Speaking ability is one of the integral language components in English language acquisition. This ability is a challenging one to master for ESL learners, as it involves several linguistic and nonlinguistic features in presenting ideas and it is frequently associated with anxiety. Public speaking anxiety is a common issue faced by students learning a second language. Feelings such as stage fright and nervousness could contribute to their anxiety in communicating using the target language. Additionally, the classroom environment, the presence of the instructor and peer pressure could also be factors which pose a threat for students, particularly in public speaking settings. The present study aims to investigate whether public speaking anxiety can be alleviated through the use of online platforms and/ or video blogs. The creation of personal video blogs could potentially help learners by providing a safe and non-threatening learning environment in which to practise their public speaking skills. This study also aims to identify the factors that influence the use of video blogs as a public speaking platform. A mixed-method approach is designed to examine the effects of using video blogs. A set of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were applied to groups of tertiary level ESL learners. Quantitative and qualitative approaches to data analysis were carried out and the results indicate that the use of video blogs does bring significant positive outcomes in reducing public speaking anxiety among ESL learners.

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This paper presents the findings of two different sets of teachers' classroom ideologies and actual teaching practices. It compares a set of native and non-native English teachers that are distinct in terms of teacher training background, qualifications and experiences. This study explores the divergence and convergence of the teachers' ideologies to their actual implementation in classroom. It investigates the factors that lead to the convergence and divergence of the teachers' actual practice than their claimed ideologies. The findings of this study reveals that both sets of teachers do share the same classroom ideologies but do not apply those ideologies in a same way. The variations between the teachers exist for a variety of reasons, factors such as nature of training, classroom context, experiences of the teachers and their backgrounds have a great influence on teaching practices.

This study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of using the Computer Assisted Repeated Reading (CARR) technique to enhance Form One rural students’ oral reading fluency (ORF). The single subject experimental design (SSED) which emphasised on the individual participant was used to collect data. Five students participated in this 12 week study in which the CARR intervention was carried out two times a week. CARR, the adaptation of the CBM/ORF procedure was used to improve the participants’ accuracy and automaticity in word decoding. Each participant’s accuracy and automaticity in word decoding before and after intervention were charted on line graphs. Accuracy was determined by the percentage of words read correctly. The participant’s initial reading accuracy which stood at   96.7%, 94.2%, 96.6%, 97.3% and 97.1% showed that they could only read at instructional level. After the CARR intervention their reading accuracy improved and stood at 98.8%, 99.2%,97.2%,98.8% and 98.0%.This showed that they can  now read the assessment texts or other texts of comparable difficulty independently. Automaticity was determined by the reading rate or words read correctly per minute (WCPM). The participant’s initial WCPM was between 104 to 143 WCPM, 85 WCPM to 127 WCPM, 99 to 128, 57 to 209 WCPM and 103 and 163 WCPM. After the CARR intervention their reading automaticity improved between 108 to 158 WCPM, 99 to 146 WCPM, 99 to 135, 52 to 120 WCPM and 114 and 167 WCPM. Based on the participants’ individual results, it can be concluded that the CARR technique was effective in improving struggling readers’ reading fluency.  The results further implied that the CARR technique will ease burnt out English teachers’ workloads. CARR is user friendly and it can help teachers to help their students become better readers while helping struggling readers to become fluent.   Keywords: Reading fluency, Accuracy, Automaticity, Repeated reading, Computer Assisted Repeated Reading (CARR)

The global spread of English language has led many classrooms in the post-colonial contexts that teach English as a second and foreign language to pursue a perpetual belief that native English teachers have different teaching ideologies and practices compared to non-native teachers. Although teachers’ ideologies are deemed to be influential in shaping their classroom pedagogical practices, not many studies have examined teachers’ ideologies and its actual implementation in classroom pedagogical practices. Many past studies in this area have focused either on teachers’ classroom beliefs or classroom practices. Thus far, there is no any empirical evidence that supports the existing belief that native and non-native English teachers pursue different teaching ideologies and practices. Thus, this study seeks to understand whether as suggested, the native and non-native English teachers pursue different teaching ideologies and practices in Malaysian ESL classroom context. This study provides insights and empirical evidences into teaching ideologies and actual classroom pedagogical practices of teachers in Malaysian ESL classroom context.