The Platform Development of WeCWI Instructional Tool: A Comparative Systematic Review

The use of the internet for teaching and learning has received overwhelming responses from academics over the recent years. This infusion of digital and multimedia technologies into Malaysian ESL classrooms has considerably altered the ELT methodologies. Mastering English in the digital world is not only limited to knowing the syntactic, pragmatic, and lexical items of the language, but also knowing how to read, write, and communicate in electronic environments. In response to the impact of technology in English language teaching (ELT), limitations of the learning management system (LMS) in fostering second language (L2) writing skill, as well as needs of supplementary web-based instruction (WBI) in UiTM Penang Branch as reported in the past studies, a WBI namely Web-based Cognitive Writing Instruction (WeCWI) is thus proposed in this research. WeCWI is a theoretical and pedagogical framework applied into the design and development of a web-based instructional tool. This study applied a comparative systematic review focussing between the two salient alternatives of web versions, web 2.0 applications, web hosts, and on-screen web properties. A web 2.0 application, blog, hosted by Blogger was proposed to be used as the developing platform after comparing with their alternatives: Wordpress, wikis, and web 1.0. Besides, web widgets and hypertext were also analysed to be made available on the blogs as part of the user interface design. With the injection of Web widgets and hypertext into the blogs, WeCWI attempts to offer a technological enhanced ELT solution to overcome the poor writing skill among L2 learners.

A Critical Review on the Course Selection for Web-Based Instruction (WBI) Integration

Web-based instruction (WBI) has been proposed by Mah and Khor (2015) as a supplementary instructional tool to tackle the writing problems faced by Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) students besides to fulfil the writing needs of UiTM learners and instructors due to the limitations found in the existing web-based writing systems. Hence, the objective of this study is to select an appropriate English course by conducting a critical review of literature based on the past studies involving UiTM English courses as well as the types of English courses offered by UiTM before embracing WBI as the course’s supplementary instructional tool. After scrutinising all the UiTM English courses offered in 2013, BEL422 Report Writing was identified as the most proper course to be integrated with WBI owing to its syllabus, course structure, and assessment components that focus on proposal and report writing as the main learning outcome. Through the integration of WBI for instructional purpose, students who have registered in this course can acquire their writing competency to communicate effectively in an academic form of written English.

Factors Affecting Mandarin Pronunciation among Engineering Undergraduates in Universiti Sains Malaysia: A Perspective View

In Malaysia, Mandarin has also become a favourite third language subject among university students. However, many non-native speakers of Mandarin often encounter problems in pronunciation. Identifying the pronunciation errors is essential to avoid misunderstanding and communication breakdown. This study aims to investigate the perspective view of factors causing undesirable pronunciation problems faced by the students as non-native speakers based on the phonetic system of Hanyu Pinyin. A survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires to undergraduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus to identify the underlying factors of pronunciation problems in Mandarin. The findings from the data analysis show that mother tongue interference was the main problem since some consonants and vowels are missing from the students’ first language. Besides, other factors such as time constraint, psychological problems, and learning environment were among the distracting factors.

Poor Writing Skill among UiTM Students: A Qualitative Systematic Review of Literature on SIL’s Learner Domain

The second language (L2) learners, especially from Malaysian higher learning institutions, have always faced difficulty to master good writing skill. Though the importance of English language has been always highlighted in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), the students have yet to perform well in their writing assessments. Based on the performance analysis and the writing challenges prescribed in the SIL domains, the objective of this study is to further investigate on the SIL’s learner domain on the poor writing skill and writing needs among the UiTM students through a systematic literature review. After analysing the related literature, the seven identified perspectives of poor writing skill include writing complexity, literacy, proficiency, critical thinking, information literacy, interlanguage, and writing anxiety. The findings denote a high demand for developing a supplementary web-based instruction (WBI) and a comprehensive framework such as Web-based Cognitive Writing Instruction (WeCWI) is highlighted to tackle efficiently the L2 writing predicaments

L2 Writing Challenges for the Undergraduates: A Performance Analysis and a Literature Review on SIL Domains

English is used as a second language (L2) in Malaysia with a great emphasis on tertiary education as the medium of instruction, the most important subject in the curriculum, and a mandatory subject for all undergraduates. Yet, the university lecturers share a common view that students find it difficult to perform satisfactorily, particularly in writing assessment in English language courses. To identify the challenges of ESL writing, particularly among the undergraduates in Malaysia, one of the Malaysian universities with the highest population was chosen. A performance analysis was conducted in two consecutive semesters on the results of one of the English courses, which writing becomes the core assessment. Besides, a review of the past studies was done. Nine L2 writing challenges were identified, which can be represented by a chain reaction diagram called “SIL”: system (S), instructor (I), and learner (L). SIL proposes a sequence of inductive remedial actions, which should be taken by considering the elements within the S to the I, and finally to the L.

Errors Analysis in Hanyu Pinyin Pronunciation among the Undergraduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus

Mandarin is a tone language, which every Chinese word has a fixed tone. If a tone is changed, the meaning of the word will be changed. Thus, identifying the Hanyu Pinyin pronunciation mistakes is essential and should be prioritized by Mandarin instructors. Numerous pronunciation errors were identified among the undergraduates who were the non-native speakers with difficulties in pronunciation, communication and listening skills in Mandarin. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by the students as non-native speakers in consonants, vowels and tones based on the Hanyu Pinyin system. The findings of the study show consonant constitutes the highest number of errors (68.29%) as compared to the tone (13.66%) and vowel (18.5%). Among the consonants, most of the students committed errors in the pronunciation of "zh" as 16.43% while the second place goes to the consonant “z", which constitutes 13.57% of errors. The highest inaccuracy in vowel pronunciation happens to the last phoneme “s” as 82.14% while most students had made errors in the second tone as 56.76% and the third tone as 24.32%.

Framework for the Management of Multimedia Tools for Teaching and Learning of Spanish Language

In the era of rapid development of information and communication technology, both teachers and students are exposed to a great number of multimedia tools which can be used for teaching and learning purposes. Nevertheless, the biggest challenge faced by teachers is how to use the multimedia tools properly and effectively in classrooms. This study is carried out to investigate the proper management of three main multimedia tools, i.e. PowerPoint, video clips and E-Learning, in classroom activities in order to have effective teaching and learning of Spanish language at Engineering Campus of Universiti Sains Malaysia. The set of ideas underlying the basis of the management of PowerPoint, video clips and E-Learning in classrooms is firstly presented. A framework for the management of classroom activities incorporating the combination of PowerPoint, video clips and E-Learning with other resources such as games, songs and additional notes is then proposed. An example of classroom activities implemented based on the proposed framework is also given.

Enhancing Student-Centred Learning through Usage of Television Commercials via Wiki

The proliferation of educational technologies and various audio-visual gadgets has stretched the boundaries of student-centered learning. The medium for learning no longer rely solely on text books or traditional classroom teaching. Multimedia materials provide exciting new possibilities for learners, paving the way for students to assume an active role in their learning. This study explores the usage of television commercials via wiki an educational workspace to support student-centered learning. Learning through television commercials creates interest and is highly motivating especially for foreign language learners. The participants of the study comprise of 120 students pursuing a diploma in culinary arts and taking French as a compulsory subject. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit students feedback on their experience using wiki during student learning time. The results yielded a satisfactory acceptance of this educational workspace. Findings showed that students have the capacity to control the pace of their learning thus motivating students to engage positively in independent learning.

Publishing Curriculum Vitae Using Weblog: An Investigation on Its Usefulness, Ease of Use, and Behavioral Intention to Use

In this cyber age, the job market has been rapidly transforming and being digitalised. Submitting a paper-based curriculum vitae (CV) nowadays does not grant a job seeker a high employability rate. This paper calls for attention on the creation of mobile Curriculum Vitae or m-CV (http://m-curriculumvitae.blogspot.com), a sample of an individual CV developed using weblog, which can enhance the job hunter especially fresh graduate’s higher marketability rate. This study is designed to identify the perceptions held by Malaysian university students regarding m-CV grounded on a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). It measures the strength and the direction of relationships among three major variables – Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Behavioral Intention (BI) to use. The finding shows that university students generally accepted adopting m-CV since they perceived m-CV to be more useful rather than easy to use.

A Cross-Discipline Survey on University Students’ Acceptance of Mobile Curriculum Vitae Developed Using Weblog

A traditional Curriculum Vitae (CV) fails to highlight the candidates’ strength, skills and achievement effectively. Thus, graduates are unable to sell and present themselves in an interactive way in order to impress the employer. In the digital age, mobile phones and Wi-Fi are ubiquitous; thus, an online CV namely “Mobile Curriculum Vitae” (m-CV) is created and proposed to be the alternative. It uses weblog as the developing platform that comes with both web and mobile versions. It can be accessed using mobile devices such as smart phones wherever and whenever they are. The objective of the study is conducting a survey to investigate the acceptance of m-CV on a group of 200 diploma students in one of the Malaysian universities-Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Penang Campus using questionnaires based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). After conducting a two-hour seminar on the m-CV, a total of 191 questionnaires were collected. Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS based on 4 point Likert scale.

Part Time Students, Part Time Assessors. How Reliable Are Students to Fit Two Roles in Reading Comprehension Activity?

The conventional way of learning in the classroom has presently made way for students to be more involved and engaged in language activities. They learn from their involvement in assessing while collaborating with their peers. At higher institutions of learning, studies have shown that peer assessment (PA) plays a crucial role in student skill development as it aids students in improving their performance on evaluated assignments and increases learning capacity. In the study, 71 students were engaged in reading comprehension (RC) activity. They were divided into groups of three to five students which required each group to select passages in the newspapers, formulate questions and handle inter-group participation in RC activity. The purpose of this study is to explore how PA can be used as a dependable alternative to lecturer assessment in tertiary education. Each class was observed by a lecturer, non-involved peer group and the rest of the other participating groups. Training for assessment was administered and marks for evaluation were standardized.

The Process of Designing and Developing a Romanised Mandarin Web-based Instruction on ISD Methodology for Non-native Learners in Malaysia

One of the ways to deliver a language course on learners' demand using any computer connected to the Internet at anywhere and anytime is by developing a Web-based instruction (WBI). Besides, it can be more effective if WBI incorporates multimedia components. `A picture tells a thousand words', thus, a Mandarin WBI that includes multimedia elements will increase the effectiveness in learning Mandarin. The objective of this paper is to describe the process of designing and developing a Hanyu Pinyin (Romanised Mandarin) WBI to teach non-native learners (Malay Mandarin learners) in learning Mandarin at a Malaysian university(UiTM). The Hanyu Pinyin WBI is tailored to tackle the weaknesses and to meet the specific needs of Malay learners. Hanyu Pinyin WBI is designed on the basis of Instructional System Design (ISD) methodology. This approach involves four phases: (1) analysis and design, (2) development, (3) implementation, and (4) evaluation of the instruction.

The Impact of Chinese ESL Learner Interlanguage on Writing: A Syntactical Analysis

An interlanguage is a linguistic system that has been developed by a second language (L2) learner who is partially proficient in the target language with some of the first language (L1) features in target language communication. The learner’s L1 transfer is derived from the Interlanguage Theory, which believes that “ the psychological structure latent in the brain" is triggered among L2 learners in second language learning. English language has always been a perceived problem for Chinese ESL learners particularly on syntactical rules in sentence construction. However, not many studies have been conducted with a specific focus on the interlanguage of Chinese ESL learners. In this study, it is primarily concerned about how the learner’s existing linguistic knowledge influences the course of English language development among Chinese ESL learners. Since there is a limited intake of Chinese students into the programme of study, the subject of this study consists of 12 Chinese students from six different classes at one college in the northern region of Malaysia. This constitutes a suitable starting point to focus on the similarities and differences of learners’ sentence patterns of their target language.

Learning Style Preferences of English Language Learners among UiTM Penang Diploma Students

This paper gives a brief overview of UiTM Penang diploma students’ learning styles in the study of the English language courses. Five types of learning styles – auditory, visual, tactile, group, and individual are examined with the particular objectives of whether gender and the types of programs taken affect the learning styles of the students. The study also throws light on whether students’ performances in SPM and UiTM English courses’ results were affected by their learning styles. Chi-square test and reliability test were used to measure their significance and consistent reliability. The findings show that auditory, tactile, and group learning styles were predominantly popular among the students of different gender, programs of study, and those who had obtained different grades of their SPM and UiTM examination results. The writers hope that the findings of this study may provide new directions in the teaching of English courses in UiTM.

Expanding ESL Classroom Horizons with Weblogs: Educators' Perspective

In this information age that brings about the telecommunication revolution, education is also constantly shifting – new technologies have redefined educational emphasis from content to learners and their learning processes. Based on The Development of Education National Report Malaysia (2004), the use of technology has become one of the objectives and principal characteristics of forthcoming educational reforms. However, not many studies have been conducted to determine students’ perceptions of one of the revolutionary Web 2.0 applications – weblog as a language learning tool in spite of its immense potentials in educational context. Owing to the substantial benefits of blogging and to reach ICT-enhanced teaching and learning, the main objectives of this study are: (1) to describe the overt instructions of creating a weblog with Blogger (a free blogging service); (2) to provide a preliminary report about the implementation of weblogs in English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom; and (3) to suggest the techniques for educators to use weblogs in classroom. By using convenient sampling method, the study involves 58 diploma students from one of the universities in Malaysia.

GAT-a Teaching Module of Restructuring Basic Mandarin Sentences to UiTM Malay Students

Teaching elementary Mandarin to non-native speakers in UiTM is a demanding job. This is because the students have no basics in Mandarin and lecturers have a fairly short span of time to complete the syllabus in one semester. Besides, Malay and English are the two major mediums of instruction used in classrooms and students like to communicate using their own mother tongue. Therefore, the students’ exposure to Mandarin speaking environment is extremely limited. Because of the problems faced by the students in learning Mandarin, this paper proposes the Grouping, Arranging, Touching Up (GAT) module incorporating ‘Word Sequence’ Diagram (WSD) in the form of graphic impression that specifically caters for teaching non-native speakers how to restructure basic Mandarin sentences. Based on the theories proposed by Liu, Shen, and Zhang, it is apparent that WSD is very supportive in teaching students how to restructure basic Mandarin sentences correctly. This is because students only need to remember the five icons in WSD without absorbing the complicated grammatical rules to restructure the sentences.

An Investigation on Students' Acceptance of Writing Web Logs: A Test of Technology Acceptance Model

The application of computer in education is on the rise recently. However, using web logs in English Language Teaching (ELT) is rather new in Malaysia since the students’ acceptance of writing web logs has not been extensively examined in previous studies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to measure students’ acceptance of writing web logs employing the Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Two determinants–Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) are used to determine an individual’s Behavioural Intention (BI) of writing web log. To investigate the relationships among PEOU, PU, and BI of users with and without hands-on experience of blogging, pre- and post-questionnaires were administered on three intact groups of undergraduate students as the target sample. Three hypotheses were formulated based on the objectives of the study. The result of the study shows that with the support of hands-on experience, the students accepted to write web logs because they found it was more useful rather than easy to use.

Measuring Students’ Perception of Writing Web Logs in ESL Classroom Employing the Technology Acceptance Model

Web log is an exceptionally valuable tool for the teaching of second language writing, particularly in written communication skills (Johnson, 2004; Wu, 2003). More and more foreign educators have applied this easy-to-use technology to classroom instruction and language learning (Campbell, 2003a; Johnson, 2004). However, what has remained predominantly unknown is Malaysian students’ reaction to writing web logs in English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. Therefore, the study aims to investigate the perception of writing web logs among the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) HM115 diploma students who were taking BEL311 English course in their third semester based on the three Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) variables. Specifically, the study sought to identify whether the two TAM determinants-Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) affect the students’ behavioural intention (BI) to use web logs for specific writing task. This study employed the Davis’ TAM (1989) and its questionnaire-based measurement instrument and three hypotheses were formulated based on the objectives of the study.

Bringing Blogs into ESL Writing Classroom

In recent years, the use of web logs or blogs in education is on the rise. Even though it has immense potential as an extremely valuable tool in higher education learning, writing blogs in Malaysia is still in its infancy. Therefore, the objective of this study is to introduce a new ICT and CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) application – blogs, and investigate undergraduate students’ perceptions of using blogs as a tool for journal writing. This study employed the Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (1989) and its questionnaire-based measurement instrument to evaluate and justify users’ attitudes and behaviour. TAM posits two determinants–Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) to determine an individual’s Behavioural Intention (BI) as a mediator of actual technology use. To explore the relationships among PEOU, PU, and BI of blog users to accomplish a writing task, questionnaire was administered on 78 undergraduate students as the target sample. Based on the objectives of the study, three hypotheses were formulated. The results from the pilot test had confirmed the reliability of the modified TAM-based questionnaire.

Group Autonomy and Peer Assessment in Conducting Reading Comprehension Activity Using Newspapers

This research aims to discover the benefits of group autonomy (GA) and peer assessment (PA) among tertiary students through newspapers in carrying out reading comprehension (RC) activities. This paper seeks to find out (1) how far GA had provided freedom for students to construct and determine own questions in RC activities and (2) how far PA had helped students to be more engaged in RC activities and to heighten understanding of reading newspaper articles. Direct observations by independent observers and rating evaluation formed by participants had been used to measure the actual behaviour and feedback of learners in RC activities using newspapers. 86 students were subsequently divided into smaller groups and given autonomy to carry out RC activities, select newspaper texts, formulate questions and handle inter-group participation in RC activities. Assessment was conducted by the respective groups themselves whereby each group checked on the correctness of the other groups’ written responses. Due to active involvement in such RC activities, the findings showed that students became more interested and “alive” during such reading classes.