Faridah’s life-long love affair with English language teaching was kindled from the moment she stepped onto the campus of Hilderstone International College in a small seaside town of Broadstairs, Kent, England when she started her matriculation programme as part of a group of 13 Malaysians, little did she know then it would be a life-long obsession. Having to stay with English foster parents, Faridah got her first taste of the British culture which was further enhanced by the various trips to theatres in London and Canterbury as well as taking part in cultural events organised by the college. In short, her time in Broadstairs was among the best time in her life!
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Having successfully completed her matriculation programme after two years, Faridah continued her undergraduate programme in English Language Studies and Education at the University of Kent in Canterbury. This was when she got to discover more about the English language having to study subjects like Linguistics, Phonetics, Semantics, history of the English Language and of course English Literature. She also ventured into Sociology and Anthropology in her choice of minor subjects. In her final year of the programme, Faridah went to do her education training at Christchurch Teachers’ Training College which was also in Canterbury. She performed relatively well in her studies at Kent and graduated with an upper second class degree with Honours.
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After graduating, Faridah had a short stint working as a teacher at a school in Pekan, Pahang before getting an offer to be an assistant lecturer from the International Islamic University Malaysia. This she accepted with gratitude and much enthusiasm as it had been her dream to be an academic, to be able to teach university students and carry out research in her area of interest at the same time. In 1993, Faridah went back to the UK, to pursue her Masters’ Degree in English Language Teaching at the University of Warwick.
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She came back to work in 1995 and continued to do what she does best, teaching the various English courses offered by the English Language Division at IIUM. She was also given various administrative positions such as coordinator for Speaking and Listening courses and deputy Head of ELD. However, her research work was put on the back burner during this period as by then, Faridah was married and busy building a family and could not cope very well with juggling time between family, classes and research. However, after a long break, Faridah decided to embark on her PhD study in 2007 at University Putra Malaysia.
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Her thesis was on metacognitive strategies and listening as she realised at that time that not much studies were done on listening skills in Malaysia. Her very own international students grappling to improve their listening skills in English were also the push factor for her to dwell into the subject of listening. Faridah completed her PhD in four years and came back to continue working as an Assistant Professor in CELPAD IIUM.
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It has been 9 years now since she obtained her PhD. She has carried out several research studies and has presented at many international and local conferences since then. She has also published a few research articles and contributed a few book chapters. Much of her writings have been on listening and metacognition, learner autonomy. ESP and recently, she has started to develop interest in Islamic English and wrote some works on it with her colleagues. She is also the current Deputy Director of Academic Affairs at the Centre for Languages and Pre-university Academic Development (CELPAD), IIUM.
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