This study explored the hardship faced by foreign-language learners of Mandarin and the strategies applied to overcome them. Literature review found that technology created a positive effect that enhanced the learners’ achievement. Nevertheless, it was still doubtful how far the activities advocated by technology or its potential increase in motivation could boost the students’ learning. Most techniques, real expansions in education and competence had yet to be proven. The hardship and coping strategies were classified and examined according to quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings indicated that different learners experienced various levels of difficulty, and they had their own coping response. Gender and course stream did not seem to be associated with obstacles. The barriers that triggered incompetence and the ways that learners used to overcome them were explained. The grounds of hardship and response strategies were limited. The actual number of coping methods could be more than reported as learners tended to use whatever strategy that was convenient for them.
Despite their importance, dynamic and diagnostic assessments (DigAs) have received little attention in phycological aspects of foreign language teaching and learning settings; therefore, this study compared the effects of dynamic and diagnostic assessment (DigA) on Afghan EFL learners’ speaking fluency and accuracy (SFA), learning anxiety (LA), and cognitive load (CL). To do so, 90 Afghan EFL learners were recruited and assigned to two experimental groups (EGs), namely a dynamic assessment group (DAG), a DigAG, and a control group (CG). After that, the three groups were pretested on SFA, LA, and CL. Then, one EG was trained based on the DA, and the other EG was taught based on the DigA, while the CG received common speaking instruction. After finishing the instruction, all groups were given the posttests of SFA, LA, and CL to evaluate the impacts of the treatment on their performances. The findings of the one-way ANOVA test divulged that both EGs outflanked the CG on their posttests. In fact, using dynamic and DigA developed EFL learners’ SFA and CL and reduced their LA. Though both EGs outflanked the CG, the DAG had better improvement than the DigAG on their posttests. At the end of the research, some implications were provided, and some suggestions were recommended for the next studies.
This article presented a survey data on the lecturers' perception on online teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak. The study adopted a quantitative approach with an open-ended survey questionnaire to establish lecturers' readiness and their emotional presence in adopting 100% online teaching from home. The questionnaire consists of two sections, quantitative and qualitative. As for the quantitative section, the data comprised of demographic characteristics of research respondents and the qualitative section consisted of staff feedback. The data inclusive of 180 academic staff of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia and was analysed using SPSS 22.0. Therefore, these results offer invaluable evidence for university's management as well as policy makers to make further improvements of online teaching and learning as well as lecturers' readiness in online teaching.
The article described a study to understand a teacher's usage of first language (L1) in rural Sabah, Malaysia. Literature findings discovered a growing understanding that L1 should be used to assist a learner in learning L2 and that despite some studies done in Malaysian schools, none are based on English Language classrooms in rural Sabah, East Malaysia. Approximately 400 minutes of the teacher's classroom sessions were recorded, and any use of L1 is coded, and then categorised, based on the coding system developed by Sali (2014). The codes revealed that L1 is primarily used for academic and managerial purposes, with more efforts made on giving instructions, talking about learning, and eliciting objectives in mind. There was also the use of languages other than L1, primarily the students' ethnic tongue. Findings were compared against Principled Use of L1 (Cook, 2001), and suggestions were made to assist and further enhance the L1 use of the teacher, keeping in mind the contextual uniqueness of rural Sabah, Malaysia. A larger-scale study could be replicated to confirm the findings further, and to develop a principled use of L1 for rural Sabah ESL/EFL teachers to follow.
The brilliant advancement of mobile technologies provides a vivid instructional approach which suits the millennial students where learning happens ubiquitously. Therefore, awareness that mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) encourages personalized learning is the focus. Smartphone, the most excellent creation has impressed everyone, and it offers enormous potential for integration into language learning. Smartphone applications (SA) enable students to learn nowhere, in the class or out of the formal class. However, the way of students perceive SA as the Mandarin learning tools have not yet explored broadly. Thus, this preliminary study aims to examine Mandarin students' perceptions of SA along with its usability, effectiveness, and satisfaction and the correlations of gender, course, and activities via SA against the items mentioned. A quantitative method was used through questionnaires distribution for data collection. 79 of undergraduates from an east coast university were chosen as the respondents to answer the survey. The survey was conducted in the 10th week of a 14 weeks Mandarin course. The collected data were then analysed using SPSS for the descriptive statistics. Two types of smartphone applications included dictionary based and teaching and learning based were identified. The statistics show that all the respondents consented that learning Mandarin via SA has influenced their language performance; task accomplishment and personal study positively. In addition, the students were engaging, satisfied and willing to continue using smartphones in their study. All in all, SA is a potential tool for MALL. However, students need guidance in ensuring the productiveness of SA in MALL.
This article describes a study to understand teachers’ experience in implementing the CEFR-Aligned Standards-Based English Language Curriculum (SBELC) in rural Sabah, Malaysia. The literature review revealed many cases where curriculum reform was not implemented as intended due to factors such as inappropriate training structures and inadequate training, understanding, and resources. Compared to other regions in Malaysia, rural Sabah schools may face a more acute situation due to teachers’ lack of experience and resource shortages for the implementation of training and teaching. In this study, the researchers interviewed six teachers, with two of them also serving as trainers of the new curriculum. Transcripts were analysed using deductive thematic analysis. The codes revealed that teachers in general had a positive training experience that was reflective, open to reinterpretation, and with a degree of decentralisation of expertise. There were also issues where quality of training deteriorated as the levels progressed, due to lack of resources allocated. This article offers some suggestions to enhance rural Sabah teachers’ training experience. A quantitative study of a larger scale should be done to further confirm the findings of this study.
The integration between the Quran and science has long been debated, and it has been extensively covered in the syllabus of primary, secondary and higher education institutions. There have been many attempts and efforts proposed to integrate the knowledge that aimed to clarify the idea into a proper plan. However, lack of clear-cut concept and blueprint has become a challenging task to practice the integration of the Quran and science knowledge. Therefore, the Ulul Albab Model was introduced in Program Saintis Islam Terengganu (PSIT) as a serious effort by the state government to produce Muslim scientist since 2015. Hence, this paper is written to examine the students’ response towards the implementation of the Ulul Albab Model in PSIT. Data collected using a questionnaire with 37 respondents and one- way ANOVA analysis with a significance level of 5% (α= 0.05) was used in this study. The result of p-value is 0.166, shows that there was no significant correlation between the model used and students’ knowledge on the integration of the Quran and science knowledge. Nonetheless, tadabbur, ihya’ and ‘ibrah sessions was perceived by the students as the most essential session for them to consolidate their knowledge in the Quran and science, which also challenged their analytical thinking skills.
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