Misunderstanding the preferences of students and what they need to succeed can create a waste of precious educational resources and time. The research question in this study asks what the Malaysian Millennial preferences may be for their English teachers and why they may hold those preferences. This study, based in the social sciences and inspired by the BALLI (Horwitz 1987) study, uses the grounded approach to explore these students’ preferences through a series of cycles and instruments. This study used mixed methods with over three hundred participants through four different research tools such as: informal interviews, a case study, a seven statement survey and an open question. The findings of a theme early on in the fact finding cycle was the idea of ‘teaching style’ as the preference. Testing that theme led to discoveries about their classroom learning experiences and challenges they have experienced in regards to motivation and engagement. Lesser themes of white privilege, gender issues, native speaker teacher and shame ethos were looked into in order to understand the reasons for the students’ preferences. The study revealed that the Malaysian Millennial students prefer teachers to use a teaching style that displays creativity and fun while looking to the teacher for classroom leadership. The implications of these findings are that educational decision makers can use the recommendations in this study as a spring board for enhancing the students’ educational experience and reduce waste in valuable educational resources.
