International Journal of Language Education and Applied Linguistics
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has opened new opportunities for language instructors ... more Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has opened new opportunities for language instructors to develop their use of technology and implement new teaching practices focused on learners. The increased use of technology in language learning means instructors can play a key role in motivating learners by integrating readily available technologies for language learning development into their teaching practices. The focus of this present investigation is to explore the attitudes of Saudi instructors teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) regarding the implementation of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). The target population for this study was Saudi EFL instructors who are currently teaching English in Saudi Arabia. The research methods for the study included a questionnaire, as well as in-depth interviews that were conducted to explore the attitudes of EFL instructors. The results of the survey questionnaire and interviews revealed moderately positive attitudes among pa...
English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 2021
English skills particularly in conversation are essential in workplace situations especially in t... more English skills particularly in conversation are essential in workplace situations especially in the context of higher learning institutions. Little attention is being given to examining the needs of English communication skills and issues related to administrative support staff at their workplace particularly at public universities. A questionnaire was adopted to gauge the English language needs of support staff, their English skills perception as well as usage at the workplace. Data were collected from a group of 40 support administrative staff from Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) involving three administrative departments. The findings were gathered using survey and analyzed using content descriptive analysis. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the respondents strongly agreed that having a good English ability will increase their chance of being promoted to a higher position. Data also revealed that staff use English mostly during interaction with foreign st...
Engineering undergraduates are expected to deliver technical oral presentations on various occasi... more Engineering undergraduates are expected to deliver technical oral presentations on various occasions particularly in university subjects. Engineering undergraduates struggle when they are assigned to deliver technical oral presentations and often they have impediments to deliver oral presentations at tertiary level. The paper reveals prime findings on the technical oral presentation’s impediments faced by the engineering undergraduates in delivering effective presentations. A semi-structured interview was conducted by 12 engineering undergraduates from various engineering faculties in Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia. Findings of the study revealed that the engineering undergraduates encountered impediments such as when delivering technical oral presentations particularly in terms of presentation skills as well as English as a medium of instruction. In this study, the researchers provided, therefore, suggestions on how to improve the engineering undergraduates’ technical oral pr...
Technology integration has a great impact on learners’ learning styles and everyday life, where v... more Technology integration has a great impact on learners’ learning styles and everyday life, where various encouraging responses come across in language learning institutions through the use of mobile technology. WhatsApp application instantly transfers information in different modes. At the present time it can be effectively used as a platform to engage learners with conventional classroom setting. The present study is an attempt to investigate learners’ attitudes towards WhatsApp application and their intention for future use. 32 EFL learners were exposed to learn vocabulary by the use of WhatsApp application for a period of 6 weeks. Data were collected by using questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The result exhibited higher levels (M= 4.4 and Mode 4.37) of the mean scores of the learners’ perception and (M= 4.3) on WhatsApp Usage attitudes. The finding of the study indicated that learners expressed positive attitudes in using WhatsApp applications for vocabulary developm...
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has made a significant impact on ... more The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has made a significant impact on language testing worldwide, particularly on the English language proficiency test (EPT). Many countries including the United States, Canada and Australia have begun aligning their language assessments with CEFR. Although it has been applied worldwide, CEFR arguably lacks connection with stakeholders, socioeducational contexts as well as empirical validation. Much of the criticism revolves around a neglect of non-European contexts. Studies which concentrated on both directly and indirectly CEFR-aligned English language tests within the contexts of Asian countries such as Japan and Taiwan have been published. In Malaysia, its English Language Roadmap 2015-2025 takes into consideration aspects of teaching, learning and assessment of the English language based on the six CEFR levels. Therefore, higher education institutions will need to respond to this roadmap by aligning their English langu...
Inadequate data will affect the efficiency of future planning of solid waste management in order ... more Inadequate data will affect the efficiency of future planning of solid waste management in order to achieve sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of a number of factors, namely GDP, Demand of electricity, Population and Number of Employment, which could be applied to predict the solid waste generation quantities and improve the management of future planning. The data were statistically analyzed by conducting a bivariate analysis and multilinear regression analysis. The results revealed that the GDP, Demand of electricity, Population and Number of Employment reflects the prediction of sustainable solid waste generation. It was found that addition of all predictor variables accounted for 98.9 percent (r = 0.989) changes in the variance in the quantity of solid waste generation. Consequently, the department of solid waste can increase its effectiveness and efficiency in management through the prediction of the quantity of solid waste generation.
The current study addresses the issue of international students’ beliefs towards oral presentatio... more The current study addresses the issue of international students’ beliefs towards oral presentation in English language in academic settings. The purpose of this research is to find out about their beliefs on speaking and delivering oral presentation in English language as foreign language. The participants were 30 male and female international students. A survey was used in this study that was adapted from Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) and demographic background questionnaire. The results showed that the international university students held certain beliefs which would be detrimental to their speaking and performing oral presentation in English language.
It is difficult to describe cross-linguistic influence; however, it has been a contentious phenom... more It is difficult to describe cross-linguistic influence; however, it has been a contentious phenomenon for a long time. Whenever the speaker of a language becomes bilingual, the first language will subtly affect the new one, even if it is not used much. This is how first language influence begins since the majority of Arab English as a foreign language (EFL) learners suffer from this problem. This current research aims to study the negative influence of the native language (Arabic) on utilising the English passive voice. In this article, we aim to discover the levels of Arab EFL learners’ knowledge of the passive voice, as well as to examine the percentage of interlingual and intralingual errors. This study applies a quantitative method. Forty-six participants, who are Arab EFL learners studying at the Universiti Malaysia Pahang, engaged in the task of answering a grammar test. To conclude, the results show that Arab students have a high rate of L1 transfer on the English passive voi...
Recent studies have revealed that English has become a global language that is commonly used, par... more Recent studies have revealed that English has become a global language that is commonly used, particularly in the education sector, for various purposes. In the education sector, teachers serve as the most important role model in improving learners’ English language competency. Evidently, at the age of 4 to 6 years old, preschoolers are proven to be able to learn a second language sufficiently hence it is critical for pre-school teachers to be able to teach English to the children at this stage precisely. English, however, is not set to become one of the major requirements for pre-school teachers, especially in Pahang, Malaysia. Due to this, the beliefs of the pre-school teachers initiate a critical indicator in deciding if, given the circumstances, pre-school children can receive adequate English inputs and exposure at their age. The aim of this study is to identify the beliefs of pre-school teachers in their ability of teaching English to preschoolers in Pahang, Malaysia. In the s...
In recent years, self-assessment has been increasingly implemented as an alternative method of as... more In recent years, self-assessment has been increasingly implemented as an alternative method of assessment in tertiary educational contexts. The research described in this paper employed semi-structured interviews as an instrument to evaluate engineering lecturers’ perceptions towards student self-assessment in developing their non-verbal communication skills in technical oral presentations. A sample of 10 engineering lecturers from a technical university participated in the study. Semi-structured interview data revealed that most engineering lecturers viewed student self-assessment positively and they reported on student self-assessment as providing learning values, because the latter viewed student self- assessment as a learning aid. The results further showed that student self-assessment could promote the students’ learning, an increase of students’ willingness to deliver oral presentations, and self-enabling. Therefore, student self-assessment can be a powerful method to increase...
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2017
The study tends to explore the possible reforms to raise the proficiency level of the adult Engli... more The study tends to explore the possible reforms to raise the proficiency level of the adult English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. With this end in view, it investigates non-native EFL teachers’ beliefs in relation to adult learners’ beliefs in teaching grammar to university students in the Saudi Arabian EFL context. It finds out the harmony and disharmony between the teachers at the giving end and the taught at the receiving end to create a culture of awareness and to build a better teaching-learning environment. The study tries to fill the existing research gap as no previous research has tried to find out the solution to the problem from this angle. The main data collection tools are two five-point Likert-scale questionnaires, administered to 70 non-native EFL teachers and their 80 adult students. Teachers and learners have been selected based on stratified random sampling. Quantitative data have been analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The maj...
English Review: Journal of English Education, 2019
The main focus of this article is to evaluate the practices involving various approaches and meth... more The main focus of this article is to evaluate the practices involving various approaches and methods that the novice Saudi English Teachers (SETs) employ in classrooms, and to see how far these are successful in attaining the desired results. It also takes into cognizance the chasm between the measures taken by Saudi Ministry of Education to modify the curriculum to develop �communicative competence� and the actualization these measures in the classroom pedagogy. The dichotomy eventually brings to bear upon the learning outcomes of the students who fail to achieve the required proficiency in communicative skills. The study necessitated a qualitative approach (grounded theory) in which previous literature was ransacked. Data was gathered through structured interviews, surveys and documents analysis. The rudimentary results showed that SETs rely more on conventional teaching methods despite the State�s thrust on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) that tends to be more student-cente...
The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review, 2008
Conversing in a second language particularly in English can be demanding for second language lear... more Conversing in a second language particularly in English can be demanding for second language learners; they are often reluctant and embarrassed to communicate due to the fact that they are afraid they will commit grammatical inaccuracy. Concerns over accuracy often hinder students� ability to speak fluently. At Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) nonetheless, engineering students are frequently required to deliver project demonstrations, present research or project findings and interview people from the industry, and they can perform all these tasks very well in their native language, in this case Malay. However, when it comes to completing the tasks in English, students stumble; often projecting lack of confidence, failing to deliver the message across, and thus, disappointing the receiver. The researchers believe that the needs to, at least, improve students� fluency regardless of the accuracy will help the students perform better in communicative events. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to present the researchers� attempt at improving engineering students� fluency in the English language. This has been done by exposing a group of 30 chemical engineering students to one of the most common communicative events at the workplace � conflict. They are provided with a variety of internal and external conflict scenarios and problem solving situations in which they have to resolve. Students are given opportunities to interact, deliver their opinions and resolve the issues in different speaking activities without penalizing them on the accuracy of the language.
International Journal of Language Education and Applied Linguistics
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has opened new opportunities for language instructors ... more Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has opened new opportunities for language instructors to develop their use of technology and implement new teaching practices focused on learners. The increased use of technology in language learning means instructors can play a key role in motivating learners by integrating readily available technologies for language learning development into their teaching practices. The focus of this present investigation is to explore the attitudes of Saudi instructors teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) regarding the implementation of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). The target population for this study was Saudi EFL instructors who are currently teaching English in Saudi Arabia. The research methods for the study included a questionnaire, as well as in-depth interviews that were conducted to explore the attitudes of EFL instructors. The results of the survey questionnaire and interviews revealed moderately positive attitudes among pa...
English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 2021
English skills particularly in conversation are essential in workplace situations especially in t... more English skills particularly in conversation are essential in workplace situations especially in the context of higher learning institutions. Little attention is being given to examining the needs of English communication skills and issues related to administrative support staff at their workplace particularly at public universities. A questionnaire was adopted to gauge the English language needs of support staff, their English skills perception as well as usage at the workplace. Data were collected from a group of 40 support administrative staff from Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) involving three administrative departments. The findings were gathered using survey and analyzed using content descriptive analysis. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the respondents strongly agreed that having a good English ability will increase their chance of being promoted to a higher position. Data also revealed that staff use English mostly during interaction with foreign st...
Engineering undergraduates are expected to deliver technical oral presentations on various occasi... more Engineering undergraduates are expected to deliver technical oral presentations on various occasions particularly in university subjects. Engineering undergraduates struggle when they are assigned to deliver technical oral presentations and often they have impediments to deliver oral presentations at tertiary level. The paper reveals prime findings on the technical oral presentation’s impediments faced by the engineering undergraduates in delivering effective presentations. A semi-structured interview was conducted by 12 engineering undergraduates from various engineering faculties in Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia. Findings of the study revealed that the engineering undergraduates encountered impediments such as when delivering technical oral presentations particularly in terms of presentation skills as well as English as a medium of instruction. In this study, the researchers provided, therefore, suggestions on how to improve the engineering undergraduates’ technical oral pr...
Technology integration has a great impact on learners’ learning styles and everyday life, where v... more Technology integration has a great impact on learners’ learning styles and everyday life, where various encouraging responses come across in language learning institutions through the use of mobile technology. WhatsApp application instantly transfers information in different modes. At the present time it can be effectively used as a platform to engage learners with conventional classroom setting. The present study is an attempt to investigate learners’ attitudes towards WhatsApp application and their intention for future use. 32 EFL learners were exposed to learn vocabulary by the use of WhatsApp application for a period of 6 weeks. Data were collected by using questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The result exhibited higher levels (M= 4.4 and Mode 4.37) of the mean scores of the learners’ perception and (M= 4.3) on WhatsApp Usage attitudes. The finding of the study indicated that learners expressed positive attitudes in using WhatsApp applications for vocabulary developm...
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has made a significant impact on ... more The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has made a significant impact on language testing worldwide, particularly on the English language proficiency test (EPT). Many countries including the United States, Canada and Australia have begun aligning their language assessments with CEFR. Although it has been applied worldwide, CEFR arguably lacks connection with stakeholders, socioeducational contexts as well as empirical validation. Much of the criticism revolves around a neglect of non-European contexts. Studies which concentrated on both directly and indirectly CEFR-aligned English language tests within the contexts of Asian countries such as Japan and Taiwan have been published. In Malaysia, its English Language Roadmap 2015-2025 takes into consideration aspects of teaching, learning and assessment of the English language based on the six CEFR levels. Therefore, higher education institutions will need to respond to this roadmap by aligning their English langu...
Inadequate data will affect the efficiency of future planning of solid waste management in order ... more Inadequate data will affect the efficiency of future planning of solid waste management in order to achieve sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of a number of factors, namely GDP, Demand of electricity, Population and Number of Employment, which could be applied to predict the solid waste generation quantities and improve the management of future planning. The data were statistically analyzed by conducting a bivariate analysis and multilinear regression analysis. The results revealed that the GDP, Demand of electricity, Population and Number of Employment reflects the prediction of sustainable solid waste generation. It was found that addition of all predictor variables accounted for 98.9 percent (r = 0.989) changes in the variance in the quantity of solid waste generation. Consequently, the department of solid waste can increase its effectiveness and efficiency in management through the prediction of the quantity of solid waste generation.
The current study addresses the issue of international students’ beliefs towards oral presentatio... more The current study addresses the issue of international students’ beliefs towards oral presentation in English language in academic settings. The purpose of this research is to find out about their beliefs on speaking and delivering oral presentation in English language as foreign language. The participants were 30 male and female international students. A survey was used in this study that was adapted from Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) and demographic background questionnaire. The results showed that the international university students held certain beliefs which would be detrimental to their speaking and performing oral presentation in English language.
It is difficult to describe cross-linguistic influence; however, it has been a contentious phenom... more It is difficult to describe cross-linguistic influence; however, it has been a contentious phenomenon for a long time. Whenever the speaker of a language becomes bilingual, the first language will subtly affect the new one, even if it is not used much. This is how first language influence begins since the majority of Arab English as a foreign language (EFL) learners suffer from this problem. This current research aims to study the negative influence of the native language (Arabic) on utilising the English passive voice. In this article, we aim to discover the levels of Arab EFL learners’ knowledge of the passive voice, as well as to examine the percentage of interlingual and intralingual errors. This study applies a quantitative method. Forty-six participants, who are Arab EFL learners studying at the Universiti Malaysia Pahang, engaged in the task of answering a grammar test. To conclude, the results show that Arab students have a high rate of L1 transfer on the English passive voi...
Recent studies have revealed that English has become a global language that is commonly used, par... more Recent studies have revealed that English has become a global language that is commonly used, particularly in the education sector, for various purposes. In the education sector, teachers serve as the most important role model in improving learners’ English language competency. Evidently, at the age of 4 to 6 years old, preschoolers are proven to be able to learn a second language sufficiently hence it is critical for pre-school teachers to be able to teach English to the children at this stage precisely. English, however, is not set to become one of the major requirements for pre-school teachers, especially in Pahang, Malaysia. Due to this, the beliefs of the pre-school teachers initiate a critical indicator in deciding if, given the circumstances, pre-school children can receive adequate English inputs and exposure at their age. The aim of this study is to identify the beliefs of pre-school teachers in their ability of teaching English to preschoolers in Pahang, Malaysia. In the s...
In recent years, self-assessment has been increasingly implemented as an alternative method of as... more In recent years, self-assessment has been increasingly implemented as an alternative method of assessment in tertiary educational contexts. The research described in this paper employed semi-structured interviews as an instrument to evaluate engineering lecturers’ perceptions towards student self-assessment in developing their non-verbal communication skills in technical oral presentations. A sample of 10 engineering lecturers from a technical university participated in the study. Semi-structured interview data revealed that most engineering lecturers viewed student self-assessment positively and they reported on student self-assessment as providing learning values, because the latter viewed student self- assessment as a learning aid. The results further showed that student self-assessment could promote the students’ learning, an increase of students’ willingness to deliver oral presentations, and self-enabling. Therefore, student self-assessment can be a powerful method to increase...
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2017
The study tends to explore the possible reforms to raise the proficiency level of the adult Engli... more The study tends to explore the possible reforms to raise the proficiency level of the adult English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. With this end in view, it investigates non-native EFL teachers’ beliefs in relation to adult learners’ beliefs in teaching grammar to university students in the Saudi Arabian EFL context. It finds out the harmony and disharmony between the teachers at the giving end and the taught at the receiving end to create a culture of awareness and to build a better teaching-learning environment. The study tries to fill the existing research gap as no previous research has tried to find out the solution to the problem from this angle. The main data collection tools are two five-point Likert-scale questionnaires, administered to 70 non-native EFL teachers and their 80 adult students. Teachers and learners have been selected based on stratified random sampling. Quantitative data have been analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The maj...
English Review: Journal of English Education, 2019
The main focus of this article is to evaluate the practices involving various approaches and meth... more The main focus of this article is to evaluate the practices involving various approaches and methods that the novice Saudi English Teachers (SETs) employ in classrooms, and to see how far these are successful in attaining the desired results. It also takes into cognizance the chasm between the measures taken by Saudi Ministry of Education to modify the curriculum to develop �communicative competence� and the actualization these measures in the classroom pedagogy. The dichotomy eventually brings to bear upon the learning outcomes of the students who fail to achieve the required proficiency in communicative skills. The study necessitated a qualitative approach (grounded theory) in which previous literature was ransacked. Data was gathered through structured interviews, surveys and documents analysis. The rudimentary results showed that SETs rely more on conventional teaching methods despite the State�s thrust on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) that tends to be more student-cente...
The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review, 2008
Conversing in a second language particularly in English can be demanding for second language lear... more Conversing in a second language particularly in English can be demanding for second language learners; they are often reluctant and embarrassed to communicate due to the fact that they are afraid they will commit grammatical inaccuracy. Concerns over accuracy often hinder students� ability to speak fluently. At Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) nonetheless, engineering students are frequently required to deliver project demonstrations, present research or project findings and interview people from the industry, and they can perform all these tasks very well in their native language, in this case Malay. However, when it comes to completing the tasks in English, students stumble; often projecting lack of confidence, failing to deliver the message across, and thus, disappointing the receiver. The researchers believe that the needs to, at least, improve students� fluency regardless of the accuracy will help the students perform better in communicative events. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to present the researchers� attempt at improving engineering students� fluency in the English language. This has been done by exposing a group of 30 chemical engineering students to one of the most common communicative events at the workplace � conflict. They are provided with a variety of internal and external conflict scenarios and problem solving situations in which they have to resolve. Students are given opportunities to interact, deliver their opinions and resolve the issues in different speaking activities without penalizing them on the accuracy of the language.
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