This study aimed to determine the influence of support from the school culture and classroom environment in improving soft skills amongst students. Moreover, the study explored different soft skills, school culture and classroom environments based on gender and type of schools. This study used a quantitative approach by using surveys to gather information. A total of 400 students from three different types of schools were chosen using random sampling. The three types of schools were National Secondary Schools, Religious Secondary Schools, and Technical and Vocational Secondary Schools around Selangor and Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. Data were analysed using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 18. Results confirmed the distinctions of the school culture and classroom environments with the soft skills based on the gender and type of schools. SEM analysis corroborated that the school culture and classroom environment contributed to the development of soft skills. Therefore, schools should come up with programs and approaches to improve the soft skills amongst the students to be proficient in various fields in parallel with the rapid growth of the world.

Literacy and numeracy screening (LINUS) is a program implemented by the Malaysia Ministry of Education in primary schools nationwide to increase literacy skills of students in year 1–3. This study aimed at assessing the LINUS program implemented since 2010. Model of Critical Literacy by Freebody and Luke (1990) was applied in this study. Reading and writing tests for Malay language subject were developed from the module of LINUS program and conducted on 120 students from three different types of schools, namely national schools, national-type Chinese schools, and national-type Tamil schools. The results showed that the level of reading and writing of students was average. One-way analysis of variance tests showed significant differences between ethnic and type of schools with the reading and writing proficiency of the students; students of national schools scored the highest in reading test whereas the students of national-type Chinese school performed the best in writing test. In contrast, family socioeconomic status of the students did not influence their reading and writing proficiency. Therefore, teachers should take into account ethnic and type of schools in implementing the LINUS program as the main factors determining the level of literacy, achievement, and success of the LINUS program.

This research aims to identify the correlation between metacognition and emotion regulation among pre-service teachers. 238 pre-service teachers from an Institute of Teacher Education responded to Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Based on the result, there is a significant correlation (r=0.328) between metacognition and emotion regulation among pre-service teachers. Teacher education should focus on pre-service teachers’ metacognitive development to improve emotion regulation.

This study aimed to identify the slcills readiness of Malay language teachers in National Schools in implementation of School Based Assessment (SBA) and identify whether there was any relationship between experiences of teaching among the Malay language teachers in National Schools with their skills in implementation of SBA. A questionnaire was used as an instrument in the study. The respondents consisted of 110 Malay language teachers in 35 National Schools located in the Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur. Data analysis was carried out with the aid of the SPSS program. The results showed that the readiness of teachers in terms of skills affect the implementation of the SBA, while Pearson'r correlation analysis showed that there was significant correlation between the teaching experiences of the Malay language teachers in National Schools with their skills in the implementation ofSBA. The researchers also proposed some recommendations to make the SBA a success.

This study investigated the relationship between English aural vocabulary size and L2 listening comprehension among 288 Chinese tertiary EFL learners who had mastered the first 1,000-word frequency level and were at the intermediate level of language proficiency. The Listening Vocabulary Levels Test and College English Test Band 4 were employed to measure participants’ aural vocabulary size and L2 listening comprehension proficiency, respectively. Aural vocabulary size was found to be moderately correlated with L2 listening comprehension proficiency (r = 0.38, p < 0.01). A step-wise regression analysis showed that the second 1,000-word frequency level could explain 12% of the variance in L2 listening comprehension proficiency, and academic words could add an additional 4% predictive capacity to the regression model. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the most frequent 2,000-word families and academic words could predict 14.5% of the change in L2 listening comprehension proficiency for the relatively low L2 proficiency group. However, aural vocabulary size had little impact on L2 listening comprehension proficiency for the relatively high L2 proficiency group. Findings suggest that high-frequency and academic words significantly contribute to the prediction of L2 listening comprehension proficiency, but the predictive power of aural vocabulary size decreases with increased language proficiency.