How to Master Generic Skills in the English Language How to Master Generic Skills in the English Language? An Electronic-Problem-Based Learning Way- A Malaysian Experience Berhannudin, Hussain, Farhana, Zainal, Zulida, Elizabeth, Ashley, Ahmad, Asri, Robijah, Talha & Abdullah – Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia & Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

PROBLEM Mastery of the English language and Generic Skills among Malaysian graduates is poor

PROBLEM The lack of competence in English and generic skills among graduates in Malaysia have been the two major contributing factors for their unemployment (Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, 2015) almost half of Malaysian graduates were unemployed (The Star Online, 2013) and 400 thousand Malaysian graduates were unemployed in 2015 (Bernama, 2015 cited in The Malaysian Insider, 2015).

OBJECTIVES To explore the effectiveness of Electronic Problem-Based Learning (ePBL) towards improving communication skills in the English language and Generic Skills among undergraduates in Malaysian universities

Using purposeful sampling, 223 students from Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) participated in the semester long study.

In small groups of 5-8, students worked with local communities on particular community issues like entrepreneurship, education, crime, health and heritage.

The tasks “provided them with lots of meaningful opportunity” to interact among themselves, with their lecturers, relevant authorities, learning materials and the respective target community in both face-to-face (F2F) and electronic settings using the English language.

The “Problem-based Reading” provided them with the opportunity to broaden and deepen their knowledge on related content matter and reading skills.

FINDINGS the use of ePBL has a very positive effect in enhancing learning of the English Language and generic skills among the undergraduates.

FINDINGS : ENGLISH Across the four language skills, they also improved in Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing respectively both in F2F and electronic settings.

FINDINGS : GENERIC SKILLS On the part of the lecturers, the approach has also open up new and more interesting ways of training future graduates who are both competent in the hard and soft skills areas much to the expectations of the nation in general

CONCLUSION In conclusion, the infusion of electronic media or use of ePBL has tremendous potentials and should be seriously considered and adopted by all institutions of higher learning towards developing mastery of language learning.