New trends in vocabulary learning focus on strategic vocabulary learning to create more active and independent language learners. Utilising suitable contextual clues strategies is seen as vital in enabling and equipping language learners with the skill to guess word meaning accurately, moving away from dependency on a dictionary to improve their academic reading experience. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to investigate types of contextual clues selected and the extent of learners’ ability to obtain accurate word meaning through contextual guessing. The participants were Business Management students of various programmes who were taught contextual clues strategies and tested using class work sheet to analyse their utilisation of the strategies. Results indicated most participants depended on variety of contextual clues strategies, particularly cognitive strategies. The participants were also observed to be independent in guessing word meaning by making conscious decisions, as well as showing minimal reference to the instructor when attempting to utilise the strategies taught. Nevertheless, other interesting results indicated unsuccessful accurate guesses by some participants despite similar strategy choice. Overall conclusions indicated a degree of successful language learners who self direct themselves by making conscious and informed strategy choices. This leads to more emphasis on the importance of teaching and learning how to utilise suitable contextual clues strategies in continuous effort in improving and utilising the skill.

Although the study of Arabic text reading is growing in Arab and other countries, it is

Collaborative skills have been perceived as the most important skills by learners, instructors, and employers alike in comparison to communication and entrepreneurial skills. Despite its significant role in the workplace, many find that working together with others may complicate tasks due to limited background knowledge and problems with social dynamics. There has not been a single assessment created to assess online collaboration as an integrated performance during group-based tasks. The present study, therefore, attempts to examine learners’ online collaborative performance and the dimensions contributing to effective online collaboration at the tertiary level. A mixed-method research design was adopted using surveys and interviews. A number of 508 undergraduates from local universities were given a questionnaire inquiring about their online collaborative behaviour in group work, while 30 of them were interviewed. The findings indicated that the communication tools and technological facilities category were rated the highest in online collaborative performance, whereas sharing responsibilities was rated the highest in team dynamics. There was also a significant correlation between online collaborative performance and team dynamics. Interview responses showed that learners agreed that good communication, clear goals, and team commitment were important elements for successful online collaboration. Despite the potential to enhance students’ online collaborative performance, collaborative learning is demanding for learners and educators alike.

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The challenges faced by the language learners of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in synchronous learning platform are much discussed and researched by the academics. In particular, this study investigates a research instrument or tool that is used to describe the online learning engagement issues faced by the students. This Student Learning and Satisfaction in Online Learning Environments (SLS-OLE) survey was distributed to 150 students of UiTM to analyse and measure the relationships among the variables using exploratory factor analysis (Structural Equation Model approach). The variables are course organization/structure, learner interaction, student engagement, instructor presence, student satisfaction, and perceived learning. The respondents involved were undergraduates who went through Online Distance Learning (ODL) during the Movement Control Order due to COVID 19 pandemic. The findings of this study discovered that certain items and sections of the survey like "I learned less in the course than I anticipated" under Perceived Learning may not be relevant to UiTM students. Therefore, these findings allow the researchers to verify and improve the survey to gather more accurate data that represents the issues of online learning engagement in ODL synchronous learning of UiTM.