STRATEGIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE AND STUDENTS' LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

Strategies in Teaching English as a Second Language confirmed to hold a contribution towards students’ language proficiency and academic performance. This study investigated the teaching strategies used by English teachers to enhance the academic performance of students, level of English language proficiency of the students and examined if there was a correlation between teaching strategies and English language proficiency. The researchers surveyed 168 grade 11 students from both STEM and GAS strand, employing probability random sampling method. The researchers used quantitative research design, utilizing a survey-checklist questionnaire that consisted of two parts: (1) teaching strategies; (2) English language proficiency and employed median and spearman correlation. The findings revealed that teachers used diverse teaching strategies with grand median score (Md= 4.00) "agree" from respondents including multimedia, storytelling, group work, and interactive learning tools were used to enhance students’ academic performance. Students generally reported to be in high proficiency level of English language since grand median is (Md = 4.00) that fell into scale of “high” in receptive skills like listening and reading, while expressing moderate confidence in speaking and writing tasks. The correlation analysis showed a positive but weak significant relationship between variables (ρ = 0.240, p=0.002), indicating that teaching strategies have contributed positively to language proficiency, however, there were some other factors affecting the components of language proficiency of students.