and technology to secondary Form four and five learners even though they have not been exposed to the teaching of the subject matter throughout their teacher training experience. The new CBI curriculum introduced requires the ESL teachers to strategize their teaching according to the newly constructed syllabus. Proceedings of INTED2012 Conference. 5th-7th March 2012, Valencia, Spain. ISBN: 978-84-615-5563-5 6001