Engaging Students in Public Discourse Using ICT

An important objective of university education is to produce graduates who will be leaders of a community, the nation, and the world. In today’s era of the internet and globalisation, where discursive and rhetorical skills feature strongly in influencing public opinion and mobilising social action, a leader needs to possess the ability to participate effectively in public discourse, that is, communication in the public sphere that touches on the concerns of the community and the world. This is true for leaders across all disciplines and professions, business leaders included. This paper presents insights obtained from an initiative carried out at Universiti Putra Malaysia where the online discussion board or forum platform was used as a means to inculcate the skills of public discourse in English through the online media. Practical aspects for the implementation of an online forum project that include level of participation, use of English, moderation, public orientation, and affective barriers are also presented

Engaging students in public discourse using ICT

An important objective of university education is to produce graduates who will be leaders of a community, the nation, and the world. In today’s era of the internet and globalisation, where discursive and rhetorical skills feature strongly in influencing public opinion and mobilising social action, a leader needs to possess the ability to participate effectively in pubic discourse, that is, communication in the public sphere that touches on the concerns of the community and the world. This is true for leaders across all disciplines and professions, business leaders included. This paper presents insights obtained from an initiative carried out at Universiti Putra Malaysia whereby the online discussion board or forum platform was used as a means to inculcate the skills of public discourse in English through the online media. Practical aspects for the implementation of an online forum project that include considerations for level of participation, use of English, moderation, public orientation, and affective barriers are also discussed

English language communication training needs of front office assistants of hotels in Kuala Lumpur.

In this study, English language communication training needs of Front Office Assistants were identified and described. Eight hotels of 4-star and 5-star rating in Kuala Lumpur participated in the survey, from which a total of 44 Front Office Assistants and 26 Managers responded. The main aim of the study was to determine which areas of job-based communicative activities deserve emphasis in a training programme for Front Office assistants. Also, the difference in perceptions between the Front Office Assistants and their managers regarding the training needs was explored. Data were collected via needs assessment questionnaire which requested a rating by the respondents of the proficiency level of Front Office Assistants on 35 communicative activities, and the relevance of these activities to the job of Front Office Assistant. The result was a description of the English language communication training needs of the subjects comprising the degree of training need for each communicative activity and the rank order of the activities according to training importance

English Language Communication Training Needs of Front Office Assistants of Hotels in Kuala Lumpur

In this study, English language communication training needs of Front Office Assistants are identified and described. Eight hotels of four and five-star rating in Kuala Lumpur took part in the survey, from which a total of 44 Front Office Assistants and 26 managers responded. The main aim of the research was to determine to what extent an English language communication training need exists among the Front Office Assistants, and which areas of job-based communicative activities deserve emphasis in a training programme. Also, further details of the needs of the Front Office Assistants were obtained by exploring the difference in perceptions between the Front Office Assistants and their managers regarding the needs of the Front Office Assistants. Data were collected via a needs assessment questionnaire, which required information amongst others, a rating by the respondents of the proficiency level of Front Office Assistants on 35 communicative activities, and the relevance of these activities to the job of Front Office Assistant. The result was a description of English language communication needs of the Front Office Assistants, comprising a numerical representation of the overall degree of need for such training, the degree of training need for each communicative activity, the ranking order of the communicative activities according to training importance, and comparison between the perceptions of the two respondent groups as regards the proficiency level of the Front Office Assistants, the relevance of the communicative activities to the job of Front Office Assistants, and the training importance of the communicative activities. The overall findings show that an English language communication training need exists for Front Office Assistants and that the managers felt the Front Office Assistants needed training in more of the communicative activities than the Front Office Assistants did themselves

Needs versus wants: comparing job-related and personal needs of non-academic university employees for English language training

In company-sponsored workplace training programmes, training developers have traditionally focused on employees' job-related needs when designing the training curriculum, in line with conventional wisdom in the practice of human resource development. The personal needs of employees that are not directly related to job demands, commonly labelled as 'wants', are often not considered as important. In the realm of English language learning, however, research and theories have pointed to the importance of learner factors and their motivation for language learning. The sources of motivation, in particular integrative motivation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972), that arise from the learners' personal lives should not be neglected. This study compares the job-related and personal ESL (English as a second language) training needs of a group of non-academic employees of a public university in Malaysia. It investigates the extent to which personal needs are important motivators as compared to job-related needs in workplace English language learning. The framework of this research on workplace learning is informed by theories and concepts developed in the fields of motivation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972; Dornyei, 2005) and domains of language use (Fishman, 1972), as well as workplace training literature (Kraiger and Aguinis, 2001 ; Machin and Treolar, 2004; Tsai and Tai, 2003 ). Data were collected through a questionnaire containing statements of personal and job-related needs. The needs were rank-ordered to identify the most important needs. The results showed that on the whole, the employees found both personal and job-related needs equally relevant. However, analysis of the most important needs indicated a clear preference for personal needs. The results have implications for both the design and instruction of workplace ESL programmes for the study's population, and challenge the common practice of focusing only on job-related language needs in workplace ESL programmes. Finally, the results provide empirical support for the conceptualisation of an L2 workplace training motivation model which takes into consideration personal needs as an important component

A framework for an online forum for a writing course.

The bane of teaching writing is that there is a scarcity of CALL (computer-assisted language learning) courseware that can effectively teach writing. Conventional CALL systems are unable to interact realistically and meaningfully with students and to provide the motivation for students to write. The success of e-Learning 2.0 that creatively applies technologies for social networking to education has pointed out a new direction for CALL. Based on insights from e-Learning 2.0, an online forum was developed and implemented as the CALL component of a writing course for ESL English as a second language) learners in a university in Malaysia. The online forum project was conceptualised with the specific aim of helping to achieve the objectives of the classroom-based writing course it complements. With proper planning and implementation, the forum technology can be successfully utilised to complement writing instruction. This paper presents the framework that was used to guide the designing of the forum. It describes the five basic components of the framework, that are course objectives, the model adopted for the forum, pedagogical considerations, control, and teacher role

Scripted communication for service standardisation? what analysis of conversation can tell us about the fast-food service encounter

In highly routinised service encounter interactions, communication is often guided by service scripts that are the material embodiment of institutional expectations of how the service interaction is to be conducted. However, counter to common belief that scripted communication is well-controlled and homogeneous in its execution, observation of actual talk reveals interesting patterns and variations that reflect the ways in which participants make meaning of and perform their respective roles within the interaction towards achieving the overall goal of the service communication. Applying the analysis of speech functions and sequential order of talk in audio-recorded verbal exchanges between servers and customers at the service counter of a fast-food restaurant, acts in the fast-food service interaction are interpreted and explained in relation to management-prescribed service script, servers’ script-in-use and customers’ script within an institutional discourse framework. Findings from the study have important implications for service management and training as it addresses the tension between the practices on the ground and those sanctioned by the organisation

Issues and challenges in courseware development : a project managers perspective.

Many educational institutes venturing into courseware development to create online learning materials for their own students are often not aware of the challenges that lie ahead in managing courseware development projects. This paper highlights the potential challenges a courseware development project may face. It discusses lessons learnt from development projects carried out in Malaysia for content and language-based courses. Particularly, real cases will be presented to highlight challenges and the steps that were taken to overcome them within the constraints of time, budget, curriculum demands, client expectations, and competencies of content providers

Towards self-access CALL: what students say.

The success of CALL (computer-assisted language learning) self-access centres depend largely on students’ receptivity towards the use of CALL in their learning,as well as their motivation to use the facilities offered. Lack of exposure to self-access learning and computer skills required for CALL also contribute to under-utilisation of CALL self-access facilities. In UPM, in line with the direction the university is taking to encourage more student-centred learning to complement classroom teaching, a pilot CALL programme involving the participation of 1800 students was implemented as a platform to provide initial exposure to the CALL self-access mode of learning. At the end of the programme, a survey was carried out to evaluate the extent of students’ receptivity to the CALL self-access mode of learning, their acceptance of the courseware used, their preference for the types of activities, and feedback on the implementation aspects of the programme. This paper presents the survey results obtained from the project that represent feedback on the programme from the students. Students’ perception of the programme provides valuable information on how well the programme is received and how ready the students are to the practice of self-access CALL. The results of this survey will inform the university’s effort towards the implementation of full-fledged self-access CALL programmes

A genre-based investigation of the introduction sections of academic oral presentations / Kuldip Kaur Maktiar Singh … [et al.]

The academic oral presentation (henceforth AOP) is an important genre for tertiary students across various courses and disciplines in the university. Despite the importance of AOPs for undergraduate students, relatively little is known about this genre. Using Swales’ (1990, 2004) notion of move analysis, this paper compares the rhetorical structure of the introduction sections of academic oral presentations from two different fields, namely English language and Administrative Sciences. The findings show some similarities in the AOPs whereby the introduction section contained three moves, and their related steps were similar to previous studies on the rhetorical structure of oral presentations but with few variations. The linguistic features used were also found to be similar in both corpora revealing that students were able to transfer their rhetorical knowledge and linguistic features from one context to another. This study reveals that variation in AOPs is possible in different courses and disciplines. Thus, having genre awareness can help students adapt their genre knowledge to the context