Prepared by: Nur’ain Balqis binti Haladin and Farhana binti Abu Bakar

JOHOR BAHRU, 20th July – For the first time, the Language Academy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), organized the Online Global Classroom (OGC) entitled In Conversation: Post-Covid Research Trends on Language and Communication on 19 and 20 July 2022 at 2.30 until 4.30 p.m.

Moderated by Dr Nur’ain Balqis Haladin and Dr Farhana Abu Bakar, the program began with a warm welcome by the Chair of Language Academy, Associate Professor Dr Hanita binti Hassan. Three renowned speakers in the area of language and communication were invited to give their lectures throughout the two-day program.

The first speaker for the program was Professor Dr Zuraidah binti Mohd Don from the Language Academy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UTM. Professor Zuraidah shared her views on the post-Covid research trends with a focus on the area of language and communication. The second speaker was Associate Professor Dr Rasib Mahmood who is the Chairperson of the Department of English, University of Wah, Pakistan. His research interests include Post-modern Literature, Post-colonial literature as well as Feminist literature. The final speaker was Professor Jae-Woo Shim from the Department of English Education, College of Education, Jeonbuk National University. His areas of research focus on Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Second Language Acquisition.

Eighty-five postgraduate students, lecturers, and teachers from UTM, University of Wah, Jeonbuk National University as well as other universities attended this program. On behalf of the Language Academy, we would like to express our gratitude to the speakers and to all the participants for joining this program. We hope that this program has shed light on the post-Covid research trends on language and communication, and guided them to steer their future research focus.