Effective cross-cultural communication is supposed to require awareness of target language pragmatic features. However, inadequate attention is paid to the development of pragmatic awareness in foreign language classrooms. To examine the actual effect of pragmatic instruction on the development and sustainability of pragmatic awareness in foreign language learners, the current study adopted an experimental design by conducting eight intervention sessions on 60 Iranian senior undergraduate learners of English as a Foreign Language at a university in Iran and three administration of a multiple choice pragmatic awareness test ISSN 2162-6952 2014 www.macrothink.org/jse 207 immediately before, immediately after, and two months following the intervention. The results of the repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that pragmatic instruction had a marked effect on the development but not sustainability of pragmatic awareness in English as Foreign Language learners. The pedagogical implications of the findings suggested the inclusion of pragmatic instruction in foreign language classrooms. Journal of Studies in Education

Reading strategies assist English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers to teach reading comprehension effectively to ESL students in developing their reading comprehension abilities. This study aimed at identifying reading strategies used by teachers that help them teach literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions to ESL students. The target population was the ESL teachers teaching at the secondary school level in Penang, Malaysia. The ESL teachers from ten secondary schools who were teaching English to Form Four students were selected through convenient sampling. A questionnaire consisting of reading strategies that help ESL teachers teach literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions developed by the researchers was used to collect data. The data were analysed through descriptive statistics to determine the frequency of reading strategies used by the ESL teachers. The findings, based on the quantitative analysis of data, revealed that the ESL teachers use different reading strategies for teaching literal and reorganisation comprehension questions but a small repertoire of reading strategies was employed for teaching inferential comprehension questions. Therefore, the researchers suggested a productive means of reading strategies to employ for teaching reading comprehension, particularly for teaching inferential comprehension questions in order to enhance ESL students' higher order thinking skills and reading comprehension abilities.

This phenomenological study investigated the reaction of the mentors and mentees in the Native Speaker Programme implemented in a rural primary school in Malaysia from 2011 to 2013 in terms of 1) programme objectives, 2) time frame, 3) motivation of the mentors and mentees and, 4) cooperation given throughout the programme. Three mentors and two mentees were interviewed to obtain their responses; and they were observed during classroom teachings and workshops. The results from the interviews and observations were triangulated to provide a comprehensive picture of the findings. It was found in the results that a strong mentoring relationship and effective communication are crucial to convey the essential information at the top-down level and to ensure that objectives are achieved. The mentoring relationship would subsequently have the bearing on their levels of motivation and to work collaboratively.

Reading strategies are essential for teachers and students, especially in an EFL classroom. However, reading comprehension strategies and effective adoption of the strategies have been challenging for both teachers and students in Malaysia. This study aimed to identify the reading strategies used and not used by students and teachers when answering and teaching reading comprehension questions and explore the discord between the responses using an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design. The participants were 91 students and five teachers from a private university in Malaysia recruited using census sampling methods. A questionnaire consisting of literal, reorganization, and inferential reading comprehension questions was administered to the students, whereas interviews and observation were used to examine the strategies targeted by teachers based on Barrett’s reading taxonomy (1972). The findings revealed that EFL teachers used a vast repertoire of strategies in teaching reading, whereas students only used a small number of strategies when answering reading comprehension questions. This study underscores the importance of the accord between the strategies taught and those utilized by L2 readers. Students’ awareness plays a key role in filling in this gap.

Framed by the face negotiation theory and intercultural conflict management concepts, this study aims to identify the facework strategies used by international undergraduates in intercultural conflicts with Malaysian instructors at a private university, and investigate the preferred effective conflict management procedures for Malaysian instructors in managing intercultural conflicts with international undergraduates. This study uses a descriptive cross-sectional design using questionnaires for data collection.  A total of 317 participants were involved: 105 Indonesian undergraduates, 106 Chinese undergraduates, and 106 Malaysian instructors. The results showed that both Indonesian and Chinese undergraduate groups have similar tendencies for integrating strategies, although they differ in avoiding and dominating strategies. For intercultural conflict management procedures, the most favourable procedure is mediation and the least favourable is ombudsman service. These findings provide instructors with first-hand data for subsequent teacher development on face-saving application. By applying the appropriate facework strategy and ways to enact it, instructors can further develop their teaching skills by creating a healthy student-teacher relationship with international students.