Alternative assessment: exploring the effectiveness of self-assessment practice among engineering students

There are numerous ways available for lecturers to assess their students’ learning progress and one practical way is through self-assessment. Instructors should not under-estimate their students’ capability and interest in assessing themselves. Instead they should be given the opportunity to be involved in the assessment process. One salient advantage of this practice is to enable students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses in order improve themselves. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the implementation of self-assessment as a classroom assessment tool among engineering students in Universiti Kuala Lumpur British Malaysian Institute. Specifically, this study intends to investigate the accuracy of engineering students when assessing their own writing skill and the students’ and lecturers’ reactions with regard to the use of self-assessment as one of the classroom tools for assessment in a university language course. The subjects of this study were 137 diploma students from several engineering courses. Data in the form of written assignments were collected throughout the study and analysed via students’ own analyses and lecturers’ evaluation. The findings revealed that majority of the students, most of whom were Malays, would under-rate themselves. With regard to the use of self-assessment in the classroom, most of the students remarked that self-assessment is something positive and most of them viewed the procedure as a meaningful assessing experience

Neoliberalism and its impact on English as a medium of instruction in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam / Nurul Farehah Mohamad Uri and Mohd Salehhuddin Abd Aziz

In today’s modern world economy, there is always a competition among countries as a consequence of globalization. A salient feature of globalization is the adoption of neoliberalism – a modern contemporary economic ideology. Neoliberalism ideology is spreading fast around the globe including in South East Asia. The spread and adoption of English as the main medium of communication in conducting business, trade, commerce and various fields is the direct and indirect results of the impact of neoliberalism. This ideology has brought about many changes economically, socially and educationally to these countries. This paper intends to investigate the impact of neoliberalism especially on English as a medium of instruction in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. It will focus on the implementation of CEFR which is also directly related to the adoption of neoliberalism

ASSESSING READABILITY OF A NATIONAL EXAM READING TEXTS IN MALAYSIA

This paper intends to investigate the readability level of the passages in the English paper of a national examination in Malaysia. In specific, this study seeks to identify the level of readability for reading passages of SPM English papers using readability formulas and judgement of reading experts. The readability of the English papers was analyzed using three readability formulas: Flesch Reading Ease, Gunning Fog Index and Coh-Metrix L2 Reading Index. Five reading experts were also invited to evaluate the difficulty level of the reading texts. The readability scores of these reading texts revealed that these texts were graded as “fairly easy” texts as they fell within the range of 66.7-80.6 for Flesch Reading Ease, 6.9-10.1 for Gunning Fog Index. Results of Coh-Metrix L2 Reading Index also prove the readability level of the passages. Correspondingly, the content experts noted that the reading texts were interesting and generally easy to read texts. The analyses of the reading passages have shown that the texts chosen for the English papers were reasonably appropriate for the upper secondary school students.  Article visualizations

The appropriacy and applicability of English assessment against CEFR global scale: teachers’ judgement

This study intends to identify the appropriateness of the writing and reading assessment items of the current English syllabus according to the targeted CEFR levels set by the Ministry of Education and to find out English teachers’ familiarity with CEFR writing and reading scales by suggesting suitable CEFR levels for writing and reading assessment items. An assessment checklist was used to collect the data involving 331 secondary school English teachers. Results show that most of the assessment items are found to be suitable and applicable to be used in the CEFR. This study also proves that the teachers were aware of the six levels of CEFR global scale because they were able to identify the suitable CEFR level that matches against CEFR target level set by the Ministry of Education. In conclusion, the Ministry of Education, Malaysia should consider to continue using some part of the current English syllabus and assessment instead of recommending its total abolishment

Implementation of CEFR in Malaysia: teachers’ awareness and the challenges

This study mainly seeks to investigate English teachers and Ministry of Education officials’ views on the implementation of CEFR in Malaysia. It also intends to explore the challenges encountered by the stakeholders in view of the adoption of CEFR onto Form 5 English syllabus and assessment. Data for this study were collected from questionnaires distributed to 331 English secondary school teachers and from in – depth interviews with two senior ministry officials. The findings revealed that most of the teachers had very limited knowledge, minimum exposure and low level of awareness about CEFR. Nevertheless, they were optimistic about the idea and believed that the framework is vital in order to improve the level of English proficiency of Malaysians. The officials in the ministry were also positive about the implementation plan despite the challenges and obstacles perceived. The teachers’ resistance, lack of training and negative conception that most teachers have namely it would be difficult to incorporate CEFR in their teaching are some of the main challenges identified in this study. In conclusion, the adoption of CEFR in Malaysia is seen as obligatory but sufficient time should be given by the ministry to ensure that all stakeholders are fully prepared and familiar with the framework before it is extensively introduced and used in the country

Teachers’ Evaluation of The Suitability of Reading Syllabus Specifications to The CEFR

The objectives of this study are to determine the suitability of reading syllabus specifications against CEFR reading scale and to find out if the CEFR levels of reading syllabus specifications suggested by teachers match the CEFR level set by Ministry of Education. 331 secondary school English teachers took part in this study through distribution of syllabus checklist. The teachers were required to determine if the current reading syllabus specifications are suitable and still relevant to be used against CEFR global scale. The teachers also recommended suitable CEFR levels for reading syllabus specifications. Data was analysed using Winstep since it measures suitability of an item. It was found that there are syllabus specifications which are still relevant and suitable to be used with CEFR global scale. Findings also reveal that reading syllabus specifications are aligned and matched the target CEFR level of B2 since CEFR level B1/B2 are the target level set by Ministry of Education for Form 5 English. Most of the reading skills syllabus specifications were placed at CEFR level B2 by the teachers. In conclusion, reading syllabus specifications which are found to be suitable and relevant to the CEFR should be retained so that these syllabus specifications could be used with the new CEFR aligned English syllabus

The Many Faces of Women in Selected Works by Asian Female Writers

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to look at the portrayal of women in some works by selected Asian female writers, in Particular from Hong Kong and Japan. Selected works by Xu Xi and Agnes Lam from Hong Kong and Hitomi Kanehara and Banana Yoshimoto from Japan are referred to. The study examines the representation of women in search of their identities, accomplishments, confusions and cultural dislocation within the paradigm of feminism theoretical framework. The study focuses on identifying how women are put into images by female writers, as the voice between different genders will appear to be diametrically opposed. The study yields insights on the discordance of behavior between the traditional and modern women in Asia setting