This review aims to examine the discrimination and prejudices toward the accent of non-native English speakers and cyberbullying as the ripple effect of these negative consequences. Following Arksey and O’Malley’s framework of conducting a scoping review, 60 studies from 2012 to 2021 were retrieved from the ERIC and Google Scholar databases. The studies were reviewed from two aspects: (1) psychological impact on speakers with a non-native English accent, (2) attitudes toward non-native English accents from the victim’s and perpetrator’s perspectives. The findings suggested that speaking with a non-native English accent drew negative cognitive, affective, and behavioral experiences. Biases toward non-native English accents were due to the general derogatory perception of an accent and the comprehensibility of speakers’ accent and pronunciation. “Accent acceptability” can be inculcated at all levels of education, not only through multicultural education but also through the concerted effort of policy makers and practitioners to seriously address this social issue. Accent awareness can dispel unwarranted and undesirable judgements of non-native English accent speakers. Future studies should be conducted on the effects of social and mental health experiences, particularly of non-native ESL and EFL teachers, given that this may be the only profession required to teach “live” during the pandemic and thus be subjected to public praise or ridicule.

Rural schools in Malaysia strive to progress on par with their counterparts in urban schools despite their differences. Pupils learning in the rural schools may not experience a similar level of exposure to English as the pupils in the urban schools. It is seen essential to understand the learning process experienced by pupils in rural schools to progress in learning. Language learning strategies are a crucial element in the learning process and action that aid the use and acquisition of language. It is hypothesized that one factor influencing the development of reading skills was the pupils' learning strategies. This study aims to examine the learning strategies used among rural primary school pupils in developing their reading skills. In this study, quantitative research design was administered through the use of survey. The data was collected through questionnaires of Young Learners' Language Strategy Use Survey by Andrew D. Cohen and Rebecca L. Oxford (2002). Four selected schools are situated in the rural areas of four districts in Sarawak. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively. The major finding of this study resulted in the two highest percentages of preferred language learning strategies by the pupils in the selected rural schools namely the affective strategy and the cognitive strategy. The findings will be able to benefit the educators by giving new insights on appropriate reading strategies that would impact optimally as well as improving the pupils' learning progress awareness concerning reading skill. This reflects on the current teaching of English reading skills and what can be done to give a more impactful reading outcome. On this basis, consideration of the types of reading materials, reading tasks and readers' aspects should be taken into account when designing reading lessons.