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This study explored the production of 11 English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. Ten undergraduates (five males and five females) from the Pidie District, Aceh, participated, with Acehnese and Bahasa Indonesia as their first languages, and English learned formally at school since the 7th grade. Using PRAAT, recordings of vowel elicitations were measured and analyzed, revealing distinctions in vowel pairs. Statistical tests were employed to compare vowel productions between the males and females. The results showed that the females produced many of the vowel pairs similarly: /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/, /u:/-/ʊ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɑː/-/ɒ/. The pairs they differentiated were /ɜ:/-/ʌ/ and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. However, the female students could not discriminate between the long and short vowel pairs. Meanwhile, the male students could distinguish the following pairs: /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɜ:/-/ʌ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. The others, /ɛ/-/æ/, /u:/-/ʊ,/ and /ɑː/-/ɒ/, were produced similarly. Additionally, they could distinguish the long and short vowels in the /ɜ:/-/ʌ/, /u:/-/ʊ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɑː/-/ɒ/ pairs, but not /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/ and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. This study has shown complex distinctions in the production of English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. These findings underscore the importance of considering gender-specific phonetic patterns in English language acquisition, providing valuable insights for language educators and researchers.

Most studies on the language use of Malaysian Tamils focus on the upkeep of the Tamil language. There is, however, a dearth of investigations into language use in a multilingual context among the younger generation of speakers. The present study aims to fill this gap by using Fishman’s (1972) domain model to examine the language used by Tamil youth in intra-group communication in seven domains. Data were collected from 109 questionnaires, 42 audio-recordings of natural conversations and 40 interviews. The findings revealed that in four domains, which were the family, friendship, religion, and neighbourhood, Tamil is used more frequently. The highest usage of the language is predominantly among friends. However, there was a decreasing use of Tamil in the family domain among the younger generations with many married participants claiming to use English rather than Tamil as the home language. This does not bode well for the maintenance of Tamil as a first language in the future. The findings show how participants’ use of Tamil, English and Malay is linked to concepts of identity, solidarity, and their perceptions of these languages. The findings also point to the development of a localised variety of Tamil reflective of the Malaysian cultural landscape.

The past 20 years have witnessed major shifts in language and education policy in Malaysia. This reflects a range of social, economic, and political forces that influence and shape the policymaking in this multi-ethnic and multicultural country. Past research has suggested that language and education policies in Malaysia tend to have two main stances and are generally related to Malay (the national language), English, Mandarin, and Tamil. One stance is related to issues of globalization and employability, and the other is related to national and ethnic identities. In view of these stances, this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion and debates on these issues by empirically investigating inherent ideological positions in official statements published in two newspapers in the past 20 years. Specifically, it adopts concepts from critical discourse studies, and uses methods from computational linguistics to examine official statements from a total of 30,508 Malaysian newspaper articles published between 2000 and 2020. The findings indicate that the role of Malay and national ideology, and the global positioning of English continue to be central concerns in the discussion of language and education in Malaysia. In addition, the importance of learning Mandarin is also emphasized. However, indigenous and minority languages are largely absent in the discourses on education policies in the country. The effects of this exclusion are already apparent in the shift to languages like Malay, Mandarin, and English as a first language, and the increasing number of languages considered to be under threat in Malaysia.

The objective of the study is twofold: to investigate the effects of corrective feedback (CF) on the accuracy of past tense use, and to compare the relative effectiveness of recasts and prompts on the accuracy of past tense use. The participants of the study consisted of 105 secondary school ESL learners in Malaysia. The target structure of CF was the regular and irregular past forms. CF was provided contingent upon the occurrence of past tense errors according to the type of corrective feedback (i.e., recasts, prompts and no corrective feedback) assigned to participants. By employing a pre-post- and delayed- post-test design, learning outcomes were measured by means of an oral production test (OPT), a written production test (WPT) and an untimed grammaticality judgment test (GJT). The results revealed that participants, regardless of type of corrective feedback, showed both short-term and long-term gains in accuracy of past tense use. However, on the delayed effects of CF, the findings suggest that the effects of prompts may be more durable compared to recasts or control. It was found that the effectiveness of corrective feedback was also affected by other mediating factors, including learners’ proficiency level, prior knowledge and the morphological structure of the target linguistic feature.

Notwithstanding the fact that non-native English speakers have become the dominant population, English learners are still expected to adhere to a native variety of standard English. This phenomenon is challenged by the Global Englishes paradigm, as the belief in native English as the standard norm ignores the diversity of today's English. While previous studies have primarily explored standard English in terms of its selection, codification, and elaboration in the educational setting, few have examined its practical use. Thus, this study aims to advance our knowledge of standard English by investigating Chinese postgraduates' perceptions and use of standard English during their English-medium instruction programmes at a public university in Malaysia. A two-part questionnaire was used to collect responses from a total of 50 Chinese postgraduate students from different faculties at this university. The responses were analyzed descriptively and interpreted from the Global Englishes paradigm. This study revealed a pluralistic and decolonialized perception of standard English. As for practice, standard English is employed in offline classroom interactions with lecturers, particularly in highly purposive communication. The findings yield a more detailed understanding of standard English in a higher educational setting, encouraging stakeholders to recognize a pluralistic perspective on standard English that empowers non-native English-speaking students.

This study is an instrumental analysis of Acehnese oral monophthongs and diphthongs. It is based on Asyik’s (1987) description of these vowels. Ten monophthongs and twelve diphthongs were produced by ten female North Aceh dialect speakers. The target vowels were placed in common words and were elicited with the aid of pictures and leading questions. A total of 660 tokens of the vowels were analyzed using PRAAT version 4.6.12 (Boersma ＆ Weenink 2007). The results for the monophthongs generally support Asyik’s (1987) description of these vowels with the exception of /u/ and /ɔ/ which appeared to have advanced in the vowel space. For the diphthongs, there was a tendency for /ɛə/ to be realized as a long monophthong by the speakers, while some of the other diphthongs described by Asyik appeared to have different off-glides.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the perspectives of Malaysian employers and students on the need for English language proficiency and skills for employment. Design/methodology/approach Interviews were conducted with employers from various organisations. Additionally, questionnaires were disseminated to undergraduates at four public universities in Malaysia. These were done to ascertain the perspectives of different stakeholders on the importance of English in securing employment, the effect of a marked regional accent or dialect on employability and industry’s expectations and requirements for new employees. Findings Employers and students agree that English plays a major role in employability. Whilst there was general agreement by both parties that good grammar and a wide range of vocabulary are important, the findings indicated several mismatches in terms of students’ perceptions and employers’ expectations. Among them is the use of the colloquial form of English at the workplace which was not favoured by employers. Employers also generally felt that knowledge of different types of writing styles could be learnt on-the-job. Furthermore, employers pointed out other essential skills for employability: the ability to communicate in other languages, confidence and a good attitude. Practical implications Cognisant of the fact that English is essential in improving employability, initiatives to improve the level of English among Malaysian students must continue to be put in place. University students should be made aware of the different language skills sought by employers early in their university education. The mismatches between the perceptions of university students and the expectations of employers should be considered when planning English language courses and degree programmes. More structured feedback from industry on both would help to better prepare students for the world of work and to ease the transition from campus to career. Social implications In relation to graduate employability, these English-language elite groups would have an advantage in securing employment especially in multinational companies, and this will, in a long run, create a larger gap between students from the international and public schools. Originality/value With the standpoint of two important parties, employers and students, a more comprehensive idea of the effect of English language on employability has been obtained.

Various researchers have shown that second language (L2) speakers have difficulties with marking information structure in English prosodically: They deviate from native speakers not only in terms of pitch accent placement (Grosser, 1997; Gut, 2009; Ramírez Verdugo, 2002) and the type of pitch accent they produce (Wennerstrom, 1994, 1998) but also with regard to the phonetic realization of these pitch accents (Atterer & Ladd, 2004; O’Brien & Gut, 2010). This study investigates the prosodic strategies of first language (L1) Malay speakers of English for marking given and new discourse elements. Ten Malay speakers of English were recorded reading out a 179-word story that contained six given and six new words. Additionally, 10 Malay speakers read aloud a 152-word story containing six given and six new words in Malay. The given-new word pairs were analyzed both auditorily and acoustically in terms of type of pitch accent, syllable duration, phonetic realization of the rise, and pitch peak alignment. The results show that the Malay speakers of English produce longer rises on new than on given discourse elements but do not show different pitch accents, syllable duration, pitch peak alignment, or steepness of rises on the two types of words. The average extent and steepness of the rises as well as the pitch peak alignment are almost identical in Malay and the L2 English of Malay speakers, which suggests direct influence from the L1. However, differences in the type of pitch accents produced and the similarities to the patterns produced by other L2 speakers suggest further influencing factors.

This study explored the production of 11 English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. Ten undergraduates (five males and five females) from the Pidie District, Aceh, participated, with Acehnese and Bahasa Indonesia as their first languages, and English learned formally at school since the 7th grade. Using PRAAT, recordings of vowel elicitations were measured and analyzed, revealing distinctions in vowel pairs. Statistical tests were employed to compare vowel productions between the males and females. The results showed that the females produced many of the vowel pairs similarly: /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/, /u:/-/ʊ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɑː/-/ɒ/. The pairs they differentiated were /ɜ:/-/ʌ/ and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. However, the female students could not discriminate between the long and short vowel pairs. Meanwhile, the male students could distinguish the following pairs: /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɜ:/-/ʌ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. The others, /ɛ/-/æ/, /u:/-/ʊ,/ and /ɑː/-/ɒ/, were produced similarly. Additionally, they could distinguish the long and short vowels in the /ɜ:/-/ʌ/, /u:/-/ʊ/, /ʌ/-/ɑː/, and /ɑː/-/ɒ/ pairs, but not /i:/-/ɪ/, /ɛ/-/æ/ and /ɔ:/-/ɒ/. This study has shown complex distinctions in the production of English vowels by Acehnese Indonesian EFL students. These findings underscore the importance of considering gender-specific phonetic patterns in English language acquisition, providing valuable insights for language educators and researchers.