Preparedness for the World of Work Among Malaysian Diploma Students in a Local Institution

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of appraisal system-attitude and cooperative solidarity principle and also the perception of interviewees and interviewer of the job interview interactions. The data was collected in one of the local education institutions in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. There were 20 students participated in the study. Job interviews were recorded and analysed qualitatively by using appraisal system-attitude and cooperative solidarity principle theories. Semi-structured interviews as well as in-depth interview were done on the interviewees and interviewer to triangulate the study. The findings show that most of interviewees were covered the categories affect, judgment and appreciation but due to lacked English language proficiency, certain occurrences were not reflected to these categories. In relation to cooperative solidarity principle both interviewer and interviewees attribute to the interaction. The findings further reveal that most of the interviewees had difficulty in comprehending the standard interview questions and feeling nervous and anxious to answer the questions. Based on the in-depth interview with the interviewer, it was found that most of the interviewees were not able to expose to the standard interview questions and not able to understand the questions. It is hoped that the present study would be helpful for undergraduates, fresh graduates or in general job seekers as well as interviewer to carry out a smooth interaction in job interviews by having a better understanding on the standard interview questions

Using Rhetorical Approach of Ethos, Pathos and Logos by Malaysian Engineering Students in Persuasive Email Writings

It seems that many English language learners have deficiency to write persuasively. This portent has been observed among university students, particularly those from technical fields. Therefore, the present study examines the use of ethos, pathos and logos in persuasive email writing and determines if these features were used appropriately. The participants involved in this research were 43 third-year Malaysian engineering students. The task evaluated was persuasive email writing, and the data was obtained from an official university website forum. The data was analysed qualitatively by using Aristotelian rhetorical theory. The results show that there were some persuasive techniques used by the students in their email writing. It appears that the appeal to pathos was preferred highly in directly connecting with the emotions of the instructors. This was followed by appeals to ethos, where the students used their own ethicality and credibility to persuade the instructor into giving them an extension deadline of their classwork. The findings further revealed that appeal to logos were not used in a very persuasive manner, which could also due to avoiding logical fallacies. Therefore, the present study shows the engineering students prefer to link with emotions in their email writing in achieving their goals.  &nbsp

Challenges of Learning English in 21st Century: Online vs. Traditional During Covid-19

Free online resources are user-friendly technologies which have become available through the Internet in recent years and gaining popularity during Covid-19. Since learners use smartphones, free online resources are easily accessible. Books are portable, but learners find it somewhat difficult to learn English language via books which may only be available in the classroom context, whereas free online resources are easily accessed. The purpose of this study is to identify learners’ perception learning English via free online resources and traditional learning. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the present study. Twenty-five international pre-elementary intensive English students took part in this study. It was found that learners perceived the free online resources as valuable tools for learning English in relation to reading, conversation, and vocabulary and also free online resources help promote free learning norms in learning the English language. The learners also had constructive attitudes towards free online resources. Free online resources always provide a motivating learning environment, enhance learners’ analytical and critical thinking skills, and encourage social interaction between teachers and learners, learners and their peers, and learners and other participants

Customer Satisfaction and Commuter Service: An Evaluation of Intercity Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) Performance Delivery

The present study focuses on an evaluation of intercity Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) performance delivery on customer satisfaction and commuter services. Its objective is to evaluate the customers’ satisfaction of KTMB intercity towards the performance delivery of various services. As such, a framework was proposed for major dimensions which have an impact on the level of services satisfaction provided by my KTM commuter. Furthermore, the study employed qualitative and quantitative methods for the purpose of analysis. Data was obtained using 600 questionnaires and 18 staff via interview session. The findings show that status and age of respondents have no significant influence on safety and security, cleanliness, facilities, as well as services except between the categorical variables; quality, punctuality and price which have significant differences tangled with the performance of commuter service. From all the responses that were pointed out by interviewees, the most significant reason for the persistence of the problems is MyCommuter launched by KTM, which is the unbalanced momentum of systematic management. Also, it was realised that the heterogeneous variations of lower fairness within the system will affect the punctuality, functions of commuter, the breakdown of the trains, limitation of commuters, and etc in a negative direction. Important areas of priorities for the improvisation of commuter services are the holistic coordination of effective and continuous monitoring of system in terms of systematic management. Lastly, the present study suggests conducting an extensive study in comparing KTMB and ETS services to enhance the quality of their services

Challenges Faced by Hearing Impairment Students During COVID-19

Social distancing and other protocols required during the COVID-19 pandemic have been particularly difficult for students who are disabled, especially hearing impairments students. During the Covid-19, many disabled students were impacted physically, mentally and their interactions may have been hindered. That could be one of the barriers for full and active participation in society during the Covid- 19. Therefore, this study aims to discover the challenges faced by hearing impairment students how it affects the communication and mainstreaming process. The data was collected from ten hearing impairments students and analysed qualitatively. The participants were aged between 19-22 and currently studying foundation programme in culinary arts in a skill transformation center. The participants were interviewed using impromptu interview questions via WhatsApp, which lasted about ten minutes for each participant. The findings show that there were four challenges faced by the hearing impairment students; hearing devices, disruption to comprehend the lesson, not familiar with the online devices and emotionally affected during online classes. The findings further reveal that the hearing impairment students hampered their social interactions skills towards others during the pandemic. It is hoped the findings would be useful for academicians, counsellors, doctors and other job professions to explore further research on hearing impairments and the framing of methodology to assist the hearing impairments in engaging with the society during the pandemic

An Analysis of Sentence-Like Utterances of IELTS Mock Speaking Test Scripts

The present study examines non-Malaysian candidates’ performance in an IELTS mock speaking test with regards to their use of different types of sentence structure utterances. Audio recorded data was obtained from eight students of three different levels of proficiency, namely; foundation, intermediate and advanced, in which thereafter an analysis was carried out using Radford (1990; 1997) sentence types. A semi-structured interview was also employed to gauge the candidates’ opinions on answering the test questions as well the interlocutor’s views on the candidates’ performance. The test was conducted by an IELTS trained interlocutor. It was found that most candidates were able to understand the questions, their responses were mainly simple sentence utterances indicated by many disjointed and choppy ideas. The semi-structured interview answers show that most candidates’ high level of nervousness and anxiety caused them not to be able to speak fluently, and as a result, their ideas were expressed in simple sentence structures that lacked logical coordination. It is hoped that the findings of the present study would help the current IETLS course module developers to integrate lessons on the different types of sentence structures in training test candidates to express complete and complex structured responses

Customer Satisfaction on the Quality of Services of Local Skin Care Products

The purpose of this research is to find out more information on the satisfaction of customers on the quality of services of local skincare products. Quality is the most important element that is closely related to the satisfaction of a customer. The chosen brand that has been observed for this research is NSA Beau that is formulated from their own serum called the AINAA Serum. Customers face difficulties regarding the availability and quality of skin care products. Besides that, the local industries in skincare products are also facing problems such as low-quality products, that influence the perspective of the person. This includes bad reviews due to their ineffectiveness on certain people who have a certain type of skin. It is suggested that the level of quality of service is an indication of the organization’s ability to meet the desires and demands of customers’. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine customer satisfaction based on their perceptions of local skincare products based on its quality. It also indicates the discovery of the local skincare products in Malaysia that are used by the society on a daily basis. Hence this research examines the reliability of these local skincare products. Online surveys were conducted on university students and working adults in Malaysia to find their perspectives and opinions on the quality of a brand when the brand is used, the effectiveness of its promotion, the image of the brand and its preference. It can be seen that quality is the most important factor for a person to buy especially a skincare product. The research also shows that there are specific important reasons in decision making to purchase a skincare product. An example is the effectiveness of the brand especially its quality, advertisement of the product, the image the brand holds and other reasons that effect the variables

User Satisfaction of the Free Shuttle Bus Service in Petaling Jaya

Public transportation brings more convenience to customer in urban and rural areas. In Malaysia, awareness of using the PJ City bus by passengers in Petaling Jaya is still limited. Many passengers are still unsatisfied with the services provided because the shuttle bus is zero-priced services, so the quality of services are always questioned by access users. Therefore, this current study is to investigate the influences of value, quality and reputation of free shuttle (PJ City) bus services towards customer satisfaction. Understanding what customers expect is very important as it will help to improve the services. Data were collected from users of PJ City bus using a survey questionnaire. The finding further revealed that, value positively influenced the satisfaction of customers. So, it is important for the service provider to enhance its value to the customer

Influence of Branding Loyalty on Consumer Sportswear: A Case Study on Adidas

Brand loyalty creates long term relationship between customer and brand. As a sportswear brand, to adopt a general customer loyalty to a brand, quality of the product and price are the crucial factors. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the respondents are influenced by factors of brand loyalty towards sportswear products. Previous research adopted seven factors to test in the Malaysian environment. The seven factors of brand loyalty are brand name, product quality, price, style, promotion, service quality and store environment. Brand name has shown strong correlation with brand loyalty. In order to increase customer satisfaction and attach them to be brand loyalists, marketers are encouraged to develop aggressive marketing programs. Questionnaires were distributed to 148 respondents. The research results have shown that there is positive and significant relationship between factors of brand loyalty (brand name, product quality, price, style, promotion, service quality and store environment) with certain sportswear brands. Others study on more focused factors that are appropriate to the Malaysian environment is recommended in order to obtain accurate information

Gender interaction in negotiation of meaning among high proficiency ESL learners / Hee Sio Ching

It is claimed that the augmented use of electronic communication has fully embraced and hampered Generation Y interactions (Wei Liu, 2012, Punitha 2008). Due to prolonged use of high technology tools (Punitha, 2008), leading them to rely on e-communication as a preferred tool of communication and somehow isolate them to a new environment (Black, 2010), an environment away from social and learning activities. It rather seems that face to face interaction tend to occur less frequent than e- communication. This study analyses the linguistic output produced by high proficiency ESL learners during face-to-face interaction, focusing on the Generation Y participants born in the year of 1990 – 1996 who have just completed secondary or higher secondary schools. Generation Y consists of those who were born in the year of 1980 – 2000 and are also known as ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001). They are labelled as ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001) because they are the first generation who grew along with the evolvement of high technology, naturally perceptive of digital language (Black, 2010) and highly involved in interacting with advanced technology tools and are used to interacting with their peers within a computer – mediated environment. Currently there are limited studies on negotiation of meaning that have focused on this particular group of learners (Kotter, 2003; Tam, 2009; Bower & Kawaguchi, 2011). Because of this less is known about the patterns of interaction of this particular group of ESL learners in face to face environment. Therefore, this study aims to address this gap (patterns of interaction) by analysing how high proficiency Gen Y learners negotiate meaning. whether gender plays a role in the interaction. iv The participants involved in the study were 15 females and 15 males, 30 in total and paired in a single – gender matched dyads and mixed – gender dyads. Studies have suggested that the familiarity of participants with each other could affect the output of the interactional patterns (Boulima, 1999; Robinson, 2000; Varonis & Gass, 1985b). For this study the familiarity among the participants are considered moderate as they were in their first 6 months of their course and are constantly engaged in group activities. A decision making two – way tasks were utilized to elicit the data and the analysis of the data was based on a framework by Varonis and Gass (1985b) and Pica et. al’s (1989) schema on negotiation routines. The results revealed that the males took greater advantage of the conversation by producing semantic modification as in more ‘talk’ for comprehensible output especially in a mixed – gender dyads as opposed to in the single matched dyads. In terms of number of words and number of turns within the negotiation routines, the males again tended to produce more than the females in both dyads setting. The females, however, have been shown to utilize the conversation for comprehensible input. The evidence points out that the females have greater tendency to acquire the language in signalling during the negotiation of meaning. Hence it can be concluded that the males from Generation Y tend to dominate the language through comprehensible output whereas the females prefer to request for more input in the conversation