Good student writers are often seen as a benchmark to the weaker writers. In the area of metadiscourse in students' writing, previous studies show that good undergraduate writers use more metadiscourse markers as compared to the weaker writers. However, there are limited previous studies which observe the use of metadiscourse among Malaysian ESL undergraduate writers whose Bahasa Malaysia is their first language. Therefore, further studies involving undergraduate writers from this particular setting is significant to add more literature to the field of metadiscourse among ESL undergraduates. This paper aims to present the metadiscourse markers found in a corpus of good undergraduate writers' essays (GUWE corpus). These metadiscourse markers are classified in the main categories and sub-categories based on Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse. Using a concordance software, this study aims to reveal the frequency of the metadiscourse markers use in good essays produced by 269 Malaysian undergraduate writers. The findings presented in this paper are hoped to be useful for other researchers who are interested in the same field of metadiscourse among ESL student writers especially among Malaysian undegraduates.

This study seeks to explore the washback effect of the Malaysian University English Test (MUET), a high-stakes compulsory university entry test in the context of Malaysia. As simple and linear as it commonly appears, washback has been found to be far more complex than simply looking at the impact that a test might or might not have on the stakeholders. Therefore, this study aims to fill in this knowledge gap by systematically re-examining the beliefs on washback by investigating the relationship between the students’ perceptions of the MUET in terms of its importance and difficulty, with their language learning strategies whilst preparing for the test and after sitting the test. Using a mixed methods approach, a student questionnaire and student interview were utilised to elicit data from 30 male and 46 female students. The students were further divided into two groups, specifically those who were preparing for the MUET and those who had already sat the MUET. The findings suggest that preparing for the MUET encouraged the students to utilise a certain language learning strategy more compared to the others, specifically focusing on language skills that had not been formally tested before. Although the students’ perception did not significantly shape the students’ course of action when preparing for the test, it still had an impact on their overall view of the whole test-taking matter. This study is intended to add more insights to the less explored areas of washback, specifically the students’ perceptions and washback over time.

This study empirically examines how graduate students’ attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, knowledge, and acceptance of agro-business influence student intention to start agro-entrepreneurship and the moderating effect of gender and faculty on the relationship among the factors based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. The study adopted the cross-sectional design from 300 public university students. The results of the study revealed that attitude toward agro-entrepreneurship, perceived behavioral control, and acceptance of agro-entrepreneurial exert a positive and significant effect on agro-entrepreneurial intention among university students. Moreover, the gender-based multiple group analysis revealed that male graduate students accept more agro-business than female students. Thus, policy makers can facilitate the promotion of agro-entrepreneurship among graduate students. Based on Theory of Planned Behavior, this study improves our understanding on university students’ agro-entrepreneurial intention in Malaysia. Finally, the discussion, recommendations and conclusion of the study are discussed in the research paper.

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The current literature review of second-language learning (SLL) views second-language (L2) development as a complex system comprised of ecological interactions between multi-faceted agents that fluctuate over time, in constantly changing environments. This concept is in contrast with two dominant theories that have framed many existing studies in the field of SLL: the cognitive theory that sees cognition as the nucleus of SLL, and the socio-cultural theory that maintains that SLL occurs as a result of social and cultural forces. However, little research has been done to explore the dynamic nature of SLL in a deeply comprehensive manner, in order to explain the phenomenon. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap of knowledge via a detailed investigation of how Business students at a Malaysian public university developed their English-speaking abilities in an L2 classroom context. A group of 31 undergraduate Business students (30 females and one male), as well as their English teacher, were involved in this case study, collecting data through classroom observations, interviews, a survey, as well as relevant curriculum documents, including academic records. The findings from the qualitative analysis via a unique model proposed in the study, based on a socio-cognitive theory, have revealed that learning to speak English is a complex process involving the ongoing physiological activities of adaptation and alignment. The notion of co-dependency exists between individual learners and their physical and conceptual resources, constituted in the social environment of the classroom, in order to perform the appropriate learning actions.