Conference: ACLL2015
Innovative Learning Activities with the Use of Modern Educational Technology
There is a growing trend in the use of e-learning technology for the support of learning and teaching in universities worldwide. At St. Marianna University School of Medicine, E-learning was incorporated into ESL courses for first and second-year students in 2013. e-learning materials are mainly used to supplement in-class activities and to build academic vocabulary …
ISSN: 2186-4691 – The Asian Conference on Language Learning 2015: Official Conference Proceedings
ACLL2015 Art Center of Kobe, Kobe, Japan
Conference Theme: “Integrated Practices: Creating Experiences to Enhance Learning”
Thursday, April 30 – Sunday, May 3, 2015
ISSN: 2186-4691
Learning from English Lecturers’ Voices in Teaching Oral Communication in EFL Classrooms in Indonesia
Research in English as a foreign language (EFL) settings indicates that teaching oral communication has been problematic due to various reasons. Teachers’ limited competence, students’ low proficiency level, and the use of inappropriate teaching method are some of the most commonly perceived reasons that compromise effective English teaching to improve students’ oral communication skills. Yet, …
Shared Adventures: How International Students from Four Continents Learn English Together
This presentation will introduce the feature of the Intensive English Bridge Program (IEBP), the teaching methods and learning strategies the author and her colleagues developed to help the international students in IEBP at Indiana Institute of Technology. The presentation will first give a profile of the college, the students, and the courses, followed by the …
Feeling Righteous? Stress Shift in English L2 Learners
This study examines the stress assignment of English suffixed words produced by L2 learners. The stimuli were disyllabic words and their two suffixed forms: in isolation, e.g. ‘HUman’, with neutral suffixes, e.g. ‘HUman-ist’, and with non-neutral suffixes e.g. ‘huMAn-ity’. The addition of non-neutral suffixes in the present study induces two types of stress shift: (1) …
An Analysis of the ESP for Economics: Approaches to Determine the Feasibility of a Reading Program at Secondary Level as
This case study will examine the overarching approaches to second language (L2) reading instruction reflected in the Libyan ESP secondary three curriculum and how well this curriculum prepares students for tertiary reading in the ESP field. The Libyan context was chosen because it highly values ESP instruction and has many similarities with other English for …
Development of English Reading Comprehension Ability, Problem Solving Skills and Ethics by Integrating Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy for Undergraduates
Phranakhon Rajabhat University, Thailand has been the leading institute for teaching for more than 123 years. Moving the university into the 21st century, the president emphasizes that the undergraduates studying in College of Teacher Education achieve competence in English and meet the standard of Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education. However, the second-year Elementary Program …
Vietnamese Learners’ EFL Acquisition: From Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills to Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
This study aims to investigate how English as a foreign language is acquired to help Vietnamese teachers and learners of English understand how competence in English develops from the use of language for authentic communicative purposes to the ability to demonstrate academic language in all language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Cummins, 1984). Vietnamese …
The Influence of Saliency and Frequency of Morphosyntactic Structures on Attention to Recasts during Spoken Interaction
Studies on the effectiveness of recasts have drawn mixed results, which is possibly due to the role of attention to recast, or lack thereof, during interaction. According to Goldschneider and DeKeyser (2001), it is suggested that attention is associated with saliency and frequency of structures. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine how …
Studying How to Study Kanji: A Practical Approach
One of the biggest challenges for Japanese language students is to effectively learn kanji (Chinese characters used in modern Japanese writing system). Therefore, teaching kanji becomes also one of the biggest challenges for Japanese teachers/professors. A variety of teaching methods has been developed in order to make this learning effective, i.e., pleasant, long-lasting and accurate. …
EFL Learners Perceptions of and Attitudes Toward the Use of Reader Theater for Improving Oral Skills in an Esp Course
In today’s global world, English speaking skills are important for international contexts. For EFL learners, good oral English skills require constant practice to achieve oral fluency, good pronunciation, and good intonation. Nowadays, communicative language teaching (CLT) is prevalent as many language instructors adopt a CLT curriculum design. However, unmotivated or underachieving EFL learners are often …
The Usage of Games (Adapted from Korean Reality Shows) in Oral English Classroom to Increase Participation in Speaking
This study aims to understand how games influence oral English learning in terms of participation and motivation through a context-aware learning environment. Games help students to engage in learning activities based on motivation theory, involving various educational strategies, including game-based learning, collaborative learning, and context-aware learning. A qualitative research using case study method was adopted. …
A Move Analysis of the “About Us” Page on University Engineering Websites
This study investigated the rhetorical structure of the “About Us” page on North American universities’ engineering website based on move analysis developed by Swales (1990). Promotional genres tend to promote products for potential audiences as communicative purposes. The university “About Us” page is considered as one type of promotional genres (Bhatia, 2004). It aims at …
Class Book: A Case Study of a University English Class Sharing Their Experiences to Enhance Learning with Peers
Dewey (1938) argued that educational activities should begin from the immediate personal and social experience of the learners. He also advised educators to use things within the range of existing experience of students that have the potentiality of presenting new problems which will encourage further experience. As university students in Japan are often passive about …
Empowering and Engaging the ESL Learners in the Task-Based ESL Curriculum Evaluation
The research delved into evaluation as central to curriculum planning, designing, and implementation in the teacher-initiated negotiated curriculum. What seemed to be a reverse approach in the process was explored in a quantitative-qualitative approach in data collection. Three (3) ESL classes in the tertiary level participated in the study utilizing a survey questionnaire and focus …
Application of Morphological Typology and English Affixation Instruction
This study aims at investigating the effects of application of morphological typology into the instruction of English Affixation instruction for English major students. It focuses on their performance in terms of analytic sense that indicates their knowledge for merits of English inflectional morphemes namely; the meaning of affixes, numbers of affixes in the made-up words, …
A Preliminary Investigation of the Effects of Visual Cues on Sentence Stress Production of EFL Elementary Students
Teaching English phonics is a common practice in pronunciation instruction in Taiwan’s elementary English language classes. However, elementary students in Taiwan often perform poorly on suprasegmentals like intonation and sentence stress, and the suprasegmental aspects of English are not emphasized in class and in textbooks. Nevertheless, research findings support the teaching of suprasegmentals as it …
Effectiveness in Using the Learning Package on “How to Make Questions in English” for Improving Speaking Skills of Degree Students
The objectives of this study were (1) to study the effectiveness in using the learning package on how to make questions in English of degree students; (2) to study the achievement between before and after using the package of Engineering and Business Administration students; (3) to compare the achievement between two groups of degree students: …
Finding a Voice in EFL Classroom Discussions: A Bakhtinian Interpretation of Formative Assessment
This presentation will give a Bakhtinian micro-evaluation of formative assessment practices for classroom discussions in a Japanese university classroom. Students in mixed level classes engaged weekly in opinionated discussions. The discussions involved the students in making arguments for and against rules in their daily lives. The discussions were recorded and students kept an online journal …
Enhancing Reading Ability through Vocabulary Learning and Reading Satisfaction of Grade Eight Thai Rural Students with Self- Made Stories of Virtue and Morality
Reading is the English language skill most emphasized in all Thai educational levels. Therefore, Thai learners of English’s reading ability is highly expected, despite the fact that most of them still lack this ability and need to be enhanced (Chawwang, 2008). Thus, to solve this problem, this study implemented “Self-Made Stories of Virtue and Morality” …
The Role of Vocabulary in Reading Comprehension
It is generally agreed that many factors contribute to one’s reading comprehension and there is consensus that vocabulary size one of the main factors. This study explores the relationship between second language learners’ vocabulary size and their reading comprehension scores. 130 Malay pre-university students of a public university participated in this study. They were students …
Reinterpreting School Vandalism: A Textual Analysis
This study unravel the meaning conveyed from vandalism through textual analysis. It determined the profile of the respondents, the reasons for performing vandalism, characteristics of the school vandalism in terms of language choice, placement, types and stylistic features.It also determined the denotative and connotative meaning of the vandalism, its social messages, and the vandal’s personal, …
Explaining ESL Chinese Students’ In-Class Participation Using the Theory of Planned Behavior: An Exploratory Study
Chinese demand for American-style education is on the rise as many Chinese students seek opportunities to gain a true global education in China. However, importing US education style to China is in many ways challenging. If we consider at a micro-level the instructor-students interactions, Chinese students’ reluctance to communicate in class is in fact particularly …
Foreign Language Education in the Wake of Globalization: The ‘Learning-To-Communicate’ Approach
In 2010, the Industry-Academia Partnership for Human Resource Development Committee (METI & MEXT), suggested that one of three skills to witness economic transformation is the ability to communicate in English language. Undoubtedly, the project takes into account globalization in terms of migration of people and movement of capital. However, recognition through language learning process of …
A Corpus-Based Analysis and Appraisal of News Reports on Protesters from Political Conflicts in Thailand by Foreign News Agencies
Appraisal has been employed in previous foreign studies. They have focused on corpus-based analysis and comparison of news reports. However, The previous work in Thailand has inadequately focus on appraisal of news report comparison among news agencies, and corpus analysis. The data have been selected from newspapers written in Thai. Thus, this paper aims to …
Meta-Level Intervention in Case-Based Teaching Method Implemented in Esp Course
This paper discusses the fundamental principles involved in case-based teaching method applied in an ESP course; the implementation of meta-level intervention (metadiscourse) for developing technical writing skills and fostering learner autonomy among students at the university level. Most students were reluctant and were not interested in taking supplementary but compulsory English language courses. However, through …
What Motivates You towards Academic Success? A Comparative Study
Student motivation is a very difficult element to identify in academic success, has been the focus of many studies in the educational field around the world; the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is no exception. Faculties often find it challenging to align their teaching strategies and course learning outcomes with the factors affecting student motivation. Research …
Using Personal Diaries to Improve Students’ Academic Writing Skills in English
Most students in Japan leave high school having been exposed to a wide range of grammatical structures and vocabulary items. However, analysis of first-year university students’ written reports showed a marked lack of multi-clause sentences, limited vocabulary use, and confusion about how to structure paragraphs. Additionally, student interviews showed that many students were unwilling to …
The Derivation Words Recognition: Understanding the Suffixational Patterns of English Vocabulary
Words are one of the important elements that language learners must master as having insufficient words will be a barrier for them to deliver ideas or expressions. The challenge to understand English words seems to be very complicated because they are dominated by derivations. Considering to that matter, this paper will describe the patterns of …
A Comparative Study of Narrative Ability in English-Chinese Bilingual Primary School Students
This study aims to compare Singapore primary students’ English and Chinese narrative abilities from a developmental perspective. Little research has been done to characterise students’ bilingual competence in Singapore.
The Frequent Errors in English Writing of Students Who Study in the English Writing for Careers Course
This study investigated common English language errors made by 28 participants who enrolled the English Writing for Careers course in Burapha University in 2003. Four writing assignments of all participants were analyzed. They were sentence writing according to the provided pattern, paragraph writing for introductory, resume writing, and cover letter writing. Errors were identified by …
Integrated Teaching Strategy in the Reading Classroom
Integration in language instruction still remains an elusive, if not an impossible, goal. In describing integrated literacy instruction, Shanahan (1997) writes: “Given the long history and nearly universal acceptance of the idea of integration, there have been few empirical investigations of its effects. I have been able to identify no study, in any field with …
A Cognitive Approach on Bidirectional Language Transfer: How to Figure Out the Ground?
The purpose of this study is to examine the bi-directional language transfer between Mandarin and English from the cognitive approach. While previous studies mostly focused on “transfer” from the habit of L1 (Kleinmann, 1977) or avoid to use L1-L2 different forms (Laufer and Eliasson,1993). Our research questions are: Does bidirectional language transfer exist? And how …
How to Teach the Expletive “It”
In some school grammar books in Japan, the expletive ‘it’ in a sentence like “(1) It seems that John loves Mary.” is not given a detailed explanation and is sometimes regarded as having the same status as ambient ‘it’ in a sentence like “(2) It is cold today.” I assume that this is because both …
A Comparison of the Pedagogical Applicability of Two Approaches to Teaching English Word Stress Patterns
The present study has compared the pedagogical applicability of Dickerson’s (1989) four word stress rules with Yamini’s (1997) three word stress rules in the Iranian EFL context. The two different sets of rules were taught to 64 freshmen in an Iranian university, who were assigned to two homogenized groups of 32 students. At the end …
A Study of Theme and Information Structure in Postgraduate Business Students’ Multimodal Written Texts: A SF-MDA of Management Accounting Texts
Thematic progression patterning plays a vital role in organizing the flow of Theme and Information structures in a text. SFL-based research in multimodal business communication and representation has been confined to workplace and school contexts. Whereas few research studies have investigated the use of cohesive devices in tertiary business discourse, a dearth of research studies …
Developing English Communicative Ability and Promoting Collaborative Learning through Project-Based Voice Acting in an Holistic Approach
This study aims to assure the positive influence of integrated language learning and teaching focused on improving English communicative ability and promoting collaborative learning through voice acting. The study explores possibilities of promoting collaborative as well as holistic learning atmosphere in an EFL(English as a Foreign Language) context through an integrated voice acting project. The …
Positive Outcomes of Contrastive Instruction on L2 Phonology
This research essay attempts to examine the effect of explicit pronunciation teaching by reporting the findings of a quasi-experiment which studied the process and outcome of L1-L2 contrastive pronunciation instruction on the learning of English stop consonants by Bangladeshi students of English as a Foreign Language. There were two sections. Results of the experimental section …
Exploring International Programme Students’ Intercultural Communication Competence in Thailand
The purpose of this study is to explore the international students’ Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) in the international programme at a private university in Thailand as to whether they can adapt and utilize their abilities effectively and appropriately when interacting among people from various different cultural backgrounds in terms of knowledge, attitudes, skills and awareness. …
Improving Teacher Questions and Feedback through Action Research
Teachers are constantly striving to improve student learning. One way teachers can do so is through action research within their own classroom. Here a case study is presented concerning the use of mixed methods research to investigate teacher feedback in a Japanese junior high school English class. This research project quantitatively classified the types of …
Examining a Teacher Education Course in English for the Medium of Instruction Using 5Is
Policies requiring English as the Medium of Instruction (EMI) are sprouting at many universities in Asia and Europe. In many cases, challenges arise for students because they are using English as a Second Language (ESL), rather than their primary language, for learning. Furthermore, faculty members need to use English to teach even though for many …
Pechakucha Presentations in the Classroom – Supporting Language Learners with Public Speaking
Presentation skills are vital for language learners, but traditional PowerPoint presentations are often intimidating for second language students because of their length. They can also be very boring with students speaking slowly and hesitating constantly. Pechakucha presentations are a special type of presentation that was initially started in Tokyo, but has now spread all over …
Enhancing a Bridge Program with the First Year Experience Concept
In September 2014, the Petroleum Institute (PI) in Abu Dhabi adapted the Freshman Year Experience concept to its Bridge, or Foundation, Program in an attempt to enhance student learning and improve student retention. This presentation describes how the First Year Experience program was implemented in terms of human resources and financial cost. It concludes with …
Enhance Teachers’ Composition Teaching Literacy and Autonomy through Online Interactive Writing Course – “Learning by Doing”: An Effective Way of Teacher Training
Composition writing is an important yet difficult component of Chinese language teaching. In the MOE 2011 Syllabus, composition writing is allocated a higher percentage than in previous years. However, both students and teachers were reported to have difficulties in writing and teaching compositions, respectively. This paper discusses the effects of an online interactive process-writing course. …
Role of First Culture Knowledge in Foreign Language: Socialization in Japanese English Classroom Discourses
This study shows the relation between knowledge of first culture and its role in foreign language socialization in Japanese English classroom discourses. As defined simply, language socialization is socialization through the use of language and to use language (Ochs and Schieffelin, 2008). However, Japanese EFL learners tend to develop their communicative competence in the FL, …
The Study of the First Year Students’ Multiple Intelligences in Learning English, Faculty of Liberal Arts, RMUTSV
The purposes of the study were to examine the first year student’s multiple intelligences preference in studying English, explore the difference in student’s multiple intelligences preference in learning English of each gender and investigate the difference in students� multiple intelligences preference in learning English of each major. The sample of this study was 100 first …
Effects of a Professional Development Programme on New Zealand Language Teacher Beliefs and Teaching Practice
The study is set in the context of New Zealand where teaching and learning other languages is not compulsory, and one result of this context is that teachers often have to teach a language without having pedagogical knowledge of or training in language teaching. As a consequence, many professional learning opportunities are offered. This research …
A Step-By-Step Approach to Learning English Vocabulary for Beginners as a Second Language
During spring 2007, special needs education became part of Japan’s school education program by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Education at schools must create an environment in which all the students have the opportunity to receive an equal education. With that in mind, remember the students with special learning disabilities. …
Investigating Students’ Learning Styles in Studying Chinese, Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya
The purposes of the study were to study Chinese learning styles of students and to compare the student’s Chinese learning style classified by gender, year, and major. The sample of the study was 45 first and second year students from English for International Communication program and 45 first and second year students from Hospitality program …
The Colour and the Shape of Translation in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Dis/Integration of an Interdisciplinary Field?
The development of translation in the foreign language classroom in recent decades originates from the wide revision it has undergone while seeking for new approaches and theories that would offer new possibilities. The definite expansion but cautious establishment of translation in the foreign language classroom, largely due to substantial research from and within various disciplines, …
Engaging Students with Integrated Language Skills through Tailor Made Summer Camp Activities: A Case Study
In Taiwan, the four skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) in English are usually taught separately with the focus on reading, vocabulary building and grammar practice. The present study aims to integrate the four skills through various tasks or activities using teaching materials that are designed specifically for the participants during the summer of 2014. …
Using Drama-Based Projects in EFL Classroom: A Whole-Language Approach to Learning Language
This paper examines the effectiveness of leaning English through drama-based group projects in an EFL class. A whole language approach was adopted and students were required to accomplish their drama project by conducting a series of collaborative and skill- integrated activities throughout the semester. Thirty five EFL learners, aged from 20 to 52, with mixed …
A Study of Anxiety Levels amongst Chinese Students for a Master Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at a UK University
Foreign language anxiety, as one of the most important affective variables, has been attracting more and more attention in second language acquisition studies since the early 1970s. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the general situation of Chinese students in the MA TESOL group at the University of York. In addition, …