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Purpose – Self-assessment is regarded as a complex metacognitive process by scholars. Nevertheless, in the context of English as a Second Language (ESL) speaking, self-assessment practices often rely on assessment criteria and teacher commentaries. However, speaking involves spontaneous expression with limited access to external standards. Therefore, this case study aims to explore the metacognitive strategies that proficient ESL students use during selfassessment in spontaneous speech production contexts. Methodology – Three participants, purposefully selected, participated in two spontaneous group discussions recorded on video. Instances of participants’ dysfluency served as prompts in stimulated recall interviews, complemented by video recordings to validate participants’ responses. The thematic analysis of interview data utilised a conceptual framework integrating O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990) metacognitive strategies and Kormos’ (2006) speech production model. Findings – The analysis revealed that participants employed three key metacognitive strategies – organisational planning, selective attention, and self-monitoring to self-assess their spontaneous speech. Feedback sources, such as their proficiency in the second language (L2) and contextual factors, influenced the application and effectiveness of these strategies during self-assessment (SA). Significance – This study offers insights into how proficient ESL students self-assess their spontaneous speech production, leveraging their available resources. In addition, this study identifies speech challenges the participants encountered and how they applied metacognitive strategies to address them.

In the 21st century, preservice EFL teachers must be able to integrate technology into language education. However, very little research has been carried out on the specific factors that influence preservice teachers to integrate appropriate technology into their language teaching. This study aimed to explore exactly what influences preservice EFL teachers to choose the appropriate technology to incorporate into their lessons through a two-cycle design-based research study. The findings suggest that preservice EFL instructors' comprehension of language teaching methods and approaches has the greatest influence on technological integration in their classrooms. In addition, the instructor's direct guidance also facilitates their appropriate technology integration into language teaching. As a result, teacher education programs are designed to provide preservice EFL instructors with language teaching methods and approaches before assisting them in learning how to incorporate appropriate technology into specific language teaching methods or approaches. Finally, the researchers suggest that instructors also provide direct advice to preservice EFL teachers as they explore the incorporation of technology into language education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a continuous-time stochastic intensity model, namely, two-phase dynamic contagion process (2P-DCP), for modelling the epidemic contagion of COVID-19 and investigating the lockdown effect based on the dynamic contagion model introduced by Dassios and Zhao [24]. It allows randomness to the infectivity of individuals rather than a constant reproduction number as assumed by standard models. Key epidemiological quantities, such as the distribution of final epidemic size and expected epidemic duration, are derived and estimated based on real data for various regions and countries. The associated time lag of the effect of intervention in each country or region is estimated. Our results are consistent with the incubation time of COVID-19 found by recent medical study. We demonstrate that our model could potentially be a valuable tool in the modeling of COVID-19. More importantly, the proposed model of 2P-DCP could also be used as an important tool in epidemiological modelling as this type of contagion models with very simple structures is adequate to describe the evolution of regional epidemic and worldwide pandemic.

Research on academic writer development has focused exclusively on the writing output and other sources of doctoral student professional development. Nevertheless, variations in understanding ongoing development remain unclear given that academic writers involve first-year doctoral students. Hence, the study investigated the ways of understanding first-year doctoral student development as academic writers. A qualitative case study was conducted on four first-year doctoral students during their doctoral research proposal writing process. A case study analysis was conducted on the findings of understanding academic writer development in four ways and represented by four categories: (i) becoming self-assured as an academic writer, (ii) becoming acknowledged as an academic writer, (iii) becoming more productive as an academic writer, and (iv) becoming a deep thinker as an academic writer. The four ways of understanding academic writer development could be linked to the participants’ embracing and expanding academic awareness. Specifically, the development represented by later categories includes the earlier categories of academic awareness. Moreover, the later categories represent increasing complexity in academic awareness and different academic writer development aspects. The findings could guide writers such as first-year doctoral students in their development as academic writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details an attempt to understand better how first-year doctoral students construct persuasive arguments in academic writing by exploring the patterns of boosters in drafts of doctoral research proposals. Eight Malaysian first-year ESL doctoral students produced 43 drafts of doctoral research proposals across four areas of study in education during their first year of doctoral studies. These drafts were analysed by coding the various linguistic items used to persuade readers of a text, and the analysis was based on Hyland's (2005) model of metadiscourse. Results show that the (i) overall frequency of booster markers used is relatively low (n=158), reinforcing the argument that first-year doctoral students lack understanding about the interaction between booster markers and the context in a more complicated discussion in academic writing such as the doctoral research proposal. Then, the (ii) further analysis of booster marker sub-categories indicates that Malaysian first-year doctoral students struggle to make appropriate booster markers with different meanings and strengths in academic writing when used in context. Therefore, our study suggests that direct and explicit teaching of using various booster markers categories should be implemented in postgraduate writing courses to heightened the students' perceptiveness regarding semantic features associated with creating convincing arguments in academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in academic writing initially focuses on the output of writing, but it is now increasingly turned to writer identity. This article analyses how the acceptance of self as academic writers is difficult. The acceptance of self as an academic writer is quite complex, especially for first-year doctoral students who must engage with the demands of academic language in an academic context. Research acknowledges that self-acceptance as academic writers come with many implications and doctoral students are often hesitant to describe themselves as academic writers. This article seeks to address this complexity through empirical research focused on self-perception in the construction of an academic writer identity. This study involved ten first-year ESL doctoral students in the field of education at an established Malaysian institution. From the findings of this study, we identify four aspects that they experienced in becoming academic writers: creator, interpreter, communicator and academic presenter. These four aspects are experienced in different ways by each participant, illustrated by narratives of their life history and writing practice. In particular, it is hoped that this article can provide some pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic writing in institutes of higher education and offer a lens through which researchers and teachers of writing can further explore academic writer identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates a teacher's and three students' perspectives on shared instances of codeswitching practices in a Malaysian multilingual primary classroom. It seeks to explore and compare whether students perceive the same benefit of code-switching as the teacher does. This bridges the gap of previous studies, which mostly either focused on teachers' or students' perspectives on code-switching. Three 11-year-old multilingual students with different levels of English proficiencies and a multilingual teacher were selected as participants for this study. Four hours of English lessons were audio-recorded, and field notes were taken occasionally throughout classroom observations. An individual interview session was conducted with the teacher, and a group interview was conducted with the student participants. The findings showed that the teacher's code-switching practices helped clear the students' doubts, reinforced their learning, and encouraged student participation in English lessons. One participant shared the same perspective of code-switching as the teacher did. The other two participants, however, only found it beneficial when the teacher practised code-switching for explanations, especially when constructing simple sentences. Both of these students reported that too much repetition of some words bore them as these were previously learned words. The study concludes that not all the students rely on code-switching to assist them during English lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)-based herbal therapies have gained increasing popularity worldwide, raising concerns of its efficacy, safety profile and potential interactions with Western medications. Antithrombotic agents are among the most common prescription drugs involved in herb-drug interactions, and this article focused on aspirin, one of the most widely used antiplatelet agents worldwide. We discussed herbs that have potential interactions by exploring Western and TCM approaches to thrombotic events. Common TCM indications for these herbs were also highlighted, including possible scenarios of their concurrent usage with aspirin. With greater awareness and understanding of potential herb-drug interactions, TCM and Western physicians may collaborate more closely to identify, treat and, most importantly, prevent adverse drug events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we obtain a recursive formula for the density of the double-barrier Parisian stopping time. We present a probabilistic proof of the formula for the first few steps of the recursion, and then a formal proof using explicit Laplace inversions. These results provide an efficient computational method for pricing double-barrier Parisian options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The format of post-16 literature education assessment has not varied much since formal post-16 education began in Malaysia in the late 1950s. While it still relies heavily on the writing of literature essays, conceptualisations of literature as a school subject embedded in examination papers which are constructed by different examination boards have changed in important ways. This article argues that identifying these conceptualisations through an analysis of examination papers creates an avenue to provide a different perspective in exploring the development of literature in schools. To demonstrate this, examination papers on Shakespeare and modern literature from two examination sittings administered in Malaysia, one in the year 1968 and the other in the years 2012/2013, are analysed with a focus on whether questions are writer, text or reader-centred while considering how student response, termed outcome space, is framed. This study suggests that conceptualisations of literature have shifted in two ways: the first is a shift from a balance between writer, text and reader-centred questions to a heavy inclination towards text-centred questions which is linked to another noticeable shift in student responses to literature texts that has moved from the expression of personal meaning and interpretation of the text to the demonstration of detailed textual knowledge. Such shifts demonstrate that there is a need to consider literature assessment not only as an end-product of school subject construction but as an active representation of literature that influences the teaching and learning of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadiscourse refers to linguistic items, which functions to establish a connection with imagined readers of a text (Hyland, 2004). The use of metadiscourse has received much attention in various contexts, yet, little works are focusing on disciplinary metadiscourse, that has been carried out. To address this gap, this study explored, described, and compared the use of disciplinary metadiscourse by eight Malaysian first-year ESL doctoral students across four areas of study in education. The study reported in this article focuses on development or changes in writing over time. This study is quantitative in nature with a corpus-based approach utilizing AntConc (3.4.4) to examine the frequency of three dimensions of academic discourse in their writing, namely textual, engagement, and evaluative The results of this analysis show that (i) the engagement dimension (3.1%) was the lowest of all three dimensions in written work, reinforcing the argument that first-year ESL doctoral students are less experienced at using textual metadiscourse resources, and (ii) frequency of all three dimensions of academic discourse in their writing differs across time between first written drafts to the final written drafts. These are first-year ESL doctoral students, who are writing in different fields of educational research. The implication is that teaching and learning of disciplinary metadiscourse should involve explicit explanation, demonstration, and practice of its use, and development in the academic writing process. Academic writing; corpus analysis; ESL doctoral students; metadiscourse

This study investigates a teacher’s and three students’ perspectives on shared instances of code-switching practices in a Malaysian multilingual primary classroom. It seeks to explore and compare whether students perceive the same benefit of code-switching as the teacher does. This bridges the gap of previous studies, which mostly either focused on teachers’ or students’ perspectives on code-switching. Three 11-year-old multilingual students with different levels of English proficiencies and a multilingual teacher were selected as participants for this study. Four hours of English lessons were audio-recorded, and field notes were taken occasionally throughout classroom observations. An individual interview session was conducted with the teacher, and a group interview was conducted with the student participants. The findings showed that the teacher’s code-switching practices helped clear the students’ doubts, reinforced their learning, and encouraged student participation in English lessons. One participant shared the same perspective of code-switching as the teacher did. The other two participants, however, only found it beneficial when the teacher practised code-switching for explanations, especially when constructing simple sentences. Both of these students reported that too much repetition of some words bore them as these were previously learned words. The study concludes that not all the students rely on code-switching to assist them during English lessons.