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This paper presents a feasible framework for building bridges between schools and homes to develop five year olds ESL literacy skills, using storybooks as a springboard. A reading program, i.e. Smart Partnership in Reading in English (SPIRE) was designed in response to the government's aspiration to raise literacy rates to 100% by 2020 and the Minister of Education's call for both parents and teachers to play a more active role for reading to be developed as part of the Malaysian culture. Evidence of the positive effects of storybook reading abounds in the literature and various successful reading programs that bridges schools and home to develop L1 literacy have been carried out, particularly in the UK and USA. However, a similar approach appears to be not adopted in Malaysia. Hence, the SPIRE project was conceptualised to make schools more "permeable" and to move L2 literacy from the classroom into the L2 naturalistic context at homes. 25 multiracial children, their parents and the class teacher participated in this project. Storybooks and other multimedia materials were frequently and repeatedly read/listened to in school, and were taken home for parents to scaffold their children's ESL literacy development at home. The mixed method approach, using numerous instruments was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. The study found that the children's progress corresponded to the storybook reading experiences at home. The children, whose parents displayed higher levels of involvement made faster progress compared to the children whose parents were less involved. Consequently, 16 children made substantial improvements and were independent readers at the end of the six months project.

Background – The importance placed on having good English language proficiency and skills to secure employment in Malaysia is a well-known fact. However, very little is known about the role of the English language in multilingual organisations within the agricultural industry in Malaysia. As such, this study aimed to examine the employees’ perception of the use of the English language in a professional context particularly in the Malaysian agricultural and agricultural related sectors.     Methods – A concurrent triangulation design was used to quantitatively evaluate the data. A total of 320 questionnaires from employees of 10 agriculture and agriculture related companies were analysed.  Additionally, interviews were also conducted with 10 employers from the human resources department as they provided deep insights into the language matters of the organisations.       Results – The employers and employees agree that English language proficiency has economic value and can play an important role at the workplace, as this skill can influence one’s career path in terms of employability and career progression.       Conclusions - From the standpoint of employees, a more insightful idea on the influence of English on career development in the agricultural industry has been obtained. These findings have implications for learning outcomes of students, education system, and policymakers aspiring for the human capital which is needed for Malaysia to become a high income and developed nation.

Purpose -This study aimed to investigate the extent to which employees use English and other languages in the various communication channels in an agricultural organisation.Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected from a multinational agriculture company using the quantitative approach via questionnaire distribution. A qualitative approach based on interviews was employed to support the quantitative findings.Finding -The results illustrated that flexibility exists where both employers and employees typically use either Bahasa Malaysia or English as the language that works best for a given situation and in the organisation's best interest.Originality/value -The study offers greater clarity on language use and choice in agricultural companies in multilingual countries, such as Malaysia, which depends heavily on migrant workers.

All of the articles in this proceedings volume have been presented at the [International Conference on Communication, Language, Education and Social Sciences] during [25-27 July 2022.] in [Multimedia University]. These articles have been peer reviewed by the members of the [Technical Committee