This study investigates students' fear in academic reading as well as the influence of perceived difficulties in their reading comprehension. The paper aims to study the level of anxiety as experienced by undergaduate students in academic reading. Data from 25 respondents were analyzed quantitatively using Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) developed by Saito, Horwitz, and Garza (1999). Te objectives of the study are to examine the influence of students' fear and perceived difficulties in academic reading. The findings of this study reveal that factors such as background and culture, general reading ability, vocabulary, grammar as well as teaching method can make readers fear reading. The results of this study bear interesting implications towards the teaching and learning of academic reading in English as a Second Language.

Online learning has become a new trend in the world. To teach online effectively, the instructors have to improvise their course content. Learners have mixed feelings over online learning, some of them prefer the face-to-face teaching; but some are comfortable with the online teaching mode. Previously, the success of language teaching has always depended on face-to-face interaction. However, language is taught online now. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the mediational process in social learning during online language learning. 111 diploma, bachelor degree and postgraduate students had participated in this quantitative study in a public university in Malaysia. The instrument used is a questionnaire with 29 items. This study examines the influence of online language learning on learner-to-learner, learner-to-instructor, learner-to-content interaction and mediational process. The results show there is a significant difference in education level. Findings in this study reveals that support from peers plays a crucial role as it prevents students from dropping out of the course. The students prefer teaching style that involves their active participation. The findings also indicate that students find it is important to get an overview of the content before the class begins. Lastly, learning motivation increases when instructor gives good comments during online lessons. Learners also need to learn to be more responsible to make sure their online learning time is filled with successful learning and interactions.Contribution/ Originality: This paper's main contribution is finding that online learning is a form of mediational process for learners. Learners get the opportunity to engage through learner-to-learner, learner-toinstructor, as well as learner-to content interactions.

Writing can both be considered as social and cognitive activity. Nevertheless

Many are afraid of public speeches ; be it in formal or informal settings. The reasons for this fear ranges from visible and non-visible factors. While many are able to cope well to overcome their fear of oral presentations, some are paralysed by this fear. Interestingly, one of the main evaluation for language learning is through oral presentation. The environment does play an important role in the learning of language .As such, the environment is also known to either reduce or produce fear among the language learners. This quantitative study is done to investigate the factors that lead to the fear of oral presentation, especially fear of negative evaluation. This study also explore the relationship between all the three constructs; fear of negative evaluation, external and internal reasons. 129 respondents responded to the instrument survey. The survey has 4 sections, section A has items on demographic profile, section B has 9 items on fear of negative evaluation, section C has 7 items on external factors, and section D has 7 items on internal factors. Findings revealed that there is a weak positive relationship between fear of negative evaluation and external and internal factors. There is a strong positive relationship between external and internal; factors. These findings bear interesting implications in the teaching of oral presentation to language instructors. The findings in this study contributes to the body of knowledge on the fear of oral presentations among people in general and language learners specifically.

It has been two years since the world has been forced to cope with doing things online. Even in normal face-to-face group discussions, participants face difficulties and conflicts, and now online learning has not made it any easier. This study explores the ups and downs in group discussion. 72 participants responded to a survey to find out how they perceive the conflicts in group formation. The findings in this study revealed that there were significant differences the norming stage and also performing & adjourning stage. In addition to that, the total mean score showed interesting differences across gender. Not all group formations with different genders go through conflicts. Not all team members with the same gender are conflict-free. Sometimes discussions/some activities are more difficult to carry out because of conflicts across genders are not properly addressed. Then again, not all group conflicts are negative. Conflicts are good in several ways. The conversations improve the communication and negotiation skills of the team members. In addition to that, defending for one’s point helps to sharpen critical thinking skills. The findings in this study cannot be generalized for all situations in group work. This study can be a springboard for more group formation and group conflicts research. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0860/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>