No abstract

As the rate of globalization grows, more people are moving out of their countries to find better employment or quality of life overseas. Since Malaysia remains an attractive destination for business growth and global expansion, thereby attracting increasing number of immigrant workers, this paper aims to study how immigrants, specifically from developed Western and developing Asian countries, adapt to the Malaysian culture. A qualitative research using semi-structured interviews was used to collect the data from ten participants who originates from Western and Asian regions. Drawing on Berry's (1997) acculturation strategies, the data was then analysed through a thematic analysis to identify how culturally adapted the immigrants are toward the host culture. The results reveal that Asians are more likely to integrate into the Malaysian culture as compared to the Westerners. This is due to the common values and beliefs shared by those residing in the Asian region. The implication of this study is to provide valuable insights for employers and Human resource management to be prepared for the common acculturative stress that their expatriates or foreign workers might experience in the work setting and address the needs of these foreign employees via effective acculturation programs.

This article contributes to the changing landscape of fieldwork practices within sociolinguistic research, specifically the practice of online ethnography. It makes a case for the significance of online chats in observing the construction of ethnic identities and social intimacy among young Malaysian English (henceforth Manglish) speakers. The rise of Manglish discourse has been hardly ignored in digital settings. Thus, the rationale for choosing Manglish as a language of communication within online spheres such as Instant Messaging is unclear. This article argues that the socially structured meanings that underlie Manglish practices deserve exploration as it would benefit from online ethnography. Drawing on Androutsopoulos's (2008) discourse on online ethnographic approach, this paper shows how researchers could use WhatsApp chats to explore the linguistic and social behaviour of Manglish speakers. The findings suggest that the interrelation of speakers' online behaviour and linguistic choice can denote their ethnicity, in-groupness, stances, and regional identity. Online ethnography is therefore significant and should not be limited to linguistic sources but also used as a mode of participating in, as well as observing, the construction of identity that reflects the 'offline' aspect of speakers' social lives.

Background and Purpose: One of the difficulties that emerged during online learning was the teaching and learning of listening skills which prompted the development of an online platform, Computer-based Language Test (CBLT), to assist educators conduct listening practices and assessment with students without experiencing geographical limitations. As this is a novel platform, this paper intends to examine students’ perceptions of listening skills and online learning after utilising this platform using the developed CBLT-Listening Questionnaire.   Methodology: This cross-sectional quantitative study employed questionnaires to collect data from diploma students. Two-stage sampling was utilised whereby the first stage used stratified random sampling in selecting classes from twenty-three (23) branches of the university. Simple random sampling was practised in the second stage which yielded 410 responses. The data were subjected to descriptive and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) in SPSS.   Findings: Descriptive analysis revealed that the respondents find listening a difficult skill to acquire yet view CBLT an excellent initiative for online distance learning. EFA revealed that the items in the Listening construct were significant and to be retained. However, the EFA results reported that one item from the Online Distance Learning construct needs to be deleted from the questionnaire.   Contributions: The validated CBLT-S Listening Questionnaire serves as an instrument to investigate the impact of a novel online platform (CBLT) on students' perceptions on listening and online learning. The results from this study evidenced that online platforms that incorporate practices and assessment are viewed positively by students for pedagogy in language teaching.   Keywords: Computer-based language test, exploratory factor analysis, listening skill, online listening test, CBLT-listening questionnaire.   Cite as: Khairuddin, Z., Anuar, N., Azhari, M. A., Serip Mohamad, N. H., Mohd Daud, K., Ahmad, A. R., & Abd Rashid, M. H. (2023). Students’ perceptions of Computer-Based Language Test (CBLT) and validation of CBLT-listening questionnaire using exploratory factor analysis.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(2), 222-241. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss2pp222-241