English language in rural Malaysia: situating global literacies in local practices

This paper claims that underlying the naturalisation of teaching and learning of English in the Malaysian education system are ideological pressures and political dogmas, often emerging from colonial, urban/rural and even local ethnic conflicts and hierarchies. It suggests therein lie the inherent difficulties of teaching and learning English in rural communities in Malaysia. Three paradigms frame this view in the paper: the overarching view of literacy as a situated and variable social process; the use of an ethnographic perspective in investigating English language and literacy education in Malaysia; the stance on the need for Malaysians to acquire English as an additive rather than as a deficit philosophy

Readers reading practices of EFL Yemeni students: recommendations for the 21st century

This paper investigates the reading practices of forty-five second year EFL Yemeni undergraduate students using the Four Resources Model of multiliteracy practices. The Four Resources Model of multiliteracy practices organizes reading practices into four key practices: code breaking, text participating, text uses and text analysing levels. Quantitative and qualitative methods, designed based on the Four Resources Model constructs, were used to collect data from a sample of students studying English as a Foreign Language at a university in Yemen. Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire, while qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured interviews guided by the research objectives. The findings reveal that Yemeni students were medium users of the code breaker and text user practices whereas the meaning making and text analysis practices were reported to be used in low usage. On the whole, these early findings suggest that the reading practices and reading abilities of the Yemeni students are still limited even at the tertiary level and have not developed fully with regard to reading in English. This paper reports in detail, the use of the Four Resources Model as a tool to determine reading efficacy while examining the aforementioned findings. Discussion is put forward on the implications for teaching of reading and its approaches in a Yemeni context, especially in view of the students‟ reading needs at the tertiary level in Yemen

Application of the vignette technique in a qualitative paradigm

Vignettes are short depictions of typical scenarios intended to elicit responses that will reveal values, perceptions, impressions, and accepted social norms. This article describes how vignettes were developed and used in a qualitative linguistics anthropology study to elicit those responses as experienced by mixed-heritage individuals in attaining heritage legitimacy despite their inability to speak their heritage languages. The vignettes were administered during in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Eight participants were asked to reflect and respond to prompts which revolved around typical experiences where speakers were limited by their lack of heritage language proficiency. Based on the vignettes, the participants described how the speakers would linguistically strategize to compensate their limited abilities in using the heritage languages. At the same time, the cultural means through which speakers gain legitimacy within their own heritage groups were also identified. Essentially the use of the vignettes facilitated in generating data that would have otherwise been challenging to elicit given the culturally sensitive as well as highly private nature of the phenomena under investigation. The application of vignettes provided a less intrusive and non-threatening way of obtaining perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes based on responses or comments to stories depicting lived experiences of the participants that the researcher is otherwise not privy to as an observer. However, application of this data elicitation technique can prove challenging for the researcher. A critical analysis of the development, implementation and validity of vignettes as a research tool is extrapolated here within the setting of a heritage legitimacy study as an exemplar

Reframing the effectiveness of feedback in improving teaching and learning achievement

Student feedback is established as an imperative learning and teaching technique, but feedback from students is less likely. The potential of feedback to boost learning outcomes refers to scholarly writing and is considered together as one of the most impressive methods for enhancing the success of students. In education, there is, nevertheless a lack of clarification about what feedback means and far less clarification on how one should interpret it. Feedback guides students to learn and supports them in order to achieve the aim of the lesson. The goal of this paper is to discuss teacherwritten reviews and obstacles to student feedback in order to recognise the usefulness of feedback in the education domain. Feedback from students illustrates the comprehensions, boundaries and features that knowledge should be compiled and employed to establish work or learning approach. The assessment study renders the appropriate feedback, and, in this manner, the students learn how to accomplish their learning goals. While feedback is not exclusively evaluated, these are the essential ingredients of making evaluation a mechanism for teachers’ and students’ future learning

Hypermedia literacy: an insight into English as a Foreign Language online reading processes

The advent of the Internet has generated new ways of reading for knowledge, suggesting that digital literacy is a necessity for students of this new era. Even so, there is still a dearth of knowledge in the field that can provide rich theoretical descriptions of online reading processes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) readers in the hypertext environment. This article elucidates the perceptual learning styles and the metacognitive reading strategies of English as a Foreign Language students in hypertext reading environment. Their perceived preferred practices were elicited through a questionnaire and interviews, while actual observed online behaviours were recorded with Camtasia Studio 7. Based on these data sources, patterns of reading hypermedia texts on an online reading platform were identified and compared using NVivo 9. The findings indicated that the students’ perceived as well as their preferred learning styles and metacognitive reading strategies were mostly not performed or applied by them when they were engaged in the actual hypermedia reading environment. These differences in behaviours were contributed to the reading tasks and hypermedia tools made available by the platform facilitating their reading processes. Most significantly, the study revealed that the types of hypermedia tool available enabled them to modify their previously preferred practices for other ways of reading and comprehending the hypermedia texts. Moreover, the findings have also implied that students reading hypermedia texts online can develop different choices of sensory pathways unique to digital literacy environments. Thus the findings are significant as they contribute towards the currently limited knowledge about electronic literacy and online reading processes

BRINGING READING RESEARCH IN MULTILINGUAL NUSANTARA INTO A NEW DIRECTION THROUGH EYE-TRACKING

Current understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying reading comprehension among multilinguals are typically limited to external observations of their ability to read and comprehend text. Additionally, descriptions of the nature of comprehension processes relied perilously on the use of memory taken after the reading process. In this article we introduce the potential of using eye tracking as a tool in collecting internal attention data for a deeper understanding of EFL text processing among multilinguals. The eye tracking procedures will enable researchers to combine perspectives collected from internal and external observations, to explicate and elucidate the complex cognitive processes of the multilingual when involved in reading. Since the use of the eye-tracking in reading research methodology is fairly new, particularly in multilingual contexts such as Malaysia and Nusantara in general, we will emphasize how progress has been achieved elsewhere in understanding text processing through the use of eye-tracking. The article will introduce relevant research projects that can be conducted using eye-tracking, after sketching the historical progression of eye-tracking research in the field. It concludes by suggesting that eye-tracking can provide a framework for studying the full range of the multilingual readers’ competencies in reading while expanding related theories about EFL reading.Keywords: External attention, eye-tracking, internal attention, oculomotor-behaviours, oral-comprehension and multilingual readersCite as: Mihat, W., Azman, H. & Soh, O.K. (2018). Bringing reading research in multilingual Nusantara into a new direction through eye-tracking. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 3(2), 107-123. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol3iss2pp107-12

Profiling CEFR-basic readers at primary schools through their eye movement behaviours

This study profiles CEFR-basic readers in Malaysia by examining their eye movements and fixations during reading comprehension tasks in response to the studies conducted by Cambridge Assessment in Malaysia in 2013 and 2018. To this end, forty 12-year-old school pupils at A1/A2 reading proficiency level were observed using Tobii Pro Glasses 100hz. The participants were asked to read three texts and answer ten multiple-choice questions. Data were transformed into statistics and gaze plots. The results of the experiment indicate that basic readers in this study have an average first pass duration (FPD) of 0.50-0.59 seconds and an average second pass duration (SPD) of 0.76-0.81 seconds. This study also found four pejorative behaviours that can impede the process of reading: 1) rereading at micro level, 2) limited processing capacity for sentences of more than 14 words, 3) negative skipping and, 4) desegmentation. Through these behaviours, this study highlights the importance of improving the readers’ reading skills to improve the quality of their SPD as it is related to the ability to process and integrate the various subprocesses involved in reading. While this study suggests the need for further replication in diverse reading environments, it also provides valuable insights into the current reading proficiency of Year 6 pupils in their second language

A responsive pedagogical initiative for multimodal oral presentation skills: an action research study

Poor oral presentation skills amongst ESL speakers are frequently linked to weakness in general English proficiency. However, the literature has also identified the lack of a systematic and effective pedagogical method to develop students' multimodal oral presentation skills to meet 21st century communication realities. This paper elucidates the application of a pedagogical initiative for multimodal oral presentations skills, informed by the Sociocultural Theory of Learning created by Vygotsky (1978), and the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies introduced by the New London Group (1996) and further developed by Cope and Kalantzis (2009). This initiative was experienced by 20 students through the action-reflection cycle methodology and was implemented for 13 weeks in a tertiary ESL classroom. Preliminary findings based on focus group interviews indicated that the initiative left a clear positive impact on student abilities in various multimodal components of oral presentation skills. Furthermore, the initiative positively affected students’ learning experience and raised their self-awareness of themselves as presenters. The findings also suggested that techniques employed in the initiative such as videos, feedback, collaborative learning and Web 2.0 could scaffold the students’ development of multimodal oral presentation skills. Based on these findings, significant implications for teaching oral presentation skills systematically are offered to be referred by ESL practitioners and researchers; in particular, the proposed multimodal oral presentations skills model as a multiliteracies pedagogy and the potential use of web 2.0 tools in promoting collaborative learning and creation of creative content by the learners

Aset pelancongan luar bandar daripada lensa komuniti Lembah Beriah

Sektor pelancongan telah mengalami pertumbuhan yang berterusan dan menjadi salah satu sektor ekonomi yang paling berkembang pesat di dunia sekaligus menjadi pemacu utama dalam kemajuan sosioekonomi. Aset pelancongan merupakan elemen penting dalam industri pelancongan. Terdapat beberapa elemen aset pelancongan di sesebuah destinasi seperti (1) tarikan (attractions), (2) ketersampaian (accessibility), (3) kemudahan (amenities), (4) pakej pelancongan (available packages), (5) aktiviti pelancongan (activities) dan (6) perkhidmatan sampingan (ancillary services). Lembah Beriah merupakan salah satu kawasan di dalam Daerah Kerian, Perak dan memiliki taburan bentuk muka bumi yang menarik dan boleh dibangunkan untuk menjadi salah satu pusat pelancongan di Malaysia. Kajian ini bertujuan mengenalpasti aset pelancongan yang berpotensi untuk dibangunkan sebagai produk pelancongan di Lembah Beriah. Berdasarkan kaedah kuantitatif menggunakan borang soal selidik yang diedarkan kepada 300 orang komuniti di Lembah Beriah mendapati bahawa terdapat kepelbagaian aset pelancongan di Lembah Beriah yang menarik dan berpotensi dibangunkan sebagai produk pelancongan, terdiri daripada produk alam semula jadi dan buatan manusia. Aset pelancongan alam semulajadi meliputi sawah padi dan tasik sementara aset pelancongan budaya dan warisan merangkumi seni silat, kraftangan dan gastronomi setempat