Perception of the attitudinal function of intonation in responding to Yes/No questions: A study of non-native English language teachers

This study highlights the importance of intonation and its function for intelligibility in communication, particularly amongst teachers in ESL classrooms. It was carried out to ascertain non-native English language teachers’ awareness of the attitudinal functions that intonation carries in responding to yes/no questions. Thirty Malay English language teachers working in a language centre were taken as the sample. Two different tasks, a listening test and an open-ended questionnaire, were provided to test their knowledge and perception of the attitudinal functions of intonation with regards to the responses given to yes/no questions. The findings from this study suggest that these teachers demonstrated an intermediate level of knowledge about intonation and its attitudinal function. However, they were in agreement about the importance of intonation for communication in classrooms, with students from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The implication of this study is that teachers should provide students with sufficient exposure to the proper use of intonation in order to avoid miscommunication. Students must be made aware that correct intonation facilitates correct interpretations

Use of Video Blogs in Alleviating Public Speaking Anxiety among ESL Learners

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 non-linguistic 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

The effectiveness of asynchronous online role-play on ESL learners’ willingness to communicate

This paper investigates the use of asynchronous online role-play as a learning technique to improve ESL learners’ willingness to communicate. This study proposes two research objectives; to investigate the significant difference in ESL learners’ willingness to communicate before and after performing asynchronous role-play and to identify factors that impact the ESL learners’ willingness to communicate. A mixed-methods approach is used to understand the impact of the intervention. A set of questionnaires, reflective journal entries and a semi-structured interview were administered to tertiary level ESL students. Results from this study revealed that willingness to communicate among the participants in the treatment group significantly increased with the aid of asynchronous online role-play. Other findings identified factors such as self-confidence, teamwork, linguistic and non-linguistic factors as well as technical skills that show the feasibility of the asynchronous online role-play. The practical implications of this study would allow further exploration of learning techniques in the post-pandemic phenomenon of English language teaching and learning

Native and Non-native English Teachers’ Classroom Ideologies and its Implementation in ESL Classroom

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

Readability formulas: An analysis into reading index of prose forms

Text comprehension will suffer if the readability level is not accessible to the students. Readability formulas predict text complexity, assisting in appropriate text selection that complements students’ reading abilities to improve their language development. Therefore, the study aims to find out the reading index of the prose forms in the literature component catered to lower secondary school students ages 13 and 14 years old in Form One (seventh grade) and Form Two (eighth grade) classrooms in Malaysia. The reading index is measured by using four readability formulas which are Dale-Chall, Fog, SMOG, and Flesch-Kincaid that focuses on the words, sentences, syllables, and polysyllable words. These formulas are used to predict the level of difficulty of the prose forms. The reading index calculated from these readability formulas reveals the grade level of the prose forms. The grade level indicates the best age for reading and understanding the prose forms. Two prose forms were chosen as samples in the study. A passage is chosen from each prose form to be uploaded using the online tool. The indices obtained from the readability formulas predicted that both of the prose forms were below students’ reading age. The study implicates reading index must be taken into consideration in literary texts selection because it is an indicator of the years of education that an individual requires to comprehend the literary text clearly. Suitable reading material at students’ age level can enhance literature learning and teaching in the ESL classroom

Teacher educators' vision of an 'ideal' teacher

There is no clear definition of what constitutes an ideal teacher educator, particularly from the perspective of Malaysian educators. Developing teacher educators’ vision of an ideal teacher ensures that teachers have high levels of professional, personal, and contextual dimensions in teaching practices, including competence in the practice of professional teaching, knowledge, and understanding. Therefore, the objective of this study was to find out the range of visions of what it is to be a good teacher educator in a Malaysian teacher education institution. Seventeen teacher educators from an established university in Malaysia participated in the study. A survey consisting of eight questions was used as the research instrument. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analysed by using descriptive and textual analysis techniques. The findings reveal certain criteria of an ideal teacher such as possessing sound subject matter knowledge, mastery of both generic and content-specific pedagogy, and hands-on teaching skills. The teacher educators shared that they have to adjust their goals to attain their vision, namely the need to adapt to the current policies, new ideas, and the ever-changing educational trends. The findings also show that an ideal teacher is the one who is responsible to nurture and bring about the best learning experience for students. This research has unfolded the teacher educators’ vision of the ideal teacher and pedagogical implications reflected in every facet of their educational practices.

Using Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Methods during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia: Preservice and In-Service Teachers’ Perspectives

The world witnessed the outbreak of the Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) with lockdowns that forced most schools and other educational institutions to close down. Alternative approaches in the form of synchronous and asynchronous methods were adopted to ensure continuity in teaching and learning in this new norm of providing emergency remote education. This chapter aims at presenting preservice and in-service teachers’ views on using synchronous versus asynchronous teaching and learning methods during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. Data were elicited from three groups of preservice teachers and one group of in-service teachers from three different courses in one teacher education university in Malaysia. Implementation of the e-learning approaches including synchronous and asynchronous sessions was planned carefully based on the course learning outcomes. Important elements such as identification of the learning platform, delivering and conveying information to preservice teachers about the e-learning activities, assessment strategies, attendance, and students’ reflection were taken into consideration

Development of an automatic attitude recognition system: a multimodal analysis of video blogs

Communicative content in human communication involves expressivity of socio-affective states. Research in Linguistics, Social Signal Processing and Affective Computing in particular, highlights the importance of affect, emotion and attitudes as sources of information for communicative content. Attitudes, considered as socio-affective states of speakers, are conveyed through a multitude of signals during communication. Understanding the expression of attitudes of speakers is essential for establishing successful communication. Taking the empirical approach to studying attitude expressions, the main objective of this research is to contribute to the development of an automatic attitude classification system through a fusion of multimodal signals expressed by speakers in video blogs. The present study describes a new communicative genre of self-expression through social media: video blogging, which provides opportunities for interlocutors to disseminate information through a myriad of multimodal characteristics. This study describes main features of this novel communication medium and focuses attention to its possible exploitation as a rich source of information for human communication. The dissertation describes manual annotation of attitude expressions from the vlog corpus, multimodal feature analysis and processes for development of an automatic attitude annotation system. An ontology of attitude annotation scheme for speech in video blogs is elaborated and five attitude labels are derived. Prosodic and visual feature extraction procedures are explained in detail. Discussion on processes of developing an automatic attitude classification model includes analysis of automatic prediction of attitude labels using prosodic and visual features through machine-learning methods. This study also elaborates detailed analysis of individual feature contributions and their predictive power to the classification task

GENDER INTERACTION BETWEEN COVARIATES IN MANAGING ANXIETY VIA VLOGS

Background and Purpose: ESL learners found themselves engulfed with extreme anxiety when it comes to speaking in public. This study investigated the use of vlogs in managing anxiety between male and female undergraduate students and examined whether there is an interaction exists between both genders during the intervention that may influence the outcomes.   Methodology: This study employed a quasi-experimental design with a total of N=53 (15 males, 38 females) ESL participants from one public university in Malaysia. Before and after the intervention, a set of 'Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) questionnaires were administered. A 2x2 between subjects factorial ANCOVA (or two-way ANCOVA) was computed by controlling the pre-test scores. After controlling for the pre-test as covariate, the two-way ANCOVA was performed to see if there was an interaction impact between gender (male vs female) and treatments (with and without vlogs) in terms of anxiety level scores.   Findings: In comparison to the control group, the experimental group performed better with F(1, 48)=6.695, p<.05, which showed that undergraduate students in the experimental group displayed less anxiety when using vlogs as compared to the treatment group. However, there was no significant difference of gender influence on the effectiveness of vlogs on learners’ anxiety with F(1, 48)=1.552, p>.05, Eta-squared = .03 when using vlogs. Nonetheless, there was a significant interaction between treatment groups and gender with F(1,48)=5.22, p<.05 which indicated that the relationship between the covariate and the dependent variable is different for each treatment group.   Contributions: This study is hoped not only to encourage ESL educators to make use of vlogs in their teaching and learning, but also to inform researchers with similar interest to consider the existence of covariates of the participants that might have impacted the research outcomes.   Keywords: Speaking, anxiety, covariates interaction, gender differences, vlogs.   Cite as: Shukor, S. S., & Madzlan, N. A. (2022). Gender interaction between covariates in managing anxiety via vlogs.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 7(2), 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol7iss2pp1-2

Analisis Ethos, Pathos dan Logos dalam komunikasi kepimpinan Nama Beta Sultan Alauddin karya Faisal Tehrani

Komunikasi kepimpinan ialah penyampaian maklumat oleh pemimpin tentang budaya sesuatu organisasi, nilai teras, misi dan mesej penting untuk membina kepercayaan dalam sesuatu lingkungan masyarakat. Budaya sesuatu organisasi yang terdapat dalam teks kesusasteraan Melayu sama ada moden ataupun tradisional merakamkan peristiwa yang memaparkan hubungan pemimpin dalam masyarakat. Sesuatu peristiwa itu lahir hasil daripada komunikasi antara pemimpin dengan masyarakat yang menjadi wadah dalam penulisan. Teks kesusasteraan Melayu sama ada moden ataupun tradisional merakamkan peristiwa yang memaparkan hasil seni untuk masyarakat. Teks Nama Beta Sultan Alaudin merupakan teks moden yang ditulis dalam gaya moden namun mempunyai bahan penceritaan klasik iaitu penceritaan berkaitan kepimpinan Sultan Alaudin. Teks ini merakamkan penceritaan kisah Sultan Alaudin dari zaman kanak-kanak sehingga baginda mangkat. Kajian teks diaplikasikan dalam penyelidikan ini. Objektif kajian adalah untuk menganalisi komunikasi kepimpinan Sultan Alaudin secara bertema iaitu sub tema ethos, pathos dan logos berdasarkan teori Aristotle. Dapatan kajian menemukan bahawa Sultan Alaudin mempunyai keperibadian yang baik (ethos); mempunyai ikatan silaturahim yang rapat dengan Menteri dan rakyat (pathos) serta menyelesaikan masalah dengan kecerdasan emosi dan intelektual (logos) dalam komunikasi kepimpinan baginda. Implikasi kajian ini adalah untuk memberikan kesedaran ilmu komunikasi kepimpinan yang berkesan dalam pemilihan seseorang yang bakal memimpin sesebuah organisasi sama ada organisasi itu kecil ataupun besar seperti sebuah daerah, negeri ataupun negara