English is an international language and in demand today. English is by far the most widely used language around the world. However, English language writing has always been a challenge for second language students to master. Developing students' ability in writing is one of the major challenges faced by the ESL teachers in most schools nowadays. Nevertheless, writing has always been a major difficulty faced by students in English language learning, especially in elementary schools. Not only that, teachers are also facing some challenges in teaching writing skills for students in elementary schools. Thus, this study aims to explore the challenges faced by both the students and teachers in learning as well as teaching writing skills in elementary schools.

In today's ever-changing world, the English language has been placed to be one of the important languages in communication, as well as the main medium of instruction in education. To be in line with this acknowledgement, the Ministry of Education of Malaysia has placed the importance of mastering the English language and has highlighted the need for students to excel in the language as early as in the primary school years. To reach this aim, the Ministry of Education has introduced the GPMP (Gred Purata Mata Pelajaran/ Subject Grade Point Average) target for English to schools in every state to ensure every school performs well in the subject. However, there are still a handful of schools that are unable to pass this GPMP target for English due to the poor performance of their students in the subject. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors that interfere with the students' performance in learning English. The participants of this study were the 116 students from the seven schools that were unable to reach the state's GPMP in the English language. This study used questionnaire as the instrument to explore the factors that hindered them from performing well in the subject. Overall, the findings show that there are three major themes that contribute to the students' difficulties in the English language learning; the lack of English vocabulary, the influence of the first language and the socio-economic status of the family. The findings and discussion of this study would be able to help the pertinent parties such as teachers, school administrators and parents to make decisions for the learners' improvement in their English language learning.

In recent years, the burden of caregiving for mental illness service users has been alarming due to the lack of resources in mental health services in Malaysia. The issue of caregiving for mental illness service users in Malaysia now then become more complex because of its multiracial society, with people from different cultural backgrounds and who possess varied beliefs and attitudes. This paper aims to review the development of mental health services from the era of independence till the post millennium era. Firstly, the researchers discuss the history of mental health development by looking at mental health institution from the perspective of government plan. Secondly, the development of mental health policy is followed. Thirdly, mental health resources in terms of professional service providers and physical support are reviewed in this section. Lastly, current issues on mental health service and recommendation for future research. In conclusion, we suggest that it will be more effective for mental health professionals to join together to take collective action through the existing organisations such as the Malaysian Social Workers’ Association, Malaysian Mental Health Association and Malaysian Psychiatric Association. Furthermore, mental health professionals can help the caregivers organise their own family support groups through partnership in order to voice their opinions to the government/policy makers for the improvement and development of social policy

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the abrupt closures of all learning institutions have caused English as second language (ESL) learners to have significant difficulties learning the English language especially for speaking skills. Speaking is one of the most important skills to learn because it is the primary mode of communication around the world. However, the majority of ESL learners are still trying to improve their English speaking abilities. Since the implementation of the COVID-19 lockdowns, e-learning has been a well-known solution all over the world. Learners and educators need more time to adjust to online teaching and learning because most of them are exploring new technical innovations and strategies to be used in the classroom. As a result, this study includes a literature review on the challenges ESL learners encounter in learning speaking skills, as well as the use of social media and video conferencing tools to teach speaking skills. Lack of motivation and self-confidence, fear, hesitation, and limited vocabulary are some of the challenges faced by ESL learners. Hence, it is vital to determine the technology intervention used in teaching and developing speaking skills among these learners based on previous study. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the interventions in teaching speaking skills included utilizing social media and video conferencing applications like Facebook, WhatsApp, and others for online teaching and learning. Educators of English as a Second Language (ESL) might then pick the ones that would work best in their particular classroom.

The use of social media in teaching has also revolutionized the way learning takes place. At higher education levels, measures have already been taken in incorporating the use of social media for learning purposes especially in the teaching of language. However, at secondary school levels, educators are still having doubts about using social media due to multiple issues. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of secondary school students and a teacher in Malaysia on the use of Google+ towards the teaching of ESL writing skills. A case study method was adopted to carry out this research. 12 students from a class of form four secondary school students volunteered to participate in this study. Data were collected through focus group interview on the students and an individual interview with the class teacher and field notes. The overall findings of the study are that participants had positive perceptions on the usage of Google+ towards ESL writing. They gained a number of benefits, which include: having enjoyable and attentive lessons through the interactive features of Google+, as well as engaging themselves in an active and interesting lesson. The participants felt that they were having a sense of purpose, thus becoming more engaged in the writing tasks. As for interaction, the participants were interacting more confidently in Google+ writing classes compared to conventional writing lessons. The implication derived from this study is that teachers need to be made aware of how to integrate social media as learning tools in the teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL), particularly, in the teaching of ESL writing to upper secondary school students.