English and Language Studies

Imported English textbooks were introduced to Malaysian schools in line with Malaysia's new CEFR-aligned English language curriculum. One of the books is PULSE 2, in which concern about its foreign cultural content has been widely discussed. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the cultural categories displayed in the PULSE 2 textbook for Form 1 syllabus, investigate how foreign cultures and topics are introduced to the students, and identify the perception of Form 1 teachers of the textbook, specifically on its foreign cultural contents. This study employed mixed-method research. The first phase of the data collection involved quantitative analysis using a questionnaire administered to 30 Form 1 ESL teachers. The qualitative data were collected through content analysis and semi-structured interviews with Form 1 teachers from schools in Perak, Malaysia. The PULSE 2 textbook is culturally rich, especially with UK-centric contents. There is also an imbalance portrayal of cultural categories, and no reference is made to the Malaysian context in the book. Designing personal materials, comparing target and local cultures, and using resources such as visuals and webbased learning are the most common pedagogical methods used by Form 1 teachers in using this textbook with their students. Although the teachers positively perceived the textbook, they disclosed a mixed perception of its foreign cultural content. Despite this, PULSE 2 can still be exploited to benefit students.

Imported English textbooks were introduced to Malaysian schools in line with Malaysia's new CEFR-aligned English language curriculum. One of the books is PULSE 2, in which concern about its foreign cultural content has been widely discussed. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the cultural categories displayed in the PULSE 2 textbook for Form 1 syllabus, investigate how foreign cultures and topics are introduced to the students, and identify the perception of Form 1 teachers of the textbook, specifically on its foreign cultural contents. This study employed mixed-method research. The first phase of the data collection involved quantitative analysis using a questionnaire administered to 30 Form 1 ESL teachers. The qualitative data were collected through content analysis and semi-structured interviews with Form 1 teachers from schools in Perak, Malaysia. The PULSE 2 textbook is culturally rich, especially with UK-centric contents. There is also an imbalance portrayal of cultural categories, and no reference is made to the Malaysian context in the book. Designing personal materials, comparing target and local cultures, and using resources such as visuals and webbased learning are the most common pedagogical methods used by Form 1 teachers in using this textbook with their students. Although the teachers positively perceived the textbook, they disclosed a mixed perception of its foreign cultural content. Despite this, PULSE 2 can still be exploited to benefit students.

5-Community driven (general or specialised) information media communication:  Objective:  create and/or maintain common collective (community binding) references,  make people believe that they belong to one community (even if this community is a "diasporic  Typical example:  mass media for diasporic (ethnic, religious, political, … communities  Traditional and/or "alternative" media for specific social communities The scope of intercultural communication © Peter Stockinger-Paris, INALCO/Filière Communication Interculturelle 2010 NATO Regional Cooperation Course (NCC) "Intercultural Communication"  6 main sectors/domains of intercultural communication (continued): 6-Intercultural marketing and management:  Objective  Use the cultural specificity of the people of a "target" community for achieving successfully mainly commercial objectives.  Typical example:  the "globalisation" of a (regional) food such as the originally (Italian) pizza, the (US) hamburger, etc.;  The opening of different non-European markets for a French luxury product, …;  The optimal use of "human capital" with respect to a given norm or mission (i.e. management of multicultural teams, troops, …).

5-Community driven (general or specialised) information media communication:  Objective:  create and/or maintain common collective (community binding) references,  make people believe that they belong to one community (even if this community is a "diasporic  Typical example:  mass media for diasporic (ethnic, religious, political, … communities  Traditional and/or "alternative" media for specific social communities The scope of intercultural communication © Peter Stockinger-Paris, INALCO/Filière Communication Interculturelle 2010 NATO Regional Cooperation Course (NCC) "Intercultural Communication"  6 main sectors/domains of intercultural communication (continued): 6-Intercultural marketing and management:  Objective  Use the cultural specificity of the people of a "target" community for achieving successfully mainly commercial objectives.  Typical example:  the "globalisation" of a (regional) food such as the originally (Italian) pizza, the (US) hamburger, etc.;  The opening of different non-European markets for a French luxury product, …;  The optimal use of "human capital" with respect to a given norm or mission (i.e. management of multicultural teams, troops, …).

Odeniyi presents perspectives on student identity and academic ability. Ethnographic research at a London university found evidence of repeated Othering of a small group of students with diasporic connections. Consequently, it is argued successful exposure to academic culture, which includes reading, writing and knowledge-making, can only occur after engagement and participation is made possible for all students. Odeniyi remains uncomfortable with monolithic interventions at institutional level as they feed into native-speakerist discourses which can demonise the ‘non-western’, ‘non traditional’ student. Student-centred approaches to academic writing development can create opportunities within the university curriculum for ‘non-traditional’, ‘non-native’ students’ experiences to be valourised through writing and assessment practices which contribute to the suspension of cultural disbelief.

A plenary paper I gave at Slovenia IATEFL 2017 on what teachers can learn from sociolinguistics (interpersonal and group communication skills), social psychology (Flow Theory and Neuro Linguistic Programming) and aspects of actor training to create a classroom community whose climate is conducive to maximising learning and enjoyment

Focusing on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's critically acclaimed Purple Hibiscus (2003), this article argues that subversion, an aggressive performance that aimed at overthrowing and displacing patriarchal institutions which initially impact on the choices and activities of the oppressed, is the hallmark of the fictional figures' responses to oppression. The essay contends that such forceful reactions to repression expand our understanding of twenty-first century Nigerian female-authored narratives. This argument I contrast with earlier critical readings, observing that while critics are eager to expose and endorse a female presence in the text, the readings often undermine its revolutionary suggestions. Through a radical feminist approach, my analysis of the novel highlights the heroines in order to demonstrate subversive behaviours in their drive to establish female agency, and notes such defiance to be necessary considering their repressive milieu. In doing so, I conclude with the notion that dissidence is a remarkable feature of the novel and that the radical feminist paradigm is useful in widening awareness of this groundbreaking tenor.

This article examines Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's exciting novel Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) not so much for the ways in which it reproduces the unsettling effects of the Biafran War but for how it draws attention to the diversity of sexual behaviours and identities in Africa as well as the grittiness of being human in a frightening war-ridden zone. This article argues for the ways in which Adichie emphasizes the humanity of her female characters through their claims to sexual freedom, even in the context of overwhelming civil unrest. By bringing sexuality into the heart of a Biafran War narrative, Adichie is read as a progressive feminist writer who advances a worldview that allows new ways of thinking about sex through the normalization of sexual behaviours that have been construed as unAfrican. In this way, Half of a Yellow Sun forms a counter-narrative to critical approaches that view female sexual agency as something inherently Western.

Coalition politics is gaining critical attention across the social sciences, and in feminist studies more precisely, since it promises a feasible solution to social issues for scholars concerned with social justice. Such political alliances with an emphasis on the feminist concept of sisterhood have proved a gateway to female freedom. However, while the merit of sisterhood is recognized mostly in terms of women in conflict with male tyranny, the feminist political agenda advanced through empowering women as best friends, supporters, and benefactors is less understood. Focusing on Sefi Atta's Everything Good Will Come (2005), this paper advances intimate and political associations as proactive ways through which feminist partnership-building is attained, stressing women in rapport with themselves rather than in struggle with men as the hallmark of feminist desire, purpose, and politics.

The feminist notion of autonomy, a self-governing ability, has been almost absent from moral philosophy until recently. The absence suggests that the ethical concerns of men, such as universality and neutrality, maintain a dominant position in shaping traditional ethics, resulting in the allegorical idea of an atomistic individual who is distanced from the social associations in which real agents are entrenched. This unilateral stance is limiting in comprehending other dimensions of moral reasoning, particularly feminine notions of caring and issues of private life that acknowledge independence and interdependence by valuing the agent who opts for social relationships. Concentrating on Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow (2006), this essay challenges such uncritical moral perception and/or readings of contemporary Nigerian (and by extension African) women’s texts to which while centring on postcoloniality with its associated moral and environmental decadence undermine the intricacies surrounding the independence of the fictional figures in such works.

Sefi Atta is a Nigerian author and playwright. Born in 1964 in Lagos to a family of five children, she was raised by her mother, Iyabo Atta, after the death of her father, Abdul-Aziz Atta. Educated in Nigeria, England and the United States, Atta attended Queen’s College, Lagos, and Millfield School, England. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in England and as a Certified Public Accountant in the United States, having been awarded a BA from the University of Birmingham in 1985, then an MA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, in 2001. She currently lives in Mississippi with her husband Gboyega Ransome-Kuti, a doctor, and their daughter, Temi. Atta has published four novels to date: Everything Good Will Come (2004), Swallow (2010), A Bit of Difference (2012), and The Bead Collector (2018). Atta’s other publications include News from Home: Short Stories (2010) and Selected Plays (2018). Her works have earned literary awards including the Red Hen Press Story Award in 2003, the Pen International David TK Wong Prize in 2005, the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2006 and the Noma Award for publishing in Africa in 2009.