A good grasp of vocabulary enables language learners to articulate, comprehend and communicate ideas and concepts effectively. For learners whose first language is not English, mastering vocabulary knowledge in terms of the breadth and depth is challenging and needs to start at a young age through the use of various strategies. The lack of English language vocabulary knowledge would demotivate learners and even result in abandoning efforts to learn the language. Therefore, it is important that learners know and are able to use five strategies, which include determination, social, cognitive, memory, and metacognitive strategies to learn vocabulary. Determination and social strategies are in the discovery category, while social cognitive, memory, and metacognitive strategies are in the consolidation category. This study aims to determine the vocabulary learning strategies used by 132 Year Five primary school English language students in two urban National Type Chinese schools in Sarawak. It investigated the strategies these learners used, how frequently they used them, and their reasons for preferring particular strategies. Data were collected from two classrooms at each school through the use of questionnaire and individual interview. Questionnaire results were analysed descriptively in terms of mean scores and standard deviation while interview responses were coded, categorised and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings suggest that while the students employed moderate use of all the five strategies, cognitive strategies which involved mechanical approaches were the most used while social strategies were not used by all students.
Accepted as an integral part of education, technology in teaching and learning can enhance practice not only in the traditional class but also beyond it. Schooling can now be extended to learning beyond the four enclosed walls of the classroom into the almost limitless possibility of education across time and space accessible via the domain of cyber technology. The significant contribution of technology to education has prompted educational bodies like the Malaysian Ministry of Education to prominently point out that online learning becomes the main pedagogical approach in higher learning institutions in the nation’s educational blueprint. The powerful potential of technology however, can only be realised through informed and purposeful use of it by teachers. Integrating technology in the language classroom requires that teachers not only have knowledge about the Technology but interplay between three components of knowledge – Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) which determines the essential qualities of teacher knowledge that are required when teachers employ technology in their teaching. The main study is therefore designed to measure teachers’ readiness to use technology in teaching English language in tertiary level classrooms to enhance student learning. To serve this purpose, a pilot study was carried out on 20 English language instructors to evaluate the reliability and the validity of a questionnaire that was adapted to gauge instructors’ readiness in carrying out technology-mediated classrooms at a public university in Malaysia. Correlations among items in the current study reveals lower coefficients compared to a previous study on the same instrument probably due to the smaller sample size in the current study but the correlationships are mostly positive which still suggests convergence validity. The internal consistency of the items was mostly better than two previous similar studies. Five items that seemed to be misbehaving in their respective measures were chosen based on their inter-item correlation and the item-total statistics and scrutinized via cognitive interviews with selected respondents to gain insights into the items but the results of the interviews revealed that the items are functioning as intended.
The main goal of modern second language (L2) pedagogy is to engender appropriate communication skills among its learners. Hence, willingness to communicate (WTC) in L2 emerged as an important variable in recent years. Several factors have been found to influence students’ L2 WTC directly or indirectly. For this purpose, many scales and questionnaires have been developed so far to examine the factors influencing WTC among L2 students. However, a comprehensive questionnaire on WTC inside ESL classroom is still lacking. Likewise, WTC in relation to language use and motivational orientations in a single study has yet to be investigated. Thus, this study was aimed to develop and validate questionnaires on WTC, language use and motivational orientations. For this purpose, a five-phase model was used. After an extensive literature review, questionnaires on WTC, language use and motivational orientations were framed. Operational definitions of the three constructs were established and the items of the questionnaires were finalised. Two experts in the field of applied linguistics determined the content validity of the questionnaires. At the end, the questionnaires were piloted on 50 undergraduates and 10 ESL teachers. The results revealed that all the instruments were valid and highly reliable.
Globalisation and extensive use of technology have enhanced the status of English as an international language and increased its value as an important commodity in various fields. This has encouraged the use of English in the teaching of content subjects especially those related to science and technology in many countries across Asia. This paper starts with an overview of English medium instruction policy in the region with an emphasis on the ongoing debate regarding the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in English in Malaysia. Drawing on data from a longitudinal study which utilized questionnaires and the paper presents empirical evidence on the learners' views and experience in learning Science in English, as well as their performance in the standardized national examination. The data gathered from a total of 1000 students from urban and rural schools in Sarawak, Malaysia, indicate the they have rather positive view about their ability in English, had positive experience in learning Science in English. Their positive view and experience conform to their performance in the subject. The results also correlate with the majority of the students' language preference for learning Science which is English and bilingual instruction in English and Bahasa Malaysia. The paper ends with a discussion on possible amicable options for medium instruction issues in ESL/EFL contexts.
Reading is an important skill that needs to be developed from young among children. In supporting them to read, they will first need to learn to decode which involves understanding the alphabetic principle of the written word which is that letters characterise sounds or phonemes. Developing phonemic awareness requires explicit teaching that is systematic and thus, teachers play an important role. This study thus, uncovers the knowledge of phonemic awareness of rural primary school teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) and their related instructional practices. Data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire which was completed by five ESL teachers from a rural primary school in Sarawak. The findings revealed that the teachers had limited knowledge of phonemic awareness. Although two of them reported focussing their instructional approaches to develop their students' phonemic awareness, their self-assessment of this knowledge was low. This limited knowledge would not only affect the design of their instructional practices but also impede the reading success of young ESL learners. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature on the role of teachers and their knowledge of phonemic awareness to support the development of ESL reading among young learners. 1. INTRODUCTION The concerted view in the literature related to reading is that it concerns comprehending text (Clarke, Snowling, Truelove, & Hulme, 2010; Gaskins, 2011; Hjetland et al., 2019) which involves understanding or making meaning from the text. However, to be able to understand a text, a reader needs to first decode (Castles, Rastle, &
Communication is important to enable ideas to be transformed into informed actions. As such, the media used for such communication is crucial and play an important role in broadcasting the information. The proliferation of the Internet has greatly enhanced the important role of the media and changed the landscape of the media industry. In addition to conventional media, consumers are now able to access a variety of social media applications. Both types of media are important and needs to be considered as it continues to be consumed across demographics and play important roles in communicating information. Further, both types of media are capable of informing and shaping the views of consumers in a variety of areas from the political to the social. The important question remains as to whether increased availability, access, and connectivity to the various types of media and the information provided have enabled opportunities to media consumers to engage in discussions to stimulate civic engagement leading to activism. Research investigating users' media consumption and civic engagement with issues explored is largely not well theorised and often offer inconclusive or conflicting results. As such, the ensuing discussion proposes a way forward utilising the Reasoned Action Theory to determine the relationship between media consumption and civic engagement.
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