Tag: Language education,
Integrating Literature in the ESL Classroom: A Case Study
With the appearance of the Communicative Approach in the late 70’s and very early 80’s, using literature in the English classroom was ignored. The tendency in the EFL classrooms was to teach “usable, practical” content. However, since the 1980s literature has found its way back into the EFL classroom to improve communicative and cultural competence …
Authentic Situation Video Clip Enhances Learners’ English Writing
Authentic situation video clips can motivate students’ enthusiasm and enhances students’ language skills. This study investigated the effect of authentic situation video clip as a teaching tool on students’ English writing. 149 participants from two groups who enrolled the English Writing for Careers course in Burapha University in 2016 were assigned to watch five authentic …
A Critical Review of Three Current Cantonese Textbooks Published for Teaching Cantonese for Mandarin Speakers in Hong Kong
Despite the growing importance of Mandarin, Cantonese has not died out in Mainland China. There are at least over 66 million Cantonese speakers in the world, and Cantonese is classified as a language in need of preservation. The dialect is still the primary language used in Hong Kong, and spoken in the Chinese communities in …
Intercultural Awareness and Language Learning What Do Students Say?
We present the preliminary findings of our qualitative research into the difficulties encountered by different types of foreign language students in a multicultural, multi-identity Higher Education context. In our chapter “Hexagone: not just a Pretty Shape” (Train & Wilks 2017) we assert that “Any learner of a second, third or fourth language in a diverse …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
What’s Love got to do with it? Motivating Intercultural Competency and Language Learning Through Discussions of Intercultural Romantic Love Relationships
While English is a required subject in Japanese junior and senior high schools, Japanese university students’ communicative language competency is generally very poor. Many blame this on the Japanese entrance exam system, which overemphasizes grammar rather than communicative competency. To counterbalance this, many Japanese universities have started creating “Language Cafés” and “Language Lounges” where students …
Teaching Japanese Across Borders: An Original Intercultural Approach
The goal of this paper is to present to the international academic public a unique and original book for teaching Japanese, the first of its kind in Serbia. However, its significance is not limited only to the students of Japanese in Serbia, because this manual can be the source of ideas for teachers of Japanese …
Introducing the First Large-Scale English Collocational Chunk List and Innovative Methods in Which Collocational Fluency Can Be Mastered
This presentation will discuss the findings of the speaker’s PhD thesis which identified the most common chunks of English. The resulting large-scale list is the first of its kind, and a major breakthrough in that a resource is now available that replaces the dated method of studying via word lists. Studying such chunks is not …
Writing in a Foreign Language
For many Japanese students, writing is probably the most difficult skill in English. The Ministry of Education of Japan (MEXT) conducted research on the English proficiency of the third year (senior year) students of high school in 2014 and 2015. They reported that in writing and speaking the scores of tests were significantly lower than …
Developing Spoken Corpora of Non-Native English Teachers to Assist in English Classroom Interactions
This study reports the classroom speech traits of non-native English language instructors (NNIs) observed from the bilingual spoken corpora compiled by the authors from four elementary school and two middle school English lessons in Japan. We will analyze our corpus structure using the four modes to specify the NNIs’ L2 classroom discourse introduced by Walsh …
Effectiveness of English Song Activities on Vocabulary Learning and Retention
The main objectives of the study were to study the effectiveness of song activities on vocabulary learning and retention and to explore students’ opinion towards song activities. The sample of the study was 40 first year students from English for International Communication major. The research instruments of the study were song activities, pre-test, post-test and …
A Study of Factors Affecting Undergraduates’ Anxiety with Foreign Language Communication at Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya
This study aims to (1) analyze the correlation of factors affecting undergraduates’ anxiety with foreign language communication, and (2) to study factors affecting undergraduates’ anxiety with foreign language communication. The 200 undergraduates at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya, who enrolled in Chinese and English courses in the 2nd semester of …
Readiness in English Speaking Skills of Engineering Student at Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya before Entering the ASEAN Community
The main purposes of this study was to investigate engineering students’ readiness in speaking skills concerning three aspects: 1. fundamental grammar knowledge, 2. patterns and functions of language for communicating in certain situations, and 3. socio-culture of native speakers before entering the ASEAN Community. Participants were 142 fourth year Engineering students studying in eight departments …
Using Learners’ First Language in EFL Classrooms
This paper aims to explore the attitudes of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers towards using learners’ first language (L1) in their classes. It also considers the frequency and the functions of using L1 in EFL classes. Monolingual teaching and minimising the use of learners’ L1 are traditionally promoted in English language teaching (ELT) …
English Language Use among Malaysian Tertiary Level Students: A Case Study of Tunku Abdul Rahman University College
While English is widely spoken in Malaysia, there have been concerns about its declining standards, with educationists and employers observing that even graduates are unable to use the language proficiently. The inability to use English or the lack of the necessary language skills has even been said to be the reason for the high level …
Why not Literature?: An Investigation into University Teachers’ Perspectives of Teaching English Through Literature in the EFL Classroom
Though literature has been viewed as one of the best authentic materials in foreign language instruction since the late 1980s, and its linguistic, cultural, cognitive and aesthetic benefits have been confirmed and supported by a growing amount of research, it still plays a marginal role in many EFL/ESL textbooks, classrooms, and curricula, and is seldom …
Scaffolding Oral Presentation Instruction to Improve Communicative Competence Across Differing Student Levels and Disciplines
With increasing globalization, student acquisition of oral presentation skills has become more important than ever. For students to meet the demands of their future academic and professional roles, they must be taught to give effective oral presentations (≈Ωivkoviƒ_, 2014). As such, instructors have a lot of responsibility to meet the diverse needs of their students …
The Convergence of Last and First-Mile: Practicum Curriculum Redesign for Language Majors
This on-going research intends to explore how Flipped Learning (FL) can be applied to a practicum course design for tertiary-level language programs in Taiwan. Foreign language/literature programs in colleges and their students’ employability are under severe scrutiny and face social criticism. This study incorporates FL framework in an innovative practicum course titled Workshops of Bilingual …
Sing and Move – Removing Static English Language Classroom
Often in Taiwan, elementary students learn passively within the English language classroom. The learning environment is static and students appear to be shy, quiet and intimidated. Nevertheless, once outside the classroom, they become energetic, physical active and talkative. Young children’s characteristics might need to be considered in a language classroom to maximize their engagement in …
Enhancing Students Willingness to Communicate in English through Korean Pop Culture: A Case Study
In recent years, Korean pop culture such as Korean drama, pop singers and TV programs have gained popularity in Taiwan, particularly among teenagers. The aim of the present study is to find out whether students_øΩ_øΩ will be more willing to use English to communicate with topics they are interested in. The participants were 37 students from …
Developing an Instructional Model to Teach Periphery Researchers to Write English Scientific Research Articles for Scholarly Journals
Periphery researchers in sciences have been found to have problems with publications of their research articles (RAs) in scholarly journals. However, the corpus-based studies available tended to focus more on RAs’ features than on the development of pedagogical practices aiming to enhance researchers’ writing ability. Having witnessed these problems among Thai researchers trying to publish …
The Study of English Listening and Speaking Skills Development by Using Computer Assisted Language Learning of Primary Students in Lampang Province
The purposes of this research were: 1) to study English Listening and Speaking Skills of using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) for Primary students 2) to study the Primary students’ satisfaction towards the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) program. The target group was 60 grade 4-primary students of Anubanmaemoh School Lampang Province during the first …
Psychosociological Predictors of Maritime Students’ English Proficiency
Due to the differing abilities of ESL students in learning a language, many language teachers are prompted to investigate the students’ proficiency in English and its relationship to some selected variables. Most of these inquiries are geared towards the uncovering of insightful facts useful in the teaching of English. This article presents a descriptive-correlation study …
A Comparison of English Textbooks from the Perspectives of Reading: IB Diploma Programs and Japanese Senior High Schools
The Ministry of Education (MEXT) is promoting International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, aiming to increase the number of IB schools in Japan to 200 by 2018 (MEXT, 2012). Although IB programs are recognized as awarding an international qualification, not many educators in Japan are familiar with the programs and there have been few studies conducted to …
A Pilot Study on Co-Teaching: A Cross-Discipline Approach to Enhancing Teaching and Learning in the Trade Specific Context
Failing to realize the importance of English in the workplace, vocational students tend to appear lowly motivated and are reluctant to learn English in vocational institutes. What are the possible reasons? Lacking of confidence? Lacking successful learning experience? Failing to see the value of English in relation to their future professions? Lacking the needs to …
Teaching English Vocabulary; From Concept to Instruction
Vocabulary is of prime importance in English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary, students cannot understand others or express their own ideas. There can never be full comprehension of a text, either in the learner’s native language or a foreign language without understanding the vocabulary in the text (Adeniyi 2006). This view clearly shows the …
“We Need to Be Able to See the World Through the Eyes of Others”: Transforming Curricula in Teaching Foreign Languages
The United States Senator of Hawaii Daniel Kahikina Akaka was so right when he stressed the necessity of being “open to the world”. Addressing the National Council for Languages and International Studies, he emphasized that “we need to be able to see the world through the eyes of others if we are going to understand …
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 …