Papers by Geraldine de Mello
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
Writing is a daunting task for second language learners as it involves a complex process. From th... more Writing is a daunting task for second language learners as it involves a complex process. From the pre-writing activities until the drafting and revising stage, learners are required to actively engage with the writing process. As writing skill is crucial for university students to master, there is a need to further develop an understanding of how writing strategies can assist students in their writing. Thus, this study explores the perception of learners on their use of learning strategies based from the social cognitive view. Data was procured from a total of 102 undergraduate university students using a 5-likert scale survey questionnaire which consists of four sections that tends to explore the motivation factors for learning among undergraduates. Descriptive statistics using mean score and Pearson Correlation Analysis was employed in the data analysis procedures. The findings revealed that the respondents reported to have a high level of metacognitive strategy used in writing and there is a high significant correlation between personal factor (metacognitive strategy) and behaviour factor (effect regulation and cognitive strategies) as compared to personal and environment (low significant correlation) and behaviour and environment (medium significant correlation). The findings suggest that language instructors embed writing strategies in writing class to help ESL writers become better writers and they should guide ESL writers to self-evaluate their writings so that they are aware of the problems and consequently think of the appropriate strategies to be used.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
Body shaming is the action of expressing humiliation about another individual's body shape or siz... more Body shaming is the action of expressing humiliation about another individual's body shape or size which can result in severe emotional trauma, especially at a young age. Body shaming is serious and gives huge negative effects on the physical and mental health of a person. This study aims to investigate the effects of body shaming on individuals in society. This study employed a quantitative method where a set of questionnaires regarding body shaming was distributed to members of the public randomly through social media. A total of 101 respondents responded to the questionnaire and it was further analysed by using SPSS software to find mean and standard deviation values. The findings show that respondents agreed that being fat, being skinny, and having bodyweight that is not in harmony with their height are the reasons why people body-shamed others. The findings further revealed that people felt distressed when others talked about their appearance. Many respondents also expressed that they are being treated differently and feel uneasy or embarrassed in public situations where other people are concentrating on their appearance. The results also showed self-compassion helps to cope with body shame by having more respect for themselves and feeling self-conscious about their appearance to be more confident with themselves. It is recommended to create awareness through social media on how body shaming affects an individual and ways to cope with being body-shamed by having more respect for themselves and feeling self-conscious about self-appearance. Therefore, future research needs to spread awareness to the public so that people will stop body shaming because it is very dangerous and could affect mental and physical health.
Division of Research and Industry Linkages eBooks, 2017
Advanced Science Letters, 2017
English as a Foreign Language International Journal
The serious consequences of COVID-19 have resulted in a temporary slowdown in different sectors o... more The serious consequences of COVID-19 have resulted in a temporary slowdown in different sectors of daily activities including the education sector. In Malaysia, the impact of the pandemic has caused all the classes to be conducted online. The present study aims to investigate the challenges faced by English Second Language (ESL) educators in online teaching. Using a qualitative approach, in-depth phone interviews were conducted with 20 ESL educators of Private Higher Learning Institutions. The findings indicated that they encountered problems such as isolation, lack of motivation in online teaching, technical difficulties with online teaching tools, time-consuming resources and work-life imbalance. The findings further revealed that ESL educators’ work-life imbalance had emotionally impacted their families and social relations, which in turn had affected their professional lives. Thus, by understanding the problems, educational institutions can come up with short and long-term strat...
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced higher education institutions to use online distance learning (O... more The Covid-19 pandemic has forced higher education institutions to use online distance learning (ODL) approach for teaching and learning activities. ODL is challenging for many students and instructors, but it can be even more challenging to students with special needs. Nevertheless, their predicaments have been rarely documented. Thus, this study investigates the challenges experienced by students with special needs studying through ODL at higher education institutions in Malaysia. A set of questionnaires were distributed to 113 students with special needs at several higher education institutions in Malaysia and the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results show that ODL modes of delivery were exclusionary in nature and lacked suitable facilities catering for students with special needs. Majority of the students faced difficulties in comprehending the lesson; and getting adequate academic support from their instructors and parents. Their issues with ODL were compounded by inconducive home environment; and their parents' and instructors' lack of knowledge and skills in technology to assist them in their studies. This study makes a significant contribution to the academic literature and provides a new direction for supportive and quality ODL education for students with special needs.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
This study aims at investigating the factors and identifying coping mechanisms for behavioural ch... more This study aims at investigating the factors and identifying coping mechanisms for behavioural changes of Malaysians during this COVID-19 Pandemic. Questionnaires were distributed to 150 respondents using simple random sampling and the data was analysed by using SPSS. The mean (M=3.42) indicates that the respondents are going through behavioural changes due to the fear of getting infected by COVID-19. The findings also show that the behavioural changes made them cope with the changes by adapting to the new norm by wearing masks and using hand sanitisers in public places, becoming more protective of their family's well-being, practising social distancing, preferring to stay at home rather than going out to public places and staying positive. In conclusion, the behavioural changes have been triggered by the fear of getting infected by COVID-19 and the pandemic has also affected Malaysians' sleeping patterns and diet. It is suggested that the government, health authorities, and family pay closer attention to those who are affected by this situation through different types of support.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
Nursery rhymes play an important role in young children as they help develop their English langua... more Nursery rhymes play an important role in young children as they help develop their English language. This study investigated the teachers' perceptions on the use of lyrics and animation of the nursery rhymes in helping pre-schoolers to learn vocabulary skills and spelling of English words as well as improving their grammar knowledge. The study employed a survey design among 48 kindergarten teachers using a Google link form. The preliminary findings indicated that generally the teachers agree that nursery rhymes should be used in the teaching of English as the initial results indicated that preschool children's acquisition of new words and grammar was significant using nursery rhymes. This shows that nursery rhymes not only motivate pre-schoolers to learn the language but also create a platform to encourage them to be more interactive while listening to the rhymes.
Akademi Pengajian Bahasa eBooks, 2021
Universiti Teknologi MARA Shah Alam, Aug 1, 2018
EDUCARE, Mar 7, 2016
This study explored whether the language institutes where members of a specific community learn E... more This study explored whether the language institutes where members of a specific community learn English brings about any changes in the structure as well as the relationships found between the factors underlying the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) developed by Ang et al. (2007). To this end, the Persian CQS translated and validated by Khodadady and Ghahari (2011) was administered to 381 Iranians who learned English at advanced levels in several private and semi-private language institutes in Mashhad, Iran. The application of Principal Axis Factoring to the data and rotating the extracted factors via Varimax with Kaiser Normalization showed that the same four factors underlying Iranian university students' cultural intelligence (CQ), underlie English learners' CQ as well, i.e., Cognitive, Motivational, Behavioral and Metacognitive. One of the items comprising the Metacognitive dimension of the latter group did not, however, load acceptably on the factor while three items comprising the Behavioral factor cross loaded on the Cognitive factor revealing a lower significant relationship between the two. Unlike a significant and positive relationship found between the Cognitive and Motivational dimensions of university students' CQ, learning English results in establishing a negative relationship between the two dimensions. The results are discussed and suggestions are made for future research.
Tertiary ESL students find writing the academic term-paper a complex process as they grapple with... more Tertiary ESL students find writing the academic term-paper a complex process as they grapple with issues about academic writing conventions and ethics. This paper examines tertiary students’ thoughts and perceptions in co-constructing knowledge about academic writing and how multi-drafting and feedback strategies enhance their academic literacy skills through term-paper writing. In particular, we examine the use of the term-paper as a pedagogical instrument incorporating the process approach to writing for developing academic writing skills among tertiary level students in Malaysia including the importance of multi-drafting, where students reflect on the writing of the multi-drafts and evaluate their learning while working in groups. The respondents are 38 Diploma in Business Management students from a Malaysian university enrolled in an academic writing course. Focus group interviews, group observations and respondents reflective journal entries provided the qualitative data. Our f...
The growth of English for the dissemination of academic knowledge requires researchers to be flue... more The growth of English for the dissemination of academic knowledge requires researchers to be fluent in the conventions of academic discourses. Over the last two decades, genre has increasingly taken prominence in aiding teachers in second language classrooms. In this study, genre analysis is discussed and its potential as a tool for enhancing the learning of writing in the disciplines. This study aims to discover the structure of the abstract and introduction in two disciplines in the social sciences, then discern the relationship between these genres in each discipline, before comparing them across disciplines. The study applies the move analysis to examine the genre set in a corpus comprising 60 research article abstracts and introductions in Educational Psychology and Environmental Psychology published between 2005 and 2007 from Contemporary Educational Psychology, and the Journal of Environmental Psychology respectively. The knowledge should contribute to an understanding of the...
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2021
The purpose of the study was to analyse the use of speech acts on the first announcements of Covi... more The purpose of the study was to analyse the use of speech acts on the first announcements of Covid-19 Movement Control Order (MCO) by the Prime Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore. It was also to discover if there were differences in the forms of these announcements which affected the nation in their respective countries. This study employed a qualitative method of analysis. The MCO announcements were taken from the available open sources. The data was analysed based on Searle's framework of speech Acts. It was found that the Prime Minister of Malaysia used directive speech acts predominantly (n=26; 52%) as compared to the Prime Minister of Singapore (n=20; 48.8%) when they implored the nation to comply with the tighter restrictions. The findings further revealed that both Prime Ministers were not familiar with declaration speech acts as shown in their announcements due to their democratic approach in administrating their countries, they were pleading to the nation in a firmly dignified manner. There were hardly any differences between the prime ministers in using speech acts in their announcements. Nevertheless, the announcements conveyed their messages to the nation regarding the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study analyses the different types of speech acts used by the Prime Ministers as they update their country while maintaining a calm situation.
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 2020
Free online resources are user-friendly technologies which have become available through the Inte... more Free online resources are user-friendly technologies which have become available through the Internet in recent years and gaining popularity during Covid-19. Since learners use smartphones, free online resources are easily accessible. Books are portable, but learners find it somewhat difficult to learn English language via books which may only be available in the classroom context, whereas free online resources are easily accessed. The purpose of this study is to identify learners’ perception learning English via free online resources and traditional learning. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the present study. Twenty-five international pre-elementary intensive English students took part in this study. It was found that learners perceived the free online resources as valuable tools for learning English in relation to reading, conversation, and vocabulary and also free online resources help promote free learning norms in learning the English language. The learner...
Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 2020
Social distancing and other protocols required during the COVID-19 pandemic have been particularl... more Social distancing and other protocols required during the COVID-19 pandemic have been particularly difficult for students who are disabled, especially hearing impairments students. During the Covid-19, many disabled students were impacted physically, mentally and their interactions may have been hindered. That could be one of the barriers for full and active participation in society during the Covid- 19. Therefore, this study aims to discover the challenges faced by hearing impairment students how it affects the communication and mainstreaming process. The data was collected from ten hearing impairments students and analysed qualitatively. The participants were aged between 19-22 and currently studying foundation programme in culinary arts in a skill transformation center. The participants were interviewed using impromptu interview questions via WhatsApp, which lasted about ten minutes for each participant. The findings show that there were four challenges faced by the hearing impai...
Social and Management Research Journal, 2013
The study investigated the effects of group-writing on learners at an institution of higher learn... more The study investigated the effects of group-writing on learners at an institution of higher learning who worked in cooperative based writing groups (group-writing henceforth) and individually. 117 undergraduates participated in this quasi-experimental study for 14 weeks. The learners were grouped in groups of three or four. A mixed-design approach was employed in data collection. Questionnaires were administered and semi-structured interviews were carried out to elicit information. The results indicated a favourable view of group-writing as an instructional approach in English as a second language (hereafter ESL) writing classrooms. The learners in the group-writing cooperated with each other on assigned tasks. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the experiment and control groups, whereby the m 39.3 772 value for the experimental group while m 28.1149 for the control group at (0
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Papers by Geraldine de Mello