In a multilingual and multicultural society like Malaysia, the spelling of names serves as a personal identifier and as a reflection of sociocultural and linguistic norms. While prior studies have examined spelling variation in educational and digital contexts, less is known about public perceptions of spelling variations of names. Against this backdrop, this study investigates how Malaysians perceive the acceptability of spelling variations. Using a mixed-methods design, 355 participants responded to a questionnaire comprising Likert-scale evaluations of ten real names, along with open-ended questions. Quantitative analysis revealed significant variability in participants’ acceptability ratings, though names that retained phonological clarity (e.g., Adrianah) were generally more accepted than others (e.g., Frrdy). No significant differences were found across gender, age, ethnicity, or professional background. Thematic analysis of qualitative responses highlighted two key influences on naming decisions: individual sociocultural factors (e.g., religious beliefs, family tradition) and sociolinguistic-aesthetic factors (e.g., pronunciation, trends, media influence). These findings suggest a growing tolerance towards spelling variations, possibly indicative the value of distinguishing one’s identity through names.

Formative assessment (FA) has increasingly been recognized as an effective approach for enhancing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing, providing an alternative to traditional summative assessment. This systematic review aims to examine the types, effectiveness, and underlying mechanisms of FA practices in EFL writing classrooms. Following the PRISMA framework, empirical studies published between 2015 and 2024 were analysed. The review identifies three main categories of FA: mediated assessment, learner-centred practices, and technology-enhanced tools. Across diverse learner populations and instructional contexts, these approaches consistently support improvements in writing performance, often outperforming traditional assessment methods. Key mechanisms driving these outcomes include timely and actionable feedback, active engagement of learners in the assessment process, and opportunities for iterative reflection and revision. The findings highlight the importance of adopting process-oriented, learner-engaged, and technology-supported assessment practices in EFL writing instruction, providing insights for both practical classroom application and future research.

When examining interculturality through language use, there may be the risk of looking only at dominant language practices in urban areas. This study argues that interculturality in rural areas should be understood as a situated negotiation of meaning and relationality through local language practices and lived community practices. Against this backdrop, this study explores how local language practices in a rural school located in Sabah, Malaysia, require a reconfiguration of interculturality. Drawing from qualitative data gleaned through classroom observation, the research examines how students and teachers navigate teaching and learning processes through various language resources. Findings indicated that the local variety of Malay was the main language for instruction and social interaction, while Dusun was used fluidly among students and teachers, particularly during informal exchanges in the classroom and within the larger school setting. The findings of this study highlight how the environment was not separate from learning but a co-constitutive part of the educational experience, which demonstrates a learning experience that is deeply embedded in the ecology. This may be considered a key feature of rural interculturality, which may be shaped by everyday linguistic and relational practices.

In Southeast Asia, English language education has been influenced by the import and integration of various curricula and frameworks originating from the west. In response to this, English language teachers at various educational levels have demonstrated how they have had to adapt these imported materials. To critical scholars, this may be viewed as a process of decolonisation. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to examine how university English language teachers responded to the integration of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) through an extent of resistance. To this end, three English language teachers from a Malaysian university and three others from a Thai university were interviewed. Specifically, they reflected on how they reconfigured the framework to be more contextually and locally meaningful. Through the examination of the participants’ reflections, it was found that their resistance was shaped by both their individual perspectives and practices, as well as the context. The former was marked by enacting agency and a reluctance to accept external forces, while the latter was illustrated through structural mismatch and a cultural misalignment. Findings of this study ultimately contribute to our understanding of how western educational frameworks and English language education were decolonised. This study also illustrates how the classroom is a pivotal space for the displacement of dominant forces in education.

University students are expected to develop an awareness of correct and ethical approaches to writing. This awareness includes the ability to determine the suitability of academic texts that are written based on references made to other sources. This study aims to examine Thai university students' evaluation of the acceptability of academic texts that were paraphrased. Recent research from the region had indicated that university students had an incomplete understanding of acceptable academic writing. To further examine this phenomenon, this current study employs a mixed-methods approach where students had to rate the acceptability of three paraphrased versions of a text and provide their views on what constituted acceptable paraphrase through a survey. The survey was distributed to university students enrolled in an undergraduate-level academic writing course. A total of 104 students completed the survey by providing their ratings of acceptability. Among these, 89 students provided qualitative responses to share their views on what acceptable paraphrase is. The quantitative results indicated that many students were able to identify texts that were paraphrased completely; nonetheless, the qualitative responses revealed that students' perceptions towards paraphrased revolved around form, that is, the substitution of words and reorganization of text. This reaffirmed existing studies from the Thai context, but it also provided new insights about how students viewed academic writing.

It is important to understand students’ perspectives about their international experience in an English class because this would help practitioners in their teaching practice and material development. In this study, these perspectives were collected through an open-ended questionnaire that was distributed to 35 groups of international postgraduate students. All these students were enrolled in an academic writing course at a university in Singapore. The questionnaire asked participants for their thoughts and opinions on English lessons that were designed with an international focus. The data was then analyzed through a corpus tool, which identified recurring words. The contextual meanings of these recurring words were then thematized. The main findings saw the themes of “different yet inclusive”; “spurring improvements in writing”; and “learning affordances through native language”. These themes indicated that the participants viewed the international experience as bringing together different perspectives, including an extent of local knowledge and practices. The latter was exemplified through the use of their native language to better understand academic communication in English. Nonetheless, the findings also point towards an ideological tension as postgraduate international students would still need to develop an acceptable level of English language proficiency. This study thus highlights the complexities involved in creating an inclusive and effective English for academic purposes (EAP) course as part of an international experience at the university.

In Malaysia’s complex healthcare environment, understanding the lived experiences of healthcare workers in a collective manner is vital to addressing challenges in service delivery. To this end, this study examines narratives from healthcare workers in a public hospital in Sabah as a way-in to explore the structure and functions of their Community of Practice (CoP). Narratives, collected through two online focus group discussions with eight participants, were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically to identify recurring patterns and meanings. The research significance lies in demonstrating how storytelling functions as both a mirror and mechanism of a CoP. It makes visible norms and emotional dynamics that underpin collaborative practice. Findings reveal four thematic areas: hierarchical boundary negotiation, mentorship and cultural induction, emotional expression and coping, and identity formation with collective memory. These themes illuminated how members navigate professional hierarchies, introduce newcomers through culturally embedded advice, share emotionally charged experiences for mutual support, and preserve institutional memory through repeated stories. The results show that in a high-pressure, hierarchical healthcare setting, narratives provide crucial emotional and professional scaffolding, strengthening team cohesion and resilience while transmitting context-specific, practice-based knowledge. The study concludes that recognising and facilitating narrative exchange within healthcare CoPs can support workplace cohesion, mitigate burnout, and indirectly improve patient care quality. For the Malaysian context, this approach offers culturally attuned insights into sustaining professional communities amid structural and emotional challenges. Future research should extend narrative-based inquiry across diverse institutions and explore longitudinal changes in narrative repertoires.

Many EFL educators have reported difficulties in keeping learners engaged in task-based interaction. A factor identified as a challenge for learner engagement is the level of familiarity with the interlocutor. This factor affects language learning and social interaction, whereby a deeper familiarity would typically promote effective communication, which may lead to an improvement in language competence. To determine the extent of familiarity that supports meaningful interaction, this study investigated Chinese EFL learners’ perceptions. Specifically, levels of familiarity were examined through cognitive, affective, and social dimensions. The context of this study was an L2 task-based assignment. Data were collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The findings indicated that interlocutor familiarity level had significant effects on learner engagement, especially in terms of social and cognitive dimensions. The study provided pedagogical implications for teachers to focus on the beneficial impact of interlocutor familiarity level on both social and cognitive dimensions of learner engagement and foster a supportive and conducive classroom environment to enhance peer interaction during interactive tasks.

This study examined tensions affecting university English language teachers, and subsequently the liminal space they occupied. In this study, tensions arose because of the introduction and promotion of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for conducting language pedagogical research. This move had inadvertently displaced existing research perspectives and approaches and compelled a reconfiguration of the teacher’s professional sense of self. There were four English language teachers involved in this study, all of whom were teaching different types of English courses for academic purposes in a public university in Singapore. Data for this study comprised reflections written by the participants, which were analyzed as case studies. Through the examination of tensions and liminality affecting the participants, it became apparent that distinct strategies and coping mechanisms were enacted. There were those who sought to distinguish existing research perspectives, and those who embarked on a productive journey to navigate through the new research requirement. All these constituted professional development for the participants in personalized ways. The examination of the case studies also indicated how top-down research endeavors may be challenged, especially in a field like English language education, given its long-standing and established research traditions. Yet, the circumstance which saw novel research approaches being introduced illustrate how the professional community of English language teachers in the higher education setting remain on the fringes of academia. Future studies should consider taking an ecological approach to examining tension to gain a more comprehensive understanding of English language teachers’ professional identity.

The aim of this study is to examine information perceived as salient by new university academic staff attending a compulsory induction program at a Malaysian public university. Attending and successfully completing the induction program is a policy that is set and managed by universities across Malaysia. This study uses a qualitative approach, where reflections by the authors of this study attending a ten-day induction program were collected and examined. By the end of the program, a total of 40 reflective pieces were written on an online shared document. The reflections were examined through iterative reading and coding of their contents, which were then subsequently consolidated into salient themes. These themes were noteworthy information, affirmation and aspiration, and critical response. The findings indicated that the process of induction acted more than just a space for the dissemination of information, but there were instances where participants found acknowledgement through an alignment of beliefs, as well as developing criticality towards issues emergent from the topics covered during the induction program. Moreover, the compulsory induction program was in itself a gateway for new university teachers to become aware of other university policies that may affect their work in the Malaysian higher education context.

In Malaysia and some parts of Southeast Asia, efforts to decolonise the English language classroom remain minimal. While there are scholars who advocate criticality towards western-centric perspectives on language education, related work has largely been confined to individual teachers' classrooms. This is further problematised when students' English proficiency is low. With these circumstances in mind, a dialogue was prompted between critical friends - Daron and Jariya - regarding the necessity to decolonise English language education, especially in a setting like Malaysia. Through their dialogue, issues were raised, such as the possibilities of using translanguaging, and the question of whether communication concepts should be viewed as neutral or local. Throughout the dialogue, no resolutions for these issues were offered, leading towards instances of vulnerability. While seemingly hopeless, such a situation is actually aligned with the decolonial perspective on pedagogy, where teachers are not driven by structured or hegemonic views on teaching and learning; instead, meaningful learning environments are created to better engage with students.

Vernacular schools in Malaysia, while only operating at the primary school level, have had a turbulent existence. Recently, the constitutional legitimacy of these schools was questioned through legal suits brought about by private citizens as well as non-governmental organisations and associations. These suits illuminate the discourses that surround vernacular schools in Malaysia. A discursive space where language use is worth examining is the digital realm, where there is an extent of openness afforded to users to communicate their feelings or views. To this end, three online discussion forums from Low Yat were examined. Posts that had written comments regarding vernacular schools were included. Through qualitative content analysis, six themes were yielded. They revealed perspectives that supported the abolishment of vernacular schools; however, there were also those who presented a contrastive perspective, mainly due to the negative views held against national schools and the educational system. From these posts, stereotypes associated with particular ethnic groups became evident. There were also disagreements towards the purpose and quality of different types of schools. All these indicate how public discourse regarding vernacular schools is complex, as seen through history and compounded by individual social practices.

This study presents a preliminary description of university students’ ecology of academic reading and writing in English. Data was collected through three online discussion forums, where students could post and discuss about their perceptions and experiences in academic reading and writing. Using a grounded approach, data from these online forum posts were thematized. To ensure credibility of students’ responses, the third forum post was used to triangulate data from the first two forums. Findings indicated that the students had specific experiences of reading, through their mention of various academic texts assigned by their lecturers; however, academic writing was found to be rather general, given the lack of specific information and experiences found in students’ responses. Beyond the university, it was found that students may not be reading materials in the English language, and that their reading was of a variety of genres. These findings bring about the assumption that the ecology for reading and writing, especially in the English language, is confined to the educational setting. It is suggested that English language instructors could leverage on materials students encounter outside the university to encourage reading and writing in English.

This study explores how trust is established by a casual academic working at a Malaysian public university. Narrative data was collected through a series of semi-structured interview with a case participant, Dinah. The data was analyzed in light of priori themes derived from existing literature about casual academics at the university. The analysis illustrated two themes of how trust is established. First, trust is established through the entrepreneurial self, seen through the recognition of one’s pedagogical knowledge and classroom experience. Second, trust is established through a combination of compliance and non-compliance. The former refers to meeting the expectations of the institution, while the latter refers to the casual academic’s personal rationalization of what is deemed best for the students. Based on these findings, trust for the casual academic was found to be a multidimensional construct that was not necessarily bound to performative metrics, unlike their full-time counterparts. Furthermore, due to grey areas in oversight, there may be more opportunities for casual academics to teach on the basis of morality.

This chapter demonstrates phenomenology as a potentially valuable qualitative approach for the analysis of non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) in their navigation through tensions encountered at their workplace. Typically, the narrative inquiry approach is employed where qualitative data, representing the experience of NNESTs, go through an analytical process that results in the potential reduction of meanings, especially those that shape contextual understandings. Recognizing this concern, scholars – especially those who have been advocating for NNESTs – have called for a more contextual analytical approach, going so far as to call for an epistemic break from conventional qualitative research paradigms that dominate the English language teaching landscape. To this end, two experiences of NNESTs are presented through phenomenology so as to illustrate them as a coherent experience, without subjecting them through normative analytical measures that would yield segments of qualitative data that would then be neatly attributed to prominent and oftentimes, dichotomous notions.

This study sets out to investigate Thai university students' group translation of Thai texts into English in a synchronous setting. Four groups, consisting of three or four members, were involved in this study. This study examined two Thai texts translated into English, one containing tourism information and the other a crime news report. Students were given 40 minutes to translate on Google Docs, and their group translation styles were charted out through DocuViz, a visualization tool that uses color coding and number of contributions to illustrate group work. Average contributions, along with the color-coded texts, were analyzed to determine the group work styles. The study found that most groups were cooperative in their real-time translation work, in that group members worked on particular segments, with one dominant writer either editing others' contributions or translating the most. This study suggests that translation instructors consider expanding and redefining the implementation of translation tasks done in groups.

This study examined Thai pre-service teachers’ perceptions towards a nation-wide teacher education reform that was delayed by a year. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, by using a survey, narrative frames, and visual narratives. The survey items (n = 55) were constructed based on a review of literature on reforms of teacher education programs and education policies. The survey contained four categories, which are reasons for reform, people shaping the reform, outcomes of the reform, and attitudes towards the reform. To provide further insights into the survey data , narrative frames and visual narratives were utilised. There were 44 participants in this study. Survey findings indicated that in general, the reform was perceived as good. The perception that the reform was good revolved around the notion of change, and that teachers would be prepared to teach in the 21st century and in a contextually appropriate manner. From the narrative data, there were no further insights offered by the participants in terms of what constitutes the reform or why it may be perceived as good. This may reflect the lack of understanding of the reform, and also the ambiguity that surrounds it.