Ruhizan M. Yasin

ESl Lecturers’ Voices on Tell Me More

The Spirit of the Chinese People was written in 1915, from historical view, China was undergoing great social changes in all aspects at that time. The book written by Ku Hung-Ming is considered to be the first work in modern China to introduce Chinese people to the westerners. He shows deep love, passion and pride of Chinese culture in this book, intending to change the prejudice towards Chinese people of the westerners. Cultural confidence of Ku Hung-Ming can also be sensed greatly in his great work, which is of great value nowadays. This paper mainly demonstrates cultural confidence of Chinese people conveyed in this book by Ku Hung-Ming, some personal reflections are also discussed in this paper to show the author’s understanding of Chinese cultural confidence.Anne of Green Gables, one of Canada’s best known children’s books, has gained popularity all over the world. Anne has become a household name in the children world. The paper analyses the image of Anne in Chinese readers’ eyes: a romantic, imaginative, loyal, self-spirited and loveable girl. The author of this paper also reviews a brief history of Canadian literature’s acceptance in China, and offers some constructive suggestions for the effective popularization of Canadian literature in China. Key words: Anne; Canadian literature; popularization; children’s literaturePresently, most students of normal universities know nothing about music knowledge such as music score at all, and have no musical knowledge and culture. This is a common problem existing in many Chinese normal universities. Surveys, however, show the students are fond of and thirst for learning music knowledge. Thus, universities and related institutions have been laying stress on how to cultivate and improve the music knowledge and culture of students of normal universities. In view of this, this paper aims to research the problems in music curriculum design of normal universities, and put forward corresponding countermeasures, with a hope to give assistance to related universities in music teaching. The theory knowledge of music and vocality accomplishments is one of the basic knowledge and accomplishments that modern talents should have. Besides music majors, education majors also should be offered music education, so as to make up the deficiency of musical knowledge and culture of Chinese musical talents, and comprehensively improve students’ musical skills (Kong & Jin, 2014). There are many problems in music education curriculum design of normal universities. About this, this paper aims to analyze the problems, and put forward suggestions on related curriculum design.Frye’s theory of archetypal meaning includes the apocalyptic and the demonic imagery. The apocalyptic and demonic imagery will be applied to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which is stuffed with symbols. Through the demonic imagery, the theme of the novel, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery and barbarism is clearly revealed. The apocalyptic imagery gives us some hope, though.This essay is devoted to a review of Fotos and Ellis’ (1991) article about using task-based approach in teaching grammar. The choice of the article is based on the fact that it provides a good start for a discussion of the implementation of task-based approach to grammar teaching. First, a summary of the main points in the article is presented. The second part provides a discussion focusing on how the issue of teaching grammar communicatively has been tackled by other researchers. The last part is an attempt to draw some implications of task-based approach in teaching grammar for the Moroccan context.Based on the cultivating mode of special talents and cultivating target of professional talents in the higher vocational colleges, through imitating major cluster construction idea, so as to promote the efficient launch of thematic practical teaching, this paper will conduct relatively deep analysis and discussion on how to improve the practical teaching effectiveness of ideological and political course in the higher vocational colleges.As more and more Chinese farmers are moving to bigger cities, the education problems of migrant students become more and more severe in China. Based on the analysis on the current situation of compulsory education of migrant students in X City, and comparing with the successful solutions of migrant education problems in the United States, this paper offers some possible suggestions to schools in X City on solving the compulsory education problems of migrant students.This paper attempts to offer teachers effective and convenient models in explaining several basic concepts in translation theories to students in translation classes. Four models borrowed from the discipline of cognition are prototype, cognition domain, salience and the three-dimensional cognition mode. The concepts explained in this paper included translation variation, extra-linguistic knowledge for translation, translation criteria and un-translatability, all of which are among the primary concerns for students in translation classes. Key Words: translation concepts; translation theories; cognitive modelsOn the eve of the thirtieth Teachers’ Day, President Xi Jinping visited the Beijing Normal University, and gave an important speech on the forum of the teachers and students from Beijing Normal University: Be a Good Teacher Who Satisfies the Party and the People. The speech highlights the importance of education and teachers, which are of great significance to strengthen the construction of teachers’ contingent. With College counselors being an important part of teachers’ contingent, this paper analyzes the significance of college counselors practicing the Good Teacher With Four Haves Standard from this angle, and further puts forward some countermeasures on this basis, namely, a good college counselor should have clear ideal and conviction, have noble moral sentiment, have profound and relevant knowledge, and have a loving and benevolent heart, in order to provide a certain reference for the troop construction of college counselors.This paper clarified the concepts of cognitive load and combined EFL listening decoding as well as the relationship between them, and examined the change of learners’ cognitive load and its impact on their EFL listening decoding which were caused by input of pure audio information and that of combined audio information with mixtures such as pictures and images. Based on this, the author proposed some effective strategies to improve learners’ EFL listening decoding, including strengthening the training of learners’ English thinking, increasing their cognitive level, enriching the design of EFL listening teaching, creating multiple schemas and maintaining the reasonable cognitive load according to individual learners’ cognitive styles.Making a general survey of Jane·Eyre status changing process from its publication to the end of the last century, it is certain that the novel is a dynamic classic after its publication because of its own and outside factors. However, between the late 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th , the society and commentors transferred their focus from Charlotte and his works, causing Jane·Eyre to be stative classic. Since the middle period of the last century the dynamic classic position of Jane·Eyre was again raised.Most of the governments in the world provide the private colleges with necessary financial support. This is evident especially in U.S., Japan and South Korea where the private higher education is very advanced. The private colleges in these countries have undergone different development paths. As their school funds come from different sources, the public financial support they gain exhibits different characteristics. The governments of these three countries attach great important to the development of private colleges, and issued a complete set of regulations to stipulate that the private colleges qualify for the same financial support as the public colleges. Various measures that were taken by the governments to raise funds contribute to sustainable development of the private colleges.В данной работе предлагается методическая организация иероглифического минимума для обучения студентов языкового вуза письму на китайском языке, построенная с учетом принципов гнездовой и концентрической организации материала; выделяются три методически значимых типа иероглифов.There are three aspects to strengthen honest governance education to Chinese policemen which include fully utilizing policemen to construct socialist harmonious society, strengthening ideology and politics education to policemen to develop their autonomy, establishing complete the system to punish and prevent corruption in policemen to further construct system.This study investigated the strategies monolingual Saudi Arabian adults (MSAAs), Saudi EFL adult learners (SEFLALs), and native speakers of English (ENSs) used when complaining. Another related aim was investigating whether SEFLALs displayed pragmatic transfer when using complaint strategies. A total of 183 written responses were collected from MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs via a three-item discourse completion task (DCT) were analyzed. Findings revealed the strategies used by the study participants when performing the speech act of complaints. First, hints, request and annoyance were the most frequently used strategies by MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs. Second, there were no statistically significant differences among MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs in using the strategy of direct accusation which consistent with the concept of positive pragmatic transfer. Third, hints, behavioral blame, request and indirect accusation were cases of weak negative pragmatic transfer as employed the SEFLALs in the current study. Fourth, modified blame was consistent with concept of strong negative pragmatic transfer. Finally, the last two strategies; annoyance and threat were consistent with no transfer, that is, SEFLAL employed these two strategies as ENSs.Lord Jim is an attempt by Joseph Conrad to contemplate on the failure of the dreams of a man whose romantic beliefs in classical heroism and manner of conduct finally brings about his bafflement. In fact, this writer is trying to mirror that one’s lack of knowledge in case of the “how to be of life”, or his inability to vision the modern world practically from an authentic viewpoint holds him from being conscious enough about his real existence, resulting in a tragedy: a death associated with ambiguity, absent-mindedness and fury. To be more specific, the present study intends to investigate Jim’s Romance, his character – as well as that of the other important characters – and the strategies or techniques applied by Conrad, to reflect the failures of such a romantic viewpoint. Key words: Lord Jim; Joseph Conrad; Romance; Heroism; TragedyBased on the development history of Chinese revolution, the recording in the form of painting can help to restore the scene by combining the related historic theme, thus enhance the authenticity of creation of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history and objectively help to raise collectors’ collection hobby and interest. This paper discusses the creation and collection of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history so as to realize comprehensive understanding of the creation and collection of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history and thus promote the development of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history.The work of building Party schools for vocational college students is faced with new challenges in the new situation. This paper analyzes the main problems in of the process of building Party schools for vocational college students, and suggests building a mechanism for building Party schools for vocational college students based on the process of cultivating activists.

Learning environment and learning approaches among engineering students

Review of literature documented the role of learning approach in improving students learning outcome. It is also belief that students approach to learning is influence by the learning environment. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between learning environment and learning approaches among engineering students. A total of 527 final semester engineering students at technical institute in Malaysia were involved in this study. Data were collected using two sets of questionnaire namely: 1) Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) to measure learning environment and ii) Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire (RSPQ-2F) to measure learning approach. Data were analyzed using multiple regression to predict learning environment factors that are hypothesized to influence learning approaches among engineering students. The implication of learning environment in the promotion of deep approach will be discussed.

Confirmatory factor analysis of a measurement model of creative teaching practices in design and technology using structural equation modeling

The aim of this study is to test and compare the structural validity of two alternative hypothesized measurement models for the construct of creative teaching in design and technology by performing a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using a structural equation modeling approach A correlated two factors with the latent variables of creative personality and metacognition operation practices was compared to a correlated three-factors model with planning, monitoring and action as the latent variables. The creative teaching in design and technology (CT), consisting of 58 items from the 21 item creative personality (CP) and 37 item metacognition operation practice (MOP) was administered to 292 Living Skill teachers. The results using AMOS 18 software indicate that the three factor measurement model of creative teaching with χ2=376.231, p=0.01, χ2 /df =2.187, GFI=0.90, AGFI=0.87, RMR=0.014, RMSEA=0.064, provided a better fit compared to the two factors model. All factor loadings for the three-factor model were significant at the 0.001 level, with standardized coefficient, β ranging from 0.36 to 0.89. In conclusion, the three-factor model represents an adequate description of creative teaching in design and technology structure.

The Application of Theory of Action in the Formulation of Opportunity to Learn Strategies

This paper focuses on the application of theory of action in the formulation of opportunity to learn strategies. The strategies are explicitly outlined based on three domains of opportunity to learn, that are content coverage, teaching practices and teaching quality. The explicit strategies for each opportunity to learn domain are believed to help teachers visualize specific actions that can be implemented in order to maximize students’ opportunity to learn, and hence improve students’ achievement. Furthermore, the visible, clear and systematic delineated strategies can be used as guidelines to uncover any undesirable results that require prompt refinement.

Development of sustainable agriculture subjects in secondary academic schools: A Comfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach

The aim of this paper is to discuss the development of a valid and reliable measurement of sustainable agriculture subjects for secondary academic school. The elements of the instrument were developed using the four rounds of Delphi technique that finally end up with 20 indicators. The five-point scale of 139 items were then derived and validated. This instrument was administered to 312 agriculture subject teachers from all over Peninsular Malaysia which were randomly selected. AMOS software version 16 was used to analyze the data. The value of Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker Lewis Index (TLI), and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) were used to maintain or drop the items. The findings of the study using confirmatory factor analysis measurement model featured 48 items as valid and reliable items to measure 13 indicators of sustainable agriculture subjects after dropping 91 items. This instrument can be used to obtain the status of sustainability of the agriculture subjects in daily secondary academic schools in Malaysia.

Developing a measurement model of service quality in skills training institutes using confirmatory factor analysis

The purpose of this paper is to develop a measurement model to measure student perceptions of service quality among skills training institutes in Malaysia. The data used in this study were derived from a questionnaire survey conducted among students of seven skills training institutes. A total of 419 usable responses was received. The measurement model was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis to assess its unidimensionality, validity and reliability. After some respecification of the measurement model, the validity, reliability and unidimensionality requirements were considered achieved. The final model indicated that there are six important service quality factors, comprising 23 items perceived by students in skills training institutes. They are campus environment and facilities; training equipment; instructors; curriculum; library services; and management of the institute. The study provides insights into six constructs related to service quality that are perceived as important by students. This study makes a contribution by filling a research gap in the area of service quality in Malaysian skills training institutions.