Reticence has always been regarded as a problematic phenomenon among students in the ESL classrooms. Many instructors have expressed their frustrations to decode the reticent behaviour and work out suitable strategies to help students with such behaviour. Whenever such students do not engage in the classroom discourse, they are usually regarded as not having the desire to learn or lacking in cooperation. These explanations seem simplistic, bias and stereotypical. Based on a larger project on students' reticent behaviour, this study investigated the extent in which tertiary students majoring in English experience reticence in the classrooms, and examined the underlying factors of reticence. Data were obtained from 78 students utilizing the Reticence Scale-12 (RS-12) which measures the level of reticence along six dimensions: anxiety, knowledge, timing, organization, skills and memory. The findings reveal that reticent level is high among the students, and their major problems lie in affective-control and delivery.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service English teachers' reticent beliefs towards oral participation in English for Academic Purpose (EAP) classrooms. To this end, a survey was carried out using a self-report scale-the Reticent Belief Index (RBI). The participants were 144 pre-service English teachers enrolled in a teacher-training programme in Malaysia. They were all diagnosed with high level of reticence prior to the study. In addition, 24 pre-service teachers, selected randomly from among the survey participants, took part in a focus-group discussion. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the pre-service English teachers subscribed to eight beliefs presumed to be associated with reticent behaviour. Among these, the belief, "I can speak whenever I want to but I would rather listen" was considerably rated the most influential one. Additionally, a newly identified belief, 'Kiasuim' was also found to cause the pre-service teachers being reticent in the class. The findings suggest that, to alleviate pre-service teachers' reticence, a remedial course which incorporates cognitive aspect of reticence such as modifying irrational beliefs about oral participation, could be included in the current teacher training programme.

In China, phonics instruction has been given substantial emphasis ever since the implementation of the 2011 National English Curriculum for Compulsory Education. However, many Chinese students’ learning outcome remains unsatisfactory due to EFL teachers’ insufficient knowledge to teach phonics and the absence of a phonics instructional guide. To address this gap, this study aims to investigate the effects of a newly developed phonics instructional guide on Chinese pre-service EFL teachers’ knowledge base to teach phonics. Adopting an experimental research design, the study was conducted at a teachers’ college in Sichuan Province, China. There were 172 pre-service EFL teachers assigned into two equivalent groups, namely the experimental group (N=86) and control group (N=86), who took a test respectively before and after the intervention. The measures of the test included seven dimensions aiming to elicit knowledge of general phonics, phonetic system, phonemic awareness, phonics decoding rules, phonics instructions, reinforcement methods, and sight word instructions. The experimental group participants undertook a 15-hour phonics training course using the newly developed Phonics Instructional Guide (PHOInG). The control group participants were taught using a conventional method involving the use of an English textbook prescribed by the college. Results revealed that the Chinese pre-service EFL teachers in the experimental group improved significantly in their overall knowledge base of English phonics and phonics instruction, except for phonemic awareness and knowledge of the phonetic system. These findings point to the importance of using a needs-based and theoretically informed instructional guide when providing phonics and phonics instruction training to Chinese EFL pre-service teachers.