Purpose The sudden pandemic of COVID-19 has caused disruptive innovation in all areas of business including education. Despite the educators’ and students’ acceptance and readiness in the new normal, the traditional face-to-face (FTF) public speaking has been shifted to online courses to suit the current needs. This study aims to examine whether there were differences between online and FTF pubic speaking in the students’ anxiety level, speech performance, as well as their perceptions of the challenges in the implementation of online public speaking courses as a potential to disruptive innovation. Design/methodology/approach This pilot study was a mixed method research that involved a purposive sampling of two groups of 39 students in higher education. The instruments used were questionnaires of self-report anxiety, speech performance test and observation. Findings The findings show that the students preferred the traditional FTF rather than the online mode for public speaking courses. The challenges of internet connection and the lack of a live audience were their main concerns in online public speaking. It also provides a potential for disruptive innovation that could take into consideration of a live audience in university online courses. Originality/value This study provides the potential of public speaking course as a disruptive innovation. This brings implications for the innovators, marketers and educators to think of the online courses/programmes that can be best implemented while embracing the changes and the new normal of COVID-19 brings for student learning.

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This is an Action Research of using the Story Jumper as an E-book to improve the reading comprehension among Year 4 pupils in one of the primary schools in Malaysia. The participants involved were twenty pupils consisting of seven males and thirteen females. Three data collection methods employed were pre-test and post-test, pupils’ work and teacher’s reflective journal. The findings showed that the use of E-book had increased the level of understanding in reading comprehension among the research participants. The mean for the pre-test and post-test had increased from 45.83 to 93.33. The pupils’ work indicated positive improvements in terms of their level of understanding and responses in reading. It was also found from the reflective journal that the research participants had participated actively in the learning process and their level of motivation was also increased. The implication is to use E-book in the teaching of reading skills among the primary school learners.

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Pupils need phonemic awareness so that they have the ability to manipulate the individual sounds in words. However, they sometimes focused more on reading comprehension rather than recognizing the letter sounds which build the words for reading. This action research was designed to improve the pupils’ phonemic awareness by using hand gestures through digital video and it involved three cycles. The participants involved were 24 Year 2 pupils from one of the primary schools in Malaysia. Three different data collection methods used were tests, pupils’ work and observation. The findings showed there was an improvement of mean scores from 40% in Test 1 to 91% in Test 2. The pupils’ oral exercises also improved from 52.14% to 96.07%.  The results from the observation checklist and notes also showed they became more aware in learning English through their increased communication and active participation in the lesson. This shows that the technique was able to help pupils to learn and remember the sounds of phonemes as they could read the words correctly. It is suggested to carry out further research to develop the pupils’ skills in phonemic awareness through body movements in addition to hand gestures.