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Phrasal verbs (PVs) are very common in English, indicating their usefulness in everyday settings. However, it was reported that language learners generally have great difficulties in understanding and using this linguistic form. This study investigated Malaysian learners' receptive and productive knowledge of PVs, and some possible factors which may contribute to their difficulties in understanding and using this language feature. A set of PVs test was developed and distributed to 480 secondary school learners in Malaysia to identify their receptive and productive knowledge with respect to PVs. Real data from the English of Malaysian School Students (EMAS) Corpus was used to examine the actual use of PVs by Malaysian learners. Results of the PVs test indicated that in general, Malaysian learners had an average level of knowledge of PVs. Analysis of the EMAS corpus revealed that they faced a lot of problems in the production of PVs. Some possible factors are highlighted which may contribute to such difficulties.

The deadly impact of COVID-19 has caused authorities worldwide to resort to vaccination as an exit strategy. Some have even imposed vaccination as a mandatory policy to ensure social compliance. Many studies have focused on the issues of discrimination and polarisation due to the virus and the vaccines, but very little is known about vaccination as a process of generating compliance, especially in the Malaysian context. Hence, the paper aims to address this gap by examining how COVID-19 vaccination is discursively profiled in the Malaysian mainstream media. The study utilised corpus analysis and Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in examining the corpus of 1514 vaccination-related news reports in the Malaysian mainstream media amounting to approximately 924028 tokens. Through the discursive strategies of referential/nomination and predication, the findings indicated that vaccination was strongly affiliated with those representing the government and its ideology. To generate compliance, vaccination was described as synonymous with the national agenda. Hence, vaccination was dominantly assigned positive labels that promoted this ideology, except for the very few negative labels attributed to the mandatory policy, the effects of vaccination and the deadly impact of COVID-19 infection. The study not only contributes to the vast literature on COVID-19 but it also provides a linguistic analysis that combines corpus techniques and CDA to examine a discursive practice that can further pave the way for uncovering the ideological discourse in the mainstream media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines factors affecting students' desire to learn the English language using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). This is to explain and predict students' desire to learn. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was conducted at two public universities in Malaysia and one in Thailand. The questionnaires were developed based on Gardner's (2004) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery. Only four subscales of the instrument were chosen for this study. These were: desire to learn, instrumental motivation, foreign language anxiety and attitude towards foreign language. It was found that although Attitude toward Foreign Language, Foreign Language Anxiety and Instrumental Motivation have small predictive relevance on Desire to Learn the English language, they are crucial in explaining the students' desire to learn the language. The study indicates that the model is sufficiently reliable and consistent. When the groups were compared, the relationship between Instrumental Motivation and Desire to Learn was higher between International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) students but the difference is not significant where IIUM and Naresuan University (NU) students were concerned. This study serves to model a quantitative empirical research method to explain and predict factors affecting desire to learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important component of language teaching is the development of higher order thinking skills (HOTS) among the students. In some language classes, this is done in the literature component of the curriculum. However, in many circumstances teachers are not trained on how to integrate critical thinking skills in literature integrated language learning classes. Training teachers nationwide can be costly to a country if the traditional way of in-service training is adopted. One of the ways to address this problem is by providing online training programmes. A viable alternative platform for online engagement is the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which has the potential to reach the mass. A training module would have to take into consideration the fact that different schools could be using different literary texts. Hence, the training module for teachers would need to focus on activities or pedagogical approaches rather than the text itself. This paper will focus on the aspects to consider when developing a MOOC for this purpose. This study will focus on Malaysian teachers who are expected to integrate HOTS into their literature lessons. When developing the materials, two important aspects that need to be considered are the components of HOTS and also the approaches that can be adopted. This paper discusses the approaches that can be applied to develop a specific aspect of HOTS. It focuses on the Malaysian teachers who are expected to integrate HOTS into their literature lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]