The study takes a stance to explore the political discourse speech in Malawi as the country draws... more The study takes a stance to explore the political discourse speech in Malawi as the country draws closer to the May 2019 general elections. This is a warlike zone period with different political figures pursuing, negotiating, and struggling for power. We specially mount our research to investigate how Saulos Klaus Chilima strategizes to get the winning card by exploring his voice and voice projection techniques during the launch of his party. We have hence borrowed insights from Heffer's (2013, 2018) Voice Projection framework (VPF) and used Nvivo 11 Pro software in the analysis. The study discovers that his launch speech is highly authorizing, persuading, converging, and highlighting with very few instances of centring, and indexing which made the speech more powerful, stimulating and impressive. The study brings a different dimension of analyzing political discourse by shopping a theory from Forensic discourse.
The study is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the ‘Role-Play’ method in teaching the spoke... more The study is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the ‘Role-Play’ method in teaching the spoken language to secondary school students in Malawi. The study targeted six secondary schools selected in South West and Northern Education divisions. The data was qualitative in nature and it was collected through in-depth interviews solicited from 18 English teachers. The findings indicate that the ‘role-play’ method is effective in teaching speaking skills to L2 students in Malawi. When students are involved in role-plays, speaking skills such as fluency, pronunciation, and use of gestures are developed. These speaking skills are anchored by situational real life language demands that inculcate in them registers, and remove inhibition. However, time constraints, students’ low English proficiency, special needs learners, large classes, class disruptions, and persistent learner inhibitions, were reported to be some of the challenges that weigh down the effectiveness of the method. Still, the teachers’ emphasis on discipline, clear instructions and directions, thorough preparation, supervision, and In-Service Trainings can help mitigate the challenges
Radio programs are very important in developing countries in informing the masses about public he... more Radio programs are very important in developing countries in informing the masses about public health matters. Their role is quite visible in the fight against HIV/AIDS through dissemination of messages aimed at informing the publics about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and what prevention measures can be employed. Drawing on framing and social learning theory together with readings on media effects, this study aimed at establishing whether Pasimba radio program is having an impact in promoting behavioral change among couples in Malawi. Data was collected through a survey (N = 100) and data was analyzed using cross tabulations, chi-square, correlation and regression. Results indicate that there is a significant relationship between respondents who listen to the program and those that have the propensity to undergo HIV test. This implies that Pasimba program is having an impact in influencing behavioral change and that there is a correlation between listening to the program and having the motivation to know one's serostatus.
By analysing questions asked in court by both court officials and lay persons, this paper argues ... more By analysing questions asked in court by both court officials and lay persons, this paper argues that language of the court in Malawi is used to self-implicate suspects. The study employed the theory of Conversation Implicature supplemented by Halliday's Interpersonal metafunction. The study reveals how the prosecution uses questions to indicate power dominance during court trials. Set of questions asked by the prosecution linguistically violates the maxim of relevance but the notion of implicature bridges the gap between what is being asked and the true meaning of the questions. The prosecution makes it even more difficult for the defendant by implying that the defendant violates maxims of quantity and manner by asking the witness questions that bring in more information at the same time irrelevant. This dominance in the court conversation may significantly affect the defence of the lay suspects since they have limited time to either build their case or attack the witness brought in court by the state. While such linguistic features used by court official serve a legal function, the outcome has a huge bearing on the laypersons who have no formal legal training. Findings of the study have huge implications in the field of law and linguistics.The study recommends that government should open up its legal system to its citizens. Aspects of legal language should also be integrated into Malawian school curricula so that the masses should be familiar with courtroom discourse, culture and its setup , which are often times seen as strange and alien.
E-resources have gradually been introduced and accepted into the academia around the globe over r... more E-resources have gradually been introduced and accepted into the academia around the globe over recent years. Accordingly, a variety of novelty learning technologies have been developed to serve students both for open and distance learning (ODL) and Face to Face residential delivery modes (F2F). To serve our ODL Bachelor of Education students well, Mzuzu University decided to develop e-modules, based on blending PowerPoint slides, audio and videos as complementary initiatives to printed-based materials. The aim of this study was to explore students' perceptions of e-resources as learning tools compared with other more traditional tools used in the 8th, 9th and 10th semester arts, humanities and science courses. The study employed qualitative and quantitative research design and the data were collected using questionnaires, observations and related case-studies. We established that while our anticipation was that modern students would very much prefer e-resources to printed materials, the results came out differently. For example, students in the sciences programme mostly preferred e-resources, lecturers, study-circles and print-based materials but not podcasts and slides. Conversely, students in the arts and humanities mostly preferred print-based materials, lectures and study-circles but not the e-resources, podcasts and slides. The results demonstrated that while e-resources were generally perceived as ideal learning tools against other learning tools, some sections of students based on the programme of study, age and priori experience had serious issues with the e-resources and WhatsApp. We also noted that culture, attitude, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and adaptability were some of the major factors that influenced students' rate of adoption of novelty technologies such as our peerless e-resources. The paper therefore recommended that e-resources must, at least for now, be used as supplementary materials along with other traditional media.
Objective: Academic emotions have been found to be important predictors of students’ self-regulat... more Objective: Academic emotions have been found to be important predictors of students’ self-regulation. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of academic emotions on undergraduate students’ self-regulation at a medical college in Malawi. Materials and Methods: 1st year students (n = 205) from the college responded to two separate questionnaires assessing their emotions and motivated self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies employed in their classes of anatomy (n = 51), pharmacy (n = 44), medical laboratory science (n = 44), and physiotherapy (n = 66). Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 20. Results: Students experienced hope (F [3, 201] = 3.05, P = 0.030) differently across the four programs. Female students reported high levels of anxiety (P < 0.05) and boredom (P < 0.05) than male students, while male students reported high levels of enjoyment (P < 0.001) and hope (P < 0.001) than their counterparts. Cognitive strategies were positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.42), hope (β = 0.34), anger (β = 0.18), and value (β = 0.61) while resource management was positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.56) and value (β = 0.46). Finally, task value was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.33) and enjoyment (β = 0.29), while expectancy was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.37). Conclusions: The study shows that class-related emotions and motivation have an influence on medical students’ SRL. Therefore it is important to foster pleasant emotions, which trigger motivation for the betterment of students’ self-regulation
The question on affix ordering is among the central concerns in morphological analyses of Bantu l... more The question on affix ordering is among the central concerns in morphological analyses of Bantu languages, with most studies drawing insights from Mirror Principle and Templatic Morphology theoretical underpinnings. However, it remains debatable to a larger extent on whether conclusions drawn from such studies can be extended to all languages with
Each year, increasing numbers of international students enroll in Chinese universities, yet no ... more Each year, increasing numbers of international students enroll in Chinese universities, yet no literature is available on their intercultural communication competences (ICC) and acculturation status. The study aimed at investigating these two key concepts at Central China Normal University. Two dimensions of intercultural communication competence (affect and behavior) and two dimensions of acculturation (attitude towards maintenance of one’s culture and attitude towards contact with other cultures) were employed to measure and analyze the two research constructs. A representative sample of 302 international students shows that Asian international students are less motivated to adapt than other students from other continents. In addition, time and education level do not seem to be sufficient factors in facilitating adaptation. Furthermore, the most preferred acculturation strategy is found to be integration. Finally, attitude towards contact positively correlates with affect and behavior. However, there is no relationship between attitude towards cultural maintenance and the two dimensions of ICC. These findings suggest that a better understanding of intercultural communication competence and acculturation, as well as of factors that help facilitate adjustment to the new culture, are essential in assisting Chinese universities to come up with effective programs that enhance contact between cultures.
The study takes a stance to explore the political discourse speech in Malawi as the country draws... more The study takes a stance to explore the political discourse speech in Malawi as the country draws closer to the May 2019 general elections. This is a warlike zone period with different political figures pursuing, negotiating, and struggling for power. We specially mount our research to investigate how Saulos Klaus Chilima strategizes to get the winning card by exploring his voice and voice projection techniques during the launch of his party. We have hence borrowed insights from Heffer's (2013, 2018) Voice Projection framework (VPF) and used Nvivo 11 Pro software in the analysis. The study discovers that his launch speech is highly authorizing, persuading, converging, and highlighting with very few instances of centring, and indexing which made the speech more powerful, stimulating and impressive. The study brings a different dimension of analyzing political discourse by shopping a theory from Forensic discourse.
The study is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the ‘Role-Play’ method in teaching the spoke... more The study is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the ‘Role-Play’ method in teaching the spoken language to secondary school students in Malawi. The study targeted six secondary schools selected in South West and Northern Education divisions. The data was qualitative in nature and it was collected through in-depth interviews solicited from 18 English teachers. The findings indicate that the ‘role-play’ method is effective in teaching speaking skills to L2 students in Malawi. When students are involved in role-plays, speaking skills such as fluency, pronunciation, and use of gestures are developed. These speaking skills are anchored by situational real life language demands that inculcate in them registers, and remove inhibition. However, time constraints, students’ low English proficiency, special needs learners, large classes, class disruptions, and persistent learner inhibitions, were reported to be some of the challenges that weigh down the effectiveness of the method. Still, the teachers’ emphasis on discipline, clear instructions and directions, thorough preparation, supervision, and In-Service Trainings can help mitigate the challenges
Radio programs are very important in developing countries in informing the masses about public he... more Radio programs are very important in developing countries in informing the masses about public health matters. Their role is quite visible in the fight against HIV/AIDS through dissemination of messages aimed at informing the publics about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and what prevention measures can be employed. Drawing on framing and social learning theory together with readings on media effects, this study aimed at establishing whether Pasimba radio program is having an impact in promoting behavioral change among couples in Malawi. Data was collected through a survey (N = 100) and data was analyzed using cross tabulations, chi-square, correlation and regression. Results indicate that there is a significant relationship between respondents who listen to the program and those that have the propensity to undergo HIV test. This implies that Pasimba program is having an impact in influencing behavioral change and that there is a correlation between listening to the program and having the motivation to know one's serostatus.
By analysing questions asked in court by both court officials and lay persons, this paper argues ... more By analysing questions asked in court by both court officials and lay persons, this paper argues that language of the court in Malawi is used to self-implicate suspects. The study employed the theory of Conversation Implicature supplemented by Halliday's Interpersonal metafunction. The study reveals how the prosecution uses questions to indicate power dominance during court trials. Set of questions asked by the prosecution linguistically violates the maxim of relevance but the notion of implicature bridges the gap between what is being asked and the true meaning of the questions. The prosecution makes it even more difficult for the defendant by implying that the defendant violates maxims of quantity and manner by asking the witness questions that bring in more information at the same time irrelevant. This dominance in the court conversation may significantly affect the defence of the lay suspects since they have limited time to either build their case or attack the witness brought in court by the state. While such linguistic features used by court official serve a legal function, the outcome has a huge bearing on the laypersons who have no formal legal training. Findings of the study have huge implications in the field of law and linguistics.The study recommends that government should open up its legal system to its citizens. Aspects of legal language should also be integrated into Malawian school curricula so that the masses should be familiar with courtroom discourse, culture and its setup , which are often times seen as strange and alien.
E-resources have gradually been introduced and accepted into the academia around the globe over r... more E-resources have gradually been introduced and accepted into the academia around the globe over recent years. Accordingly, a variety of novelty learning technologies have been developed to serve students both for open and distance learning (ODL) and Face to Face residential delivery modes (F2F). To serve our ODL Bachelor of Education students well, Mzuzu University decided to develop e-modules, based on blending PowerPoint slides, audio and videos as complementary initiatives to printed-based materials. The aim of this study was to explore students' perceptions of e-resources as learning tools compared with other more traditional tools used in the 8th, 9th and 10th semester arts, humanities and science courses. The study employed qualitative and quantitative research design and the data were collected using questionnaires, observations and related case-studies. We established that while our anticipation was that modern students would very much prefer e-resources to printed materials, the results came out differently. For example, students in the sciences programme mostly preferred e-resources, lecturers, study-circles and print-based materials but not podcasts and slides. Conversely, students in the arts and humanities mostly preferred print-based materials, lectures and study-circles but not the e-resources, podcasts and slides. The results demonstrated that while e-resources were generally perceived as ideal learning tools against other learning tools, some sections of students based on the programme of study, age and priori experience had serious issues with the e-resources and WhatsApp. We also noted that culture, attitude, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and adaptability were some of the major factors that influenced students' rate of adoption of novelty technologies such as our peerless e-resources. The paper therefore recommended that e-resources must, at least for now, be used as supplementary materials along with other traditional media.
Objective: Academic emotions have been found to be important predictors of students’ self-regulat... more Objective: Academic emotions have been found to be important predictors of students’ self-regulation. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of academic emotions on undergraduate students’ self-regulation at a medical college in Malawi. Materials and Methods: 1st year students (n = 205) from the college responded to two separate questionnaires assessing their emotions and motivated self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies employed in their classes of anatomy (n = 51), pharmacy (n = 44), medical laboratory science (n = 44), and physiotherapy (n = 66). Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 20. Results: Students experienced hope (F [3, 201] = 3.05, P = 0.030) differently across the four programs. Female students reported high levels of anxiety (P < 0.05) and boredom (P < 0.05) than male students, while male students reported high levels of enjoyment (P < 0.001) and hope (P < 0.001) than their counterparts. Cognitive strategies were positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.42), hope (β = 0.34), anger (β = 0.18), and value (β = 0.61) while resource management was positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.56) and value (β = 0.46). Finally, task value was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.33) and enjoyment (β = 0.29), while expectancy was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.37). Conclusions: The study shows that class-related emotions and motivation have an influence on medical students’ SRL. Therefore it is important to foster pleasant emotions, which trigger motivation for the betterment of students’ self-regulation
The question on affix ordering is among the central concerns in morphological analyses of Bantu l... more The question on affix ordering is among the central concerns in morphological analyses of Bantu languages, with most studies drawing insights from Mirror Principle and Templatic Morphology theoretical underpinnings. However, it remains debatable to a larger extent on whether conclusions drawn from such studies can be extended to all languages with
Each year, increasing numbers of international students enroll in Chinese universities, yet no ... more Each year, increasing numbers of international students enroll in Chinese universities, yet no literature is available on their intercultural communication competences (ICC) and acculturation status. The study aimed at investigating these two key concepts at Central China Normal University. Two dimensions of intercultural communication competence (affect and behavior) and two dimensions of acculturation (attitude towards maintenance of one’s culture and attitude towards contact with other cultures) were employed to measure and analyze the two research constructs. A representative sample of 302 international students shows that Asian international students are less motivated to adapt than other students from other continents. In addition, time and education level do not seem to be sufficient factors in facilitating adaptation. Furthermore, the most preferred acculturation strategy is found to be integration. Finally, attitude towards contact positively correlates with affect and behavior. However, there is no relationship between attitude towards cultural maintenance and the two dimensions of ICC. These findings suggest that a better understanding of intercultural communication competence and acculturation, as well as of factors that help facilitate adjustment to the new culture, are essential in assisting Chinese universities to come up with effective programs that enhance contact between cultures.
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Papers by Wellman Kondowe
language to secondary school students in Malawi. The study targeted six secondary schools
selected in South West and Northern Education divisions. The data was qualitative in nature and it
was collected through in-depth interviews solicited from 18 English teachers. The findings indicate
that the ‘role-play’ method is effective in teaching speaking skills to L2 students in Malawi. When
students are involved in role-plays, speaking skills such as fluency, pronunciation, and use of
gestures are developed. These speaking skills are anchored by situational real life language
demands that inculcate in them registers, and remove inhibition. However, time constraints,
students’ low English proficiency, special needs learners, large classes, class disruptions, and
persistent learner inhibitions, were reported to be some of the challenges that weigh down the
effectiveness of the method. Still, the teachers’ emphasis on discipline, clear instructions and
directions, thorough preparation, supervision, and In-Service Trainings can help mitigate the
challenges
of this study was to investigate the role of academic emotions on undergraduate students’ self-regulation at a
medical college in Malawi. Materials and Methods: 1st year students (n = 205) from the college responded
to two separate questionnaires assessing their emotions and motivated self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies
employed in their classes of anatomy (n = 51), pharmacy (n = 44), medical laboratory science (n = 44),
and physiotherapy (n = 66). Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 20. Results: Students
experienced hope (F [3, 201] = 3.05, P = 0.030) differently across the four programs. Female students reported
high levels of anxiety (P < 0.05) and boredom (P < 0.05) than male students, while male students reported
high levels of enjoyment (P < 0.001) and hope (P < 0.001) than their counterparts. Cognitive strategies were
positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.42), hope (β = 0.34), anger (β = 0.18), and value (β = 0.61)
while resource management was positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.56) and value (β = 0.46). Finally,
task value was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.33) and enjoyment (β = 0.29), while expectancy was
positively predicted by hope (β = 0.37). Conclusions: The study shows that class-related emotions and
motivation have an influence on medical students’ SRL. Therefore it is important to foster pleasant emotions,
which trigger motivation for the betterment of students’ self-regulation
language to secondary school students in Malawi. The study targeted six secondary schools
selected in South West and Northern Education divisions. The data was qualitative in nature and it
was collected through in-depth interviews solicited from 18 English teachers. The findings indicate
that the ‘role-play’ method is effective in teaching speaking skills to L2 students in Malawi. When
students are involved in role-plays, speaking skills such as fluency, pronunciation, and use of
gestures are developed. These speaking skills are anchored by situational real life language
demands that inculcate in them registers, and remove inhibition. However, time constraints,
students’ low English proficiency, special needs learners, large classes, class disruptions, and
persistent learner inhibitions, were reported to be some of the challenges that weigh down the
effectiveness of the method. Still, the teachers’ emphasis on discipline, clear instructions and
directions, thorough preparation, supervision, and In-Service Trainings can help mitigate the
challenges
of this study was to investigate the role of academic emotions on undergraduate students’ self-regulation at a
medical college in Malawi. Materials and Methods: 1st year students (n = 205) from the college responded
to two separate questionnaires assessing their emotions and motivated self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies
employed in their classes of anatomy (n = 51), pharmacy (n = 44), medical laboratory science (n = 44),
and physiotherapy (n = 66). Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 20. Results: Students
experienced hope (F [3, 201] = 3.05, P = 0.030) differently across the four programs. Female students reported
high levels of anxiety (P < 0.05) and boredom (P < 0.05) than male students, while male students reported
high levels of enjoyment (P < 0.001) and hope (P < 0.001) than their counterparts. Cognitive strategies were
positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.42), hope (β = 0.34), anger (β = 0.18), and value (β = 0.61)
while resource management was positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.56) and value (β = 0.46). Finally,
task value was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.33) and enjoyment (β = 0.29), while expectancy was
positively predicted by hope (β = 0.37). Conclusions: The study shows that class-related emotions and
motivation have an influence on medical students’ SRL. Therefore it is important to foster pleasant emotions,
which trigger motivation for the betterment of students’ self-regulation