Good Command Of English Language Research Articles

Malay-English Translation Competencies Among Future Global Da’ies

Demands for a greater number of preachers or Da’ies who are capable in delivering the Islamic teachings clearly and confidently are anticipated to increase. Besides knowledge on Islam and its teachings that they possess, these Da’ies are expected to have a good command of English language to convey the Islamic teachings to a wider global audience. Malaysia has many capable Da’ies who can disseminate Islam in the Malay language but many lack the ability to communicate well in English. Ignoring this problem will produce incompetent Da’ies who may miss critical issues, resulting in lost knowledge, and inadept understanding of Islam. Thus, it is vital for these Da’ies to have the ability to translate Islamic terms, concepts and worldview correctly, to ensure better coverage of da’wah. The objective of this paper is to investigate students’ English proficiency by looking at their ability to translate. This paper examines the translation competence of 71 students from various faculties from a Malaysian Islamic-based public university. A test was used as the research instrument which was later examined via document analysis approach. Students were asked to translate basic Islamic religious terms and the translated work were marked based on a set of acceptable answers determined by the researchers. Findings indicate that their translation competencies are influenced by three elements: language, textual/subject and cultural competences. However, the participants have poor translation qualities indicating lack of translation abilities. Future recommendations regarding translation competencies, and Islamic religious terms translation issues are discussed.

ESP Teaching Practices in Management Science at Post-Graduate Level in Pakistan: Perceptions of ESP Teachers and ESP Learners

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teaching is considered a separate activity in the domain of English Language Teaching \cite{dudley1998developments}. ESP primarily aims to prepare and fulfill a set of the communicative needs of ESP learners in academic and professional contexts. These needs serve as a guide to design relevant course content and adopt appropriate teaching method with particular emphasis on the kind of English to be taught and the topics to be covered. The current study attempts to investigate through the perceptions of ESP teachers and ESP learners the effective role of subject matter specialists (henceforth SMSs) in the teaching of ESP courses at postgraduate level in Pakistan. The sample size taken for this study comprises of 10 ESP teachers selected through snowball sampling technique and 50 ESP learners chosen through purpose sampling from three different disciplines of management sciences. Open ended questionnaire and interviews were used for data collection. The data were thematically analyzed. The analysis of ESP teachers' data suggested English language competence, pedagogic competence and awareness of the learners' prospective communicative needs in academic and workplace contexts. The analysis of ESP learners' data indicated that subject matter specialists along with content area knowledge need to have good command of English language as well. From the comparative analyses of ESP teachers and ESP learners' data, this study concludes that for effective ESP teaching to any group of ESP learners, an ESP teacher irrespective of the academic background (ELTs or Subject Matter Specialists) needs to have English language competence, pedagogic skills and how much they know about the learners' target communicative needs.

Phenomenological Study: Bilingual Teaching Classroom of Malaysian Community Colleges

The study of bilingual teaching classroom of Malaysian community colleges was designed for developing a brand new environment of teaching in a classroom. It was also to find the main factors that lead to this crucial phenomenon of bilingual classroom. This study has never been conducted among the academicians of community colleges and this is the first study invented by the researcher in order to help in creating new environment of teaching in a bilingual classroom and also to equip learners with good command of English language as to produce trainers who are proficient in the language. The targeted respondents of this study were several course content instructors from several different programs of Malaysian community colleges. Students from semester four undertaking certificate courses from various disciplines of studies were also involved in this research. Non-structured interviews, non-participant observation and note taking were the methods used in this research. The result indicates various answers given by the respondents from the interviews. The needs of the language for each classroom are highly depend on the teachers’ competencies of the language used instead of the learners’ needs. In a nutshell, the bilingual teaching classroom of community colleges can be evaded by practicing better approaches and methods in teaching.

A Progress Update and History of IBE; Plus Papers of the Year, 2012

I begin this editorial by introducing to you a talented young lady whom I met when I was attending the ‘‘Healthy Buildings 2012’’ conference held on July 8–12, 2012, in Brisbane, Australia. I was impressed by her quiet confidence and her intellectual assertiveness. She speaks good Cantonese and has a good command of English language. I attended her presentation of her paper on ‘‘Simulation based validation of two CO2-based demand controlled ventilation control logic for multiple-zone VAV system’’ and was impressed by her knowledge and command of her subject. The reason I am introducing her to you in this editorial is that she has been appointed as the Deputy Editor to assist me with the editing of papers for journal publication. Her name is Dr Josephine Lau. She is an Assistant Professor at the Charles W Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, University of Nebraska-Lincoln of the USA. She, like me, was originally from Hong Kong. She was a first class honours graduate and a Master (with distinction) of Building Services Engineering from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University before she went to the USA where she obtained a further Master degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and a Doctorate degree in Architectural Engineering from Pennsylvania State University where she was also a graduate teaching assistant. She had won many awards for her thesis dissertations in America and for being an outstanding student when she was in Hong Kong. At a relatively young age, she has already established herself internationally. She is a technical committee member of the Environmental Health Committee of ASHRAE and she is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Architectural Engineering. She has published widely and internationally on a wide variety of subjects on Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) air cleaners, ventilation, floor supply displacement ventilation, HVAC systems, CFD simulation of temperature and airflow in multi-zones environments, energy efficiency and indoor air quality, in various journals and conference proceedings. I believe her expertise covers about 75% of the subject areas of our journal which has made her an ideal candidate to be the deputy editor. About 90% of papers submitted to our journal are within the subject areas of her interest, knowledge and expertise. I would also like to introduce to you Dr Zhishi Guo. He is from the US EPA Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Laboratory, Air Pollution Prevention and Control Division (APPCD), Indoor Environment Management Branch (IEMB). He is retiring this year and he has agreed to join the editorial team of the journal as one of the deputy editors to help me with editing of papers. Zhishi does not really need introduction to many of you who know him as one of the leading experts in indoor source characterization of particulate matters, VOCs and SVOCs, modelling of VOC emissions in built environments and indoor air quality simulation. He was responsible for the US EPA simulation tool kit for indoor