Learning Chinese characters can be a daunting experience for the non-native learners. This quantitative study aims to experiment the effectiveness of ‘Wild Association’ on learners’ ability to learn Chinese characters, and to determine whether these learners who use ‘Wild Association’ demonstrate higher achievement in character recognition and character writing compared to learners who study Chinese characters by drilling. Consisting of 98 learners from the elementary level of Mandarin proficiency course in UNIMAS, the learners used their own imagination to learn Chinese characters, and at the same time, relating their own experience in doing so. Learners’ performance was measured through the pre-test and post-test in the form of dictation and character-recognition worksheet. The results indicate that ‘Wild Association’ is effective in helping learners to recognise and write characters, and is especially more effective in helping learners to recognise characters. However, learners who underwent traditional drilling approach still outperformed those who employed ‘Wild Association’. It can be concluded that ‘Wild Association’ is a possible alternative for teaching characters in the initial stage, when characters are still foreign to learners. The result implies that ‘Wild Association’ suits the learning style of learners nowadays.

Needs analysis for language courses has to be carried out continuously to keep up with global changes and the needs of learners. This mixed-method study aims to describe the subjective and objective needs of the Mandarin learners in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Malaysia, and to check if these needs correspond with each other. Targetting at 120 learners and two instructors, a questionnaire survey was distributed, and complemented by qualitative data derived from focus group interviews. Result shows that learners’ subjective needs correspond with objective needs for motivational orientation, textbook, and cultural exposure. Statistically insignificant differences were found in the expected skills to learn, lecture-activities ratio, and teaching-learning activities. The study concludes that flexibility, student-centeredness and practicality are elements to look into for course improvement. Future research can explore learners’ needs in mastering writing skill, as well as the needs differences among learners across different levels. The study complements the understanding and knowledge of needs analysis in regard to Mandarin learning outside of China.

With the encouragement from the Vice Chancellor, the number of UiTM students who signed up for Mandarin courses is increasing dramatically. To overcome the problems of logistics, insufficient contact hours, lack of target language environment and the need for a learning tool (courseware) that can capture and enhance learning motivation especially among learners that have no prior knowledge in Mandarin, it is felt that an e-Learning tool should be developed. With this in mind, the researchers created an e-workbook that students can use as a selflearning material. The e-workbook consists of four levels with seven types of exercises in each level. Students are required to read, type in their answers, and they also have an option to listen to the recordings that are included. The general feedback obtained indicated that the e-workbook has managed to help students improve on their language skills. In this paper, a brief description on the development of the e-workbook is given. A brief discussion on the students' feedback on the e-workbook is also presented.

Listening skills are important skills that need to be mastered by foreign language learners. Listening skills have, however, often been neglected in the teaching and learning process. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of using WhatsApp messenger as an instructional tool in enhancing listening skills. This experimental research employs the two-group pre-test post-test design. Two groups of 30 students who enrolled in the Introductory Mandarin course in one of the public universities in Malaysia took part in the study. During the study, the experimental group of 30 students underwent listening drills and exercises using WhatsApp messenger as the treatment, while another 30 students in the control group were taught by another lecturer using the conventional method of teaching listening skills. Listening test scores of before and after the treatment were compared and analyzed using Independent Samples t-Test to identify the significant level of the difference between the scores of these two groups. The findings show no significant difference in the listening pre-test scores between both control and experimental groups. However, after the treatment, the listening scores of the experimental group students are significantly better than that of the control group students. These results indicate that WhatsApp messenger is a useful instructional tool to teach listening skills in foreign language. The findings of this study could be used as a reference for further development of WhatsApp messenger as an instructional tool to enhance listening skills, overcome the constraints on teaching time, and improve the pedagogy as well as the instructions of foreign language learning.

Media framing makes an issue salient. This study attempts to determine the frequency of episodic and thematic frames in news about the Unified Examination Certificate issue and identify the framing dimensions and valence used. Textual analysis of the content and headlines was performed on 100 news articles from newspapers of two languages. Results indicate that all the articles were framed episodically, with the “attribution of responsibility” dimension used most frequently, followed by the “human interest” and “conflict” dimensions. Chinese articles tended to use neutral valance, whereas Malay articles mostly used negative valence. These findings provide insights into ethnic politically-influenced and reader-oriented presentations of an issue by different newspapers. Future studies may focus on newspapers using the same language and investigate the framing effects by mainstream and alternative media.