Am I understood? exploring the exercise of discourse competence knowledge in academic writing class presentations

Completing tertiary class presentations is an inherently complex effort for ESL learners undergoing EAP courses. They are confronted with tasks that require them to search for information, select relevant sources, read and write highly conventional academic genres, and present findings in an academic presentation. Presenting an essay assignment, for example, allows learners to exercise an advanced degree of discourse competence in order to create a well-organized essay. This study presents both observation and interview analyses to uncover the elements of discourse competence knowledge that relate to the exercise of discourse competence knowledge in students’ academic presentations. The study also employs an ethnographic analysis of student’s interviews, pertaining to the process of the essay map presentation. In addition to the interviews, the study also utilises class observations as part of the ethnographic analysis. The observation involved 12 students’ presentations of their essay map. Both document and ethnographic data are analysed using template analysis [see 22,23]. The study's findings suggest that there are three types of discourse competence knowledge underpinning the oral presentation of the essay assignment: public speaking, oral presentation structure, and linguistic knowledge. The implications of the study are threefold: first, students should develop the ability to exercise discourse competence to enable them to present their essay findings more accurately and appropriately; secondly, teachers should have a sound understanding of the discourse competence knowledge in order to help their students to develop and exercise discourse competence; and lastly, syllabus designers need to have a clear conceptualisation of the types of discourse competence knowledge that need to be integrated within the oral presentation section of a syllabus which takes into account all of the types of knowledge engaged in academic presentations

L2 Learners’ Preferences and Opinions of Teachers’ Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing Multicultural Class

Effective writing skills are essential for second language (L2) learners to achieve. To assist these learners, writing teachers provide methods to improve their skills in writing, and one of the methods is written corrective feedback. Despite applying written corrective feedback, L2 learners still face challenges in developing their writing skills, especially the skill to produce linguistically accurate writing. Written corrective feedback is a form of written feedback that is commonly employed pedagogically in writing class. Nevertheless, it is unsure whether or not L2 learners are benefited from this method. Therefore, this study seeks to determine the preferences and opinions of L2 learners regarding their teachers' written corrective feedback. The study adopted a mixed-methods research method, combining a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. This study involved twenty-one L2 students from various ethnic backgrounds. The findings indicate that these L2 learners of diverse ethnic backgrounds require written corrections to improve their writing correctness. As a result of the teachers' lack of effort in expressing the written corrective comments, the L2 students are unable to comprehend the corrections made. This impacts their writing accuracy. For this reason, they choose face-to-face consultation for the written CF, as it will benefit both their revisions and future writings. This study is relevant because it provides teachers with insights for enhancing the efficiency of written corrective feedback in an L2 writing class

Significations Of Family Social Structure And Friendship Relationships In Affecting Expatriate Experience: From The Lens Of Malaysia Public University Expatriate Community

This paper provides an understanding of the social structure, which is seen as a phenomenology that refers to one's thinking about the interpretation and meaning of life experience based on the presence of individuals in economic position, political scenario, statehood, and education system in a country that is not his country of origin. Thus, the interpretation among these independent expatriates is debated by taking into account the role of social structures such as family institutions and the environment of friendship in relation to the significance of expatriate experiences in the host country. In other words, the discussion presented in this paper is to achieve the objective of the study in unravelling the expatriate's interpretation of the expatriate decision, whether it is closely related to the experience of his family members during the expatriate service in the host country. The research was conducted by utilising qualitative methods of in-depth interviews with 30 expatriate academics selected from four Malaysian public universities. The appropriate respondent criteria include the following characteristics, namely (a) has resided for at least a year in Malaysia using a valid employee visa, (b) has been offered a position as academic staff and has renewed his service contract, (c) is an expatriate with his own initiative in expatriating and (d) works full time and is not classified as an exchange staff between universities or those on sabbatical leave. The study results show that the interpretation of family members on the meaning of expatriation experience gives justification for expatriate to remain in the host country. While moral support from friendship provides a positive indication of expatriate’s performance in the context of work throughout performing international duties. Further supporting social networks relationship with the local community is also one of the determinants of expatriate success in adapting to the host country environment

Students' Online Learning Readiness Amid the Covid 19 Outbreak: MCO Phase 1

Teaching on digital platforms has now become the trend, and whether it is language apps, virtual tutoring, or video conferencing tools, there has been a significant rise in usage since the Covid-19 outbreak. In this regard, the study investigated students’ readiness towards online learning during the Malaysia Movement Control Order (MCO) Phase 1. 120 students were asked to respond to a questionnaire. However, only 98 students had responded to the questionnaire. In general, the finding shows that the students were not fully ready for online learning mainly due to the limited access to the internet, and because of this limitation, they prefer to have downloadable videos and lecture presentation slides that they can access at any time asynchronously. This study has implications on identifying students’ learning needs for the digital language classroom as the base for designing the learning materials

Ensuring Urban Food Security in Malaysia during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Is Urban Farming the Answer? A Review

Urbanization and related insufficiency of food sources is due to the high urban population, insufficient urban food sources, and inability of some urban communities to afford food due to rising costs. Food supply can also be jeopardized by natural and man-made disasters, such as warfare, pandemics, or any other calamities which result in the destruction of crop fields and disruption of food distribution. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the impact of such calamities on the fresh food supply chain in Malaysia, especially when the Movement Control Order (MCO) policy was first implemented. The resulting panic buying caused some food shortage, while more importantly, the fresh food supply chain was severely disrupted, especially in urban areas, in the early stages of implementation. In this regard, urban farming, while a simple concept, can have a significant impact in terms of securing food sources for urban households. It has been used in several countries such as Canada, The Netherlands, and Singapore to ensure a continuous food supply. This paper thus attempted to review how the pandemic has affected Malaysian participation in urban farming and, in relation to that, the acceptance of urban farming in Malaysia and the initiatives and approaches of local governmental and non-governmental organisations in encouraging the urban community to participate in urban farming through peer-reviewed journal articles and other articles related to urban agriculture using the ROSES protocol. About 93 articles were selected after screening to ensure that the articles were related to the study. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in Malaysians’ awareness of the importance of urban farming has offered great opportunities for the government to encourage more Malaysian urban communities to participate in urban farming activities. Limitations such as relevant knowledge, area, and space, however, are impediments to urban communities’ participation in these activities. Government initiatives, such as the Urban Community Garden Policy (Dasar Kebun Komuniti Bandar (DKKB)), are still inadequate as some issues are still not addressed. Permanent Food Production Parks (TKPM) and technology-driven practices are seen as possible solutions to the primary problem of land and space. Additionally, relevant stakeholders play a crucial role in disseminating relevant and appropriate knowledge and methodology applicable for urban farming. Partnerships between government agencies, the education sector, and the private sector are necessary to develop modern urban agricultural technologies as well as knowledge, knowhow, and supports to build and sustain urban community participation in urban farming activities

Graduate employability in Sabah's agriculture sector: perception and expectation of employers and graduates

Graduate Employability and unemployment is a common problem in most developing countries, including Malaysia. Among the factors that that contribute to unemployablity are lack of experience, communication skills, soft skills and industry-academia gap of mismatching graduates' skills with industrial demands.In view of this, it is discovered that very few studies show graduate employability skills among agricultural graduates in Malaysia, especially in Sabah. Therefore, this study aims to identify the expectations and the important criteria in terms of skills, knowledge, or personal qualities of agricultural graduates from the Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture according to employers‟ views and to compare with graduates‟ pespective in Sabah. Besides, this research intended to identify the graduates level of awareness regarding the employers‟ expectation. This study employs a mixed approach in which interview sessions and open-ended surveys were conducted with seven government and private employers in agriculture-based companies in Sabah. A total of 77 FSSA graduates in 2019 represent new agricultural employees.Data were collected from two different sets of questionnaires. A direct comparison was made by applying the same scoring method to both employers and graduates. Overall this study shows an inverse relationship between the expectation of employers and graduates perceptions. Therefore, cooperation between institutions and industry is crucial to reduce this gap. This effort can be done by holding a round table discussion, industrial talk at the university and sabbatical training of lecturers to agricultural-related companies. The industry can also be involved in the process of establishing new programs and curriculum revisions. It is hoped that this effort will produce graduates that are matched with the needs of the industry. Hence will increase graduate employability

L2 Learners’ Preferences and Opinions of Teachers’ Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing Multicultural Class

Effective writing skills are essential for second language (L2) learners to achieve. To assist these learners, writing teachers provide methods to improve their skills in writing, and one of the methods is written corrective feedback. Despite applying written corrective feedback, L2 learners still face challenges in developing their writing skills, especially the skill to produce linguistically accurate writing. Written corrective feedback is a form of written feedback that is commonly employed pedagogically in writing class. Nevertheless, it is unsure whether or not L2 learners are benefited from this method. Therefore, this study seeks to determine the preferences and opinions of L2 learners regarding their teachers' written corrective feedback. The study adopted a mixed-methods research method, combining a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. This study involved twenty-one L2 students from various ethnic backgrounds. The findings indicate that these L2 learners of diverse ethnic backgrounds require written corrections to improve their writing correctness. As a result of the teachers' lack of effort in expressing the written corrective comments, the L2 students are unable to comprehend the corrections made. This impacts their writing accuracy. For this reason, they choose face-to-face consultation for the written CF, as it will benefit both their revisions and future writings. This study is relevant because it provides teachers with insights for enhancing the efficiency of written corrective feedback in an L2 writing class

Revisiting English Learners' Academic Writing Needs

Unlike Malaysian schools that use syllabi issued by the Education Ministry, Malaysia's public universities have full autonomy of their syllabi. English language courses and curricula in public universities are usually based on the needs of stakeholders; government, community, academicians, learners, and also parents (Avci, Ring, and Mitchelli, 2015). Traditionally, most English language courses focus on learners’ proficiency and aim to equip learners with general, social, academic, and employment language skills. In this century, there is a need to keep up with the learners’ latest needs and requirements which are closely related to technology and globalisation. This present quantitative study attempts to tap into the current needs, perceptions, and views related to academic writing in English of one of the stakeholders in a public university in Malaysia. A group of learners in a public university was given a questionnaire that contained questions related to academic writing and the English language at the undergraduate level. The findings of this study will help syllabus designers first identify the value and importance of the existing syllabi and then, if necessary, craft the syllabus based on the current needs and views of one of the university’s stakeholders

Empowering Adult Inmates with Communication Needs in an East Malaysia Prison

Communication skills are essential in our daily life because we communicate to pass information from one person to another. However, to have effective communication in a correctional environment, like prisons, is not easy. There are many distractions and barriers to communicate effectively in prisons. Although prison education should be seen as a way to educate inmates to successfully integrate in society upon their release, inmates face difficulties in getting enough reading materials, content and learning tools to enhance their communication skills. This may negatively affect their integration in society and employability after serving their sentences. Therefore, this study aimed to elicit the communication needs of the adult inmates in one of the local prisons in East Malaysia. We employed a textography research approach, where we combined textual analysis and an ethnographic method (interview), to investigate contexts, texts and practices of the prison studied. The findings showed that the inmates need to learn verbal and non-verbal communication, new technologies for communication and simple English conversations. This study is pertinent in providing insights for the development of suitable teaching and learning modules for prison learning institutions