Adelina Asmawi

The Emerging Face of Higher Education: An Analysis of the Malaysian Context

Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries over the past years. We all know that these have been precipitated by the facilitation of global communications through technological advancements as well as socio-economic, political and environmental developments.

HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM IN MALAYSIA: EXPLORING STRATEGIC TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION FOR NEW MALAYSIA

This research aimed at exploring and identifying the strategic trends and challenges that have emerged in higher education in Malaysia. A qualitative research approach was used to identify these trends and challenges using documentation and semi-structured interviews as the main data collection methods. The documents were books, newspaper articles, journals, and education blueprints. The interview samples were four education scholars who are leading figures from the Ministry of Education and public universities. To analyse the data, document examination and content analysis were carried out to identify emerging trends which involved several cycles of coding. These trends were found to be parallel to the changes in the Malaysian higher education system in an attempt to upgrade its quality and sustainability, and to keep abreast with the current waves of globalisation, internationalisation and societal change. They are part of processes adopted by the Malaysian Education Ministry in ensuring that the country is not left behind in providing quality tertiary education for the nation. The ramifications of these trends and their associated challenges were discussed within the Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint framework. The implications for improving the quality of higher education are also included.

Exploring Online Collaborative Reflective Practice for Teaching and Counseling Internship

Professional training or internship is the first platform for pre-service teachers and counsellors to translate their theoretical understanding into practices. This experiential learning by-doing is normally supervised by experts in the respective fields such as lecturers or sometimes called academic supervisors. This study explored the use of online collaborative reflective practices among interns in teaching and counselling programs. Results showed some potential challenges and contributions of online collaborative reflective practice in enhancing the interns’ professional experience and practice. Despite some practical challenges, both groups of interns benefitted a lot in the use of such modality in sharpening their professional skills. Some suggestions for better practices in the use of online collaborative reflection are included.

Content Analysis of the Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the Curriculum of Yemeni EFL Teacher Education Programme

This study aims to analyse the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in the current curriculum of the English teacher education programme (ETEP) at a Faculty of Education in a Yemeni University. PCK and teaching competencies take shape within the initial preparation of ETEP in which student teachers spenda long time receiving knowledge and understanding the teaching context before they practically experience teaching at schools. During their BA study, students are required to study 49 courses which can be categorised into four main components: skills, linguistics, literature and professional. This study analyses the content of the curriculum courses so as tovisualise the way student teachers translate what they have learned into pedagogical practices during their teaching practices. In this study, the curriculum content of ETEP is qualitatively analysed using the inductive approach. Categories emerged from the analysis demonstrate various aspects of student teachers’ PCK. The analysis reveals that the pedagogical skills courses are not enough to enhance and strengthen the student teachers’ PCK needed to be reflected in their teaching practices. The findings show that the curriculum lacks courses necessary to provide student teachers with basic knowledge and pedagogical principles which are of vital significance to demonstrate their understanding before they are practically engaged in the teaching experience.

A Model of Critical Peer Feedback to Facilitate EFL Writing in Online Context

Peer feedback in EFL writing has been regarded as time-consuming, and inefficient. An approach is to study the mental process of feedback to improve its quality. It is believed that higher-order thinking can produce high-order peer feedback in higher-level writing. In this study, “critical thinking” is explored to facilitate peer feedback and writing with higher-order thinking skills. “Critical peer feedback” is conceptualized with the integration of critical thinking and feedback in order to improve the quality of feedback. This study aims to study the process of critical peer feedback through blogs and discussion the model of critical peer feedback. A qualitative case study is conducted with six junior students majoring Business English in a Chinese university. Three models of critical thinking are transferred to the participants in the workshops. Three kinds of data including semi-structured interviews, six writing assignments and the artifacts of critical peer feedback, are analyzed by Nivivo 10. The finding reveals that the Revised Blooms Taxonomy is more acceptable for the beginners of critical peer feedback which provides a six-step model of critical thinking. The conclusion of critical peer feedback model in online context may be significant to its further practice in various courses.

Online Features of Qzone Weblog for Critical Peer Feedback to Facilitate Business English Writing

Qzone weblog is one of the most popular weblogs in China. This study explores Qzone weblog for critical peer feedback to facilitate Business English writing among the Chinese undergraduates. A qualitative case study is conducted by NVivo 8 to analyze the three research data of semistructured interviews, Business English writing assignments, and critical peer feedback artifacts. Three research questions are focused on the case participants’ perception of this study, the strength and weakness of Qzone for critical peer feedback, and online features of Qzone affecting critical peer feedback in Business English writing. The findings indicate that Qzone weblog is a convenient information communication technology platform for online critical peer feedback among the Chinese undergraduates. The six aspects of strength and five online features are coded by NVivo 8, which are models by NVivo 8 with figures. The weakness of Qzone is the character number limitation for blogging and feedback. The conclusion of this study will be applied for the use of Qzone weblog and other kinds of weblog for online peer feedback in English writing.