The meaningfulness of the current educational landscape, where online learning is heavily practised, is often questioned. Experiential learning focuses on the learning process that learners undergo. It is believed to help them to make sense of the learning process through active participation and meaningful reflective practice. Debriefing is an experiential learning strategy that requires learners to reflect on their learning experiences and connect them to real-life situations. However, only a limited number of studies have investigated the use of debriefing in the English language teaching and learning context. To this end, this case study aimed to explore the effects of debriefing in online ESL classrooms and the challenges of online debriefing. The case study was conducted in Bintulu, a town in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, and involved two teachers who were actively conducting online ESL lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collection was conducted through in-depth interviews and observations of recorded online ESL lessons with a focus on the debriefing sessions. The findings indicated that debriefing has positive effects on active English language learners as it helps to improve their critical thinking ability as well as their oral and written language proficiency. The challenges of debriefing in online ESL classrooms include learners being hesitant to talk during lessons, teachers facing difficulties in using appropriate debriefing questions, as well as various technical problems.

Language learning strategies are procedures or plans used by the language learners to learn the language easier, more enjoyable and effective. The strategies can be categorised in terms of direct strategies which consist of memory strategies, cognitive strategies and compensation strategies and indirect strategies which consist of metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and affective strategies. Past studies have proven that a good language learner tends to use various strategies in learning the language. Specifically in speaking skills, there are also strategies used by a good speaker of English to learn speaking skills. However, little has been related to the specific Language Learning Strategies (LLS) used by the good speaker of English. Hence, in this study, a survey was carried out to identify the most used Language Learning Strategies by good speakers of English as well as the least strategies used by them. The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) Version 7.0 by Oxford (1990) was utilized in exploring the LLS used by the Year 5 students of a primary school in Bintulu, Sarawak in learning speaking skills. A survey consisting of 30 questions with a Likert scale of 1 to 5 was administered to 30 pupils who are good speakers of English which were selected through purposive sampling. The data was collected and SPSS Version 25 was used to analyse the mean of each strategy. The results showed that cognitive strategy is the most used LLS while affective strategy is the least used LLS by the Year 5 pupils of a primary school in Bintulu, Sarawak in learning speaking skills. Findings of this study would contribute in terms of the improvements of LLS used by the students and pedagogical practices implemented by the teachers in the learning of speaking skills.