Latha Ravindran | UCSI University Malaysia (original) (raw)

Papers by Latha Ravindran

Dapatan kajian ini mempunyai implikasi terhadap pembelajaran Bahasa Inggeris di India dan juga da... more Dapatan kajian ini mempunyai implikasi terhadap pembelajaran Bahasa Inggeris di India dan juga dalam konteks lain di mana terdapatnya pengajaran Bahasa Inggeris dijalankan. Jurang didapati di antara apa yang dirancangkan dan realiti sebenarnya. Selain itu, tenaga pengajar yang beroperasi di bawah paradigma yang berbeza tidak begitu bersetuju dengan polisi yang sedia ada. Mereka melihat peranan mereka berbeza dan oleh itu mengadaptasi iv polisi yang ada. Juga didapati ketidakselarasan antara niat dan pelaksanaan polisi. Faktor yang mempengaruhi implementasi adalah yang berkaitan dengan konteks sekolah, budaya, bahan pengajaran, pengalaman mengajar, pedagogi, perkembangan profesional dan matlamat polisi tersebut. Kajian ini mempunyai implikasi penting terhadap polisi dan amalan. v

Recoletos Multidisciplinary Research Journal

Understanding how bullying leads to eating disorders can help develop effective intervention stra... more Understanding how bullying leads to eating disorders can help develop effective intervention strategies. This phenomenological study examines the relationship between bullying and coping strategies Malaysian adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders use. Using the snowball sampling technique, 12 Kuala Lumpur participants, six females and six males aged 10 to 19, responded to interview questions based on the literature reviews, theories, and a published questionnaire. By using thematic analysis, the researcher found out that all 12 participants with EDs were bullied about their weight or size. Most of the bullying and teasing were verbal or via online platforms. The findings suggest that bullying can be a significant cause of the development of eating disorders among adolescents in Malaysia. Proper coping strategies can be essential in overcoming the trauma of being bullied and treating eating disorders.

International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE)

Critical thinking (CT) is important for English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. However, the... more Critical thinking (CT) is important for English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. However, the EFL writings of Chinese students are usually negatively commented on in terms of CT in writing. The study reviewed relevant studies on how CT in writing was taught to Chinese EFL learners at the tertiary education level. It shows most EFL writing teachers adopted existing western CT definitions in a general knowledge background and mainly used teacher-centered assessment techniques to teach CT. Students’ CT development was mostly assessed by self-designed CT assessments. Facing the globalization of CT teaching, the study thus updates the assessment techniques to meet the increasing needs of CT teaching in EFL writing in China. Relevant suggestions are also given to education practitioners.

e-Bangi Journal of Social Science and Humanities

Embedding opportunities for professional development to attain greater visibility to achieve and ... more Embedding opportunities for professional development to attain greater visibility to achieve and retain the recognition both locally and internationally is important for educators at tertiary level. The challenge to consistently retain the social standing by its ranking is greater for young private universities in Malaysia. By means of the principles of Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS), this research highlighted the opportunities in strengthening the human capital moving towards a professional learning community. The study employed the qualitative research design to explore the institutional support provided for professional development to identify training needs and opportunities to educators, as well as the prospects of adapting the BOS strategy to meet the diverse needs of the professional development of educators. Employing a purposeful sampling method, five key stakeholders in the management position and ten lecturers from a private university in Malaysia were interviewed. These lectu...

Journal of Language and Communication

Peer feedback is increasingly used in higher education. However, in China, peer feedback is not w... more Peer feedback is increasingly used in higher education. However, in China, peer feedback is not widely used in EFL writing classes. Distrust of students’ ability to provide comments and teachers’ fear of losing power are two frequently discussed reasons. For the lack of peer feedback, the study used teacher-student collaborative assessment (TSCA), a native classroom assessment proposed by Chinese researchers involving peer feedback supported by teachers, to find how it affects peer feedback quality and EFL writing performance. The study used a quantitative method and conducted a quasi-experiment. In the experimental group, 45 freshmen took TSCA after each writing task, while in the control group, 57 freshmen only received the teacher’s analysis of the writing sample. After the training of five weeks, participants in the experimental group showed significant improvement in the quality of their peer feedback and EFL writing than participants in the control group. Based on the findings...

Journal of Modern Languages

Culture is a way of life and embodiment of civilizations that is expressed through a language. Th... more Culture is a way of life and embodiment of civilizations that is expressed through a language. The transfer of culture is a significant aspect of audio-visual translation as translators deal with more than just the written texts on surface level. Translating culture-specific items on paper cutting is an intercultural communication. However, translating cultural items in subtitling could cause challenges and problems for translators during the translation process. In this qualitative study, the translation strategies and challenges were explored in the subtitling of a Chinese cultural documentary on the art of papercutting titled The Life of Paper-cutting (剪紙人生; Jiǎn zhǐ rén shēng) retrieved from YouTube. The original video was subtitled to identify the challenges in subtitling. The strategies and challenges were first identified and then the process was described. It was found that the most appropriate translation strategies were omission, direct transfer, equivalence, and adaptatio...

Education and Information Technologies

In the first affiliation, the "UCSI University" was incorrectly presented as "USCI University" in... more In the first affiliation, the "UCSI University" was incorrectly presented as "USCI University" in the original publication of this article. The original article has been corrected. Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Education and Information Technologies

International Journal of Education, Psychology and Counseling, 2022

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between self-esteem, loneliness, suic... more The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between self-esteem, loneliness, suicidality with social media addiction. University students (N = 198) were sampled by utilizing an online survey, using convenience sampling method. Five instruments were used, including the Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS), Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE), University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale-3, and Yatt Suicide Attitude Scale (YSAS). In the multiple linear regression analysis, the regression model accounted for a significant 12.3% of the variance in social media addiction. Only self-esteem was a significant predictor of social media addiction. Lastly, loneliness and suicidality were not significantly associated with social media addiction. Treatment of social media addiction should take into consideration the evaluation and intervention of self-esteem issues among university students.

Asean Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

This research investigates presentation anxiety among undergraduate Malaysian Chinese students in... more This research investigates presentation anxiety among undergraduate Malaysian Chinese students in a private university where English language is used as a medium of instruction in private universities in Malaysia. There is little research on the difficulties in the teaching and learning such as presentation anxiety among ESL (English as a Second Language) Malaysian Chinese students. The objectives of this study are to explore the different levels of presentation anxiety and to identify coping strategies used by the students with English-speaking anxiety among undergraduate Malaysian Chinese students in a private university. Hence, a mixed method approach is used which involves a questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Sixty participants responded to the English Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (ELCAS) questionnaire and six interviewees who took part in the questionnaire were purposively chosen to conduct the interview. ELCAS Quantitative results indicated that ESL Malaysian Chi...

International Academic Symposium of Social Science 2022

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning, 2021

Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. I... more Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. In this descriptive narrative-based study, we looked at the interview data of eight English language learners who recorded high scores on a nine-item grit questionnaire. Specifically, two female university students each from Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan were interviewed and their interview scripts were transcribed and then coded looking for common threads to emerge from the data by applying the tenets of Charmaz’s (2006) Grounded Theory. The data show that beyond perseverance, gritty L2 students enjoy learning the L2, are consistently curious about the L2, are generally not bored by the L2, are confident using the L2 (not letting anxiety dissuade them), are extraverted—encompassing a strong willingness to communicate, have focused L2 vision and have had experiences and/or encounters that bolstered their L2 grittiness. As for encouraging L2 grit development, we suggest that good L2...

A male cadaver (approximately 60 years old) was seen to have a variant pattern of axillary artery... more A male cadaver (approximately 60 years old) was seen to have a variant pattern of axillary artery branching. On the right side, the axillary artery bifurcated behind the pectoralis minor into two trunks – superficial and deep. The median nerve was formed by the union of the two roots between these trunks. The deep trunk trifurcated in the upper arm into subscapular, a common trunk which gave origin to anterior and posteror circumflex humeral arteries, a branch that ran distally that gave rise to profunda brachii artery. The superficial trunk continued as the brachial artery and it bifurcated at the level of head of radius into radial and ulnar arteries. On the left side, the axillary artery branching pattern was as usual. The implication of this study occurs in various streams especially vascular surgery, general surgery, as well as in radiodiagnosis in Doppler and contrast imaging of vessels.

This paper is an account of the effects of school culture on the process of change. Each school h... more This paper is an account of the effects of school culture on the process of change. Each school has an individualistic school culture, and attitudes are shaped by the social context. This paper using a qualitative approach addresses the question of how the governance of the school and the school’s learning environment and cultural context shaped the ESL policy implementation impacting the change process. The extent of the involvement the principals and teachers played in the administration of the school had a profound impact in the implementation of the ESL policy. The paper underscores the importance of understanding the school culture and change processes which are important to bring about effective changes.

This study is driven by the need to examine the implementation of ESL curriculum policy and its i... more This study is driven by the need to examine the implementation of ESL curriculum policy and its implications for practice. Implementation of the ESL policy is an evolutionary process which is not always linear or predictable. As policy is transformed and adapted to conditions of the implementing unit, effective implementation may have different meanings in different settings. Gaps between policy planning and implementation often exist, despite careful planning of the educational policy. Drawing on a qualitative design, various approaches such as interviews with the key stakeholders, interviews with students, document analysis, field notes and classroom observations helped the researcher to understand the salient features of the policy and its impact on instructional practices. Research question one on policy changes deals with major stakeholders’ views on policy changes and the key concepts adopted by the government in implementing the policy. The second research question is related...

Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning, 2021

Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. I... more Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. In this descriptive narrative-based study, we looked at the interview data of eight English language learners who recorded high scores on a nine-item grit questionnaire. Specifically, two female university students each from Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan were interviewed and their interview scripts were transcribed and then coded looking for common threads to emerge from the data by applying the tenets of Charmaz's (2006) Grounded Theory. The data show that beyond perseverance, gritty L2 students enjoy learning the L2, are consistently curious about the L2, are generally not bored by the L2, are confident using the L2 (not letting anxiety dissuade them), are extraverted-encompassing a strong willingness to communicate, have focused L2 vision and have had experiences and/or encounters that bolstered their L2 grittiness. As for encouraging L2 grit development, we suggest that good L2 classroom practice include frequent communicative activities so that students can see the practical side of learning a L2 with the hopes of strengthening their L2 vision.

This paper is an account of teacher beliefs and values that shape their responses to classroom ev... more This paper is an account of teacher beliefs and values that shape their responses to classroom events. Their beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning are also shaped by cultural traditions. Differences in values also account for the difference s in interpreting and making sense of policy requirements. These beliefs and values are dialectical rather than unilateral, in the sense that practice does not always follow directly from beliefs. This paper addresses the question of how teacher beliefs and values influence their classroom practice and teaching decisions in the context of a country steeped in cultural traditions.

Mentoring is an effective method of helping inexperienced individuals to support, guide and advic... more Mentoring is an effective method of helping inexperienced individuals to support, guide and advice. Using a qualitative approach this study identifies the challenges faced by mentors in their roles and responsibilities and explores if mentoring could be an effective intervention in the long term.

Recoletos Multidisciplinary Research Journal

International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE)

e-Bangi Journal of Social Science and Humanities

Journal of Language and Communication

Journal of Modern Languages

Education and Information Technologies

International Journal of Education, Psychology and Counseling, 2022

Asean Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

International Academic Symposium of Social Science 2022

Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning, 2021

Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. I... more Understanding the make-up of gritty L2 students has garnered quite a lot of attention recently. In this descriptive narrative-based study, we looked at the interview data of eight English language learners who recorded high scores on a nine-item grit questionnaire. Specifically, two female university students each from Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan were interviewed and their interview scripts were transcribed and then coded looking for common threads to emerge from the data by applying the tenets of Charmaz's (2006) Grounded Theory. The data show that beyond perseverance, gritty L2 students enjoy learning the L2, are consistently curious about the L2, are generally not bored by the L2, are confident using the L2 (not letting anxiety dissuade them), are extraverted-encompassing a strong willingness to communicate, have focused L2 vision and have had experiences and/or encounters that bolstered their L2 grittiness. As for encouraging L2 grit development, we suggest that good L2 classroom practice include frequent communicative activities so that students can see the practical side of learning a L2 with the hopes of strengthening their L2 vision.