The Relationship of English Proficiency and Mathematics Achievement A.S. RAMBELY, R.R. AHMAD, N. MAJID & S.H. JAAMAN School of Mathematical Sciences Faculty of Science & Technology Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor MALAYSIA asr@ukm.my, rozy@ukm.my, nm@ukm.my, shj@ukm.my Abstract: - The study aims to investigate the relationship between English proficiency and mathematics achievement. The sample of study is taken from a population of students from Faculty of Science & Technology (FST), UKM (n = 118) taking into account grades and English proficiency test. Chi square analyses conducted to test the significance of the relationship between two variables. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine differences in mathematics achievement English proficiency. The results showed that good mastering of English is needed to nurture and understand mathematics subject to achieve excellent results. Furthermore, low English proficiency resulted in students experiencing a shortage in mathematics learning and obtained a lower grade in a mathematics course. Key-Words:- English proficiency, mathematics, teaching and learning, performance, thinking process, native language, ESL students 1 Introduction 1.1 History of education In the days of British rule, the Malay school system developed by the English only provided the Malay population with their spelling, writing, and mathematics skills, as well as health knowledge. Education provided did not have the potential to be extended because it was not recognized to be accepted as a basis for further studies into secondary school. Thus a series of revised education policy was done before the era of independence until after independence. In 1970 an educational reform has occurred with the implementation of Language Transition Program. The purpose of this program was to unite Malaysians of multi-races using the Malay language. Based on this program, all languages of instruction in English schools were converted in stages from English language (EL) to Malay, while Chinese and Tamil national-type primary schools could maintain two languages but should follow the syllabus set by the Ministry of Education. In 1982, all schools in Malaysia used Malay language as the medium of instruction [1]. In 2003 educational reform occurred again where the language of instruction of Science and Mathematics subjects changed from the Malay language into EL. Although the language of instruction for Malaysia was the Malay language but the education reform was done on the basis of EL is seen as an international language. Mohini et al. [2] showed that the reasons for the education reform are Malaysia is heading towards internationalization, increased competition in the labour market, increased training of EL usage in the context of international business as well as increased in the number of foreign students in local universities in Malaysia. 1.2 Problems of Science and Mathematics Education around the World The problem of teaching science and mathematics in EL was also faced by most countries around the world. This problem was caused by globalization and migration, where the population of underdeveloped countries, whose mother tongue was not EL, migrated to developed countries whose medium of instruction is English. Many countries around the world affected by this setback for exaample the United States [3,4,5,6,7,8,10], New Zealand [11,12], Australia [13] and England [14]. Thus a lot of researches were done [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] including studies by the Recent Advances in Educational Technologies ISBN: 978-1-61804-155-5 139