English language is the main lingua-franca in higher education worldwide. For that reason, higher education institutions in Malaysia including the Malaysian Technical and Vocational University (MTVU, a pseudonym) have been promoting English as the language of instruction. With the existence of international students and voluminous English academic…

The Community of Inquiry model (CoI) is a guiding framework for blended learning and online learning and it has been implemented in diverse disciplines. However, the research on how EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers can promote students' engagement in online discussions through the CoI framework is very limited. This mixed-method study…

In many higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world, one of the popular English oral assessments for ESL learners is group discussion. In group discussions, it is vital that they have the ability to manage topics in a discussion by knowing how to initiate a topic, expand on the topic, seamlessly shift from one topic to another as well as…

The purpose of this research was to identify the common errors made in English writing by Malaysian Chinese primary year 6 ESL students and to determine the extent of the influence of the first language, Mandarin in ESL writing. The Mandarin language uses a logographic writing system while the English language is written in alphabetic scripts. The…

Language pedagogy has recently shifted its focus to digital pedagogy, hence classroom tasks being modified has become an essential practice around the world. One challenging element of teaching in a digital classroom is keeping students interested and ensuring that they have genuine learning experiences. It was also discovered that digital…

The shortage of trained and qualified English language teachers in rural schools has always been a significant issue in Malaysia, particularly in Sabah, due to the higher proportion of rural areas. Various factors have been associated with teachers' reluctance to serve in rural schools. Nevertheless, several urban-originated teachers are recorded…

Online learning poses challenges that students might never have encountered in a face-to-face learning environment. In learning English, students may confront more challenges as they need both cognitive and metacognitive skills in dealing with the dynamic lessons involving interaction, online exercises, and audio, video and text downloads. The…

This paper describes the effectiveness of student collaboration as a technique in improving vocabulary development among a group of ESL learners. The main motivation behind this study was the concern that vocabulary has become a neglected area in the teaching of English language. The main aims of the study were to evaluate whether student…

English has emerged as the language of scientific communication (Björkman, 2011; Jenkins, 2006). Given the significance of English, in addition to ESP courses that have been incorporated in university curriculum, the CLIL method can be one of the choices for improving students' English mastery. Before implementing CLIL and creating the necessary…

The present study aims to develop a model illuminating the relationship between student personality traits and motivation towards learning Mandarin as a foreign language. A model framework consisting of five exogenous variables and one endogenous variable of motivation are examined in the present study. Sample of 260 undergraduates taking Mandarin…

With the global expansion of China's economy, Chinese has established itself as a major language. Since then, higher education students' desire to learn Chinese has increased dramatically. However, strategies for foreign language learning and students' anxiety both play a key role in students' ability to communicate in Chinese. Thus, the purpose…

This article presents the results of a study carried out to explore the elements of Young Adult Literature (YAL) present in the prescribed texts for Malaysian secondary school English as a second Language (ESL) students (3rd cycle). The three novels studied were; "Captain Nobody" by Dean Pitchford, "Sing to the Dawn" by MinFong…

Technology has become an integral part in language education in general and English language teaching and learning in specific. Accordingly, the use of technology enhanced language learning (TELL) tools in English language learning has become common as they can improve the knowledge retention and increase engagement. The study aims at unravelling…

The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2000) developed in line with the Minimalist theory of grammar (Chomsky, 1995 et seq.) supports the view of L2 acquisition that syntactic properties are acquired early while the acquisition of interface properties is delayed. One of the interface properties is inflectional morphology on English verbs, which…

For teaching and learning Malay language grammar, there are many types of online assessment tools and applications have been developed in Malaysia. One such application is Quizizz, a game-based online quiz that facilitates teaching and learning. The purpose of this research is to measure the effectiveness of Quizizz application to teach and learn…