Abstract-One of the skills that graduates today need to acquire is being able to present their ideas in front of an audience. However, it is becoming extremely challenging for today's educators to monitor individual students' presentation skills and for students to adequately practice their presentation skills in front of their classmates due to increasing class sizes, time, and logistical constraints. This problem, however, can be partially overcome by using technology such as the Virtual-i Presenter program (ViP), which enables students to record and practice oral presentations using Power point and a web cam. This technology was introduced in a presentations skills class for English as a Second Language (ESL) students. This pilot study aimed to provide an insight on how undergraduates' presentation skills can be honed via the use of new technologies in the language learning process. Using ViP technology, students were able to recreate the reality of presentations and practice their presentations multiple times during their selflearning time, without impacting on normal class time. Lecturers were then able to evaluate individual presentations as class time was no longer a constraint and provide feedback to improve future delivery. Students were surveyed using questionnaires to help determine their views on improvements in delivery and confidence, language, content and organization, non verbal communication, and the ViP program itself. Results from the survey indicated positive outcome from students and lecturers using this program. The ability of practice presentations multiple times seemed to help improve fluency, presentation content, and confidence. However, language skills such as intonation and pronunciation could not be improved while practicing and could only be identified after feedback was obtained from lecturers.

There is a need to expose the learners in the hospitality industry to real workplace requirement in terms of communication skills. In view of its importance, human resource managers, researchers and educators in the field of hospitality management or the hotel practitioners have to pay more serious attention to it. Thus, it is pertinent that both employers and potential employees have a consensus on what are to be instilled in the learners as this would prepare them for the actual hotel reception practices which in particular are the verbal communication skills. A needs analysis in the form of a questionnaire, distributed to the hotel managers and the interns involved help to identify the verbal communication skills that the interns require. These findings will also assist the curriculum designers in producing future hotel management professionals that can function effectively at their workplace.

Abstract-This research paper aims to measure the awareness level of reading strategies of the English as Second Language (ESL) Learners in Universiti Teknologi MARA, Penang. This study has included the measurement of their perceived use of reading strategies while reading academic materials since reading of specialized academic material in the second language is beginning to receive attention. This type of academic reading is also important to test the learners' reading comprehension skills and their knowledge of the text. An instrument of the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) was used for this study where it consists of three broad categories of reading strategies namely, Global Reading strategies, Problem Solving Strategies and Support Strategies. Analysis of the collected data revealed that the learners perceived the three strategies with a different frequency level depending on the purpose of reading academic materials. The data also provided evidence that they were able to practice them. The findings of the reading strategies awareness of ESL learners are discussed.

Abstract-The recent years have seen the booming of online video viewing and this trend is due to the birth of YouTube which has massively contributed to the online video activity amongst the netizens. Seen as one of a powerful media to engage students' attention and participation in language learning, this research explores how in the context of a culinary setting the YouTube videos can actually help promote students' communicative competence. The integration of online videos in the teaching of culinary skills also hopes to propagate the use of the target language based on the urgency of increasing the exposure and use of English language both inside and outside of the classrooms. This research delves into the language aspects whereby; the verbal and non-verbal communication aspects presented in the videos are observed and as such, the use of YouTube videos in the culinary classes are hoped to meet the educational outcomes of improving the teaching and learning techniques. A set of questionnaire administered to a selected group of culinary students have shown that an otherwise mundane class of culinary skill learning has resulted in a more exciting way of learning hands-on as the respondents are activated into paying closer attention to the videos' content and organization as well as the non-verbal communication skills in presenting videos aligned to the art of culinary exposed to them. It is indicated in the responses made by them whereby the selected media has been seen as something influential in retaining their understanding and interest of the concepts taught in their culinary classes. Hence, a powerful technology as YouTube should not be frowned upon as it places an undeniable impact which imposes on teacher-learner language learning environment.

The use of the internet for teaching and learning has become a global trend among the education practitioners over the recent decades. The integration of technology and media into Malaysian English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms has altered the methods in English Language Teaching (ELT). In response to the impact of technology in ELT, the needs of a supplementary instructional platform, and the limitations of the learning management system (LMS) in fostering second language (L2) writing skill, a web-based instructional tool was designed and developed based on a theoretical-and-pedagogical framework namely Web-based Cognitive Writing Instruction (WeCWI). To determine the key concepts while identifying the research gap, this study conducted a literature review using online search on specific keywords including “blog”, “Blogger”, “widget”, and “hyperlink” found in the scholarly articles. Based on the review of literature, Blogger was opted due to its on-screen customisable layout editing features that can be embedded with web widgets and hypertext that share the identical features. By looking into the relationship between perceptual learning preferences on perceived information and the visual representations in iconic and symbolic views, the blogs can come with two different user interfaces embedded with web widgets or hypertext. The blog with web widgets appears in a graphical form of iconic view; while hypertext only displays textual form of symbolic view without involving the visual references. With the injection of web widgets and hypertext into the blogs, WeCWI attempts to offer a technological enhanced ELT solution to overcome the poor writing skill with a better engagement while learning online through the learners’ preferred perceptual learning preferences.