READABILITY OF ESL PICTURE BOOKS IN MALAYSIA

Predicting readability of a reading text for second language learners is important for teachers, educators, and other concerned parties to make sure the text matches targeted readers’ proficiency. Suitable reading materials would promote language development among readers, especially children. In Malaysia nowadays, English story books for children which are published locally can be easily found in libraries or bookstores. However, the readability of these reading materials has remained uncovered. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the readability of Malaysian English children story books on five aspects (narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, referential cohesion and deep cohesion) as provided by the computational tool, Coh-Metrix Common Core Text Ease Readability Assessor (T.E.R.A). Ten local English children story books were selected as samples. It was found that the majority of the samples have high narrativity, syntactic simplicity, and word concreteness but average referential cohesion and deep cohesion. The result revealed that there is lack of attention given to the aspect of cohesion in children story books. This study recommends that children book writers consider the readability of ESL children story books to help children’s language development.  Keywords: readability, assessment of reading materials, Coh-Metrix, picture books, childrenCite as: Ismail, A., & Yusof, N. (2016). Readability of ESL picture books in Malaysia. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 1(1), 60-70.  http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol1iss1pp60-7

The practice of biodiversity −related indigenous knowledge in Kota Belud, Sabah: a preliminary study

Indigenous knowledge is a set of principles, skills, practices, rituals, and customs developed by a particular race, inherited from generation to generation. Indigenous knowledge offers a unique and holistic understanding towards every aspect of life. In biodiversity conservation, integrating indigenous knowledge has become a trend. In many studies, indigenous knowledge has been proven to present a more human ecological approach to manage biodiversity loss. This paper aims to explore the practice of indigenous knowledge by looking at three components of indigenous knowledge system viz. agriculture, traditional medicine, and river management. A preliminary study was conducted in Kota Belud. Data was collected through a focus group discussion through purposively sampled informants consisting of Bajau, Dusun, and Iranun. The findings of the study revealed that the indigenous peoples in Kota Belud still practiced their knowledge. This study also emerges some issues related to indigenous knowledge mainly in knowledge degradation

Traditional knowledge and environmental conservation among indigenous people in Ranau, Sabah

Traditional knowledge is a form of continuation of the inherited knowledge of a race from its forefathers. This traditional knowledge represents a holistic understanding of an indigenous society towards its day-to-day practices and environment, based on their life experiences, interacting with nature over a span of countless centuries. The bulk of this traditional knowle-dge has been adapted by means of traditional songs, stories, legends, dreams, and also other methods and living practices of the indigenous societies. At times, it is translated in the form of customs that are inherited from father to son or from mother to daughter. This knowledge is disseminated first-hand from one individual to another. Indigenous societies are citizens in free countries who are considered as natives, who have their ancestry from inhabitants who had been residing in a certain country or geographical region of an indepen-dent country, at the time of colonial conquest

Penghayatan dan kesedaran partriotisme dalam kalangan pelatih Program Latihan Khidmat Negara

The main objective of this study was to assess level of knowledge, perception and understanding among youth in the context of awareness and national spirit of patriotism. Data were collected using questionnaires with 1010 respondents from all state in Malaysia. Generally, findings indicated that majority of the respondents had high level of knowledge (83.5%), perception (98.7%) and understanding (83.1%) of patriotism. Findings also showed that the difference in races among Malay, Chinese, Indian and native of Sabah and Sarawak influence on the varied perception of patriotism and nationalism. Study also found that there was no significant difference between gender and the spirit of patriotism

Development of ESP courseware via the world wide web (WWW): a computational linguistics analysis approach

english language programmes that are being designed to meet specific needs of the learners would benefit not only the learners themselves but also their stakeholders. An example of an English language programme that has been designed to meet the english for Specific Purpose (ESP) needs of Civil Engineering (CE) students of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) is the programme called English for Civil Engineering or ECE. This programme was a three- semester programme that has been planned through very close collaboration between the faculty of Civil Engineering (FCE) and the Department of Modern Languages (DML). The ECE programme ‘rests on the principle that language learning is and should be part of the mainstream CE programme (DML of UTM, 1996). Its ultimate aim was to be able to assist CE students in using English for executing their academic work assigned by their faculty, the FCE. In general, the ECE programme was mainly intended to ‘serve as the foundation of the long term objective of enhancing the marketability of CE graduates by integrating language training into the overall training plans of the FCE’ (DML of UTM, 1996). The ECE programme offered three different courses which are UHB1312, UHB1322, and UHB2332, to the CE students. Although it is subdivided into three courses, that is, one course per semester, the courses should be regarded as a continuous and coherent training scheme. Hence, in general, the ECE programme intends to assist the CE students in extracting information for written and oral communication for both academic and professional purposes. In relation to the second course of the programme, UHB1322, in every phase of the course, the students are required to perform two parallel and complementary types of activities – the core activities and the support activities (also called pedagogic activities). The core activities are activities which would train the CE students to extract information from texts related to Civil Engineering Materials (one of the core topics in Civil Engineering), that are written in English, and consequently, make notes from them. These notes would then be used to write essays and reports related to Civil Engineering Materials (CEM). As for the pedagogic activities of the UHB1322 course, they are activities which lead to and support the core activities of the course. All pedagogic activities such as the reading of texts, vocabulary/glossary work and language exercises, will be related to the topic on Civil Engineering Materials. In relation to the above pedagogic activities, they are very time-consuming as they require several classroom sessions with the language instructor. They also require frequent referencing to an extremely limited number of monolingual and bilingual Civil Engineering dictionaries as well as English CEM textbooks in the UTM library. In order for the CE students to perform the pedagogic activities much more efficiently and efficaciously, a unique self-access courseware that can be accessed via the WWW (World Wide Web, Web or Internet) using the computational linguistic analysis approach, has been designed for the ECE programme in UTM, which will be referred to as ‘UNITEKMA ECE Courseware’. This chapter aims to describe the process of producing the prototype of the above courseware in which its lessons focus both on content words and language structures taken from texts on Civil Engineering Materials. The following sections of this chapter will discuss related literature to the design of the courseware

Malaysian Children Storybooks as ESL Reading Materials

English as a Second Language (ESL) reading materials for children are important in second language development. It is believed that language cannot be taught in a vacuum context as language functions within a culture. Even though learning a language requires learning about the culture unconsciously, learners’ culture should be taken into consideration as well. The study aimed to identify the difference between Malaysian picture storybooks and Malaysian chapter storybooks in terms of readability by using a computational tool, Coh-Metrix TERA. This study also aimed to discuss the suitability of the samples’ readability in relation to the second language comprehension and cognitive development theories. The study collected 10 locally published picture storybooks and chapter storybooks each. The narrative texts from the books were extracted and assessed by Coh-Metrix TERA. It was found that picture storybooks are different from chapter storybooks in terms of the amount of concrete words, referential cohesion devices, and familiar words in the texts. In general, the samples’ readability is in line with the cognitive development theory. However, they can be improved in terms of cohesive devices and familiar words. In brief, Malaysian picture storybooks and chapter storybooks are suitable to be used as reading materials to learn English for Malaysian children. Nevertheless, weak readers may require adult assistance in certain parts of the books

A new model to teach literature for pre-training teaching programmes in Malaysian schools

This research was carried out to determine the current practice and perception that teachers and students have about the Literature Component incorporated into the English language subject designed for the Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM). The information acquired from this research was used to propose a suitable teaching model that could be adopted in the training of pre-service teacher trainees in the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) programme in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. For data collection, two sets of questionnaires were designed. The first set was distributed to 26 secondary school teachers; while the other set was circulated among 420 form one to form five secondary school students in the area of Johor Bahru. The overall findings of this research show that both teachers and students have very positive perception of the teaching and learning of the Literature component in the English language subject. However, a significant finding of this research shows that there is a difference in the methodological approaches applied in the teaching of literature by experienced English language teachers as opposed to the inexperienced ones. Based on the results of this research, a teaching model suitable to be used to teach literature in the Malaysian context was recommended to be used in the training of the future TESL teachers to become creative and confident of using literature in teaching the English language

Malaysian Children Storybooks as ESL Reading Materials

English as a Second Language (ESL) reading materials for children are important in second language development. It is believed that language cannot be taught in a vacuum context as language functions within a culture. Even though learning a language requires learning about the culture unconsciously, learners’ culture should be taken into consideration as well. The study aimed to identify the difference between Malaysian picture storybooks and Malaysian chapter storybooks in terms of readability by using a computational tool, Coh-Metrix TERA. This study also aimed to discuss the suitability of the samples’ readability in relation to the second language comprehension and cognitive development theories. The study collected 10 locally published picture storybooks and chapter storybooks each. The narrative texts from the books were extracted and assessed by Coh-Metrix TERA. It was found that picture storybooks are different from chapter storybooks in terms of the amount of concrete words, referential cohesion devices, and familiar words in the texts. In general, the samples’ readability is in line with the cognitive development theory. However, they can be improved in terms of cohesive devices and familiar words. In brief, Malaysian picture storybooks and chapter storybooks are suitable to be used as reading materials to learn English for Malaysian children. Nevertheless, weak readers may require adult assistance in certain parts of the books

The Readability of Malaysian English Children Books: A Multilevel Analysis

These days, there are more English books for children published by local publishers in Malaysia. It is a positive development because the books will be more accessible to the children. However, the books have never been studied and evaluated in depth yet. One important factor in assessing reading materials is readability. Readability determines whether a text is easy or difficult to understand and a balanced mix of both can promote learning and language development. Various researchers mentioned a multilevel framework of discourse that any language assessment on a text should take into account. The levels that were proposed were word, syntax, textbase, situation model and genre and rhetorical structures. Traditional readability measures such as Flesh Reading Ease Formula, Gunning Readability Index, Fog Count, and Fry Grade Level are not able to address the multilevel because they are based on shallow variables. In contrast, Coh-metrix TERA provided five indices that are correlated to grade level and aligned to the multilevel framework. This study analyzed ten Malaysian English chapter books for children using this Coh-metrix TERA. The result revealed that the Malaysian English children books were easy in shallow level but there was a possible difficulty in textbase and situation model level because of the lack of cohesion. In conclusion, more attention should be given on deeper level of text rather than just word and syntax level.

Career development intervention module: towards enhancing unskilled workers in Malaysia

This study validated and tested the reliability of Career Development Intervention Module (CDIM) meant for unskilled workers within the context of Malaysia. The module was developed based on Intelligent Career Model (ICM), with incorporation of Sidek’s Module Development Model (SMDM) at the time of the development process. The content validity of the developed module was determined by gaining feedback from a panel of five experts during the module development phase. The reliability test was performed via pilot test that involved 30 unskilled workers in a vehicle assembly plant. The participants were composed of young employees who had joined the selected company for less than three years and yet to obtain certification for their skills. The validation analysis revealed that the panel of experts was in agreement with the suitability of the developed CDIM for unskilled workers in order to improve their career competencies. The outcomes of the pilot test displayed that the objectives of each sub-module (Knowing-Why, Knowing-How, and Knowing-Whom) were successfully met. Therefore, this study ascertains that the developed CDIM is indeed suitable for unskilled workers, especially towards enhancing their career competencie