This paper presents some preliminary findings of a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary research. It explores the experience of language educators on the newly implemented policy by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia. The implementation of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a policy that develops through a whole continuum: from primary schools to universities. The paper fills the gap in terms of impact studies of the CEFR especially on engineering programmes where the desired CEFR levels are higher. This implementation affects language educators at university in various domains such as the required CEFR levels for language educators, teaching materials and support systems. The methodological framework used in this study is phenomenological study. It aims to explore the experience of the language educators. Interviews were conducted on three language educators teaching engineering programmes at a private university. Snowballing technique was used in identifying the research interviewees. Data gathered were analysed using Atlas.Ti, a qualitative analysis software. Preliminary result indicates that language educators were positive and welcome enthusiastically the change. However, challenges were immense and critical. This paper concludes that the implementation of the CEFR is a wise move for Malaysian students towards a higher level of proficiency in English.
Sex trafficking is an abhorrent crime in our contemporary times. Malaysia is currently both a transit and destination country, where women from different countries are trafficked in and out of Malaysia for sex purposes. This article focuses specifically on the trafficking of Vietnamese women into Malaysia. We, the researchers of this paper, interviewed a group of 10 Vietnamese women who were caught in a single police raid at an illegal ‘gambling center’ and placed in a women’s shelter in Kuala Lumpur. While this article explores the tragedy of sex trafficking and the plight of trafficked victims, it also focuses on the politics of the body of the trafficked woman, discussing how the female body has been abused and condemned through manipulation and oppression. This article also reveals how systems of oppression, namely patriarchal cultural practices and gendered discrimination, have helped form a prejudice and suppression of Vietnamese women. Ketu Katrak and Elleke Boehmer’s discussions on the politics of the female body construct the basis of this article’s theoretical framework. At the same time, the literary approach of ‘lived narratives’ offers a unique blend of multiple disciplines of study, including literature, sociology, gender, and politics, to discuss sex trafficking in Malaysia. Overall, this article provides a glimpse into the complex dynamics of sex trafficking in Malaysia.
The passing of award-winning Malaysian author and academic K.S. Maniam on 19 February 2020 has left a gaping hole in the Malaysian literary scene. A prolific writer, Maniam was influential in shaping the course of Malaysian Literature in English. His last book, Two Heartbeats Away, is a compilation of poems which came out in 2019. It is a collection of thirty-nine poems written over a span of fifty-five years, from 1964 until 3 January 2019. The poems are arranged chronologically. There is no foreword or introduction in the collection; hence it is uncertain if the task of choosing these poems from Maniam's oeuvre was his or someone else's. Maniam has written in the different literary genres but though he is revered for his novels, plays and short stories, he is not often acknowledged as a writer of poetry. However, as Two Heartbeats Away demonstrates, Maniam has a poet's eye for detail and for what is unseen and hidden. He possesses the poetic sensibility of being able to appreciate the myriad hues and dimensions of life and living. It is interesting to note that Maniam's first published work was a poem written when he was twenty-two years old. For me, it was tempting to see the first poem in the collection, "A Pack of Cards", as that very first published piece because it is dated 1964, the time
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