The production of wastes volume from agricultural wastes have led to the selection as a renewable energy feedstock, and it has the opportunity into energy market. A comparison is made between two mode of wastes that is treated (rinse and soaking in water for 12 hours) and raw of coconut husk (CH) tap under torrefaction were investigated. This work has utilized of conventional heating method with mild oxygen concentration for the properties and combustion characteristics feedstock output. As such the influenced parameters with size of 750μm, holding temperature at (200, 240, and 280 °C), and residence duration at (20, 40 and 60 minutes) were involved within this torrefaction setup. The combustion behaviour of tested coconut husks marked three discrete zone, whereby the severity setup resulted to increase the fixed carbon (FC) value, thus leading to higher ignition temperature. The changes in mass yield and the increased of honeycomb-like and spongy-like porous structure were recorded for treated coconut husk than of the raw. The functional group results from Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) test showed a valuable interest of treated mode also been discussed.

This paper describes the pilot study in implementing a public speaking module for a primary school level. The module development was structured according to ASSURE Model with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) as the basis used in designing the module activities.  One group of Year 4 students from an Islamic integrated school was selected and the research method employed was the quasi-experimental research with pre and post-tests as well as interviews with the English teachers on the students’ performance and self-confidence.  Students were also interviewed to identify their self confidence level before and after the implementation of the public speaking module. This research project is hoped to increase students’ oral proficiency along with increasing self-confidence in public speaking at a young age, and to propose the implementation of this module as reference in primary education.Keywords: public speaking, primary school, oral proficiency, self-confidence, CLT

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effectiveness of using active teaching methods on students' academic performance. A sample of 35 undergraduate students who took Mandarin as third language has been chosen for this purpose. The students were exposed to nine teaching methods namely (1) compare and contrast, (2) word wall, (3) take note and summarizing, (4) recitation, (5) cues, question and activating prior knowledge, (6) role play, (7) non-linguistic representation, (8) homework and practice, and (9) analysis of students’ work and discussion. From the t-test analysis conducted, it was found that students scored higher t-value of 24.8 in post-test as oppose to pre-test value of 13.6 with the significant value of .00. Hence, it can be concluded that through the implementation of the nine active teaching methods, students have improved their academic performance significantly.   Keywords: active teaching method, Mandarin, undergraduate, academic performance.

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