Category: ACLL2017
A Comparative Corpus Study on the Use of Academic Hedges and Boosters in Applied Linguistics
Hedges and boosters are two types of linguistically important strategies employed in academic writing. While hedges and boosters have been widely explored, previous studies focus on targeting the use of hedges and boosters in journal articles and conference papers in linguistics, computer engineering, second or foreign language teaching and learning. The investigation of Taiwanese students’ …
Analyses of Non-Native Preservice English Teacher Verbal Interactions on COLT Part B Scheme
This exploratory case study aimed to identify the characteristics of instruction by non-native preservice English teachers seeking to obtain an English teacher certificate in Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has mandated that the teaching of English should take place principally in English from 2020. This requirement will place greater …
Blended Learning for In-service Teachers’ Professional Development: Lessons from the Experience of a Singaporean Chinese Language Teacher Educator
Traditional face-to-face workshop is a common avenue for the professional development (PD) of in-service teachers. Chinese Language (CL) teachers in Singapore also attend such workshops frequently. Research has however shown that such workshops often failed to establish sustained learning and produce little impact on teachers’ practice, as well as students’ achievement. To address this efficacy …
Changing Writing Classrooms through Group Dynamics
Literature Circles in an EFL writing classroom is an under-explored area where learners, through collaborative learning, are able to enhance the skills necessary for writing academic essays. By redesigning the traditional roles of Literature Circles to accommodate different aspects of academic writing, this approach, through interaction and collaborative dialog, develops the skills of EFL writers. The …
Cross Cultural Representation in Pakistani’s EFL Textbooks
The spread of English language as an international language has increased the numbers of its non-native speakers more than its native speakers all over the world .It has arisen the issue of the possession of this language. This study aims at describing and exploring and the type of cultural content found in English Language textbooks …
Dealing with Unexpected Experiences: Transformative Learning of Japanese Pre-Service Teachers During the Teaching Practicum
In the current Teaching Licensing program accredited by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, students who plan to become English teachers are required to have two to three weeks of in-service training at junior or senior high schools. This teaching practicum is central to the curriculum and provides extremely rich experiences that lead …
English as the World’s Lingua Franca and Task-based Strategic Competence
A common theme in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research is to focus on pragmatics and accommodation with regards to turn-taking, the status of the interlocutors, and contextual usage. There is less research available that is oriented towards the usage of ELF regarding spoken directives for task-specific purposes. As opposed to conversational English, such …
Expressing Jamaican Culture in the Foreign Language Classroom
We will present lessons learned and techniques developed over a period of twelve years teaching Japanese to West Indian university students at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Over this period the Japanese programme has developed from a set of introductory courses to a full minor programme, and has …
Factors Impacting on Teacher Cognition and Teachers’ Approaches to Language Teaching in Japanese High Schools
An investigation of cognitive factors that impact implementation of Communicative Approaches to Language Teaching, CALT, by public high school teachers in Osaka, Japan. Furthermore, it examines factors that would enable implementation of CALT. The experiences, beliefs and knowledge of 46 teachers were investigated using a questionnaire. Of those, 4 were invited to participate in semi-structured …
Expressing Locality in Learning English: A Study of English Textbooks for Junior High School Year VII-IX in Indonesia Context
This paper intends to investigate the transfer of English language to Indonesian students of junior high school in a multicultural setting. As a locus of discussion, the investigation problematizes English textbooks “Real Time: An Interactive English Course for Junior High School Students Year VII-IX” which signify the imbalance accounts of cultural elements as highlighted by …
Developing Global Leadership Skills with Model United Nations (MUN)
This paper summarizes the symposium contributions as they were presented at the Asian Conference on Language Learning held in Kobe: (1) Lori Zenuk-Nishide, MUN and Opportunities in Japan; For 15 years, the author has used MUN an EMI curriculum with Japanese students and continued this as Conference Organizer for NMUN Japan in 2016. MUN and …
I Am Afraid of Learning English: The Interplay between Anxiety and Learning Experience on Indonesian Senior High School Students Academic Performances
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of learning experience and anxiety on senior high school students’ academic performance in Indonesia. A small-scale of quantitative research was done using convenience sampling. Two kinds of data collection administered were questionnaire and students’ academic record. 40 items of Likert scale questionnaires were distributed to …
Investigating ‘Interest’ Development of Indonesian Students in an MA TEFL Programme in Learning English as an L2
This study contributes to the understanding of interest development in second language learning. It describes the conditions which trigger students’ situational interest in learning English as a second language, and how temporary situational interest contributes to the development of more stable individual interest. The data are gathered from Indonesian students on an MA Teaching English …
Japan Away from Japan: The Tehran Supplementary Japanese School
How can my multi-racial children maintain and even improve their competency in their heritage languages? This is a common struggle in any multi-racial families as in most cases their daily life outside the home is carried out in one of the languages of theirs. Particularly, in the case of the biracial families of Japanese and …
Learning Growth and Attitude of Students Exposed to Prolonged Non-Contractual English Intervention Program
This study is quasi-experimental in nature which utilized an intervention program sponsored by the US Embassy through the English Access Microscholarship Program to help develop the language skills of the students. Fifty (50) students ranging from 13-20 years old who have economically disadvantaged backgrounds and show low performance in English skills (speaking, reading and writing) …
Motivational Changes and Their Effects on Achievement: Japanese High School English Learners
This longitudinal study investigates (a) changes in Japanese high school English learners’ motivation over the 3 years of high school, and (b) whether their motivational changes over the high school years predict achievement at the end of high school. A questionnaire was developed drawing on the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (Gardner, 1985) and the self-determination-theory scale …
Promoting Cross-Cultural Communication and Student Reflection Through Speaking Logs
Many Japanese students enter university having had little to no interaction with native or foreign speakers of English outside of their classroom. In a university with international students there lies an opportunity for students to come into contact with people around their age from all over the world, creating the chance for intercultural exchange. However, …
Scaffolding L2 Readers: How Can We Grow Them Into Autonomous Life-Long Learners?
A critical component of L2 reading ability is reading fluency. One natural approach to L2 fluency development is to approximate the process of L1 acquisition (through exposure to large amounts of comprehensible input), by means of extensive reading (ER), whereby readers are provided with a wide selection of materials in different genres and topics graded …
Special Filipino Curriculum (SFC): A Technology Oriented Curriculum for Foreign Language Students
The technology-oriented curriculum aims to develop a program for foreign language speaking students of Filipino. Its objective is to look into their needs; enumerate the competencies that shall be developed by the curriculum; and evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum of Special Filipino Class (SFC) to the students. Teachers and students of SFC in Saint …
Syntactic Variety and Writing Quality: An Investigation on EFL Students’ Argumentative Writing
The variety of syntactic structure of sentences has regarded as an important indicator of sentence fluency and writing proficiency. However, previous research on the relationship between syntactic variety and text quality has failed to reveal consistent patterns. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship of a single measure of syntactic variety with the quality …
Teachers’ Attitude toward Journal Writing
Teachers have many tasks that they should do. So, they must be professional in teaching. One of the ways to be professional is to know how to think critically toward their teaching. They should know how to reflect their teaching to help them to know about their strength and weakness in teaching. Based on the …
Teachers’ View on the Use of Portfolio Assessment in Secondary Schools In Indonesia
Having been undergoing several changes in a decade, the concept of students’ evaluation system in Indonesia has significantly transformed. In this regard, portfolio assessment has been taken into account as an alternative way to measure students’ development based on the process and result of learning. However, lack of familiarity with this kind of assessment, followed …
Teaching How to Think and How to Write: Realities and Suggestions on Writing Instruction in English Education in Japan
The current Course of Study of Japan manifests that an objective of “English Expression” is to evaluate facts and opinions from multiple perspectives and to communicate with others through good reasoning (MEXT, 2009). In reality, a survey revealed that 43.6% of national and public high school seniors were at the bottom of A1 level of …
Teaching Writing Through Clustering Technique
Teaching writing is considered as the most difficult skill. However, one of the objectives of teaching English in secondary school in Indonesia, especially for writing skill is students are expected to be able to write descriptive text well and accurately. Therefore,an EFL teacher needs appropriate strategies in teaching writing to achieve this objective. One of …
The Challenges of Teacher-Mediated vs Computer-Mediated ESL Instruction
Technology is changing at an unprecedented rate, and without the proper machinery in place, one stands the risk of being left behind. Previously called computer-assisted language learning, it has been replaced with the familiar terms such as e-learning and the learning management system (LMS). To what extent do ESL teachers need to be involved in …
The Implementation of Teacher’s Motivational Strategy in EFL Classrooms
This study aims at describing how EFL (model) teachers in Junior High school, Senior High School, and Vocational High School under FISS educational program, generate student’s initial motivation in learning EFL, identifying the strategies done by those model teachers to maintain student’s motivation in learning EFL, and revealing how those model teachers encourage positive retrospective …