Malay Learners Research Articles

INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING ENGLISH LANGUAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION IN THE WRITTEN WORK OF YEAR 3 ESL LEARNERS IN WANGSA MAJU PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALAYSIA

ABSTRACT One of the most significant and interesting aspects of human development is language acquisition. Since English is a universal language, it is an essential language of interaction and education. Therefore, we have to take this language of education for professional competence seriously. The aim of the study is to explore the analysis of cultural interference, an aspect that significantly hinders the learning and acquisition of English among young Malay learners. It aims to identify the students’ errors in sentence construction, particularly on the occurrence of mistakes in subject-verb-agreement’ (SVA), determiners, and the copula ‘be’. The data of this study came from an exploratory study of errors in the written essays by Year 3 students in Wangsa Maju Primary School, Malaysia. The findings of the study showed that the students were struggling and having difficulty in using accurate English grammar in their academic writing. The results revealed that the most frequent errors were the incorrect usage of the copula ‘be’ and the absence of determiners. The interference of mother tongue played a vital cause towards inhibiting the production of error free English language sentences. Lack of understanding of how the English language grammar function also accounted to this. All these could be seen as interlingual errors whereby the native language of the participants influenced their writing patterns.

The rise tone in the English and Malay intonations of Malay learners of English


 
 
 English is a widely spoken language around the world and its intonation may vary significantly across its varieties. Miscommunication is possible given that intonation may function differently in different varieties. Given this context, this study sets out to describe functions of the rise tone in the English and Malay intonations of Malay learners, and to determine the influence of their L1 on the use of the rise tone in Malaysian English. Sixty ESL learners were asked to narrate a short story individually according to a series of pictures presented to them. Eight of them were also asked to narrate their stories in Malay. Their narrations were analysed acoustically using Praat and the tone functions were identified using Brazil’s Discourse Intonation model. Findings show that the learners used the rise tone in both languages mainly to: (i) convey new and shared information, (ii) continue speaking, and (iii) present items in a list. Findings may contribute details to Malaysian English phonology and shed some light on intonation usage among Malaysian English speakers.
 
 

The Impact of Attitude Towards Mandarin as A Foreign Language Achievement

Attitude plays a fundamental role in the learning process of foreign languages. It has recently gotten much attention from first and second-language researchers. Previous studies have indicated that learners showed a positive attitude towards learning Mandarin. Limited studies investigated the correlations between language learning attitude and course achievement among Mandarin foreign language learners. Therefore, this study tends to fill this gap. 614 non-native Malay learners of Mandarin from 5 different public universities in Malaysian participated in this study. The study used a quantitative design, and data was collected through questionnaires and the end-of-semester course grade. Descriptive statistics analysis, correlation and linear regression using SPSS. 25 were run to analyse the collected data. This study revealed a statistically positive correlation between attitude and Mandarin foreign language course achievement. The linear regression result revealed that learning attitude statistically predicted Mandarin foreign language learners' course achievement (β = .20, .001). This study has concluded limitations and recommendations to help institutions and interested researchers shed light on these further research studies.

Production Errors and Interlanguage Development Patterns of L1 Malay ESL Learners in the Acquisition of the English Passive

Studies have shown that Malay ESL learners face difficulties in acquiring the English passive, but not much is known about their acquisition patterns as they advance in their proficiency in English. This study investigated the interlanguage development patterns of L1 Malay learners by examining the production errors of learners at varying English proficiency levels. Students from tertiary institutions in Malaysia completed tasks designed to elicit production of the English passive. The results indicated that overall, the main errors committed by the learners were related to the be-auxiliary and the past participle verb form, which are non-existent in their L1. Certain types of errors diminished at higher English proficiency levels, whilst certain others persisted in high proficiency learners. These results point to underlying differences in sources of errors where some types of errors are more resistant to change, while others may be resolved as the interlanguage system develops to approximate the target language. Differential pedagogical interventions may be indicated for learners at different stages of L2 acquisition.

The Perception of Lecturers on Public Speaking Anxiety among ESL Learners in a Public University (UITM)

Numerous polls have been undertaken to recognise public speaking as a number one concern among undergraduates in University Technology Mara when involved in English courses. This is regardless of the fact the university offers ample opportunities for students to develop their public speaking skills. If public speaking is a struggle in the sense of a native English speaker, then the fear of enhancing sustainable oral presentations in English to non-native English speakers is understandably greater. Nevertheless, speaking in English in front of an audience is increasingly seen as a valuable ability for ESL/EFL learners to develop and that is why public speaking courses in many Malaysian university programs are increasingly seen as a key component. According to research conducted by the Ministry of Education as a result of internationalisation policies, public universities in Malaysia have switched to the English language as their medium of instruction. Public speaking is offered as a university prerequisite course in many of these universities, making it compulsory for many students. Students are apprehensive, however about public speaking in English. The present study explores public-speaking apprehension in a public university among Malay learners of English. This study entailed a quantitative research paradigm on a sample of 30 lecturers who will interviewed using an interview pool. Data will be transcribed after the interview. This thesis aims to define techniques for the improvement of public speaking competences for adult ESL learners. Employees in the field at all various levels usually require good oral communication.

Leveraging ‘I+1’ Comprehensible Input Theory to Enhance Acquisition of Arabic Language


 
 
 This short Communication is part of a proposed research project that aims to fill some gaps in Stephen Krashen’s i+1 comprehensible input theory and pave way for its effective classroom application which is hitherto problematic. Although the theory was postulated to apply to all forms of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the primary objective of the project is to apply i+1 input model in Arabic Language Teaching (ALT), as a way to answer a clarion call sounded by His Majesty, the Sultan of Brunei Darussalam, for innovation of new methods in teaching Arabic language skills. This Communication is a conceptual research paper that aims to demonstrate, albeit partially, a suggested pedagogical framework that is innovated to teach the Arabic language to non-native speakers, whose mother tongue has considerable similarities with the Arabic language, such as Hausa language, Malay language, Urdu language, Yoruba Language, etc. For a demonstration of the suggested pedagogical framework, Malay language is used as a case study. The novelty of this paper lies in demonstrating the possibility of applying i+1 comprehensible input theory to enhance acquisition of the Arabic language skills by the Malay learners, and to show a unique way of strengthening the bondage between the Arabic language and the Malay language, as espoused in the national philosophy and identity of Brunei Darussalam.
 
 

Is that Different from the?

English is a language with overt morphological representations of articles. On the other hand, Malay and Mandarin Chinese have none. In Malaysia, pupils are exposed to English articles as early as four years old. Despite early exposure, articles, or the definite article the specifically, appear to be a marked grammatical property for Chinese-speaking and Malay-speaking learners, two languages without articles. Based on the Fluctuation Hypothesis and Article Choice Parameter, this study seeks to investigate and compare the role of first language (L1) transfer on the article acquisition of the 77 L1 Chinese and 116 L1 Malay ESL learners, who were teacher trainees recruited from three teachers’ training institutes in Malaysia. The respondents were tested utilising a production task and a comprehension task. The statistical analyses of the participants’ performance revealed that only the advanced and intermediate groups of both L1 Chinese and L1 Malay ESL learners registered clear distinctions between the usage in the ‘Unique and salient’ and ‘Unique and non-salient’ categories and that usage in the ‘Non-unique’ category. The high accuracy rates suggest that L1 lexical transfer contributed to the positive performance by the ESL learners. The advanced and intermediate L1 Chinese and L1 Malay learners continuously interpreted the singular definite descriptions as referring to uniquely immediate salient entities similar to the demonstrative descriptions, making interpretations of the and that seemed similar.

نموذجا N الكلمات الملايوية ذات أصل عربي في قاموس دايا والاستفادة منها في تعليم اللغة العربية للملايويين المبتدئين حرف

ABSTRACT
 The arrival of Islam to the Malay world affected the live of Malay muslims in various aspects, especially in linguistic. Unfortunately, most of Malay people do not know and they do not aware of these words in their language which they communicate everyday. Therefore, this research was based on the analytical descriptive methods that aims to detect Arabic words which have become a part of Malay in the "Kamus Daya" which starts with letter N, and to know the changes that occur after entering into Malay in terms of phonology and semantics, and how it implies in teaching Arabic for beginners. This research has proven that the existence of Arabic words in Malay in the Daya Dictionary consisked of fifty-seven words, and from these words we can group them into four groups, the first Malay words that do not change their meaning from the Arabic meaning, the second words that extend in their meaning, the third words that narrow in their meaning, and the fourth are words that change completely their meaning. this research presents an example of Malay vocabulary comes from the Arabic contained in the conversation, readings and exercise, for example Arabic learning for beginners from Malay learners.

English Orthographic Depth among Malay Learners at a Primary School

This study concerns the spelling difficulties in English as a second language among young Malay learners. The objectives of this study are to identify and categorise the spelling errors produced by these learners and to investigate the linguistic factors for the error productions. This study employs Wardhaugh’s Contrastive Analysis as the main approach and Orthographic Depth Hypothesis as the foundation of the research. The Contrastive Analysis approach indicates that the linguistic differences between L1 and L2 may cause difficulties in L2 learning. The theoretical basis of this study claims that the degree to which an orthography deviates from easy one-to-one letter-sound plays a major role in L2 learner’s spelling performance. This study adapts a spelling assessment from El-Dakhs and Mitchell that tests students’ phonological, orthographic and morphological awareness and knowledge. The sample of this study consists of 46 eleven-year-old Malay students from a selected school in Selangor. The data for the study was gathered from the subjects’ responses in the assessment and interviews with selected students based on their test scores. The findings showed that the learners’ spelling performance was poorer in the orthographic tasks and better in the morphological and phonological tasks, suggesting the salience of orthography in the early stage of L2 learning. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that educators employ orthographic, phonic-based and form-meaning approaches in their teaching to enhance their students’ spelling proficiency so as to assist their students in their literacy development. Keywords: English language; Malay language; morphology; orthography; phonology; spelling; young Malay learners

The Use of Adverbials in the Verbal Production of Malay ESL Learners: A Processability Approach

This study investigates the development of verbal usage of adverbials by Malay ESL learners at the tertiary level. It aims to find out the developmental differences between low and intermediate learners’ acquisition of adverbials. Using Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998; 2005) and taxanomy of adverbials (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999) as the frameworks, this study explains the extent to which Malay ESL learners at the tertiary level have developed their use of English adverbials. For data collection purposes, a picture-cued task was administered on 60 Malay ESL students in which they were required to elicit each process in each picture. The results indicate that, in terms of their use of adverbials, most of the Malay ESL students from both proficiency levels were considered to have reached Stage 6 of the Processability Theory developmental stages and only a number of elementary level students were found to have only reached Level 2. The findings suggest that ESL practitioners should follow the developmental routes suggested by the Processability Theory in teaching grammar components to students.

The Use of Web 2.0 Technologies to Determine Receptive Skills among Malay Learners of Arabic Language

The application of modern technologies in educational fields thrills with a sudden shift in using of the internet from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 in the early 21st century. In the time various technological tools and social media sites evolved for social, entertainment and educational purposes. The application of such technological tools in teaching and learning of a language is termed computer-assisted language learning. However, in Arabic language learning is not widely adopted. This study aims to determine the performance level of Malay undergraduate learners of Arabic as a foreign language at Malaysian public Islamic universities (Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, International Islamic University Malaysia and Islamic Science University of Malaysia) in reading and listening skills according to the standards of United Certification Services Limited UNICERT, using the online tool Online?. The sample of the study comprises 156 final year Malay undergraduate students that are learning Arabic as a foreign language at these very three universities (UNISZA, IIUM and USIM). The data of the study were collected through test instrument designed and marked based on TOAFL (AL-ARABIA) marking scheme deployed into ?QuizCreator Online?. The results indicated that 53.3% of the students achieved a score of less than 50% in the reading skill while 46.7% of the students achieved a score of 50% and above. The peak score attained in reading skill was 97.5%, and the lowest score was 7.5%. Furthermore, 32.3% of the students achieved a score of less than 50% in the listening skill, and 67.7% of the students achieved a score of 50% and above. The peak score attained in listening skill was 100%, and the lowest score was 5%. This result is supported by various empirical studies conducted at different levels. This study recommends the use of web 2.0 tools such as Blogs, Edmodo, Facebook and QuizCreator Online tools teaching and learning of Arabic language to Malay AFL learners.

Mother Tongue Interference in the Writing of English as a Second Language (ESL) Malay Learners

The objective of this study is to identify the errors in writing committed by Malay ESL learners which can be attributed to mother tongue interference. Twenty pre-degree quantity surveyor students from Universiti Teknologi MARA Perak campus participated in the study. They were instructed to write between 200- to 300-word essays on a given topic in English and in Malay. Their compositions were analyzed using the algorithm for conducting error analysis (EA) proposed by James (1998) which are practiced by current EA practitioners. Since the main focus of the study is mother tongue interference, only errors related to L1 interference were addressed. The paper presents and discusses the descriptive analysis of the results in relation to three major types of interference which are ‘transfer of rules’, ‘redundancy reduction’ and ‘overgeneralization’.

Exploring Problems Experienced by Malay Learners of Arabic in Reading: Implications for Strategic Instruction

Exploring Problems Experienced by Malay Learners of Arabic in Reading: Implications for Strategic Instruction

马来学生对汉字的认知方式和认字教学的实践方法

AbstractThis study mainly investigated cognitive methods adopted by Malay learners who were taking Chinese proficiency courses at the University of Putra Malaysia. The respondents were learners who came from an alphabetic writing background. The findings of this study revealed that three cognitive methods were adopted by these respondents to recognize and retrieve the meanings of Chinese characters. The first method was to use phonetic symbols to write down the pronunciations of Chinese characters in order to comprehend the meanings of the characters. The respondents needed to pass through the intermediary stage of the inner language to activate the meanings of the characters. This response is a normal psychological reaction from the Chinese language learners who come from an alphabetic writing background.For the second method, the respondents used the vocabulary of their mother tongue to translate the meanings of Chinese characters. The findings showed that they depended on their mother tongue when comprehending the meanings of Chinese characters. Some respondents needed to search for the equivalent vocabulary in their mother tongue to translate the meanings of Chinese characters before they could retrieve the accurate meanings of the characters. This reaction shows that the method of acquisition of the mother tongue can affect the cognition ability of learners when comprehending the meanings of Chinese characters and during the reading process of Chinese texts.The third method concerned some respondents who could master Chinese characters and obtain a high level of Chinese proficiency. They were able to retrieve the meanings of Chinese characters directly from Chinese orthography without depending on the stimulus of the inner language or translation of the mother tongue to decode the meanings of the characters. The results of the Chinese comprehension test revealed that the respondents who obtained a high level of Chinese proficiency were not hindered by the difficulties in recognizing and comprehending the meanings of the Chinese characters. Their scores in the comprehension test were the highest.The feedback from the questionnaire used showed that some respondents did not necessarily have to rely on the stimulus of the inner language as the intermediary stage to activate the meanings of Chinese characters. Most of the respondents preferred to use the vocabulary of their mother tongue to help them to retrieve the meanings of the characters. Regarding the stimulus of the inner language or the translation of the mother tongue for decoding, both these methods showed that there was interference from the mother tongue’s orthography of the respondents. However, the results of the comprehension test revealed that when the respondents were familiar with Chinese characters, they could abandon both the methods mentioned when retrieving the meanings of the characters.Finally, this study suggests some instructional practices for recognizing Chinese characters to assist Chinese language learners from the alphabetic writing background to better recognize the characteristics of Chinese orthography. These practices emphasize learning activities for standard Chinese language orthography. Emphasis also is given to the knowledge relating to the features and characteristics of Chinese characters from an ideogram language. Further stress is on the effective methods to retrieve the meanings directly from Chinese characters.

Which Cultural Aspects Are Malay Learners of Arabic Interested in Knowing?

An important goal for foreign language learning is to equip learners with the linguistic and cultural skills to function effectively in this multicultural world. However, research on culture in language learning has almost always investigated teacher and scholar views. This study investigated the levels of interest and types of Arab culture that Malay Arabic learners‟ are interested in learning, from the perspective of learners themselves. This study employed a survey questionnaire consisting of 56 cultural items and representing six subcosntructs and an openended question. 361 respondents representing Secondary Two students from four National Religious Secondary Schools (SMKA) were cluster sampled. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The qualitative data were analysed thematically. The findings indicate a high level of interest amongst respondents to know the Arab culture (m=4.88). The subconstruct Religion and Education received the highest rating (m=5.27). The respondents also suggested other cultural aspects that they are interested in learning, including the way Arabs think. Findings from this study are empirical evidence for curriculum designers and textbook writers on the aspects of Arab culture that deserve to be integrated into the Arabic learning experience.

Types of Linguistic Error on Mandarin Time Phrase Construction among Malay Learners

Aligned with the economic development in China, Mandarin has been made popular worldwide. The ninth Malaysian plan (2006-2010) has strongly substantiated the need of Mandarin to be introduced as a foreign language elective course in public institutions of higher learning. Due to the fact that numerical phrases play a prominent role in daily lives, the main aim of this study is to explore the construction of Mandarin time phrase among Malay learners. A total of 40 Malay students who registered in Mandarin for Beginners course took part in this study. A test which consisted of 10 questions covering construction of time phrase was administered to the students. Grammatical description and frequency analysis were employed, and the results showed five types of linguistic error committed by the students in constructing Mandarin time phrase: (1) error in words usage, (2) confusion of numbers, (3) Hanyu Pinyin errors, (4) structural errors and (5) omissions of words. The factors influencing students in the construction of Mandarin time phrase include students‟ attitude, different structures between Mandarin and Malay, language transfer from native language and lack of learning time. Accordingly, this study sheds light on Mandarin teachers in improving academic performances of Malay students in conceptualizing and mastering Mandarin time phrase

Validating the Effectiveness of the Mandarin Pronunciation Guide among Malay Learners

This paper reports on a study which was conducted to validate the effectiveness of a guidebook entitled “Mandarin Pronunciation Guide with a Comparison of English and Malay words.” Many authors (i.e. De Mente, 2006; Peters, 2006; Sharma, 2007) have used English phonetic to explain Mandarin pronunciation. However, no study has been conducted to prove the effectiveness of using English phonetic to learn Mandarin. Mandarin Pronunciation Guide, which content includes using similar corresponding English and Malay sounds, is a guidebook which is written for Malay and English speaking students who learn Mandarin as a foreign language. This study therefore aimed to verify the effectiveness of the guidebook as used among students of a public university in Malaysia. Participants were fifteen Malay students who were asked to use the guidebook. Pre-test and post-test were administered before and after the utilisation of the guidebook where participants were requested to record their pronunciation of 100 Chinese words. The results showed a significant improvement among participants which validated the effectiveness of the Mandarin Pronunciation Guide for use among Malay learners.

Learning via Television Cartoon

Cartoons have been a favorite among children, teenagers and adults. Cartoons began with paper drawing and have evolved to the highest technology of dissemination in the form of movies; apart from that, cartoons have become a teaching tool for second language learners. The objectives of the study were to identify and discuss the characters, storyline and moral values in a Malay cartoon. The cartoon used in this study was Upin and Ipin. The samples consist of ten subjects from a Malay language proficiency class at one of the universities in Korea. The subjects viewed 8 episodes of Upin and Ipin for 1 hour a week for a total of 8 weeks. The subjects were interviewed based on their views about the cartoon. The results of the study revealed that the subjects managed to identify all of the characters in the cartoon. The subjects also understood the storylines in six episodes of the cartoon. Moreover, the results revealed that the moral values for each episode involved respect, hardworking, caring, loving and others. This study implicates educators to consider cartoons as a teaching tool in foreign language learning. It is hoped that a future study will focus on cartoons when learning to write short stories among Malay language learners.

The Use of Online Corrective Feedback in Academic Writing by L1 Malay Learners

Conventional corrective feedback has been widely practiced but has been said to be tedious, stressful and time consuming. As such, the focus of this study is to investigate the use of an alternative method to giving corrective feedback namely, an online corrective feedback through e-mail. In order to examine if this innovative form of corrective feedback can be applied to the teaching and learning of academic writing, an experimental design was used with a control group and an experimental group of L1 Malay learners who were pursuing an academic writing course at the tertiary level. Interviews were also conducted on selected individuals to determine whether the use of online corrective feedback was practical in assisting learners improve their writing from the first draft to the final product. The statistical analysis applied to this research indicated that online corrective feedback may be an effective way to improve writing skills of learners and save time. Thus, the results showed that online corrective feedback should be potentially useful when integrated into the teaching and learning of academic writing.

Literal Translation from English and Malay in the Written Communication among Malay Learners of French

This study intended to examine the use of literal translation from English and Malay language in the written communication. The objectives were to investigate the most present language used in the translation to French, the use of the literal translation (LT) of Malay and English in the written communication among across gender, and to determine at which sentence level (words, phrase or syntax) the translation was used by the learners. The research utilized qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. The study was conducted among Malay non-native speakers of French as a foreign language at Universiti Putra Malaysia. A total of 50 subjects took part in this study. The task was to complete a writing task of 150-200 words after 100 hours of French learning. The results indicated that Malay language played a more important part in the translation, where 163 elements of translation were found as opposed to 76 elements from English language. Among the translations produced by the learners, 57 items were in the word form, 77 items in the phrase form and 105 items in the sentence form. The results of this study could help in the teaching of French to Malay learners by making them aware of literal translation which already in their repertoire and by encouraging them to use the translation effectively.