This paper is an examination of the current situation of the importance of maintaining fluency in teaching foreign languages. It is a preliminary report on previous studies regarding teachers’ proficiency and its relevancy to the Malaysian Japanese language teachers. The focus on foreign language education in Malaysia has increased significantly following its inclusion in the National Higher Education Strategic Plan Beyond 2020 by the Ministry of Education in 2007. The policy was strengthened with the announcement of Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint 2015-2025 with ten new paradigms as a game changer in higher education scenario. This move has resulted in rapid growth, evident through the adoption of foreign language programs in major public universities, elite secondary boarding schools, and selected secondary schools. Despite this, the literature in foreign language education suggests that most educational institutions do not provide many opportunities for foreign language teachers to maintain or improve their language skill (Fraga‐Cañadas, 2010). Although teachers by profession, non-native speaker teachers of foreign language are still at risk of language attrition, especially if its use is only limited to simple structures and basic vocabulary (Wlosowiczs, 2017). This is often the case in Malaysia where most institutions only offer elementary level courses for foreign languages, which includes the Japanese language. Most universities in Malaysia offer elementary level of Japanese language course except for few universities such as Universiti Malaya and Universiti Sains Malaysia (Yeoh & Singh, 2020). According to Richards et al. (2013), teachers need an advanced level of proficiency to provide students with meaningful and knowledgeable explanations on language and culture. Furthermore, their proficiency can have a direct impact on students' learning. This is because it influences the amount of language used in the classroom and shapes the teaching approach used, thus playing a pivotal role in the overall student learning experience (Valmori & De Costa, 2016). Research on the proficiency of non-native Japanese language teachers in Malaysia is scarce, and not much is known about how they maintain or develop their proficiency.

It is crucially important to know what strategies are used by language learners in learning the targeted language, so that teachers will have better insights to prepare classes that equally suit learners’ behaviour. This is a pilot study aiming to identify what are the most and less frequent learning strategies used by Japanese language learners at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). A set of questionnaires adapted from the Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) has been distributed to 259 USIM Japanese learners at the end of semester academic year of 2021/2022. 54 students volunteered to participate and answer the questionnaire. The average frequency for each category in SILL has been identified. As for the results, Japanese language learners at USIM are moderate users of metacognitive categories as the average frequency is at the highest. In contrast, strategies from affective categories have the lowest frequency of usage. It is a hope, that in the future, learners are introduced with a set of learning strategies before or during the classes in order to help them find the best way of acquiring the target language.

Foreign language education has often been overlooked in terms of space and value and this has impacted the amount of support and professional development that its teachers receive. In Malaysia, Japanese language is among the foreign language offered in schools and universities. As of the year 2021, there are more than 38,129 students learning Japanese language and over 215 institutions offering courses for the language all over the country. Despite the encouraging progress, Malaysia is facing a shortage of Japanese language teachers. While the exact reason behind the attrition of teachers is yet to be identified, research indicates that the lack of support and professional development are among the key factors. While training programs are offered year-round by teacher associations and organisations such as The Japan Foundation and MAJLIS, these programs are largely voluntary and often limited in the number of seats available for participants. This paper is an examination of the current efforts in providing support and development for non-native Japanese language teachers in Malaysia and explores suggestions that can be considered to facilitate teacher development in the country.