Teaching English to the minority Orang Asli: a case of systematic disempowerment? Airil Haimi Mohd Adnan University of Auckland & Universiti Teknologi MARA airil@teechconsult.com Muhammad Aizat Saad Universiti Teknologi MARA Abstract (revised & updated) This study confronts issues in minority language maintenance, intercultural understanding and the teaching of English to the wider population in developing nations. Using Malaysia as a case in point, this study collected the „stories‟ of Malaysian Orang Asli (native or original peoples) who are taught English as a third or even fourth language in school. Through the voices of English teachers and Orang Asli community leaders from two states in Malaysia, our study suggests that the teaching and learning of English within these rural communities are fraught with intercultural misunderstandings and pedagogical complications, leading to the underperformance of young Orang Asli learners of English. Using a narrative approach to collect empirical data, this study forwards the views of stakeholders in the teaching profession and the actual minority communities with reference to language, culture and identity – views that are normally silenced in the national education system of developing nations. This study suggests that finding a way forward for Orang Asli children to acquire English will take more than just top-down planning as this language is not only alien to most members of this minority group but the teaching of this language, could also be construed as systematically disempowering the Orang Asli within the Malaysian education system. 1. Introduction In an official report presented to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia on issues related to the lives of Orang Asli (hereafter OA) peoples, education was mentioned as a critical sphere for this minority population (Center for Orang Asli Concerns, 2006). A more recent news item by the National News Agency (BERNAMA, 2010) puts the number of this culturally and ethnically diverse population at close to 150,000 members, but at the same time downplaying the issue of OA disempowerment. Throughout the years stories of OA disenfranchisement, particularly in the field of education, has been told and retold countless times in popular media and through empirical research efforts (see Ibrahim, 1997; Joseph, 2008; Kassim and Adnan, 2005; Smith, 2003). Other than general educational issues, the topic of language maintenance by the OA population has also been examined, particularly on the experience of OA children as language learners within the national education system. Based on previous research, we embarked on a study to collect the „real stories‟ of both OA community leaders and senior Malaysian teachers on the teaching of English to OA primary pupils – a topic that has been under-researched thus far. 2. Review of literature