Relationships between LINUS teachers' knowledge of basic language constructs, teaching experience and perceived teaching abilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine LINUS teachers’ knowledge of basic language constructs and the relationships between LINUS teachers’ knowledge of basic language constructs, teaching experience and their perceived abilities to teach reading to LINUS students. 121 LINUS teachers teaching English literacy from 31 Johor Bahru national primary schools participated in this survey research study. Findings indicated that LINUS teachers scored a mean percentage of 61% on the total knowledge of basic language constructs. Teachers were strongest at phonological awareness items (82%), followed by phonemic awareness items (63%), morphology items (51%) and phonics items (46%). Results showed that LINUS teachers with 1-5 years of experience teaching English significantly predicted whether they gave higher ratings of perceived abilities to teach reading to LINUS students as compared to LINUS teachers with less than 1 year of experience teaching English (p = .04). However, as scores of total knowledge increase, LINUS teachers with less than 1 year of experience teaching English are more likely to give higher ratings of perceived abilities to teach reading to LINUS students than LINUS teachers with 1-5 years of experience teaching English (p = .03). The findings highlighted the importance of teacher content knowledge in increasing perceived teaching abilities as opposed to teaching experience per se. Future research should be done on more samples of LINUS teachers for more generalizable results.