Journal of Language and Education

Including the Sign Language Community in Language Research, Learning and Teaching: Video Reference Grammar of Slovenian Sign Language (SZJ)

2024-01-12T14:21:29+03:00

Background: Deaf users of Slovenian Sign Language vary in competence between L1, delayed L1 and L2. They follow the grammatical patterns of their language but are unaware of them because the language is neither linguistically documented nor systematically used in the classroom. As a result, the available learning and teaching materials are inadequately prepared in many aspects.

Purpose: The aim of this research was to create a reference grammar of SZJ by (i) using SZJ for metalinguistic descriptions and (ii) training Deaf signers as researchers and teachers. We observed their performance in order to answer the research question of whether it is possible to involve Deaf signers in the process of creating and disseminating a sign language reference grammar.

Method: Training a group of deaf L1 signers to (i) start systematic research of their language within a selected formal approach, (ii) create didactic video materials for learning/teaching Slovenian Sign Language as L1 and L2, and (iii) use these materials in language courses for L1 and L2 deaf signers.

Results: Eleven deaf L1 signers were trained as researchers in a 40-hour course. Five deaf and two hearing L1 signers were trained as language teachers in another 40-hour course and then presented the core concepts of Slovenian Sign Language grammar to 302 members of 12 local Slovenian deaf clubs in 24 editions of a 40-hour language course. For the presentations, they used didactic video materials (duration 5:46 hours). These materials were produced by the five L1 signers and later uploaded to two freely accessible online video platforms.

Conclusion: The approach proved fruitful: signers were actively involved in the creation and dissemination of the first Slovenian Sign Language reference grammar. The available analytics show that the materials are continuously viewed by both deaf and hearing users.

Lingua-Cultural Identity in Translation: 'We' vs 'I' Cultures

2024-01-12T14:22:48+03:00

Introduction: The influence of culture on translation has been a prominent feature of translation studies in recent decades. The place of cultural knowledge in the formation and development of a translator’s cultural competence, however, remains debatable. This paper argues that, in addition to general knowledge of a target culture (history, geography, literature, traditions, artefacts, etc.), it is crucial to be aware of the most important components of its deep culture, i.e., its social organization and worldview, which in turn have a major impact on identity. The study further develops the notion of I-culture vs We-culture and their respective identities. We suggest that an awareness of such cultural factors should form part of translators’ essential knowledge about language and their professional training.

Purpose: The study aims to reveal linguistic and discursive manifestations of lingua-cultural identity in translating a Russian text into English. We explore nuances in the use of the pronouns we, our vs. I, my as well as some other markers of we-identity vs I-identity in the original Russian text of Vladimir Putin’s speech at the Valday discussion club meeting (2021), and how these were translated into English in the translation text.

Method: Selection of a text containing sufficient examples; close reading to identify lexico-grammatical features; comparison of source text and translation; analysis of examples; drawing conclusions. The texts were subjected to contrastive lexico-grammatical, pragmatic, and discourse analysis. Sociolinguistic and cultural studies were used to interpret the results.

Results: The findings suggest that a Russian text could express a more collective mindset than its English translation, which shows traces of what may appear a more personal/subjective focus. The study highlights the role of deep culture in discursive practices and demonstrates the relevance and effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to translation studies.

Conclusion: The study confirms the fact that manifestation of lingua-cultural identity can be observed at all levels of language, as well as in communicative strategies, and discursive practices. The task of how to accurately render these nuances in translation is a taxing one that requires a comprehensive understanding of the role of deep culture in discursive practices.

Teacher Development in Technology-Enhanced Language Teaching: Book Review

2024-01-12T14:32:43+03:00

Exploring Reading Attitudes, Reading Self-Efficacy, and Reading Proficiency in a Blended Learning Context Among EFL Learners

2024-01-12T14:19:00+03:00

Background. Affective variables such as second language (L2) reading attitudes (RAs) and L2 reading self-efficacy (RSE) have been regarded as factors which influence academic results in regular face-to-face reading instruction. Research has reported that although positive RAs among adolescents may decline as they go through school, they still engage in diverse formal and informal reading environments involving printed and/or digital resources. These attitudes can be impacted by the sudden change in the way instruction is delivered in blended learning contexts which emerged due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Purpose. The present study applied a mixed methods approach to explore the relationship between the L2 RAs, L2 RSE, and L2 reading proficiency (RP) of Chilean high school students in a blended-learning context.

Method. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was adopted to gather data from 124 Chilean high school students. The quantitative data collection was carried out by means of two adapted surveys assessing RAs and RSE, while the reading section of the Preliminary English Test (PET) was administered to determine the RP of participants. The qualitative aspect of the study involved semi structured interviews with ten participants.

Results. Participants displayed moderately positive levels of RA and RSE. Furthermore, a strong correlation was found between RAs and RSE, and RSE was significantly correlated with RP. Qualitative data analysis revealed that the emergency remote teaching context during the pandemic affected student reading behaviour in relation to the attitudes towards recreational digital reading, and that teacher instruction can influence their RAs and RSE.

Conclusion. It is essential for EFL teachers to nurture student L2 RSE by means of effective and consistent reading activities with increasing challenge that include synchronous and asynchronous learning. Since most participants preferred to complete reading tasks in a recreational digital setting rather than an academic digital one, teachers should incorporate academic reading activities which are more engaging and contextualised to student age and preferences to effectively use the synchronous and asynchronous time at their disposal in blended settings.

Fiction vs. Reality: How Students Discover Real-Life Representations in Prose Using Engaged Reading

2024-01-12T14:24:48+03:00

Background: The reading of fiction texts requires intense effort to integrate mind, emotion, and intrinsic reading motivation, in order to discover real-life representations. There is limited research in this area.

Purpose: This study employs the engaged reading strategy combined with discovery learning, in order to investigate improvements in students’ competence in prose appreciation.

Method: This study used a mixed-method design. Thirty-two Indonesian Language Education students participated in the study. Data was collected using student worksheets, observation, and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was conducted by identifying and interpreting the results of prose appreciation for each reading activity.

Results: This study found that while explaining the theme and through description students were able to activate prior knowledge. The students' reading motivation mainly focused on the intrinsic element of stories. They clearly understood the plot, characterizations, and messages, but supporting details varied because of the differences in students’ knowledge, experience, and social background related to short stories. In the post-reading stage, students revealed new knowledge and mental imagery. Based on our findings, engaged reading combined with discovery learning can enrich students' experience and ability to elaborate information, as well as to discover new knowledge about real-life representation in prose.

Conclusion: Based on the research findings, teachers and lecturers are able to utilize the engaged reading strategy combined with discovery learning to promote students’ ability to read literature. Further research should involve more diverse participants. Experimental research could also examine the advantages and disadvantages of engaged reading and discovery learning.

Predictors of Language Proficiency among Medical and Paramedical Students: Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory

2024-01-12T14:29:16+03:00

Background: There are many factors in determining language proficiency among university students. Identifying these factors can help the teaching and learning process to move forward more quickly and effectively.

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the relationship between social, cultural, and linguistic factors and the language proficiency of 221 medical and paramedical students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences to identify if these factors contribute to language proficiency as an effective variable in students’ communication, academic performance, and quality patient care.

Method: The authors administered a questionnaire on these factors' role and a proficiency test. Then, they ran Pearson's correlation coefficient and multiple regression analyses to determine the relationship and effects of such factors concerning language proficiency.

Results: The t-test revealed a statistically meaningful difference between medical and paramedical students concerning both mean scores of proficiency and cultural factors. The results indicated only social and cultural factors statistically correlated with paramedical students’ proficiency. Furthermore, none of these factors built any relationship or exerted any effects on the proficiency of medical students.

Conclusion: The results implied that educational policymakers should consider the existing differences between university students of different fields since they come from different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds that have affected the academic stance in which they are studying. Moreover, the findings necessitate encouraging the policymakers and university lecturers to enhance their sociocultural competencies to adapt and fulfill the needs of such students and highlighting the roles of the family's socioeconomic positions through some workshops since the role of the family is an important variable in determining the extent to which a learner has acquired a specific cultural competence.

The Development of a Reflective Language Learning Model: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

2024-01-12T14:18:08+03:00

Background: Several language learning theories exist to explain the language learning process. Reflective learning is one of the models that has received attention and has been employed to explain language learning and teaching.

Purpose: The present study aimed to develop and validate a close-ended reflective language learning instrument to discover EFL learners’ reflective learning strategies while learning a language.

Method: Based on a comprehensive literature review, 358 concepts were extracted for reflective language learning. Then, experts’ opinions on reflective language learning were gathered, leading to the extraction of 50 general themes. After the experts’ approval, the researchers transformed the concepts into statements and constructed the final version of the questionnaire. In the next step, the initial version of the questionnaire was piloted with 100 participants, reducing the number of items to 47. Then, the piloted instrument was administered to a sample of 398 students. The obtained data were entered into SPSS and LISERL for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Principle Component Analysis (PCA) was employed to run an explanatory factor analysis. Varimax rotation was performed on the underlying construct of the 47-item questionnaire. The result was the removal of four items and forming a 43-item questionnaire. A six-factor model of second language learning encompassing twelve behavioral cognitive items, twelve behavioral evaluative items, six behavioral metacognitive items, six behavioral interactional items, four behavioral reflective journal items, and three behavioral retrospective items was obtained. Then, the researchers performed confirmatory factor analysis to verify the six factors. Finally, a reflective language learning model was developed.

Results: The results showed that the newly developed Reflective Language Learning Questionnaire (RLLQ) was valid and reliable. The model formulated based on the data gathered from the administration of RLLQ also enjoyed acceptable fitness indices.

Conclusion: The questionnaire could be used in future studies. Researchers interested in reflective language learning, language teachers intending to follow reflective practices in their classes, and syllabus designers believing that reflection promotes learning can employ RLLQ.

The Effects of Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) and Different Interaction Patterns on Vocabulary Development of EFL Learners

2024-01-12T14:27:18+03:00

Background: Research on the integration of Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in EFL contexts has witnessed a significant advance due to the modern changes in language education and technology over the last decades. However, the effects of CALL on vocabulary development through different interaction patterns have not been investigated by researchers.

Purpose: Attempts have been made to assess the effects of CALL and Memrise software on the vocabulary development of intermediate EFL learners through the three interaction patterns: 1) pair-work interaction, 2) small-group-work interaction, and 3) individual content.

Method: A total of 100 male and female Iranian EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling and assigned into three experimental and one control groups, each consisting of 25 learners. The Oxford Quick Placement Test was taken to assure the homogeneity of the participants. Then, a multiple-choice vocabulary test was taken as a pretest. The three experimental groups learned vocabulary through Memrise desktop software with three different interaction patterns, while the control group learned the same through the conventional pattern. A reshuffled version of the pretest constitutes the subsequent posttest.

Result: The results of the comparison between all pretests and posttests indicated that there was a significant difference between the vocabulary scores of the pretest and the posttest of the experimental groups, indicating the efficiency of these treatments. It was revealed that the pair work was slightly more effective than small-group work and that these two types of intervention were more effective than individual-content interaction, where the latter was more effective than conventional instruction.

Conclusion: According to the findings, students are advised to take advantage of CALL-based facilities and participate in interactive activities.

Writing with AI: University Students’ Use of ChatGPT

2024-01-12T14:28:20+03:00

Background: ChatGPT, a chatbot based on a large language model, captured global attention toward the end of 2022. With its potential to generate comprehensive texts of a variety of genres based on a string of straightforward prompts, it was soon perceived as a threat by many in various fields, including – and in particular – education. Schools across the world began banning its use as instructors started to receive suspiciously well-written essays and assignments from their students.

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of use of ChatGPT among university students for written assignments, explore the ways students utilize the tool, and examine students’ perspectives on the ethical aspects of its use.

Method: An online questionnaire was designed to collect data from 201 students from private and public universities in Croatia.

Results: The results show that more than half of the participants use ChatGPT for written assignments, that most use it to generate ideas, while many use it to summarize, paraphrase, proofread, but also to write a part of the assignment for them. According to the participants, the most ethically acceptable use of ChatGPT is for generating ideas, while other uses are perceived by many as being unethical; this, however, has not prevented some students from engaging in behaviors they deem unethical.

Conclusion: We conclude that universities and instructors need to take a decisive stand on artificial intelligence in education and provide clear guidelines to students regarding the ethical use of ChatGPT and emerging technologies.

Organising Rhetorical Components in Verbal Presentation of Scientific Research Outcomes: A Systematic Scoping Review

2024-01-12T14:31:56+03:00

Background: The rhetorical structure of various genres of written scientific communication has been extensively covered in articles by contemporary researchers from different countries. However, the rhetorical structure of oral scientific presentations accompanying the presentation and defence of graduation theses, scientific research, and others has not received the same level of detailed study and attention. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of presenting conducted research significantly influences the degree and depth of its further acceptance by the readership.

Purpose: to summarise the literature on the rhetorical structure of verbal presentation of scientific research results accompanied by a presentation.

Materials and Methods: We conducted a search of the Scopus bibliographic databases on March 2nd, 2023, and carried out a related grey literature search on March 27th, 2023. We screened the titles and abstracts of the retrieved records. From these records, we extracted demographic characteristics related to the rhetorical structure of oral presentations representing scientific research results. Following this, we extracted passages from empirical studies that described empirically derived moves and steps in speeches during oral presentations. These moves and steps were summarised and presented in the form of a universal matrix for the oral presentation of scientific research results.

Results: In the result of the search request 63 articles were found. Having screened all the papers we revealed that only 11 of them met our predetermined inclusion criteria. All these papers were journal research articles. It is worth stating that the majority of the studies were dedicated to rhetorical structure in written presentation of scientific research outcomes and there is a lack of papers related to moves and steps of verbal presentation of scientific research outcomes.

Conclusion: This systematic scoping review identified the moves and steps highlighted by authors in the reviewed articles within the oral speech accompanying the presentation of scientific research results to an audience. This matrix can be used to construct a more effective oral presentation of scientific research outcomes. Limitations of the work include the restriction to English language articles and the fact that the methodological quality of the articles included in our extraction was not assessed.

Exploring Academic Culture: Unpacking its Definition and Structure (A Systematic Scoping Review)

2024-01-12T14:31:07+03:00

Background: The concept of academic culture lacks a standardised definition, and its structural components have not been clearly outlined or universally agreed upon.

Purpose: This systematic scoping review aims to synthesise literature on academic culture, delineate its demographic characteristics, and extract definitions of academic culture and the components of its structure.

Method: A search was conducted in the bibliographic database Scopus on August 2nd, 2023. Additionally, a search for related grey literature was carried out on August 3rd, 2023. We included studies published in English post-2018 that discuss academic culture. Titles and abstracts from the retrieved records were screened for relevance. Demographic characteristics related to academic culture were extracted from all search records. We then extracted statements from research articles, book chapters, editorials and reviews defining academic culture and describing components of its structure. These identified structural components were categorised and thematically grouped, and then distributed according to the obtained components of academic culture. This review followed the guidelines of PRISMA-ScR to perform the study search and selection.

Results: The search yielded 961 records, of which 94 met our inclusion criteria. Predominantly consisting of journal articles, book chapters, or reviews (78.44%), only 23 of these records provided definitions of academic culture and its structure. Notably, different definitions frequently conflated academic and organisational culture. The structure of academic culture was delineated into three primary components and their subcomponents. This review also analysed the main focuses of academic culture during the specified period highlighting the importance of sustainable development across the three primary components of academic culture and shedding light on the diversity of academic culture models.

Conclusion: This study successfully identified the key structural components and summarised the existing definitions of academic culture. It also highlighted principal research directions for studying academic culture. A significant aspect of this review is the investigation of various levels of academic culture, emphasising a meta-level of academic culture as a global, conventionally-determined dimension. This meta-level serves as a universal hallmark or the development of both national and local academic cultures.

Three Male Primary Student Teachers’ Intersections of Languaging and Teaching

2024-01-12T14:26:24+03:00

Background: This paper reports on an investigation of male primary student teachers about their planning and teaching over the course of the 2021 year. Three male student teachers’ experiences are presented.

Purpose: This study highlights how they negotiated the intersections of self with school, identity, and gender as male student teachers.

Method: In weekly semi-structured peer group discussions student teachers were asked to describe the decisions that they made in planning, to reflect on the nature of the decision-making process that they went through, and about the consequences of this process. As necessary, questions were posed to the groups to further stimulate discussions. Written notes were taken from these discussions and used in combination with visiting lecturer notes about their teaching practice.

Results: It was through the combination of these classroom activities and teaching practice observations that ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism intersected with these student teachers’ self with school, identity, and gender. Ethnomethodology concerns how social order is established through social interactions while symbolic interactionism includes both verbal and non-verbal communication. It has been known that past experiences are the foundations of future experiences. The three male primary student teachers presented in this study support this assertion through their inward-looking and/or outward looking narratives.

Conclusion: This study adds to our understanding of the importance of what messages schools, colleagues, and the wider community are sending to male primary teachers about their work and worth as primary teachers.

Occasionalisms in Social Networks During the Pandemic

2024-01-12T14:20:32+03:00

Background: This study explores and analyses occasionalisms that were created by social network users during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical framework of this research is based on observing the concepts of occasionalism, neologism and nonce word.

Purpose: To indicate occasionalisms in the Russian and English languages and compare them in terms of word-formation, frequencies, part of speech and meanings, thus making a contribution to the understanding of how occasionalisms emerge in these languages.

Method: A qualitative and quantitative content analyses are used for data collection. The sample is obtained from different social networks (‘Facebook[1]’, ‘Twitter[2]’, ‘Reddit’ and ‘VK’). Results: Occasionalisms are created mostly through blending, compounding, and affixation. Mixed word-formation methods are also used. The most used parts of speech appear to be nouns and adjectives. The most Russian occasionalisms are ironic, expressive and attract attention, while English occasionalisms are not that expressive as they refer to medical or political concepts. Borrowings from English in the Russian occasionalisms are also indicated. The glossary of 106 occasionalisms in the Russian and English languages is introduced at the end of the study.

Conclusion: The results might expand the knowledge of new vocabulary items in the field of lexicology and stylistics, and have practical implications in language teaching and translations, as occasionalisms may frequently create obstacles for foreign language students and translators. They also may serve as a basis for further studies on neologisms, occasionalisms and nonce words generated during the pandemic and cover the gap in comparative studies of the Russian and English occasionalisms. In addition, the obtained results might be beneficial for future research in sociolinguistics and sociocultural linguistics providing greater awareness of the linguistic and sociocultural factors that impact the adoption and use of occasionalisms in both languages.

Academic Integrity: Author-Related and Journal-Related Issues

2024-01-12T14:16:09+03:00

Introduction: Author-related and journal-related metrics have long been the target for manipulations on part of some researchers, journals, and occasionally countries, eager to rank higher or get other benefits. Games played with metrics are abundant and may be triggered by rigid “publish-or-perish” national or university policies and consequent pursuit for benefits. In addition, new technologies make headway to unprecedented schemes in research production and promotion. The JLE Editors aim to inform JLE readers of their stance on the current revision of the JLE ethical guidelines for authors, editors, and reviewers in response to the new challenges.

Basic Concepts Related to Academic Integrity: The key concepts related to academic integrity are commented on, including some particulars about academic integrity, plagiarism, academic misconduct, fabrication and falsification of data, peer review manipulations, citation manipulations, and predatory journals.

Revisions in the JLE Editorial Policy on Authorship: With the ChatGPT entering the realm of science, the technology caused a heated debate over the ethical aspects of Artificial Intellect (AI) generated submissions to scholarly journals. The JLE editors share a rather popular stance that submissions cannot be subject to ChatGPT generation or revision.

Conclusion: The JLE has been revising its ethical guidelines as of authorship, including the limits for ChatGPT uses in submissions. The JLE editors apprise all stakeholders of the revised guidelines that cover the use of generative pre-trained transformers in submission generation.

Topic Modeling for Text Structure Assessment: The case of Russian Academic Texts

2023-12-11T21:23:00+03:00

Background: Automatic assessment of text complexity levels is viewed as an important task, primarily in education. The existing methods of computing text complexity employ simple surface text properties neglecting complexity of text content and structure. The current paradigm of complexity studies can no longer keep up with the challenges of automatic evaluation of text structure.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is twofold: (1) it introduces a new notion, i.e. complexity of a text topical structure which we define as a quantifiable measure and combination of four parameters, i.e. number of topics, topic coherence, topic distribution, and topic weight. We hypothesize that these parameters are dependent variables of text complexity and aligned with the grade level; (2) the paper is also aimed at justifying applicability of the recently developed methods of topic modeling to measuring complexity of a text topical structure.

Method: To test this hypothesis, we use Russian Academic Corpus comprising school textbooks, texts of Russian as a foreign language and fiction texts recommended for reading in different grades, and employ it in three versions: (i) Full Texts Corpus, (ii) Corpus of Segments, (iii) Corpus of Paragraphs. The software tools we implement include LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), OnlineLDA and Additive Regularization Of Topic Models with Word2vec-based metric and Normalized Pairwise Mutual Information.

Results: Our findings include the following: the optimal number of topics in educational texts varies around 20; topic coherence and topic distribution are identified to be functions of grade level complexity; text complexity is suggested to be estimated with structural organization parameters and viewed as a new algorithm complementing the classical approach of text complexity assessment based on linguistic features.

Conclusion: The results reported and discussed in the article strongly suggest that the theoretical framework and the analytic algorithms used in the study might be fruitfully applied in education and provide a basis for assessing complexity of academic texts.

What Can Count As Critical Academic Literacy Education?

2023-12-11T21:23:03+03:00

Background and Purpose: The issue of what can count as “critical” in relation to academic literacy education has not been discussed in detail in relative review studies. Therefore, this opinion article aims to contribute to this issue by exploring the question whether a field of academic literacy education can be underpinned.

Approach: First, I revisit some models of academic literacy education (rhetorical models of critical consciousness, models of critical language awareness, genre-based models, multiliteracies, ethnographic-based academic literacies) which have been considered as “critical” in taxonomies of these review studies. Then, I compare these models showing their similarities and differences regarding what is “critical” and how it is situated within academic literacy education.

Conclusion: Finally, I argue that since there are contrasting conceptualisations among these models in relation to what is “critical” and how it can be associated with academic literacy education, critical academic literacy education can count as a relativist and not a unified field.

Compliment Response Strategies in Institutional Discourse within an Emirati Context: Focus on Power and Gender Differences in University Student-Professor Exchanges in English

2024-03-09T16:30:55+03:00

Background: Context plays a significant role in effective communication. Among various aspects of context, culture is particularly important since it necessitates that language be used effectively so that a specific purpose can be achieved successfully. One key element of such communication is the effective use of speech acts including compliment and compliment responses (CR).

Aim: This research aimed to identify the CR strategies produced by Emirati users of English in a university setting, as a response to a compliment received from an international professor on their academic performance and the psychological effect such a compliment is likely to have on them. It also investigated the influence of gender on CR strategies.

Methodology: The data were collected using a discourse completion task. Fifty-eight students (33 male and 25 female) participated in the study. The CR strategies were analyzed using Holmes' (1988) classification scheme.

Results: The results showed that a compliment from a professor, irrespective of his/her gender, would make the students happy, with positive effects on their motivation, self-confidence, and feeling of closeness to the professor. The students also thought a CR was necessary for politeness purposes. The most commonly used CR strategy was that of acceptance. The male and the female students produced similar CR strategies in responding to the professor, irrespective of his/her gender. Yet they were more likely to use micro-level strategies (e.g., appreciation token, comment, and promise) with the male professor. The students also used downgrading and disagreeing but only while responding to the male professor. In their conversation with the female professor, they used the strategies of shifting credit and requesting reassurance.

Significance: These results provide evidence for the face-enhancing nature of CR strategies as utilized by Emirati users of English with international faculty in a university setting.

The Learning Potential of a TV Series in Promoting L2 Incidental Learning of Idiomatic and Non-Idiomatic Phrasal Verbs

2023-12-11T21:22:49+03:00

Background: The bulk of past studies, which have shown that audiovisual materials are potential sources for phrasal verb learning, have focused on short materials. However, the incidental learning of idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrasal verbs through extensive viewing of a complete season of a TV series has remained underexplored.

Purpose: The main aim of the present study is to explore the learning potential of viewing an entire season of a TV series in incidental learning of idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrasal verbs.

Method: The study recruited 75 second language (L2) learners and placed them randomly into an experimental group and a control group. Data were gathered through the updated vocabulary levels test and two vocabulary tests. Over one month, the experimental group viewed an entire season of a TV series, and the control group followed their regular learning routine. Immediately after the end of the eight viewing sessions, the experimental and control groups completed the form and meaning post-tests.

Results: The results indicated that viewing a TV series contributed to the development of phrasal verb knowledge. The experimental group developed both form and meaning knowledge of the target phrasal verbs, and greater gains were made at the form recognition level. The research also revealed that although repetition of the target phrasal verbs in the series significantly correlated with the learning gains reported from both the form and meaning tests, its role in meaning was greater.

Implications: The study provides further valuable insights into how watching a TV series affects the learning of idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrasal verbs. It also advances our understanding of how repetition impacts phrasal verb uptake.

The Effectiveness Data-Driven Vocabulary Learning: Hands-on Concordancing through a Pedagogical Corpus

2023-12-11T21:23:15+03:00

Introduction: Although extensive studies have been carried out on the effectiveness of corpora on teaching vocabulary, the exploration of whether learners can benefit from a pedagogical corpus, particularly regarding hands-on engagement by lower-level learners, has received little attention.

Purpose: To address this gap in the literature, this study sets out to explore the effectiveness of Data-Driven Learning (DDL) in enhancing the vocabulary acquisition of EFL students at a state university in Turkey through a pedagogical corpus.

Method: The quasi-experimental study employed a mixed-method research design, in which both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through vocabulary tests, student questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. Fifty-eight low-level students with an average age of 19 served as participants. The experimental group made use of hands-on concordancing while the control group received conventional course book-based instruction to learn the target words.

Results: The results indicate that pedagogical corpora have significant potential in facilitating vocabulary learning of low-level learners. The vocabulary tests revealed that the students who practiced with DDL outperformed the students who received traditional vocabulary instruction in both the post-test and the delayed post-test. The findings from student questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews also denoted that the participants held positive attitudes towards using concordancing to expand their vocabulary and grow aware of some aspects of words such as part of speech information, different meanings and usages, lexico-grammatical structures, and collocations.

Conclusion: The present study provides useful implications for collection and use of a pedagogical corpus for classroom use.

Exploring Translanguaging during Metacognitive Strategy Use on L2 Listening and Writing Skills

2023-12-11T21:23:09+03:00

Background: The educational concept of translanguaging has garnered significant attention over the past decade. Its significance in fostering language acquisition in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom has been increasingly acknowledged. However, there is an emerging necessity to strategically implement this pedagogical approach to enhance learning outcomes and improve overall effectiveness.

Purpose: The present study sets out to investigate the influence of translanguaging during metacognitive strategy use and its impact on second language (L2) listening and writing abilities.

Method: The present study employed sequential mixed-method research involving a pre- and post-test design. A total of 16 college students was purposively selected as samples and underwent 11 sessions of applying translanguaging during metacognitive strategy use (the intervention used).

Results: Study results reveal a significant difference on participants’ pre- (x̄=9.19) and post- (x̄=15.56) listening comprehension tests. An increasing trend of improvement on their quizzes in terms of writing components namely: grammar and structure, content, lexical resource, logical order, and supporting details was also found. In addition, the components on “grammar and structure” and “supporting details” have improved considerably. The participants, likewise, perceived translanguaging as a normal and not a disrespectful practice for them as EFL learners. Qualitative findings revealed that participants have welcomed the use of the intervention as it aids them to process their listening comprehension and writing skills in L2.

Conclusion: The pedagogical application of translanguaging approach during metacognitive strategy use is concluded as an agentive and facilitative pedagogical strategy that helps learners to not only improve their listening comprehension and writing skills but also promotes deeper cognitive fluency, improves L2 learning, and fosters them to become more involved in the learning processes of metacognitive planning, monitoring, and evaluating.

Perceptions of Situational Factors of Willingness to Communicate inside and outside the classroom: Thai EFL First-Year University Students’ Reflections

2023-12-11T21:23:12+03:00

Background: Although previous studies have reported WTC variables in the EFL context, limited studies have investigated learners’ perceptions of WTC outside the classroom. In addition, insights into learners’ perceptions from qualitative data have rarely been presented in this study area.

Purpose: This study investigated the perceptions of willingness to communicate (WTC) of Thai English as a Foreign Language (EFL) first-year university students. It focused on their perceptions of situational factors of WTC inside and outside the classroom. Also, it investigated the reasons behind the perceptions.

Methods: As a mixed-method study, a questionnaire adapted from Baghaei’s (2013) and Peng and Woodrow’s (2010) was used to collect quantitative data, while reflective reports and semi-structured interviews were used to reveal explanations for the quantitative data.

Results: The present study found that the students were more willing to speak outside the classroom than inside the classroom. Interlocutors were significant factors affecting WTC both inside and outside the classroom. Also, speaking topics that are suitable for students' perceived level of proficiency but still pose a challenge for their language development have the potential to increase WTC in the classroom. At the same time, a stimulating environment was powerful for WTC outside the classroom due to a lack of an English-speaking environment in the EFL context. The qualitative data revealed that foreign language anxiety concerning the interlocutor’s competence, familiarity with the interlocutor, and language classroom experiences, as well as social support from friends, were the rationale behind the impact of the situational factors.

Conclusion: Teachers can apply the results of this present study to enhance WTC in the classroom and increase students’ opportunities to speak inside and outside the classroom through pedagogical support.

ChatGPT: Where Is a Silver Lining? Exploring the realm of GPT and large language models

2023-12-11T21:22:37+03:00

Introduction: the JLE editors analyse the scope and depth of the subject area of ChatGPT and related topics based on the Scopus database. The Scopus statistics prove a skyrocketing rise in the number of publications in the field in question during 2023. The major alarming themes cover authorship and integrity related to AI-assisted writing, threats to educational practices, medicine, and malevolent uses of ChatGPT.

Keywords Explained: the key terminology is defined, including generative pre-trained transformers (GPT); ChatGPT; artificial intelligence (AI); AI chatbots; natural language processing (NLP); large language models; Open AI; large language model (LLM).

International Research on ChatGPT: as of September 24 2023, the Scopus database has indexed 1,935 publications, with “ChatGPT” in the title, abstract, or keywords. A skyrocketing rise in the number of research has been reported since the early days of 2023. 1,925 indexed publications out of 1,935 were published in 2023. Most of them came from the USA, India, the UK, and China. The number of documents indexed in the Scopus database as well as PubMed, arXiv and others are exponentially rising.

ChatGPT in Education: the academic community has been actively discussing the challenges education will face in the era of ChatGPT in the context of the fundamental threats posed to the educational system. The latter include assessment procedures, information accuracy, and skill devaluation. As many complex technologies, generative pre-trained transformers are ambivalent in nature, providing a great potential for learning and education at large, including new approaches based on critical thinking and awareness of the pros and cons of AI.

ChatGPT in Science: great prospects for text generation and improvements in language quality adjoin to dubious authorship and potentially inconsistent and erroneous parts in the AI-produced texts. Publishers and journals are working out new publishing policies, including publishing ethics towards AI-assisted or AI-improved submissions.

Conclusion: JLE is planning to revise its editorial policy to address the new challenges from AI technologies. JLE editors welcome new submissions of research articles and reviews as well as special issues on ChatGPT and related themes, with potential applications of chatbots in education, innovative approaches to writing assignments, facilitating personalized learning, academic integrity issues related to AI-supported writing, etc. in focus.

A Bibliometric Analysis of English for Specific Purposes from 2011 to 2023 Using Citespace: Visualizing Status, Themes, Evolution, and Emerging Trends

2023-12-11T21:22:42+03:00

Introduction. Research on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) emerged in the 1960s. A few researchers conducted reviews on ESP literature. However, there is currently a lack of up-to-date and comprehensive bibliometric analysis covering the last decade from an international perspective, particularly covering the last decade's developments in ESP research.

Purpose. Combining bibliometric analysis and systematic review of the literature on English for Specific Purposes, this study serves to objectively maps the knowledge area, and aims to identify the current status, major research themes, evolution, and the emerging trends in this field.

Method. To maintain the objectivity and transparency, the review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. Based on literature retrieved from the Web of Science core collection, a total of 1657 bibliometric records published from 2011 to 2023 were visualized and analyzed via Citespace.

Results. The current research status through publication distribution and co-country network shows that the research is undergoing a steady increase and international authorship. Clusters and systematic review of citing articles indicate four themes, i.e., “linguistic inquires”, “teaching pedagogy”, “student learning”, and “teacher development”. Through the timezone view of keyword co-occurrence network, four features, such as the predominance of genre, corpus and pedagogy, varied pedagogies, varied research methodologies, and technology-assisted teaching, were identified. The keyword and citation burst detection, as well as systematic review of citing articles, were conducted to identify the research trends. It is found that EAP, teacher development, needs analysis in under-researched settings, as well as EMI and Corpus-based teaching pedagogies are the new frontiers in this field.

Conclusions. The field of English for Specific Purposes continues to experience exponential growth and development, indicating an ongoing expansion and advancement of research in this area. This paper provides references for researchers to understand the status, hidden structure, evolution, and emerging trends of research on English for Specific Purposes.

The Role of Goal Orientations and Communication Strategies in Willingness to Communicate in EMI Classrooms

2023-12-11T21:22:52+03:00

Background: In English-medium instruction (EMI) classrooms, goal orientations, strategies, and communication play pivotal roles in facilitating effective learning. Achievement goal orientations (AGOs) guide and control learner competence-relevant behavior in academic performance. Communication strategies (CSs) are communication aids for learners to cope with problems or breakdowns while speaking the target language. Strategic competence is an indispensable affective-cognitive factor that promotes learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in a target language.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the role of AGOs and CSs in predicting WTC and the effect of English proficiency on AGOs and CSs in EMI classrooms.

Methods: An online questionnaire survey regarding the perception of AGOs, CSs, and WTC was conducted with 595 university students taking one EMI course in social science and humanity domains in Taiwan. The items were on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Hierarchical multiple regression was adopted to predict WTC in EMI classrooms. One-way between-group MANOVAs were adopted to examine the individual and joint effect of English proficiency on the AGOs and CSs.

Results: The hierarchical multiple regression model showed that task goal orientations and social affective strategies strongly and positively predicted the university students’ WTC in the EMI classroom. Performance-avoidance goal orientations and message reduction and alteration strategies were found to negatively predict WTC in EMI settings. Students’ English proficiency neither predicted their WTC nor affected their AGOs in the EMI classroom. High-proficiency students adopted accuracy-oriented, fluency-oriented, and negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies more frequently than low-proficiency students.

Conclusion: It is suggested that a supportive and dynamic classroom environment with higher-order learning tasks involving cooperation, reflection, and objective assessment criteria can be incorporated into EMI programs. Besides, instruction in CSs and the use of multimedia teaching aids can facilitate EFL learners’ comprehension of subject-specific materials and encourage them to engage more in EMI classrooms.

Stand-Alone Conclusion Section in Open-Access Research Articles: Organizational Structure

2023-12-11T21:22:56+03:00

Background: Research articles (RAs) have been highlighted as one of the most essential channels for academicians to disseminate knowledge. Typically, RAs consist of a nomenclature of the four sections of introduction, methods, results, and discussion, commonly known as IMRD, with each section governed by an organizational structure determined by genre analysis. However, due to the increasing prevalence of the stand-alone conclusion section in recent years and the expansion of open-access journals, understanding how this conclusion section is constructed can benefit scholars in an academic endeavor.

Methods: This study aims to identify the organizational structure of the stand-alone conclusion section in open-access journals. An original dataset of 55 open-access journal RAs from four major academic disciplines honored as “Articles of the Year 2021” was analyzed. Only the RAs with stand-alone conclusions within a calculated word range were selected, yielding a final dataset of 25 comparable conclusion sections. Then, anchored on genre analysis, the compiled dataset was analyzed quantitively and qualitatively.

Results: Based on the genre analysis conducted, a set of three moves and their pertaining steps were identified, forming various organizational patterns but one compelling one. Furthermore, the full-fledged two-layer rhetorical structure of the section depicting the frequencies of occurrence of individual moves and steps is quite revealing, highlighting the crucial significance of restating the findings generated from the study being reported. The results demonstrate not only how established this section is but also how it is currently structured, performing its critical function of concluding RAs.

Conclusion: This study has provided insights into integrating analytical elements to successfully stage persuasive arguments in the conclusion section, a skill that needs to be inculcated in novice or early-career researchers and seasoned researchers alike.

Building Scientific Knowledge in English: Integrating Content, Cognition and Communication in Secondary School CLIL Biology

2023-12-11T21:22:46+03:00

Background: The focus of this paper is on Dalton-Puffer’s construct of the Cognitive Discourse Function (cdf) (2013), which offers clil teachers a practical framework through which they can more easily understand the complex idea of integrating the content, cognition, and language required for their subject. These functions have mainly been addressed from classroom observations or task prompts, and little is known about their teachability and effectiveness on students’ content knowledge.

Purpose: This paper explores whether the cdf of ‘comparing’ (a subcategory of ‘classify’) can be taught to Spanish seventh-grade clil biology students (N = 37) and examines the effect of teaching it explicitly on their written performance.

Method: An operational framework was developed to define this cdf and an exploratory study was performed in which students were asked to hand in written comparisons. Quantitative and qualitative pre-and post-tests were applied.

Results: Significant results were obtained for the experimental groups, which improved in both content and language learning, scoring higher on inclusion of content points, justification of their scientific claims, concept formation and use of lexico-grammatical forms.

Conclusion: These findings add to our understanding of the importance of integrating cognition and language in teaching and learning natural sciences, within which CDFs can be a useful starting point.

A Corpus-based Investigation of Phrasal Complexity Features and Rhetorical Functions in Data Commentary

2023-12-11T21:23:06+03:00

Introduction: In academic written texts, linguistic and rhetorical features are often interactively used as a vehicle for writers to construct their texts in order to accomplish specific communicative purposes. However, the effective integration of these resources may pose challenges for developing writers.

Purpose: This study employed a corpus-based genre analysis approach to investigate phrasal complexity features and rhetorical functions in data commentaries written by Iranian undergraduate and graduate students. Through this approach, we aimed to examine a relatively unexplored genre of data commentary in terms of its phrasal complexity features, rhetorical functions, and their relationships. By analyzing these relationships, we sought to provide insights into the writing practices of Iranian undergraduate and graduate students in the context of data commentaries.

Method: This study employed a convenient sampling method to select a total of 76 university students, which included 47 undergraduate students and 29 graduate students. The participants were involved in generating a corpus of 380 data commentaries, which were then thoroughly examined and compared. To identify instances of phrasal complexity features, the researchers utilized the AntConc software tool, applying regular expressions (regex) to extract potential occurrences. Additionally, a Python program was developed and implemented to calculate the frequencies of the identified PCFs. The researchers manually annotated the rhetorical function of the data commentaries to determine their specific usage.

Results: Statistical analysis such as Mann Whitney U test and Spearman correlation test, revealed that graduate students significantly utilized more phrasal complexity features including attributive adjectives, nominalizations, and prepositional phrases (of) compared to undergraduate students. However, a qualitative analysis showed that the use of these linguistic features is influenced by the writing topics. Regarding rhetorical functions, graduate students used more moves and/or steps related to presenting and commenting data, while undergraduate students produced more moves or steps concerning personal asides. Moreover, certain phrasal complexity features and the moves and/or steps were found to be correlated, aligning with recent corpus-based studies.

Conclusion: The study concludes with pedagogical implications.

Exploring the Relationship between Language Attitude and Language Awareness towards World Englishes: A case of Indonesian pre-service English Teachers

2023-08-13T17:20:06+03:00

Introduction. World Englishes (WE) is an important topic, especially regarding pre-service English teachers' attitude and awareness towards the plurality of WE in English language teaching (ELT) practices. Many previous studies have discussed language attitude and language awareness separately. In contrast, research into the relationship between language attitude and awareness towards WE, especially in the context of pre-service English teachers, has not been widely explored.

Purpose. This study aims to fill the gap by researching the relationship between language attitudes and awareness of WE among pre-service English teachers, and its implication for their teaching practice.

Method. This study employed a mixed-method approach using correlational and interview-based research. The research data was obtained from 62 respondents who filled out questionnaires from three universities in Jakarta and Tangerang, Indonesia. In addition, there were nine interviewees.

Results. The results showed a weak relationship between Indonesian language attitude and awareness of WE pre-service English teachers. Respondents indicated a positive attitude towards WE but had moderate awareness.

Conclusion. We concluded that pre-service English teachers view WE as an essential topic, but they tend not to teach WE because they have to obey the school curriculum.

A Study of Agriculture Students’ Attitudes towards English Language: A Case Study

2023-08-13T17:20:20+03:00

Background: Like other professional institutions i.e., medical, law and engineering, at the University of Agriculture, Peshawar, all the core subjects are taught through English and all the exams (both oral and written) are conducted in English; hence, proficiency in English is an essential need of every student. As a majority of the agriculture students perform poorly in the core subjects due to their weakness in the English language, therefore, this study was undertaken to explore the attitudes of agriculture students towards the English language and its four skills i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Purpose: The main goal of the study was to investigate the Agriculture students’ attitude towards the English language and its basic skills. Moreover, the present study is also an attempt to unearth the differences, if any, in the attitudes of the male and female students towards English.

Method: This study employed a mixed-methods approach to address the research questions. To obtain valid and reliable results, the researcher considered application of both the quantitative and qualitative approaches to be very appropriate for the collection and analysis of data for the present study. The quantitative data were collected by means of a five-point Likert scale questionnaire with 30 closed items and was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. The qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews from 30 purposively selected students and were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Conclusion: The findings revealed that the agriculture students had positive attitudes towards the English language and its four skills. The study also highlighted that there was no statistically significant difference in the attitudes of students by their gender; however, the female students displayed slightly more positive attitudes towards English as compared to their male counterparts. A majority of the students regarded writing in English as a hard task. However, most students desired achieving high proficiency in all the four skills of English language.

Modeling the Association between EFL Instructors’ Foreign Language Teaching Enjoyment and Humor Styles

2023-08-13T17:19:38+03:00

Background: Positive psychology in the field of applied linguistics has recently shifted its focus from L2 learners to L2 teachers as teachers have been revealed to be a pivotal external affordance for the emergence of learners’ positive emotions such as enjoyment. Exploring the link between teacher-related constructs can provide deep insights into L2 teachers’ emotional agency within L2 classroom context.

Purpose: The current study seeks to examine the association between English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors’ enjoyment of foreign language teaching (i.e., personal enjoyment, student appreciation, and social enjoyment) and humor styles (i.e., self-enhancing, affiliative, aggressive, and self-defeating humor styles).

Materials and Methods: In order to examine this association, 244 (151 males and 93 females) Turkish EFL instructors voluntarily completed self-report scales measuring their foreign language teaching enjoyment and humor styles.

Results: Results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that higher levels of student appreciation and social enjoyment are correlated with higher levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humor. In addition, greater degrees of personal enjoyment, student appreciation, and social enjoyment are correlated with lower levels of aggressive humor, while self-defeating humor was unrelated to any of the enjoyment indices. There was also no significant gender difference for any humor styles.

Conclusion: The findings are discussed in view of implications for teacher well-being.

Lexical Bundles in Indonesian EFL Textbooks: A Corpus Analysis

2023-08-13T17:19:18+03:00

Background. Lexical bundles in textbooks are of paramount importance in foreign language learning. They provide a framework for new vocabulary acquisition and help to build fluency. Despite many studies on lexical bundles, investigations into their usage in EFL textbooks in the Indonesian context are still rare.

Purpose. This corpus-based study examines the patterns and structural classifications of lexical bundles in EFL course textbooks for Indonesian senior high school students. As such, it could yield ready-made chunks of English which could be incorporated into students’ spoken and written communication.

Method. The AntConc software version 3.5.9 was used to extract lexical bundles from five Indonesian Senior High School English textbooks. These books were endorsed by the government to be used across the country. The corpus revealed that the textbooks had 54,009 lexical bundles. In addition, the bundles were categorized into patterns and structural classifications based on Biber et al. (1999).

Results. The results showed the patterns included three-word lexical bundles with 32,527 occurrences, four-word with 11,620, five-word with 6,073, and six-word with 3,789. Furthermore, eleven structural classifications of lexical bundles were found in the textbooks: “noun phrase + of phrase fragment” with 173 occurrences; “noun phrase + other post modifier fragment” with 44; “other noun phrases fragment” with 157; “prepositional phrase + of” with 13; “other prepositional phrases” with 243; “anticipatory it + verb phrase/adjective phrase” with 13; “passive verb + prepositional phrase” with 19; “copula be + noun phrase/ adjective phrase” with 30; “(verb phrase +) that- clause” with 59; and “(verb/adjective +) to- clause” with 239.

Conclusion. Three-word lexical bundles were the most frequent in the senior high English textbooks. High frequency implies repetition of the bundles. Also, the other prepositional phrase fragment was the most frequent structural classification. Short bundles may have been intended to help students to retain vocabulary and recall the bundles in the usage. This study, therefore, provides valuable insights into the most common groups of words used in the Indonesian EFL textbooks. Pedagogically speaking, repeated bundles in English textbooks can familiarize EFL students with the patterns, and they can use them in spoken and written communication.

On the Relationship of Iranian EFL Learners’ Engagement and Self-regulation with Their Learning Outcomes

2023-08-13T17:20:10+03:00

Background. Language learning is a long and tedious process and some students may lose their initial interest, so their learning achievement might in turn decrease. Student engagement and self-regulation can be seen as influential in helping them to restore their enthusiasm and motivation. Engagement can assist students to be actively involved in their school work in order to become more motivated and interested in language learning. Further, self-regulation also seems to contribute to have students regulate their learning behavior and engagement, which could possibly play a role in their learning outcomes.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was thus to investigate the relationships of self-regulation and student engagement with learning outcomes.

Method. The participants, selected through convenience sampling, included 146 language learners learning English at the Iran Language Institute (ILI) Gorgan, Iran. They were given two questionnaires and a language proficiency test.

Results. The obtained data were analyzed by using SPSS, version 26. The results of Spearman’s rho correlation tests indicated that there were statistically significant relationships of self-regulation and student engagement with learning outcomes, with student engagement having a stronger association with learning outcomes. Moreover, student engagement as a global construct was a better predictor of learning outcomes.

Conclusion. Since student engagement is comparatively new in the realm of language education, the findings can contribute to our understanding of its role in learning outcomes. Besides, the results have pedagogical implications for language learners and language teachers alike.

The relationship between the perception and knowledge of academic vocabulary among EFL and EMI university students

2023-08-13T17:19:31+03:00

Background. Academic vocabulary is considered an essential component in the English language courses in higher education establishments. A number of studies have illustrated that the use of academic words in students’ work alone cannot always promise high grades, since students’ opinion about the importance of academic words can also have an influence on their knowledge and use.

Purpose. The research aims to determine the relationship between the vocabulary level of learners and their beliefs about the importance of academic words at the tertiary level.

Methods. For this study, the first and third-year students (N=440) in two Uzbek universities completed a beliefs questionnaire to rate their perceptions of the significance of academic words in improving reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in academia. The participants were also administered a vocabulary knowledge test to estimate their receptive dimension.

Results. The findings demonstrate that EMI students scored higher on the vocabulary test than EFL students and show that students’ perceptions of the significance of academic words changed in all four skills from the first to third year of study.

Conclusion. The article explores trends that emerged in the data and raises awareness for EAP teachers concerning the assumptions about students’ needs for vocabulary development based on learners’ perceptions and knowledge.

Novice Russian Research Writing: Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases

2023-08-13T17:19:45+03:00

Background: The research writing of novice Russian authors tend to be markedly different from that of expert academic writers from other countries. More specifically, Russian student writing has been characterized as wordy, difficult to comprehend, syntactically complex, and excessive in terms of nominalisation. One of the main manifestations of these characteristics is the deployment of a large number of prepositions and prepositional phrases.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causes of this excessive use of prepositions in Russian student writing and to provide suggestions for improvement.

Methods: The quantitative analysis evaluates two self-compiled corpora using the computational linguistics tool Gramulator. The first corpus consists of published research papers written by international scholars of radio engineering. The second corpus comprises first drafts of research papers written by Russian graduate and postgraduate students majoring in radio engineering. The final qualitative analysis focuses largely on the student corpus.

Results: The seven most common writing features identified were as follows: excessive of-phrases, nouns/verbal nouns instead of gerunds, nouns instead of infinitives of purpose, nominalized structures instead of relative clauses, ‘strong noun + weak verb’ structures instead of ‘strong’ verbs, grammatical errors, and repetitions. Each of these features is discussed and followed by suggestions that may help both reduce the excessive number of prepositions and prepositional phrases and improve other important features of the text.

Implications: The results of this study are of interest to academic writing instructors as well as the developers of teaching materials and automated evaluation tools.

An Investigation into the Effect of Problem-based Learning on Learners’ Writing Performance, Critical and Creative Thinking Skills

2023-08-13T17:19:50+03:00

Research Background: In addition to mastering writing skills, students must also be able to develop critical and creative thinking skills. These two skills play an important role so that students can survive and compete in the world of work in the era of the industrial revolution 4.0.

The gap in Knowledge and Purpose of the Study: Although there have been many experimental studies using problem-based learning in learning to write, the existing research is still inadequate in exploring the impact of this model on writing performance and critical and creative thinking skills.

Method: This study uses a sequential mix-method design that combines quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis techniques. The participants of this study were students from the Islamic Banking Study Program at UIN Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin Banten, as many as 61 people. Data were collected using questionnaires, essay writing tests, assessment rubrics, and interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 25.00 by running paired sample t-tests and one-way ANCOVA. In addition, data from semi-structured interviews were analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis techniques.

Findings and Value Added: research findings state that PBL positively influences writing performance and critical and creative thinking skills. The interviews showed that the students had positive attitudes and perceptions towards using the PBL method in learning to write to improve these three skills. The findings of this study are expected to increase knowledge about how students can improve writing performance, critical thinking, and creative thinking. In addition, it is also hoped that these findings can be an alternative in choosing writing learning methods.

Vocabulary Breadth and Depth in Early School-Aged Children with Developmental Language Disorder – Evidence from Serbian Speaking Children

2023-08-13T17:20:15+03:00

Objectives. Taking into account the positive association observed between lexical abilities and academic performance in children, this research aims to compare the expressive vocabulary skills and the organization of the lexical-semantic network in early school-aged children diagnosed with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typically developing (TD) peers.

Method. The sample included 57 participants (aged 7 and 8 years), 27 children diagnosed with DLD and 30 TD children. The Boston Naming Test and Word Association Task were employed to assess lexical abilities.

Results. The findings revealed that children with DLD produced significantly fewer correct answers and a higher number of errors during the naming task when compared to their typically developing peers. Moreover, children with DLD provided significantly fewer developmentally mature types of associations and significantly more developmentally immature ones.

Conclusion. The study results indicate that children with DLD continue to display significant lexical deficits during school-age, encompassing both vocabulary breadth and depth. These findings highlight the importance of implementing additional intervention approaches that focus on semantic aspects to prevent further language deterioration and mitigate the potential negative impact of lexical impairments on the academic achievements of these children.

An Investigation of Turkish EFL Teachers’ Work Alienation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2023-08-13T17:19:57+03:00

Introduction. The education sector has been severely affected by the pandemic caused by the sudden outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), despite the preventive measures taken and innovations brought to mitigate its effects.

Purpose. This study investigated the impact of alienation experienced by EFL teachers as a result of obligatory social distancing that has become the new normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, it was determined whether gender, educational level, institution type, and years of experience in the profession were among the active determinants of work alienation.

Methods. A mixed-method approach was adopted for this study. Quantitative data were collected using the Work Alienation scale, completed by 160 EFL teachers working at public and private schools in Mersin, Turkey. Qualitative data were gathered from the responses of 18 teachers within the survey group. The data collected from the scale were analysed, and the data from the open-ended survey were coded and classified into three themes.

Results. The findings indicated that EFL teachers experienced low levels of work alienation during the pandemic, and the survey data provided thought-provoking examples of the damage caused by the pandemic. Although no significant differences were identified in alienation based on gender, institution type, and educational level, significant differences based on the years of experience were found in the powerlessness, meaninglessness, and isolation subscales, whereby teachers with 1–5 years of experience endured a higher level of work alienation than those with more experience.

Conclusion. The findings of the study not only raise awareness regarding the importance of providing guidance to EFL teachers during the pandemic but also raise concerns about their wellbeing and digital literacy.

Research Article Introductions in Applied Linguistics: A Comparative Study on the Use of Appeals

2023-08-13T17:19:27+03:00

Introduction: Although extensive studies have been carried out on the rhetorical structure of research article introduction (RAI), centrality as a promotional strategy has received very little attention.

Purpose: To address this lacuna in research literature, this study investigates centrality claims and how the appeals are realized strategically and linguistically.

Materials and Methods: 60 RAIs from three-corpora, i.e., 20 English L1 corpus (written by native authors in English), 20 English FL Corpus (written by Indonesian authors in English), and 20 Indonesian L1 corpus (written by Indonesian authors in Indonesian Language), in the field of applied linguistics (AL) were analyzed. The analysis started from the step of claiming centrality found in the authors’ RAIs using the Swales’ (1990) framework. Wang and Yang’s (2015) framework was used to identify the types of appeals in the claiming centrality.

Results: This study indicates that the three groups of authors use four types of appeals, namely the appeal to salience, magnitude, topicality, and problematicity. The appeals appear in varied ways, i.e., referring to the research world and the real world. Although application of each appeal in the step of claiming centrality is relatively different in the three groups, some share similarities in using the appeals in terms of referring to the research world and the real world.

Conclusion: This study provides pedagogical implications for teaching academic writing, particularly in writing research articles for publication.

Multilingualism and Beyond: Implications for Education

2023-08-13T17:19:13+03:00

Introduction: The JLE editors explore multilingual perspectives in language learning, education, and society, as compared with mono- and bilingual perspectives. The notion of a separate language system turned out to be far from today’s multilingual communications. The approaches to multiple language learning have dramatically changed towards multilingualism. The editorial review aims to consider the potential of the field for the JLE.

Basic Terminology and Definitions: the JLE editors dwell upon the key terms applicable to the field of multilingualism, including multilingualism on its own, plurilingualism, bilingualism, multilinguality, polylingualism, metrolingualism, heteroglossia, and linguistic repertoire.

Research on Multilingualism and beyond: in this section, the JLE readers can find a short review of the research publications on multilingualism, bilingualism, plurilingualism, and linguistic repertoire indexed in the Scopus database.

Conclusion: multilingualism as a research field has a perspective for the Journal of Language and Education. Multilingualism is a many-faceted field, developing rather fast. Research on multilingualism may enrich the scope of the JLE and attract new readers.

An Output-oriented Approach to the Impact of Online Written Languaging on Form-Focused Writing Tasks

2023-09-22T16:03:26+03:00

Background. Despite the growing interest of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers in the languaging process, a few studies have been done on its dynamic attributes in various writing tasks.

Purpose. This study investigated how online written languaging (WL) might impact English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) learners’ performance on form-focused writing tasks with production-based and comprehension-based output orientation in Google Docs, and how the output orientation of form-focused writing tasks could determine the WL attributes of quantity and focus.

Methods. To do so, 112 Iranian EFL university students were selected and assigned to four parallel groups. In an eight-week experiment, two groups worked on gap-filling tasks (production-based) and two groups on error-identification tasks (comprehension-based) in parallel ±WL conditions.

Results. Statistical analysis indicated a significant interaction between task output orientation and WL production. So, on both production-based and comprehension-based tasks, the +WL groups outperformed the ˗WL groups. Moreover, in the +WL condition, the task output orientation determined the quantity of WL episodes, but not their focus on grammar (G-WL) and lexis (L-WL) in production-based and comprehension-based tasks. As such, the +WL group who completed the production-based tasks produced much more WL episodes than the +WL group who completed the comprehension-based tasks. Yet, both groups equally produced more L-WL episodes than G-WL episodes.

Сonclusion. The study had several implications for language teachers to maximize learning opportunities by teaching how to language in various writing tasks on online platforms. The L2 teachers are also recommended to adopt an alternative approach to translation as a form-focused writing task.

Automated Measures of Lexical Sophistication: Predicting Proficiency in an Integrated Academic Writing Task

2023-04-28T08:14:01+03:00

Background. Advances in automated analyses of written discourse have made available a wide range of indices that can be used to better understand linguistic features present in language users’ discourse and the relationships these metrics hold with human raters’ assessments of writing.

Purpose. The present study extends previous research in this area by using the TAALES 2.2 software application to automatically extract 484 single and multi-word metrics of lexical sophistication to examine their relationship with differences in assessed L2 English writing proficiency.

Methods. Using a graded corpus of timed, integrated essays from a major academic English language test, correlations and multiple regressions were used to identify specific metrics that best predict L2 English writing proficiency scores.

Results. The most parsimonious regression model yielded four-predictor variables, with total word count, orthographic neighborhood frequency, lexical decision time, and word naming response time accounting for 36% of total explained variance.

Implications. Results emphasize the importance of writing fluency (by way of total word count) in assessments of this kind. Thus, learners looking to improve writing proficiency may find benefit from writing activities aimed at increasing speed of production. Furthermore, despite a substantial amount of variance explained by the final regression model, findings suggest the need for a wider range of metrics that tap into additional aspects of writing proficiency.

Where do Critical Pedagogy and Language Needs Analysis meet? English as an Additional Language for Adult Refugees and Mi-grants in Greece: A Case Study

2023-04-28T08:24:31+03:00

Background. Language classes organized for adult refugees and migrants are heterogeneous. Students in these educational settings differ across a number of various aspects, including language competences, educational background and levels of literacy. Seen through the Critical Pedagogy lens language is considered not simply as a means to express or communicate, but as a product constructed by the ways language learners recognise themselves, their social surroundings, their histories, and their potentialities for the future.

Purpose. The purpose of our study is to unfold and identify the language needs of a specific group of migrants learners learning English as an additional language in Greece, where English is not the dominant language. We will try to focus and analyse language needs through the critical pedagogy lens and thus make the whole procedure an empowerment tools for the adult refugees and migrants.

Method. As a case study, this study follows a qualitative research design. Τhis small-scale study focuses on a specific target group of language learners and their needs and attitudes towards learning. Class observations, field notes, interviews with the participants and questionnaires with open-ended questions were used as main methodological tools.

Results. The present article examines the needs of a group of immigrant adult learners attending English language classes at a non-formal educational setting located in Greece. The participants come from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and the majority of them speak Greek fluently since they have resided in Greece for a long time. A focal point throughout the process was students’ greater involvement in the learning procedure and decision-making processes regarding the content and the presentation of the educational material.

Conclusion. Although the systematic needs analysis revealed that the reasons for participation and competence levels among participants varied a lot, a common goal for everyone was achieving oral fluency in the target language. Moreover, the results of this attempt were expressed n terms of learners’ contributions, willingness to share their stories, even to talk about difficulties they met and caring about their classmates’ stories. Thus, we suggest that the incorporation of personal experience in the learning process, not only functions as a link between students and language but also a process for team bonding and motivation.

On the Identifiability of Cognitive Diagnostic Models: Diagnosing Students’ Translation Ability

2023-04-28T08:33:12+03:00

Background. In recent years Cognitive Diagnostic Models (CDMs) have attracted a great deal of attention from researchers in a variety of educational fields. However, they have not been taken into consideration in Translation Quality Assessment (TQA), in the aims of presenting fine-grained information about the strengths and weaknesses of translation students.

Purpose. The present study compares the ACDM, DINO, DINA, HO-DINA, and G-DINA models, in order to define the strengths and weaknesses of Iranian translation students and to examine whether the required translation attributes are compensatory, non-compensatory, additive, or hierarchical.

Methods. 200 BA translation students translated a two-English-text translation, which was scored by three experienced translation raters using the Translation Quality Assessment Rubric (TQAR). The professional translators, established the relationships between the TQAR items and the nine proposed target translation attributes by constructing a Q-matrix.

Results. Based on the results, HO-DINA can be considered the best-fitting model. Bibliography and technical skills, together with work methodology skills, are shown to be the most difficult attributes for translation students.

Conclusion. HO-DINA is a non-compensatory model, thus the study findings assert that for a correct response to a test item, all measurable attributes need to be mastered.

Effectiveness of cooperative grouping in developing reading skills of university level EFL learners

2023-04-28T08:34:41+03:00

Background. Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is an instructional method in which students work together in a cooperative framework, jointly construct a model of text and come to its potential meaning through discussions.

Purpose. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group research design was used to examine the effects of cooperative grouping within the framework of CSR, with the aim of determining whether cooperative grouping is effective in developing EFL students’ reading skills.

Method. The response variables included the students’ scores on questions testing Vocabulary, Factual Information, Prose Summary, Sentence Simplification, Reference Question and Insert text, whereas the explanatory variable was group membership (+/- cooperative), measured across three testing times (the beginning, middle and the end of the experimental intervention).

Results. The results indicate that the students exposed to CSR within cooperative groups significantly developed those reading skills which focus on the comprehension of global information – prose summary, insert text and reference question. A possible explanation is that, in order to answer these questions, readers must approach the text in a holistic manner and focus on its main ideas, which seems to be facilitated by discussions in heterogeneous teams and negotiations of meaning resulting from those discussions.

Conclusion. The main pedagogical implication of the results concerns the need for introducing cooperative grouping as an alternative to a typical university-level foreign language classroom, allowing teachers to organize an effective, interactive context for reading academic texts in English.

Translanguaging Instruction and Reading Comprehension Skills of Japanese EFL Learners: A Quasi-Experimental Study

2023-09-22T16:03:19+03:00

Background. The adoption of the TOEIC Listening and Reading test as the main English competency measurement instrument for Japanese businesses has lead Japanese business people to invest in courses specialized in test-taking strategies which seem to improve test scores in the short term. Nevertheless, there is pressing need to adopt more reliable instructions for reading ability development. Translanguaging pedagogy, an instruction method that urges L2 learners to make use of all languages in their linguistic repertoire, has rapidly gained the interest of language researchers and educators worldwide. Various studies have been conducted at all level of formal education, from elementary to tertiary education, to evaluate how it could help learners develop their proficiency in the target L2, including reading comprehension ability. However, no study on translanguaging in continuing education in Japan could be found in the literature.

Purpose. This paper presents an investigation to assess the effectiveness of translanguaging pedagogy in nurturing the reading comprehension of a group of Japanese EFL learners in a continuing education context.

Methods. The study adapted a quasi-experimental design with a control and an experimental group, as well as a reading comprehension improvement intervention course between pre-test and post-test. The experimental group received instruction based on translanguaging pedagogy, and the control group was restricted to using only English in their classes.

Results. It was found that both the control and experimental groups improved their reading comprehension, but improvement in the experimental group was moderately more substantial. This finding contributes to the literature on translanguaging pedagogy in Japan, especially in the context of continuing education.

Conclusion. Due to the small number of participants, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to EFL education in continuing education. Further research with a substantial number of participants and treatment over a longer period could help confirm that translanguaging pedagogy can effectively be implemented in this setting to assist learners become proficient in the target L2.

Technology-Enabled Language Leaning: Mediating Role of Collaborative Learning

2023-04-28T08:22:27+03:00

Background. Technology-Enabled Language learning (TELL) encourages peer communication and collaboration through its innovative instructional methods. Collaborative student activities are recognised as an important component of the instructional approach of higher education, More recently, collaborative learning in conjunction with digital teaching tools has emerged as a preferred SLA pedagogical approach. Despite growing interest in TELL, research into the effects of collaborative learning on affective factors in SLA remains unexplored.

Purpose. The aim of the proposed study is to identify factors influencing the behavioral intention of students to use WhatsApp for second language acquisition. Constructs from previous models: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and perceived relevance (UTAUT) are tested, along with the mediating role of a new variable ‘collaborative learning’.

Methods. Using the convenience sampling technique, the sample comprises 202 undergraduates studying in Institutes in Rajasthan, India. Data collected through Google forms was analyzed through IBM SPSS ver. 26 and Smart-PLS ver. 3.2.9, using structural equation modeling.

Results. A positive and significant relationship was established between all the selected constructs. The indirect effects were positive, yet less significant than the direct effects. Moreover, the partially mediating effect of collaborating learning was affirmed. Empirical data confirms that collaborative learning acts as a mediating variable enhancing the intention to use WhatsApp for SLA.

Conclusion. The present study makes an original and innovative contribution to language studies by analysing the relationship between the predictors. Such a systematic understanding of the topic can assist instructors in designing robust future pedagogical techniques.

Preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback: Are Language Proficiency, First Language, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety, and Enjoyment Involved?

2023-04-28T08:37:03+03:00

Background. The effectiveness of oral corrective feedback (OCF) in language learning is influenced by learners' comprehension and response to various OCF techniques. Therefore, it is essential for teachers to consider learners' preferences for OCF strategies.

Purpose. This quantitative study aimed to investigate the preferences of Thai as a foreign language (TFL) learners for ten commonly discussed types of OCF. Specifically, it examined whether these preferences are influenced by four learner variables: proficiency level, first language (L1), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), and foreign language enjoyment (FLE).

Methods. The study involved 288 university students from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean TFL settings, and the data from questionnaires were analysed using appropriate statistical methods.

Results. The findings indicate that, regardless of proficiency level, L1, FLCA, or FLE level, learners prefer more explicit OCF techniques, such as metalinguistics feedback and explicit correction. However, Korean undergraduates scored lower in the majority of OCF strategies (i.e., ignoring, elicitation, recast, explanation, and public feedback) compared to the other participants. The MANOVA analysis revealed significant differences in ignore, peer correction, recast, and private feedback based on proficiency level and L1 background. Although the differences between the FLE and FLCA approaches were not statistically significant, high FLE and FLCA groups tended to prefer more OCF strategies than the low groups.

Conclusion. This study has significant implications for instructional practices in TFL settings and for L2 lecturers in the classroom. By understanding learners' preferences for OCF, educators can tailor their instructional approaches to meet the specific needs of their students.

The Interplay between Corrective Feedback, Motivation and EFL Achievement in Middle and High School Education

2023-04-28T08:15:43+03:00

Introduction. Despite the fact that error correction has significant and long-term effects on facilitating language learning and development, there has not been any research that investigates its influence on learners' motivation within the classroom context of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Purpose. This research aims to examine the impact of written and oral corrective feedback on students' motivation and achievement within this EFL context.

Method. For this quantitative study, the questionnaire has been used to collect the data from 160 middle and high school students in central Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Results. The findings indicated that the respondents generally like to be corrected and they are moderately to highly motivated to speak and write in English as a foreign language. Furthermore, learners with positive attitudes towards the received feedback feel significantly more motivated to keep learning than those with negative attitudes.

Conclusion. The study is expected to provide teachers with suggestions on how to transform their classrooms into an environment conducive to the development of higher levels of writing and speaking motivation and how to provide corrective feedback that will positively influence students' EFL achievement.

Academic Procrastination among Indonesian University Learners: Interaction with Cheating, Absenteeism, and L2 Achievement

2023-04-28T08:27:55+03:00

Background. Many studies suggested that academic procrastination is particularly prevalent among learners at university level. However, empirical data on the interactions between academic procrastination and, respectively, learners’ attitudes towards cheating (AtC), absenteeism, and learning achievement, are either generally inconclusive or non-existent, especially in English as Foreign Language (EFL) literature. Thus, it is worthwhile to conduct a study to examine these issues in the Indonesian EFL context, home to one of the largest communities of EFL learners in the world.

Purpose. The aim of this study was to investigate academic procrastination of Indonesian EFL learners at university level and the interactions of these learners’ procrastination with AtC, absenteeism, and second/foreign language (L2) achievement.

Method. The study used an online survey method and 164 learners from non-English departments participated in this study.

Results. On the basis of descriptive statistics, it was found that the participants reported a moderate level of procrastination in English class. Furthermore, this study found that learners' procrastination significantly and positively correlated with their AtC and absenteeism. This indicated that the more learners procrastinated, the higher their approval of cheating behaviour, and the more likely they were to be absent in English classes. The predictive power of learner procrastination was 16.4% on AtC, and at 8.3% on absenteeism. Moreover, the study also found a significant, negative, and moderate relationship between learner procrastination and their L2 achievement with learners' procrastination being able to predict 16.5% of the total variance in L2 achievement.

Conclusion. Teachers are suggested to promote project-based tasks in groups where the step-by-step progress of learners is continually monitored, feedback given, and rewarded. This could discourage procrastination, absenteeism, as well as cheating behaviours, and potentially promote more optimal L2 achievement.

Enhancement of Academic Performance through Developing Cross-Cultural Communicative Competence: A Case Study of Students Majoring in Economics

2023-09-22T16:03:22+03:00

Background. The article questions the possibility to increase the level of foreign language command through developing cross-cultural communicative competence (CCC) in students of non-linguistic universities. Despite extensive literature on intercultural communication, there are obviously gaps in investigating the way it can and should be built and the potential impact it may have towards students’ academic performance in general.

Purpose. The paper aims to find out the possible correlation between the level of CCC formation and a command of a foreign language in general. To pursue the goal, an in-depth research into the CCC structure was carried out and the idea to simultaneously develop all its components was proposed.

Method. The paper reports on the results of the mixed-method research aimed at gathering the data and evaluating them both qualitatively and quantitatively. Senior students of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, were selected and divided into the control and experimental groups with the subsequent training on the pre-designed curricula, with a primary focus on developing all the components of the CCC in the latter. To assess their performance, the method of experimental verification, self- and peer evaluation, educational observation, questioning method were employed. In-depth data analysis and verification provided post-active phase of the experiment conducted.

Results. The results of the carried-out experiments, first, proved the hypothetical assumptions on the efficiency of developing all the four CCC simultaneously and, second, showed that the targeted CCC development contributes to improving foreign language acquisition in general, which is supported by the increase in 5 out of 6 didactic units of the final testing where the experimental group participants surpassed the students in the control group.

Conclusion. The study provides evidence for the impact CCC development has on the linguistic communicative competence. The devised methodology can be borrowed and customized for teaching foreign languages to university students and, in particular for developing intrinsic motivation through CCC. Further, future research should address particular components of the CCC.

Is It True They Negatively Engage? Mixed Method Research of Student Engagement in EFL Online Classrooms

2023-09-22T16:03:28+03:00

Background. A leading concern in teaching and learning is how to increase the degree of student engagement in learning. Within the virtual educational environment, student engagement is a real issue facing instructors and teachers. Students in online classrooms are not able to engage in the same manner as in face-to-face settings.

Purpose. This study aims to explore the impact and reception of online education on student engagement in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom.

Method. This study adopts a mixed-method approach, in order to understand student engagement online. Longitudinal self-report surveys (SRS) filled out by 127 undergraduate students after each class session throughout a four-week period were used to assess their engagement in online language classrooms. Focus-group interview transcriptions were used to triangulate the data and provide further information about student engagement in terms of gender difference, engagement growth over time, and engagement fostering or hindrance factors in virtual learning classrooms.

Results. Analysis showed that students were generally engaged during the weeks with some variances. Cognitive-social learning engagement showed dynamics among students in virtual language classrooms. Factors such as place of engagement and students’ choice of device used to access the virtual session were found to influence student engagement in online classroom learning. Male and female students generally showed similar learning engagement in the virtual classes with disparities occurring over the study period.

Conclusion. The study results will be beneficial for researchers, instructors, and policymakers who are interested in understanding student engagement and who seek to improve the teaching experience.

Education 4.0: The Concept, Skills, and Research

2023-04-28T08:09:36+03:00

Introduction. With Industry 4.0 and Work 4.0 entering the world, modern education is undergoing transformations in terms of educational practices, skillsets and competencies, teaching and learning methodologies (including flipped classroom, blended learning, self-regulated learning, project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, student-centred pedagogy), digital tools used at all educational levels, as well as barriers and challenges. This string of changes is covered by the new buzzword “Education 4.0”. It is not so far finally defined. There are various explanations of the concept. Most align with the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Industry 4.0. The JLE editorial aims to overview the emerging research field of Education 4.0 aligned with Industry 4.0, outlining the potential lines of research for JLE authors.

Industry 4.0. The transformation of production at large is beginning on the basis of a set of innovative technologies and completely brand-new processes. Their combination constitutes the underpinning of Industry 4.0.

Skillsets in Education 4.0. There are numerous views of the skills needed for graduates ready for Industry 4.0. One of the most replicated lists embraces the 10 skills offered by the World Economic Forum in 2016 with later updates. Most researchers outline numerous technical, communication, digital, and cognitive skills as a skillset of Industry 4.0.

Teaching and Learning in Education 4.0. The traditional pedagogy or face-to-face learning, still dominant worldwide, is going to combine with innovative approaches, including, e-learning, and blended learning as a mixture of e-learning ang face-to-face learning. In addition, all student-centered technologies add to the future pedagogical landscape: self-regulated learning, project-based learning, flipped classroom, etc.

Research on Education 4.0. The authors searched the Scopus for the documents related to “Education 4.0” to find that the total of 483 results unevenly distributed from 2010 to 2023, with a high of 137 in 2022. The analysis of the publications on Education 4.0 proves that the research field is developing fast, though publications authored by researchers from the developing countries prevail in the search results. At the same time, most of the selected publications came out in the Scopus-indexed low-quartile or discontinued journals. A disproportionately low number of articles published by the authors from the OECD countries depletes the quality of the research field.

Conclusion. The editorial overview of the concept of Education 4.0 may serve as a topical guidance for researchers at large and potential JLE authors focused on educational research. Further studies in the field may cover skillsets and competencies for Industry 4.0; teaching and learning approaches in Education 4.0; new educational frameworks and environments.

Innovative Approaches in Teaching English Writing to Chinese Speakers: Book Review

2023-01-18T15:24:40+03:00

Innovative Approaches in Teaching English Writing to Chinese Speakers, edited by Barry Lee Reynolds and Mark Feng Teng and published by De Gruyter Mouton in 2021, addresses the needs and directions for innovation in English writing teaching. Based on the Chinese-speaking contexts, its empirical studies highlight teacher-researchers’ attempts on pedagogical innovations, showcasing stakeholders’ attitudes and perceptions regarding these approaches. The book illustrates the shared features and challenges of the assessment-driven teaching of English writing. Its collection of qualitative studies and small-scale action research significantly provides deeper insights into innovative English writing teaching. Additionally, it includes practical suggestions for future reforms of curriculum designs, pedagogies, and education systems in the regions. Thus, it benefits various readers concerned with the design, process, and outcome of teaching English writing. This book review summarizes the eleven chapters firstly. It critically discusses three critical issues in the volume. This review concludes with an overall evaluation of this book’s contribution to the innovation of teaching English writing.

Learning Outcomes Generated through the Collaborative Processing of Expert Peer Feedback

2023-01-22T13:37:33+03:00

Background. Studies have shown that the collaborative processing of feedback on a jointly produced text facilitates language learning in a traditional classroom. However, it is still unknown whether there are similar learning benefits when the feedback is provided through an online modality from an expert peer during an international virtual exchange (IVE).

Purpose. The present study fills this gap in the literature by investigating Japanese learners engaged in processing written corrective feedback from expert language users in the United States.

Methods. Qualitative data concerning students’ perceptions of learning outcomes were collected via retrospective interviews and narrative frames, then triangulated with their first and final drafts of written texts and analyzed using activity theory (AT).

Results. Findings indicate that learning benefits accrued in areas of language skills such as vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, as well as deepening learners’ reflexive awareness of themselves as language users.

Conclusion. A discussion of these findings, informed by sociocultural theory and shaped by the categories of AT, brings to light some of the interactional dynamics that contributed to the creation of these outcomes. These interactional dynamics show that the learning benefits of the activity primarily resided in the peer-to-peer interactions rather than interactions with the expert-peer.

Reconciling Translingualism and Second Language Writing: Book Review

2023-01-18T15:22:36+03:00

Accuracy Gains from Unfocused Feedback: Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback as Meaningful Pedagogy

2023-04-04T01:00:18+03:00

Background. A primary question among L2 writing instructors is how to best deliver written corrective feedback (WCF) to support student learning. One promising WCF method is Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback, in which instructors provide unfocused/comprehensive feedback using a coding system coupled with regular rounds of editing on short, in-class student-written paragraphs.

Purpose. In this study, I explored the impact on student accuracy of unfocused DWCF on brief student-produced texts in intermediate and advanced developmental ESL writing classes. This study was motivated by the desire to evaluate this pedagogical intervention and determine if it should continue to be implemented in our developmental writing program.

Methods. Utilizing a quasi-experimental research design using t-test analyses, I coded, tallied, and contrasted the errors in term-final paragraphs of 130 students who participated in classes that used DWCF with 79 students in control sections that did not include DWCF.

Results. I found statistically significant improvements in the treatment sections at both levels for nearly all error types (including but not limited to verb form/tense, sentence structure, work order, work choice, determiner, noun form, and punctuation errors; the only error type that did not return significance differences was prepositions at the intermediate level). These results suggest that unfocused written corrective feedback may be effectively used in multilingual writing classrooms, at least given certain parameters to help ensure that feedback is manageable and specific, per the DWCF process.

Conclusion. This study complicates the so-called best practices stemming from WCF research in which many researchers have advocated for WCF that addresses only a small number of error types. Rather, providing that feedback practices are kept manageable and accessible for the students, multilingual students may effectively process and apply unfocused feedback to their own writing.

Unfocused Written Corrective Feedback for Academic Discourse: The Sociomaterial Potential for Writing Development and Socialization in Higher Education

2023-01-18T15:22:12+03:00

Background. There is a prevailing belief that unfocused written corrective feedback may not be suitable to promote students’ academic writing development.

Purpose. This perspective piece demonstrates how unfocused written corrective feedback reflects the principles of sociomateriality, which views learning as dynamic.

Perspectives. Unfocused written corrective feedback has the potential to support university students’ academic discourse socialization. This perspective is based on the observation that actual written corrective feedback in a classroom setting is varied and contextual, and not focused on any particular grammar form or writing feature.

Conclusion. Unfocused written corrective feedback represents an optimal approach to support university students’ awareness and engagement with variables found in their learning ecology. These variables can support students’ academic writing development.

Experienced and Novice L2 Raters’ Cognitive Processes while Rating Integrated and Independent Writing Tasks

2023-04-04T01:03:16+03:00

Background. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the personal attributes of raters which determine the quality of cognitive processes involved in their rating writing practice.

Purpose. Accordingly, this research attempted to explore how the rating experience of L2 raters might affect their rating of integrated and independent writing tasks.

Methods. To pursue this aim, 13 experienced and 14 novice Iranian raters were selected through criterion sampling. After attending a training course on rating writing tasks, both groups produced introspective verbal protocols while they were rating integrated and independent writing tasks which were produced by an Iranian EFL learner. The verbal protocols were recorded and transcribed, and their content was analyzed by the researchers.

Results. The six extracted major themes from the content analysis included content, formal requirement, general linguistic range, language use, mechanics of writing, and organization. The results indicated that the type of writing task (integrated vs. independent) is a determining factor for the number of references experienced and novice raters made to the TOEFL-iBT rating rubric. Further, the raters’ rating experience determined the proportions of references they made. Yet, the proportional differences observed between experienced and novice raters in their references were statistically significant only in terms of language use, mechanics of writing, organization, and the total.

Conclusion. The variations in L2 raters’ rating performance on integrated and independent writing tasks emphasize the urgency of professional training to use and interpret the components of various rating writing scales by both experienced and novice raters.

nced and novice raters.

EFL University Students’ Self-Regulated Writing Strategies: The Role of Individual Differences

2023-01-18T15:19:55+03:00

Background. Self-regulated learning strategies play an essential role in the success of students’ learning of writing. The use of these strategies might be influenced by the student’s individual differences.

Purpose. This study was conducted to describe EFL university students’ preferences for self-regulated writing strategies. It also examined the different use of self-regulated writing strategies by considering gender, interest in English writing, and writing achievement. Further, it measured the predictive effects of self-regulated writing strategies on the students’ writing achievement.

Methods. This research applied a quantitative approach and involved 58 English students. The students were required to respond to a self-report survey using the Self-Regulated Learning Strategy Questionnaire. The students’ writing achievement was measured based on their scores in writing an argumentative essay. The data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics, an independent sample t-test, One Way Anova, and multiple regression.

Results. The results uncovered that the overall use of self-regulated writing strategies was at a high level with the social environment strategy dimension on the top rank and motive on the bottom. Further analysis showed that there is no significant difference in the use of self-regulated writing strategies based on gender, interest in English writing, and writing achievement. Meanwhile, multiple regression analysis indicated the predictive effect of self-regulated writing strategies on writing achievement. To this end, teachers need to encourage students to use self-regulated writing strategies more optimally to enhance their writing quality.

Conclusion. EFL students have invested high awareness of using self-regulated writing strategies. Along with this high awareness, students’ individual differences such as gender, interest in English writing, and proficiency level might not strongly influence the use of SRW strategies. Though not strong, the use of self-regulated writing strategies contributes to the students’ writing quality improvement.

Writing Task Complexity, Task Condition and the Efficacy of Feedback

2023-04-04T00:57:25+03:00

Background. Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is still attracting considerable interest from second language teachers and researchers, partly due to unresolved issues of task sequencing and task complexity. Moreover, in spite of burgeoning attention to writing at the present stage of evolution of TBLT, the interaction of task complexity and corrective feedback in writing performance of language learners has not been explored well.

Purpose. To fill in this research gap, the present study aimed to explore the role of task complexity and task condition in learners’ gain from corrective feedback in second language writing.

Methods. A pretest-immediate posttest-delayed posttest design was adopted in this study. The participants of the study were 114 English as foreign language learners, randomly assigned to one of the five groups: four experimental groups and a control group. The four experimental groups differed in (a) whether they carried out the simple or complex version of a task (b) whether they did the writing task individually or collaboratively. They received feedback on their writing in three treatment sessions.

Results. Statistical analyses revealed that task condition played a larger role than task complexity in the linguistic performance of language learners who received feedback on their writing.

Conclusion. The findings add support to the view that selecting appropriate levels of task complexity and suitable task implementation conditions alongside providing corrective feedback enhances the different dimensions of the written performance of language learners.

Towards Understanding Teacher Mentoring, Learner WCF Beliefs, and Learner Revision Practices Through Peer Review Feedback: A Sociocultural Perspective

2023-04-04T00:57:57+03:00

Background. The existing literature has focused on learner perceptions or beliefs about peer review tasks over the recent decade. However, little has been known about the relationships among learner beliefs about written corrective feedback (WCF), related teacher mentoring process, and learner revision practices.

Purpose. We thus aimed at addressing the gap by exploring how teacher mentoring and learner WCF beliefs may inform learner revision practices in the peer-reviewed process.

Methods. In this mixed-method study, we included four Chinese EFL students majoring in English as the participants and collected their WCF belief survey data. We also collected their actual practice data through PeerCeptiv, an online writing and rewriting platform. In addition, we traced the teacher mentoring practices and interviewed the participants about their beliefs and practices in the peer review and back-evaluation process.

Results. Through the mixed-methods design, we reported our major findings: the student participants believed empathy and resonance was the primary advantage of peer feedback, and teacher mentoring facilitated them in understanding and performing the peer review and revision tasks; we also found the student review process consisted of evaluating, resonating, learning, and reflecting practices and the student revision process included crediting, arguing, correcting, and polishing practices.

Implications. From a sociocultural perspective, we centered our discussion on these research findings by claiming that scaffolding in different forms work together enhance learner performance and student beliefs appear in a complex manner with student actual revision practices. We also offered insights for future studies and practical implications for language teachers.

Writing Feedback from a Research Perspective

2023-04-04T00:54:42+03:00

Introduction. Being an essential part of teaching and learning, feedback in close connection with evaluation is the focus of many researchers. Their interest lies mainly in automated systems, learners’ and teachers’ perceptions of writing feedback and feedback on feedback, new forms of feedback and their efficacy for motivation and writing performance. The review aims to identify the prevailing directions of research in the field.

Methods. The review is based on 194 documents extracted from the Scopus database. The ultimate results of the search for “writing feedback” were limited to a field filter (social sciences, arts & humanities), a language filter (English), a document type (article, review, book chapter, conference paper) as well to manual screening in accordance with the inclusion criteria and relevance to the theme.

Results and Discussion. Seven directions of research were identified: automated and non-automated evaluation; feedback on writing: general issues; automated feedback; peer review and teacher feedback on writing; perceptions and emotions relating to writing feedback; feedback on scholarly writing; evaluation and improvement in Chinese calligraphy. The reviewed documents proved the prominence of the topic and greater interest in new computer-mediated forms of feedback on writing.

Conclusion. The results of the review may serve as a guidance for researchers at large and potential JLE authors focused on teaching and learning writing. The limitations of the review are linked to the scope and methods applied.

Effect of Implicit Written Corrective Feedback on the Writing Skills of ESL Learners

2023-11-08T17:59:17+03:00

Background. Providing learners with written corrective feedback (WCF) on their writing is crucial to the ESL learning process.
Purpose. This research is aimed at examining the effects of indicating errors as implicit WCF on the writing skills of ESL learners, as well as identifying learners’ perceptions towards its use in their essay writing.
Methods. This is a mixed methods research involving the gathering of data both quantitatively and qualitatively. By means of a purpose sampling method, 50 ESL learners from a private university in Selangor, Malaysia were selected for this study. They underwent a two-week training period during which they were taught to self-correct their essays based on errors indicated as implicit WCF by their lecturer. This also included a pre-test and a post-test administered in between. Finally, 10 respondents were interviewed to gain their perceptions on the use of this technique as implicit WCF in their writing.
Results. The results showed that the students achieved a slightly significant improvement in their essay writing skills. They also had a positive perception of the use of the lecturer’s indication of errors as implicit WCF in their essay writing.
Conclusion and Implications: In conclusion, error indication as implicit WCF is effective for enhancing writing skills, and the ESL learners perceived it positively. This present study contributes fundamental pedagogical implications and recommendations for future research. ESL instructors are encouraged to adopt and apply this technique in their composition writing lessons.

The Effectiveness of Direct and Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback to Deal With Errors in the Use of Information-Structuring Connectors

2023-04-04T00:59:07+03:00

Background. Writing is a complex skill, even more so, if the student does not handle the generic structure of the institutionalized practices imposed on Higher Education.

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of direct and metalinguistic focused written corrective feedback (WCF) on information structuring connectors.

Methods. This quantitative study compares focused WCF effectiveness in 39 subjects who are divided into three groups: the first one is the control group, which did not receive feedback, the second is the experimental group 1 that was corrected through direct WCF and the third one corresponds to experimental group 2 that received feedback through metalinguistic cues.

Results. The findings indicate that WCF is effective for the experimental groups. There is a significant decrease in the number of errors of information-structuring connectors in experimental group 2, while experimental group 1 shows a reduction, but without statistical significance. As for the control group, it did not present improvements. In addition, the development of writing tasks corrected through metalinguistic WCF strategies led to textual cohesion improvement with the accurate use of connective devices.

Conclusions. It is important to reflect on the use of focused feedback as part of the writing process, firstly, because writing cannot be taught without reviewing a student's writing, and secondly, considering that focused feedback supports the noticing of errors and decreases teacher correction time.

The Effect of Coded Focused and Unfocused Corrective Feedback on ESL Student Writing Accuracy

2023-01-22T14:42:49+03:00

Purpose. This study adopted a mixed-method approach, including a classroom experiment and 24 in-depth interviews, to investigate the effects of two feedback techniques (coded focused and unfocused written corrective feedback) on ESL learners’ writing in a self-financed tertiary institution in Hong Kong.

Methods. Three intact classes of 47 students served as the experimental and control groups; the control group only received feedback on content and organization, whereas the two experimental groups also received focused and unfocused linguistic feedback, respectively. The feedback intervention was conducted over an eight-week intensive summer course, focusing on three grammar errors (articles, singular/plural nouns and verb forms). Altogether, students wrote seven pieces, four of which were analysed for the present research.

Results: The study found that students who received focused written corrective feedback (WCF) significantly outperformed the other two groups, though the effects varied across error types. Meanwhile, no significant differences were found between the unfocused and control groups. In-depth interviews explored how individual learners’ metalinguistic understanding and engagement affect their intake of WCF. The results revealed that learners who received focused feedback developed a deeper understanding of the linguistic nature of specific error types. Learners with limited English proficiency were less likely to apply their linguistic knowledge to revise a task or write a new one.

Conclusion. Because not all errors deserve equal attention, teachers and students should consider how feedback can be used more effectively, particularly in areas where comprehensive feedback is considered obligatory. When teaching students with limited language proficiency, it is recommended that, rather than providing a wide range of error corrections, teachers provide focused feedback complemented with carefully designed metalinguistic support.

Unfocused Written Corrective Feedback and L2 Learners’ Writing Accuracy: Relationship Between Feedback Type and Learner Belief

2023-01-20T22:54:36+03:00

Background: Feedback provided to learners' writing is a construct of identifying a learner's performance, and it can be identified and trifurcated as grammatical form, location in the text, and pragmatic functions. Second language researchers worldwide consider written corrective feedback (WCF) as a vital and valuable teaching tool that enables learners to improve accuracy in L2 writing.

Purpose: In this context, there exists a plethora of studies that examine the efficacy of WCF on L2 learners’ writing accuracy. However, literature is replete with research that looks into the effectiveness of unfocused WCF on L2 learners’ writing accuracy especially concerning learners’ belief of the feedback type. Not much research is available demonstrating unfocused WCF's efficacy on L2 learners’ writing accuracy.

Methods: Using a quasi-experimental design, three intact classes were recruited and were randomly placed into two experimental groups: indirect corrective feedback, direct corrective feedback, and one control group. The participants completed three narrative writings, one each at pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test.

Results: The results of the study unveiled that the WCF enabled the treatment group learners to produce text with fewer errors than the control group participants. The study also reported no relationship between the learners’ beliefs and the efficacy of WCF, meaning that the preference of learners for a particular type of feedback did not influence the efficacy of WCF.

Conclusion: Based on the results of the case study, important pedagogical implications for ESL/EFL instructors are provided

Moroccan EFL Public University Instructors’ Perceptions and Self-Reported Practices of Written Feedback

2023-04-04T01:01:38+03:00

Background. Since the 1990s, teachers’ written corrective feedback (WCF) has been recognized as vital in addressing linguistic issues or product aspects of writing. However, it is necessary to go beyond error correction and focus on written feedback (WF) that concerns other areas of process writing. Still, teachers’ thinking on these issues is often an under-explored area.

Purpose. This study aimed to explore EFL instructors’ perceptions and their self-reported practices of product- and process-based WF in the writing context of tertiary education.

Methods. The exploratory quantitative study collected data from 51 Moroccan EFL writing instructors through a self-developed questionnaire. The questionnaire items regarding perceptions and self-reported practices were valid and acceptable for factor analysis of nine subscales covering the features of product- and process-based WF, and all of them proved to be reliable. This structure allowed several comparisons during data analysis.

Results. Concerning product-oriented WF, participants perceived applying WCF and WF modes on the written text as important techniques. As part of process-based WF, most of them highly valued effective WF modes in the writing process. Regarding their self-reported practices of product-based WF, instructors stated that they often employed WF modes on the written text. Within the process-based WF, they reported using judgemental feedback and effective WF modes as their most frequent practices. The comparisons between perceptions and self-reported practices showed mismatches in four subscales, including WCF, content-based WF related to macroaspects of writing, developing evaluative judgement, and effective WF modes in the writing process. Thus, instructors admitted the importance of WF in these areas although they acknowledged applying their practices less frequently.

Conclusions. This study verified the psychometric properties of a self-constructed questionnaire, which was justified to be appropriate to explore teachers’ perceptions and self-reported practices regarding WF. The results obtained from the different subscales support the effectiveness of WCF and allow the exploration of a new conceptualisation of WF as a process.

A Research Synthesis of Unfocused Feedback Studies in the L2 Writing Classroom: Implications for Future Research

2023-05-04T14:07:04+03:00

Introduction. The issue of whether or not teachers should correct second language learners’ grammatical errors has been hotly contested in the literature. Researchers who studied corrective feedback were particularly interested in determining what kinds of feedback may help students commit fewer errors in subsequent writing. One of the primary points of contention in this discussion is whether language teachers should provide focused (i.e., only one or a few types of grammar errors are targeted for correction) or unfocused written corrective feedback (i.e., all or most error types are corrected). Although focused feedback has been found to be more effective than unfocused feedback (Kao & Wible, 2014), focused feedback has been questioned to ecologically invalid in authentic classrooms (Xu, 2009). Because little attention has been paid to unfocused feedback effects, the present study looked into not only the short-term but also the long-term learning effects of unfocused feedback.
Methods. The present study adopted the meta-analysis software Comprehensive Meta-analysis (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2005) to calculate an effect size across previous studies. Several keywords were used to search for relevant studies in online databases and selection criteria were set to determine whether these studies were appropriate to be synthesized. 34 studies which met the criteria were included for analyses.
Results and Discussion. This meta-analysis revealed that unfocused grammatical feedback was effective, as assessed by immediate posttests, and that the benefits of unfocused feedback increased over time, as revealed by delayed posttests, potentially contradicting Truscott's (1996; 2007) conclusions on grammar correction. This finding needs to be carefully interpreted because only 12 out of 34 studies provided statistical data in delayed posttests. Furthermore, publication bias seemed to be minimal, and both immediate and delayed posttest effect sizes were heterogeneous.
Conclusion. It is strongly suggested that more future studies should investigate the long-term learning effects of unfocused feedback. In addition, because the effect sizes obtained for unfocused feedback practices were heterogeneous, other moderating variables need to be considered such as instructional settings (Mackey & Goo, 2007; Truscott, 2004a), type of feedback (Lee, 2013), focus of feedback (Ellis, 2009), learners’ revisions (Ferris, 2010), intervention length (Li, 2010; Lyster & Saito, 2010) and so on. It is essential to conduct more meta-analyses to look into the potential effects of such moderating variables.

The Relationship between EFL Learners’ Flipped Learning Readiness and their Learning Engagement, Critical thinking, and Autonomy: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

2022-12-25T13:46:10+03:00

Purpose. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ flipped learning readiness and their learning engagement, critical thinking, and autonomy.

Methods. The participants comprised 520 EFL learners studying at various language institutes in the context of Iran. They were chosen according to convenience sampling. In this study, four instruments were used: flipped learning readiness questionnaire, learner autonomy scale, critical thinking inventory, and learning engagement questionnaire. To analyze the relationships among the variables, Pearson's correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling (SEM) was run.

Results. The results revealed that flipped learning readiness correlated positively and significantly with three variables: learning engagement, critical thinking, and autonomy. In addition, based on the results, flipped learning is a positive significant predictor of critical thinking, learning engagement, and autonomy. Moreover, engagement is positively predicted by both critical thinking and autonomy. Finally, the results and their implications in the context of language learning were discussed.

Comparing Two Measures of L2 Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge Using their Relationship with Vocabulary Size

2023-01-22T15:14:46+03:00

Background. This study compared two tests of second language (L2) depth of vocabulary knowledge, namely the word association test (WAT) and vocabulary knowledge scale (VKS), with respect to their associations with vocabulary size. The same relationships were further examined separately for the five word-frequency bands of the vocabulary size test.

Method. 115 Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners who were native speakers of Persian took the WAT, VKS, and Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT). The selected participants were undergraduates who ranged from freshmen to junior and were both male (n=47) and female (n=68) students.

Results. The outcomes of multiple linear regression analyses indicated that: (a) while both measures of vocabulary depth were predictive of the VLT, the WAT had a higher association with the dependent variable; (b) both the WAT and VKS were predictive of the high-frequency vocabulary, with the relationships being more significant for the WAT; (c) the WAT could significantly predict the mid-frequency vocabulary, whereas the VKS had no significant contribution; and (d) while the VKS was significantly associated with the low-frequency vocabulary, the WAT had no significant contribution to the prediction of this level.

Implications. The implications of the findings are interpreted with reference to the suitability of both the WAT and VKS depending on the type of input, expected response, and desired frequency of the target words.

Flipped Classroom Model For EFL/ESL Instruction in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review

2022-12-25T13:27:56+03:00

Background. Researchers and teaching practitioners are working on formulating instructional approaches that suit the students’ interests by incorporating the latest technology. The flipped classroom model emerges as an alternative to extend the classroom interaction, create a different atmosphere, and accommodate a meaningful and collaborative interaction in the class.

Purpose. This paper aims to present a systematic review of past studies focusing on the implementation of the flipped classroom for EFL/ESL instruction in higher education.

Methods. A total of 29 articles were selected using specific criteria comprising year and types of publication, contexts, and the determined quality standard. The collected articles were then analyzed to reveal the research components including the research designs, participants, and instructional tools.

Results. This study presents a discussion of the practical instructional benefits of the flipped classroom model and the possible barriers.

Implications. Furthermore, from this discussion, this study formulated pedagogical and research implications for possible directions in future studies.

Changes of Meta-Representational Skills in Ageing: First Empirical Evidence on the Relation between Metalinguistic Competence and Attributions of Mental States

2023-01-22T15:09:35+03:00

Background. The present paper focuses on meta-representational changes occurring in ageing by studying the decline in Definitional Competence, an ability so far little studied in this period of life.

Purpose. The paper hypothesises a relation between Theory of Mind (ToM) and Definitional Competence, in a view that posits the former as a preparatory and facilitating competence for a more complex linguistic production, that is lexicographic definition. The effects of levels of education on the decline in ageing for Definitional Competence and ToM are also investigated.

Methods. We recruited 24 adults (age range 21–55), 25 young-old adults (age range 60–70) and 25 old-old adults (age range 71–85) and administered them the Eyes task to measure ToM and the Co.De. Scale to assess Definitional Competence.

Results. Results suggest that Definitional Competence declines earlier on than ToM, mirroring the well-known process according to which in semantic knowledge, during ageing, taxonomic relations are lost before thematic ones. Our results also show that better levels of education are associated with better performance in both our key constructs and that ToM predicts Definitional Competence, in line with our expectations.

Conclusion. The paper offers one of the first systematic studies on the changes in Definitional Competence during the last phase of life and it provides theoretical insights into the relation between ToM and Definitional Competence in ageing. The paper is informative for future interventions aimed at enhancing linguistic and metalinguistic skills in ageing through the preservation of better levels of awareness and the assumption of a decentralised perspective in interpersonal communication.

Citations and References: Guidelines on Literature Practices

2022-12-24T21:21:48+03:00

Introduction. Citations of scholarly publications are considered an efficient measure of productivity of research and researchers. They are part of scholarly communication, driving the evolving knowledge in all disciplines. Citations form an integral part of literature practices of researchers. The latter are prone to deliberate or unconscious biases. One of the challenges all researchers face is to overcome or at least mitigate identified biases in citation. It may lead to distorting knowledge development in the least possible way.

Purpose. As the research of citations is on the rise, more theoretical background is being developed. The editors call the JLE readers attention to the Triangular Citations, with various relationships among publications formed by citations.

Results. Empirical studies are not unanimous in defining the features that affect citations most. Most researchers highlight a publication source as the most influential feature, with multi feature approach favoured by the academic community at large. Other features entail features relating to authors, journal, and publication itself. Moreover, there are varieties across the disciplines. The field of research of citation behaviour is only beginning to widen. The focus of such research is made on citation behaviour patterns, individual incentives behind the references and citations aligned with financial or reputation stimuli, and citations patterns linked to citation behaviour. Bias in citation threatens to distort knowledge and may evolve it subtly or obviously in a specific direction. Biases are not easy to deal with. In addition, values and mindsets vary across the countries and academic and scholarly communities that hinders efforts to overcome biases.

Сonclusion. The JLE editors sum up the best guidelines on improvements in publications that add to greater citations, with the high quality of articles as the key.

Developing and Piloting a Q-sample on Chinese Language Learners’ Epistemic Beliefs

2022-12-25T13:34:03+03:00

Background. Epistemic beliefs refer to a person’s viewpoints about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowing. A number of studies have explored language learners’ subjective views about what knowing and learning a foreign or a second language (L2) means to them personally. For the most part, these studies adopted quantitative research designs and employed self-reported questionnaires with Likert-type scales to collect the data.

Purpose. This pilot study aimed to assess feasibility of adopting Q-methodology (Q) for explorations of language-related epistemic beliefs held by Chinese university students. A detailed account is given of the development of the research instrument (Q-sample); the findings from the Q-sample piloting are reported.

Methods. The newly-developed Q-sample consisting of 45 statements was tested among six students learning the English language in a university in Mainland China. The students were at a different level of the English language proficiency. The 11-point Q-sorting grid had the values ranging from -5 (“Most disagree”) to +5 (“Most agree”). To gain deeper insights into the students’ personal epistemologies, a semi-structured post Q-sorting interview was conducted with each student.

Results. The newly-developed Q-sample was found suitable for exploring language-related epistemic beliefs. Two groups of students sharing similar beliefs were distinguished. Students who clustered together to form Factor 1 held stronger viewpoints concerning certainty of knowledge; these students were at a lower English language proficiency level. The students who conglomerated on Factor 2 were at a higher level of language proficiency and they held stronger opinions relating to the authority and source of knowledge.

Implications. The findings highlighted the relevance and salience of the epistemic beliefs pertaining to the process of acquiring knowledge. Further research with larger numbers of students is required to explore the role of language proficiency in shaping language learners’ personal epistemologies.

Cognitive Predictors of Coherence in Adult ESL Learners’ Writing

2022-12-25T13:38:05+03:00

Background. Coherence is considered one of the most important qualities of written discourse. Despite its fundamental importance, it is still considered a fuzzy and abstract concept in most English Second Language (ESL) contexts. Consequently, many ESL learners struggle to produce a coherent text. Morphological, phonological, orthographic awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and grammatical competence have been identified as predictors of writing quality in novice writers. There is, however, a lack of data to assess whether such linguistic skills also predict coherence in adult ESL learners’ writing.

Purpose. The purpose of the study was to find out the relationships among a set of linguistic skills measures which included morphological, phonological, orthographic awareness, vocabulary knowledge and grammatical competence and coherence in adult ESL learners’ writing.

Methods. To testify to the potential predictors of coherence in ESL writing, adult university students (126) were assessed by the measures of the linguistic skills mentioned above in addition to four measures of coherence: two relatively reader-based measures (ILETS and the Holistic Coherence Scale) and two relatively text-based measures (Topical Structure Analysis and Topic Based Analysis). All measures of the study were proved valid and reliable.

Results. The findings revealed that vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, and grammatical competence were related to the coherence measures, particularly the reader-based measures. In contrast, measures of phonological and orthographic awareness generally did not correlate with the coherence measures.

Implication. Reasons for the associations among the variables of the study were discussed and areas for future research were offered.

The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes: A Book review

2022-12-25T13:59:52+03:00

Teachers’ Perceptions of Promoting Student-Centred Learning Environment: An Exploratory Study of Teachers’ Behaviours in the Saudi EFL Context

2023-01-22T15:03:30+03:00

Background. Although the constructivist and humanistic theories advocate for a more student-centred learning approach, the contemporary practice of English teachers is more oriented towards the behavioural approach in the Saudi EFL context.

Purpose. This study aimed to explore teachers’ perceptions of promoting student-centred learning in the Saudi EFL context. It initially amplifies elements of effective student-centred EFL teaching and merges the elements with teachers’ behaviours, resulting in four measurable categories: assessment strategy, communicative approach to learning, teachers’ qualifications, and group activities in teaching EFL.

Methods. Following the quantitative approach, a questionnaire on teachers’ observable behaviours, comprising 47 items and categorised under four constructs, with a three-point Likert scale, was carried out on a group of 302 English teachers. The instrument was devised through an online survey. To analyse data, descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was used. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to validate the study’s instrument.

Results. The interpretation of data primarily showed teachers’ self-reported practices were more oriented toward a teacher-centred approach, specifically in teaching grammar. Other findings showed teachers’ positive attitude towards student-centred learning in lesson preparation, using ICT to prepare interactive teaching materials and giving constructive feedback. Teachers had a mediocre attitude towards their professional qualifications, indicating that the teachers might need more effective English language training workshops based on their needs. Additional data also proved that there was no significant difference in teachers’ perception in terms of their gender, location and status of the school, and classroom size.

Implications. This study provides an overview of the teachers’ position on integrating student-centred learning in their English classroom and thus accentuates the need for potential opportunities for the teachers’ professional development and demands less content overload so that the teachers can ample their teaching process appropriately.

Digital Support for Teaching Punctuation in Academic Writing in English

2022-12-25T13:57:05+03:00

Background. Academic writing skills are crucial to the enterprise of higher education, because much of the academic communication is in writing. As a rule, foreign language learners face different problems with vocabulary misuse, grammatical errors, spelling, capitalization, punctuation and some others when write academic texts in English. There are various technologies for solving these problems. One of them is digital support, because traditional types of academic writing instruction in the classroom are not always sufficient.

Purpose. The present study researches the influence of digital support on students’ knowledge and punctuation skills in academic writing in English.

Methods. The paper summarizes the results of an empirical study: training punctuation in academic writing lessons for two groups of students. The control group was applied a face-to-face and a text-book based traditional methodology. The experimental group was trained not only with a basic text-book but also with digital support. The level of knowledge and abilities in punctuation were measured with three final tests.

Results. The results obtained indicate that digital support has significant didactic potential that is why it should be applied permanently in academic writing training process.

Modelling the Linguistic Worldview: Subject Field Scoping Review

2023-06-01T23:23:27+03:00

Background. The linguistic worldview theory stems from Humboldt’s ideas concerning the interdependence of language and its speakers. Since Humboldt’s time national linguistic worldviews remain a challenging aspect of linguistic research accounting for a significant number of publications. Since linguistic worldview is a multi-faceted phenomenon, studies differ in terms of the facets they investigate and applied methodology. The linguistic worldview research has covered a wide array of linguistic worldview fragments and utilised monolingual material as well as cross-linguistic analysis of worldview fragments. However, so far, little attention has been paid to the analysis of this ever-increasing body of research and quite few studies have attempted to review the literature in this field.

Purpose. The subject field scoping review aims to overview the available literature on national linguistic worldviews and answers the three questions: What is a diachronic change of researchers’ interest in the issue? What fragments of linguistic worldview have been investigated comprehensively? What are the most frequently used methods of modelling the linguistic worldview?

Methods. The literature for the scoping review was retrieved from the three electronic databases: SciVerse Scopus, Web of Science (Core Collection), and Google Scholar. Literature selection was performed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). To generate a list of current research directions, which rest on the analysis of fragments of linguistic worldview, the visualisation map of authors’ key words was created using the VOSviewer software.

Results and Implications. The concise scoping review of the previously published literature on linguistic worldview shows that most publications date between 2015 and 2021 and the years yielding most publications are 2018 and 2019. The number of publications mentioning linguistic worldview grew each year within the study period. The analysis of linguistic worldview fragments helped to identify six directions of researchers’ interest in the linguistic worldview field which include lexical fragments, linguistic worldview and consciousness, phraseological fragments, reflection of linguistic worldview in different discourses, linguistic worldview in translation and teaching, and grammar fragments. The most frequently used methods of modelling the linguistic worldview are an associative psycholinguistic experiment, a conceptual analysis, and a comparative method.

The Interaction of Variables Affecting Definitional Skills: Extending Previous Research on Word Definitions

2023-01-22T15:16:51+03:00

Background and Purpose. Given that definitional skills are closely related to literacy and reading comprehension, the purpose of this study was to extend the existing literature in definitional skills by empirically investigating the effect of new parameters that may affect word definitions and definitional types of content and form, such as grammatical categories, word structure, and semantic characteristics.

Methods. The sample consisted of 5152 recorded oral definitions produced by 322 individuals (pre-schoolers, school-age children, university students, and adults), who were asked to define 16 words orally. Deﬁnitions were transcribed and scored on a six-point scale along a continuum that reflects the developmental path of the definitions.

Results. The results indicated a significant interaction between grammatical category and word structure for content and form and also between word structure and semantic characteristics only for content. Furthermore, the grammatical category, word structure, and semantic characteristics were strongly associated with specific definitional types for content and form.

Implications. This paper broadens our knowledge on definitional skills and offers new insights into the variables that affect the production of definitions.

Rhetorical Structure of Applied Linguistics Research Article Discussions: A Comparative Cross-Cultural Analysis

2023-01-22T14:59:44+03:00

Background. Recent years have seen tremendous research efforts in the development of English for academic and research publication purposes, utilising an established approach to comparative genre analysis. This growing interest is primarily driven by the global dominance of Anglophone writing conventions, which necessitates raising awareness among researchers, particularly in non-Anglophone contexts.

Purpose. This study explored and analysed the communicative intents of the discussion sections in research articles in two different contexts to investigate the effect of nativeness on the structural organisation in this genre. The focus of the study was on the rhetorical structure and employment of Moves in the applied linguistics research article Discussions, written in English by Iranian and native English-speaking researchers.

Methods. A mixed-methods research study was conducted on two corpora, comprising 40 Discussions written by Iranian scholars and 40 Discussions written by native English-speaking scholars, selected from research articles published in international peer-reviewed journals.

Results. The comparison of the two corpora revealed similarities and differences in the frequency, type, structure, sequence, and cyclicity of Moves. While there were significant differences in the frequency and sequence of Moves and Steps, both corpora employed the same types. They featured cyclical structures with no evidence of linear patterns across the Discussions. Both groups of researchers found it essential to provide background information and report and comment on the results in the research article Discussions, however, with notable differences in commenting strategies, i.e., Steps. The results indicated that socio-cultural conventions might have influenced the scholars' under- and over-employment of certain Moves and Steps in the research article Discussions.

Implications. The findings of this study provide research-based evidence to practically and pedagogically assist in the context of English for academic and specific purposes, particularly in teaching English for research publication purposes to non-native English-speaking scholars.

The Relationship between Native and Foreign Language Speaking Proficiency in University Students

2022-10-07T22:01:33+03:00

Background. There are many factors that affect the development of speaking in a foreign language. Drawing on the theories that state that competencies established in a native language will transfer across foreign languages, this study examines whether there is a relationship between native and foreign language speaking proficiency.

Purpose. Although literature research indicates that native and foreign language acquisition processes are interrelated, there is a lack of studies comparing proficiency levels of native and foreign language speaking skills in adult learners. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between speaking competences in English as a Foreign Language and Czech as a Native Language in university students.

Methods. A between-group design was used to compare two groups of fifty university students at two different levels of their speaking proficiency in English. Both groups were tested in speaking in Czech. Each test was assessed by an analytical rating scale examining four speaking sub-skills: accuracy, discourse, content and paralinguistics. The scores were analyzed using the F-Test for Equality of Variances and T-Test for the Differences between the Means.

Results. The results showed that the group with the lower level of speaking proficiency in English achieved significantly worse scores for their speaking sub-skills in Czech than the group with the higher level of speaking proficiency in English.

Implications. The study offers another piece of empirical evidence in support of the theories that state that competencies established in a native language will transfer across foreign languages and suggests the importance of the development of native language competence with regard to later proficiency in a foreign language.

The Use and Development of Lexical Bundles in Arab EFL Writing: A Corpus-driven Study

2022-10-07T22:01:37+03:00

Background. Lexical Bundles (LBs) have become the focus of many recent corpus linguistics studies. Research has found variable use of LBs in terms of quality and quantity pertaining to different linguistic groups or registers. Still, there is a paucity of research investigating Arab EFL writers’ use and development of such a feature.

Purpose. This study investigates the 4-word LBs use and development by Arab EFL learners and expert writers in a corpus of 250000 words regarding their frequency, functions, and structure.

Methods. Two corpora were compiled for Arab learners and scholars. The LB use of both groups was compared to investigate the development of LB use. Further, the Arab corpus was analysed against a native reference corpus extracted from the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus to compare LB use across the two corpora.

Results and Implications. The results imply that there is no noticeable effect of postgraduate education or professional practice on using LBs. The other results, however, are in-line with the previous literature in that native speakers’ use of LBs varies in quantity and quality from non-natives’. The findings reveal that stance LBs are more frequent in the native corpus and that they tend to use more VP-based clausal LBs than their non-native counterparts. These findings offer empirical evidence that EFL writing quality is lower despite the current academic writing instruction they receive. They, therefore, indicate the need to foster academic writing instruction programs to include training on using LBs in learners’ writing at both Bachelor and postgraduate levels. Also, the results are expected to raise teachers’ awareness of how EFL learners use LBs to develop their writing quality and thus to adapt their teaching strategies accordingly. Moreover, Arab scholars are called to reconsider their use of effective writing techniques including LBs for more effective writing.

Review of Research on the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in ELT-related Academic Writing Classrooms

2022-10-07T22:01:16+03:00

Background. The emergence of information and communication technology and the resulting technological devices have influenced the nature and process of composition and the level of students' engagement and participation in writing activities.

Purpose. The present study reviews 50 studies published in peer-reviewed applied linguistics journals from 2000 to 2020 which have investigated the use and implications of technology for teaching and assessing writing in academic contexts.

Methods. The PRIZMA model was applied for records screening and selection and systematic qualitative content analysis was used to explore the content of these studies and identify the most relevant themes. The most relevant sections of these studies (especially, designs and findings) were selected for further analysis and synthesis.

Results. Results of this systematic thematic review are mainly categorized and discussed based on three main themes: (1) Technology Use in Teaching and Learning Academic Writing, (2) Some Technological Tools for Teaching and Assessing Academic Writing, and (3) Practical Implications of Using Technology in Academic Writing Classrooms. Results of this systematic review indicated that growth in the use of technological resources such as computers, applications, and web-based learning environments in teaching and assessing ELT-related writing in academic contexts can enhance the quality of instruction provided.

Implications. Despite some practical limitations for applying these technologies in writing courses, most of the reviewed studies pointed to the fact that technology-mediated writing instruction and assessment can enhance the students' knowledge and use of new digital literacies and, in turn, can lead to improvements in their composing processes and writing competence while working on various genres.

Academic Vocabulary in Applied Linguistics Research Articles: A Corpus-based Study

2022-10-07T22:01:13+03:00

Background. Generally operationalized as the words used more frequently in academic discourse for describing abstract ideas and processes, academic vocabulary poses a major learning burden for native and non-native speakers of English. Recent developments in corpus-based technologies and tools have made it possible to analyze large bodies of texts for profiling vocabulary items, and a growing number of studies investigated such vocabulary in research articles published in different disciplines.

Purpose. Despite significant progress in academic word list development, research focusing on the contribution of the newly developed word lists in academic texts remained largely limited. Accordingly, the majority of studies used outdated lists for general and academic vocabulary as the starting points in their studies.

Methods. The current study investigated a large corpus of applied linguistics research articles (2000 RAs, 15.5 million words, 20 journals) to identify frequently used academic words based on New Academic Word List (NAWL). In analyzing the data, predefined criteria were used and the study used flemma for counting and defining words.

Results. The findings indicated that 310 out of 960 academic words in NAWL were used frequently in the corpus and provided 4.19% coverage. This coverage differs considerably with the previous studies that investigated similar corpora using the Academic Word List (AWL) and reported around and more than 10% coverage for academic vocabulary. Since the base lists used for profiling the corpus in this study were different from those employed by the previous studies, such differences mainly arise as a result of improvements in operationalizing general service and academic vocabulary.

Implications. In light of these findings and recent calls for more replication research in vocabulary studies, the study draws some implications for researching and teaching academic vocabulary. Additionally, in order to facilitate academic vocabulary learning in applied linguistics, the study presents a list of frequently used NAWL items divided into six bands based on their frequency in the corpus.

Does Journal Indexation Matter? A Genre-Approach Move Analysis of Nursing English Research Article Abstracts

2022-10-07T22:01:11+03:00

Background. A plethora of previous studies have discussed the importance of a genre-approach move analysis because the analysis results can provide a picture of the typical conventions of research article writing across disciplines.

Purpose. Nursing as a professional discipline, however, has received scant attention, particularly in the abstract section in the journals with different indexation. To fill such an empirical void, this qualitative study probes the notion of whether journal indexation matters in manifesting the rhetorical moves in the nursing abstracts.

Methods. Fifty abstracts from a Scopus-indexed Q1 journal and another 50 from three Sinta-indexed journals in Indonesia were analyzed manually. This study employed a descriptive comparative approach to analyze and present the data.

Findings. The findings demonstrated conformity manifestations of method and results moves along with their linguistic realizations by using simple past tense in active or passive forms. The article abstracts from the Scopus-indexed nursing journal emphasized the novelty of the research more than their counterparts from the identification of gap of previous research and highlighting the significance of the study.

Implications. This study suggests writers consider the contributing role of journal indexation type in projecting a higher standard of abstract writing in preparing their abstracts to increase the acceptance rate during an initial screening stage.

The Construction of Knowledge Claims in Three Disciplines: An Exploration of Hedging and Boosting Strategies in Research Articles Written in English by Arab and Anglophone Writers

2023-09-25T20:44:09+03:00

Background. Academic writers utilize a variety of rhetorical methods to construct their knowledge claims through hedges and boosters. These two strategies may also be affected by disciplinary, cultural, or generic contexts.

Purpose. This mixed-methods contrastive research study explored how disciplinary and cultural contexts may affect the way Arab and Anglophone writers construct and modulate knowledge claims through hedges and boosters in the results and discussion sections of 90 English research articles in three disciplines: Journalism, Law, and Political Science.

Methods. Instances of hedges and boosters and their pragmatic functions in context were identified, employing Liu and Tseng’s (2021) framework. This framework provides a detailed functional interpretation of the use and variation of these devices along four continuums: authorial voice, reasoning, consensus-building, and information evaluation.

Results. The results showed interesting contrasts and similarities between both groups regarding the approaches they used to define their levels of commitment and detachment in their knowledge claims. The quantitative findings revealed significant differences in hedges but non-significant differences in boosters used by both groups. The qualitative analysis revealed that hedging and boosting functions in Arab and Anglophone writers’ RAs differed along the four continuums. Anglophone writers often used hedges in their writing to show humility, negotiate knowledge claims, and accommodate vagueness. These acts enabled them to sketch the realities emerging from their research. By contrast, the English-speaking Arab writers used fewer hedging strategies and demonstrated assertiveness, and assumed shared knowledge to enhance the realities constructed in their knowledge claims.

Implications. These findings can benefit ESP/EAP teachers, especially those teaching writing for publication purposes to raise postgraduate students’ awareness of epistemic modality markers. A custom-made ESP/EAP course tailored to the needs of learners based on Liu and Tseng’s (2021) hedging-boosting framework can be devised to develop communicative and academic strategies in English.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the Deanship of scientific research at King Saud University for funding and supporting this research through the initiative of DSR Graduate Students Research Support (GSR).

An In-Depth Glimpse into Research on Academic Writing

2022-10-07T22:01:04+03:00

Background. Though research on academic writing has been in focus for many years, it has been changing recently to embraces new linguistic and pedagogical aspects. The “Publish and perish” concept went global some time ago and became the measure of academic excellence and performance for universities and faculty. Subsequently, the field has widened to include issues of writing for publication, research article structured formats, rhetoric of the scholarly text, genre-specific issues.

Purpose. The editorial review aims to identify and offer the emerging landscapes in academic writing as guidelines for JLE aspiring and recurrent authors.

Methods. The review covers the 167 top cited publications (articles and reviews) selected from the Scopus on the basis of the inclusion criteria (published articles and reviews in the period between 2012 and 2021 in English with more than 14 citations in Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities).

Results. The initial search for publications on the “academic writing” keyword brought 1,792 as of May 21, 2022. After the inclusion criteria were applied, the list boiled down to 1,002 publications. Based on the prevailing keywords in these articles and reviews, 14 thematic clusters were formed, later increased to 15 to comply with the papers on the selected list. Then the 167 publications were distributed among the clusters, based on the keywords, and focus of the research. An in-depth analysis highlighted the popular aspects and issues within the clusters. Thus, the major directions of research were determined. The review findings contribute to better understanding of the field of AW and encourage researchers to further explore the emerging gaps and challenges in AW. 25 keywords were outlined as the most frequent in the field of academic writing. The major directions of research entail teaching and learning AW in higher education; digital issues of AW; lexical bundles and vocabulary; identity, complexity, stance, and voice; country-related research; genre issues in AW; feedback and assessment in AW; writing for publication; plagiarism and integrity; academic literacies; discourse and metadiscourse; discipline-related issues; citation issues in AW; writing a thesis; and rhetorical aspects in AW.

Implications. Following the findings of the JLE editors’ review, our readers may get focused on popular and pertinent directions in their future research.

Relationships Between Language-Related Variations in Text Tasks, Reading Comprehension, and Students’ Motivation and Emotions: A Systematic Review

2022-10-07T22:01:07+03:00

Background. There is consensus in research that students' motivation and emotions are important for learning and achievement processes in the educational context, as are language competencies that, related to the demands of academic language, enable participation in education. However, the interrelationships between these aspects have hardly been empirically investigated in depth.

Purpose and Methods. This systematic review addresses this research need, and aims to synthesise the existing evidence on the interrelationship between motivational/emotional and language-related variables. First, the relationship between learners’ motivation and emotions, and their language competencies is considered. Second, findings on how motivation and emotion depend on language-related factors are compiled.

Results. A systematic data search conducted for this purpose yields seven studies. Five studies relate to the first concern, and confirm the effects of motivational and emotional variables on reading comprehension. Emotions, in particular, emerge as strong predictors. Two studies relate to the second concern, and report significant effects of language-related variations in text tasks on students’ motivation; however, neither study considers emotions.

Implications. The findings are used to derive implications for language design in the educational context and identify important research gaps.

Foreign Language Enjoyment and Subjective Happiness in Spanish Adult Learners

2022-10-07T22:01:09+03:00

Background. Research interest in FLE and its associated factors has increased in recent years, especially regarding learner-internal factors. Happiness could potentially be one of the predictors of FLE.

Purpose. This study aimed to investigate the link between foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and a measure of subjective happiness (SH).

Methods. A total of 594 adult foreign language learners aged 16 to 72 participated in the study. Ten items extracted from the FLE scale and the SH scale translated and validated into Spanish were used to gather the data.

Results. With a significant 3.6% shared variance between FLE and SH, the study found that participants with higher scores on FLE have higher scores on SH. However, the percentage of shared variance found is considerably higher for different subgroups (e.g., 6.7% for the older adolescent group and 10% for mature and senior adults). The results suggest that the relationship between personality variables and FLE may differ depending on learner-internal factors such as age, gender, competence level and foreign language.

Implications. The study opens a new line of research into the interaction between FLE and happiness, and factors affecting it with a sample that, due to the wide range of participant ages and the number of participants beyond their twenties, is more representative of the adult foreign language learner population than is usually the case in studies of FLE.

Exploring the Impact of Process-genre Approach on Learners’ Academic Writing and Higher Order Thinking Skills

2022-10-07T22:01:21+03:00

Background. The study of using process-genre approach that was used to increase the writing competence had been conducted by many researchers. However, the contirbution of this learning approach for HOTs aspects has not been done by many researchers, especially on learning writing Indonesian

Purpose. Many studies only focused on one research approach, consequently, the finding was not quite comprehensive. Besides, to examine the effect of process-genre approach on academic writing competence and HOTs, this research also aimed to explore attitude and students’ expectation on their learning experience by using this approach.

Method. The research used a sequential, mixed-method explanatory approach. Two grades were randomly chosen to enroll in the experimental class and a monitoring class of up to 52 students. The individual is a member of the Indonesian language education department who is currently taking the writing 1 course at the Bengkulu University, Indonesia. There are two instruments used in this analysis, the writing test & HOTs test for Quantitative statistics and semi-structured qualitative data interviews. The data from the writing test and the HOTs were quantitatively analysed for the paired sample t-test, the stand-alone sample t-test and the MANOVA, while the interview data were analysed using thematic analysis techniques.

Results and Implications. The results have found that process-genre approach had a substantial positive effect on scholarly writing and student HOTs. Besides, thematic research also reveals that there are favorable views and expectations of students regarding the influence of the process-genre approach towards academic writing and student HOTs. This finding is iexpected to enrich knowledge about how students could enhance their writing ability and HOTs by using process-genre approach.

Determinants of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) towards ICT Use for English Language Learning

2022-10-07T22:01:23+03:00

Background. The use of ICT in learning English can assist learners to improve their language skills, aside from empowering and motivating them in English language learning. ICT utilization can provide opportunities for collaboration and interaction in the learning process.

Purpose. The present study was conducted to examine the motivation, ICT skills, equipment, and attitudes factors towards the use of ICT tools for English learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context.

Methods. The quantitative method was applied involving 303 pre-service teachers of English department at a state university in Jambi, Indonesia. A questionnaire was employed to collect the data and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the proposed hypotheses developed in fulfilling the study objectives. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to examine the attitudes of student teachers toward the use of ICT for English language learning.

Results. Findings suggested that the determinants of the technology acceptance model are the major factors influencing the usage of ICT. In addition, the effect of equipment, motivation, and ICT skills towards the use of ICT had been mediated by three main variables of TAM, namely perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and attitudes. Furthermore, it was found that the motivation, ICT skills and attitudes factors affect the actual use of ICT for English learning while the equipment factor does not.

Implications. The results of this study are beneficial for students and teachers both in schools and universities. For students, they need to equip themselves with ICT literacy, ICT skills, motivation, and positive attitudes towards the use of ICT in English learning activities. Teachers should also equip themselves with ICT skills so that they can provide learning experiences according to the needs of students in today's digital age.

Semantic Prosody of Research Verbs: A Corpus-Informed Study

2022-10-07T22:01:19+03:00

Background. Synonymous words behave differently, and language users should be aware of the fact that though near-synonyms share similar denotational meanings, they require different collocates. Further, with specific collocates, they provoke a special affective meaning called semantic prosody. To give an example of this problematic area, researchers use a lot of reporting verbs that merely describe an opinion such as argue, claim, believe, etc. or state facts such as find, confirm, cite, etc. Such verbs cannot be used interchangeably as some novice researchers usually do when they discuss their findings or compare their results with others'.

Purpose. This study aimed at examining the semantic prosody of 24 research verbs commonly used by researchers. For this purpose, collocational behavior of nearly synonymous verbs was examined. Compared to previous studies, this study considered only adverbs co-occurring with such research verbs.

Methods. The researcher used the Directory Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which is of 2.6 billion words and 659,132 texts, and focused on predicational adverbs that end in –ly. For the purpose of the study, adverbs with positive semantic prosody are those proving a stronger attitude towards the proposition, improving the quality, quantity, manner of a piece of information or its the relation to the topic or those suggesting a higher level of certainty.

Results. Investigating 24 research verbs related to hypothesizing, reporting, and summarizing, the researcher found that such verbs have different sets of collocates and thus distinct semantic prosodies. Results showed that 12 of the research verbs were positive (i.e., quantify, argue, claim, suggest, state, mention, indicate, outline, summarize, encapsulate, recapitulate, and reveal), whereas 12 verbs (i.e., hypothesize, review, conclude, presume, posit, assume, theorize, speculate, note, report, find, and postulate) were neutral.

Implications. The study has its own implications for writing instructors and researchers. Novice researchers should not use some research verbs interchangeably as they require different collocates of adverbs. Further, future research should address the relationship between word's etymology and semantic prosody as the present study showed that verbs derived from Latin (e.g., conclude, hypothesize, postulate, etc.) are neutral compared to those that are originally French.

Nominal Stance in Cross-disciplinary Academic Writing of L1 and L2 Speakers in Noun + that Constructions

2022-10-07T22:01:30+03:00

Background. Literature indicates that in academic writing, authors are expected to demonstrate a noticeable stance so that they can make their meaning clear. Therefore, differences between native and non-native writers along with cross-disciplinary academic writing assume great significance.

Purpose. The interactional, dialogic, and reflective nature of academic writing requires writers to utilize stance-establishing tools in their writing, the most prominent ones being stance nouns. In addition, the that-clause construction plays a vital role in conveying the author’s stance. Studies that compare L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers regarding academic writing are rather scarce. As such, the present paper aims to analyze L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers in eight disciplines from natural and social sciences in terms of the use of stance nouns in that-clause constructions.

Methods. The study employs Jiang and Hyland's (2016) functional classification model in exploring the nominal stance in cross-disciplinary writing of L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers. To this end, journals with high impact in eight disciplines from social and natural sciences were scanned and a total of 320 articles were included in the corpus. The social sciences included in the present study cover applied linguistics, history, psychology, and sociology while the natural sciences cover medicine, engineering, astronomy, and biology. In total, a corpus of 2.232.164 words was formed.

Results and Implications. The study found significant differences not only in terms of natural and social sciences but also in terms of L1/L2 distinction. In addition, a secondary purpose of the study was to see whether writers in social and natural sciences differed in terms of empiricist and interpretive rationality. The results indicated that writers in social sciences tended to use more status and cognition nouns, indicating that they tend to be more interpretive. With significant differences between Turkish and English writers from a cross-disciplinary perspective, the present study offers important insights into how writers weave their stance in academic writing. Moreover, the present study also confirmed that writers in social sciences, whether L1 or L2, tend to use more stance nouns compared with writers in natural sciences.

The Impact of the Continuum of an Education Programme on Pre-service Teachers’ Beliefs about English Language Education

2022-06-28T19:36:37+03:00

Research background: Teachers’ beliefs play an important role in the way they teach and meet their students’ needs. Researching pre-established pre-service teachers’ beliefs gives evidence that they might impede pre-service teachers’ compliance with pre-service education.
Gap in knowledge and Purpose of the study: Many studies have produced contradictory findings in terms of prospective change in pre-established pre-service teachers’ beliefs caused by the impact of pre-service education study programmes. Therefore, this study addresses the gap by enriching this field with research findings reinforcing the potential impact of the study programme on changes in pre-service teachers’ beliefs on effective English language teaching and learning expressed across different years of the study programme.
Methods: The study uses the results of questionnaires completed by 99 randomly selected pre-service teachers enrolled in an English language teaching study programme provided by the Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. In addition, the study participants’ database was expanded using bootstrapping to enhance the results obtained by applying statistical methods.
Findings and Value added: The results showed statistically significant differences among different years of the study programme within the continuum of their English language teacher education thus indicating the potential impact of the programme. The impact of the study programme led to pre-service teachers’ raised awareness and some modifications in their pre-established beliefs based on the learnt and acquired knowledge and gained practical teaching experiences during the practicums in higher grades of the study. The findings suggest that teacher educators and policymakers should be aware of pre-service teachers’ beliefs when adopting new strategies for reconceptualising and/ or modifying language teacher education programmes.

Is Listening Comprehension in a Foreign Language Affected by Age?

2022-06-28T19:39:48+03:00

Research background: The development of listening comprehension in a foreign language is a complex process, interrelated with the progress in other language skills, and could be affected by numerous variables, including age. This study responds to middle-aged adults’ complaints about their difficulties in listening comprehension in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) by examining the relationship between the success in listening comprehension in EFL and age.
Gap in knowledge and Purpose of the study: Although age is considered a crucial factor in language acquisition, there is a lack of studies providing evidence on the relationship between age and listening comprehension achievement in a foreign language in adult learners. This study aimed to find out whether age is one of the significant factors affecting listening comprehension in relation to other language skills.
Methods: Quantitative data analysis was used to determine the relationship between the success in listening comprehension in EFL and age in 1,323 Czech adults. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the success in listening in three age groups, tested within five academic years. Then a generalized linear model was used to assess the relationship between the success in listening and age.
Findings and Value added: The analysis of variance has shown that the age group 21—30 achieved significantly better results in listening than the age group 41—60 at p < .05. The logistic regression curve has illustrated a gradual increase in the percentage of ‘unsuccessful listeners’ aged 25 to 52 in relation to age. Thus, the study offers empirical evidence that there is a negative correlation between the success in listening comprehension in a foreign language and age. Educators should assist adult learners in developing knowledge, skills and strategies to overcome listening comprehension difficulties with respect to increasing age.

Dual Identity or Identity Duel: EFL Context Duality Force on Identity Aspects Formation Through Learners’ Self-Reflection

2022-06-28T19:32:23+03:00

Background: The link between context and identity is of paramount importance to language teaching and learning. Yet, less attention has been paid to the identity aspects in various EFL contexts.
Purpose: This study examined the identity aspects of EFL learners attending both public and private English language classes through self-reflection.
Method: In this mixed-methods design, 128 conveniently chosen EFL learners, including both genders, responded to the Identity Aspects Questionnaire, and 23 of those participants were invited to a follow-up semi-structured interview to triangulate the questionnaire data. The study conducted Paired Samples T-Test for quantitative data, whereas qualitative data underwent thematic analysis to extract and codify the themes.
Results: The results revealed no significant differences for personal and relational identity aspects over these two EFL contexts, while collective and social ones reached differences. The qualitative data indicated that the EFL learners synergically adapt and adopt some identities through retention and creation. The shared identity between the two EFL classes mainly occurred in personal and relational aspects, while social and collective ones seemed relatively varied. The participants held both individualistic and collectivistic cultural dimensions in these two EFL classes. However, they were more idiocentric in private English language institutes and more socio-centric in public high schools. The discussion concerning identity issues indicated that EFL contexts affect the socializing process. The individuals position in a context according to their shared identities, while the varied identities lead them to form or adopt new identities.
Implication: These findings could help ELT teachers and researchers to expand their perception of language learners’ identities in different EFL contexts.

The Role of Plurilingual Pedagogy in Affirming Immigrants’ Identities in Canada

2022-06-28T19:50:44+03:00

Background and Purpose: This perspective article supports the need of an alternative plurilingual model to teaching languages to assert immigrants’ identities in Canada.
Approach: It examines the interplay between language and identity in immigration contexts, and investigates current language teaching models, including limitations, adopted in Canada. Although the article discusses the case of Quebec where the official language is French, it is not limited or restricted to a specific context. The case of Quebec is only given as an example to illustrate potential challenges immigrants might face in Canada.
Results and Implication: This article sheds light on advantageous future research orientations pertaining to immigrants’ identities in the language learning process. It can also inform language policies and pedagogies in Canada and other immigration contexts.

The Effects of Extensive Journal Writing on the Vietnamese High-School Students’ Writing Accuracy and Fluency

2022-06-28T19:27:19+03:00

Background: The innovation of an extensive journal writing approach has made a big difference in the field of teaching academic writing. Previous studies found mixed results relating to whether journal writing could help students enhance their writing accuracy.
Purpose: The purpose of the current study is to investigate whether extensive journal writing (EJW) affects EFL high school students’ writing accuracy and fluency in the writing classroom.
Method: Sixty students in one of the high schools located in Tra Vinh city participated in the study. The quasi-experimental study was conducted in ten weeks. The participants were divided into two groups, namely the control group and the experimental group. Students’ writing papers, including pre-tests and post-tests, were collected for data analysis. Inter-raters were employed for analytic rating scales and written errors analysis.
Results: The results show that extensive journal writing had significant effects on the students’ writing performances compared to those of students in the control group. Additionally, the number of words written in the students’ post-test was increasing.
Implication: The current study’s findings were innovative to the body of literature as the EJW could help students enhance their writing performances.

Impacts of Process-Genre Approach on EFL Sophomores’ Writing Performance, Writing Self-Efficacy, Writing Autonomy

2022-06-28T19:46:56+03:00

Background: In literature, process-genre approach may be a favorable alternative for writing classes these days, assisting student writers in building up linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural competency of writing. However, the contribution of this approach to fostering EFL writing learning has not been extensively probed in the context of Vietnam.
Purpose: This paper aimed at attesting the impact of the target approach on the Vietnamese EFL students’ writing performance, writing self-efficacy, and writing autonomy.
Method: Thanks to convenience sampling technique, a group of 38 EFL sophomores from an intact class at a Vietnamese private university was recruited as one experimental group undergoing a nine-week writing course within process-genre approach. Grounded by quantitative design, the instruments of this study involved one writing entry test, one writing exit test, and two questionnaires. The data were analyzed by computing Paired Samples T-tests through SPSS version 26.0.
Results: The results indicated that process-genre approach enhanced the tertiary students’ overall writing performance to some extent, empowered their self-efficacy of writing ideation, conventions, self-regulations, and positively reinforced their awareness and behaviors of writing autonomy.
Implication: The study contributed to a better understanding of the practicality of applying process-genre approach into EFL writing pedagogy in Vietnam, and then implications could be proposed to strengthen the quality of EFL writing instruction utilizing this eclectic approach in the Vietnamese tertiary context.

The Effect of Comprehensive Written Corrective Feedback on EFL Learners’ Written Syntactic Complexity

2022-06-28T19:49:02+03:00

Research background: The effectiveness of Corrective feedback has been a controversial issue and thus a central part of second language writing instruction worldwide.
Gap in knowledge and Purpose of the study: It has been argued that the provision of written corrective feedback can affect the complexity of the written text negatively, and the issue is not sufficiently investigated. Therefore, this studyinvestigated the effects of two types of comprehensive written corrective feedback strategies: direct corrective feedback (DCF), and metalinguistic explanation (ME) on L2 learners’ written syntactic complexity.
Methods: This study was quasi-experimental and used a pretest-intervention-posttest-delayed-posttest design. Participants were 90 Turkish EFL upper-intermediate learners, whose L2 proficiency and L2 writing skills were controlled by administering the Oxford Placement Test and the IELTS Writing Task 2 test. They were assigned to three groups: DCF, ME, and NF (i.e., no feedback on grammatical errors).The treatment/control period lasted for five weeks. Every week, each participant wrote an essay of argument-led type in class and then received the specified feedback. No work was done on writing for the two-week interval between the posttest and delayed posttest. Lu’s (2010) web-based L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyser was utilised to calculate the syntactic complexity measures. The MANOVA test was utilized to find the results.
Findings and Value added: It was revealed the ME group was not significantly different from the NF group. The DCF group significantly outperformed the ME group in the clauses per sentence (C/S) of the texts both in posttests and delayed-posttests. The DCF group also significantly outperformed the NF group in the clauses per T-unit (C/T), complex T-units per T-unit (CP/T), and C/S in posttests, but the positive effect of the DCF on CP/T was not durable after the two-week interval.

Integrating Digital Multimodal Composition into EFL Writing Instruction

2022-06-28T19:18:12+03:00

Research background: Digital multimodal composition has recently received paramount attention in the instruction of second language writing.
Gap in knowledge: Although the merits of digital multimodal composition have widely been acknowledged by many scholars, the instruction of English writing has still remained monomodal in Iran.
Purpose of the study: The present quasi-experimental study aimed to investigate the differential impacts of the two types of writing (multimodal/monomodal) on English as a Foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing ability in terms of content, communicative achievement, organization, and language across five times.
Methods: To this end, two intact groups, including 59 EFL learners at a university in southeastern Iran participated in the study. The participants were assigned into two comparison groups of multimodal (n = 30) and monomodal (n = 29) compositions. The students in the multimodal group composed five digital essays, while the monomodal group used only the textual mode to produce their essays throughout the semester. Following a repeated measures design, the researchers assessed the participants’ writing ability across five times. A mixed between-within ANOVA was conducted to address the research questions.
Findings: The results revealed that both groups showed significant improvement in their writing ability across time. Furthermore, the multimodal group outperformed the monomodal group in their writing ability.
Value added: The findings suggest that writing instructional practices in Iran should be redefined and updated to accommodate the needs and expectations of the twenty-first century learners.

Self-Regulated Learning and Sociodemographic Factors in Students’ L1/L2 Writing Proficiency

2022-06-28T19:20:56+03:00

Background: Academic writing is a complex and demanding activity in which students have to regulate their (meta)cognitive, motivational, and linguistic processes and self-regulatory writing strategies might serve as a tool to accomplish writing tasks. The research was done as part of a verification of Zimmerman & Risemberg’s (1997) model of self-regulation in writing. Previous research on the relationships between students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) and writing performance has suggested their positive impact.
Purpose: This paper provides insights into Croatian university students’ first/second language (L1/L2) writing performance regarding the SRL strategy use.
Method: Students’ written performance in both L1 (Croatian) and L2 (English) was checked, and the contributions of SRL and sociodemographic factors were explored. A total of 104 students from the initial and final years of teacher education study were included in the research. A quantitative research method was used including the following instruments: The learning orientation scale, the Perceived academic control scale, the Croatian version of the values subscale, Writing strategies questionnaire.
Results: Descriptive analyses revealed that students’L1/L2 writing proficiency was on average. There was no difference between L1 and L2 writing proficiency. Furthermore, the study showed that students mostly initiated learning goal orientation, writing tasks were valuable to them and they had more results of academic control over the mentioned tasks. Participants mostly used the most effective writing strategy - checking and correcting the text. The final study year students had better L1 writing proficiency compared to the initial study year students. Such results were expected since students were exposed to the extensive L1 academic experience, which was not the case with the exposure to learning English as a foreign language (EFL learning), resulting in a lower level of L2 essay writing proficiency. Success in L1 writing proficiency was explained more by cognitive and less by sociodemographic and motivational factors. The greater academic control over writing assignments and the lower goal orientation on avoiding effort was shown, the greater success was achieved. Success in L2 writing proficiency was mostly explained by cognitive factors, but also significantly by some sociodemographic and motivational factors. The higher GPA in L2 and the less asking for help and writing by the model strategy was employed, the greater success in writing assignments was achieved. The study indicated the importance of mastering SRL, especially cognitive factors in both L1 and L2 learning.
Implication: The implications of the study were discussed which may benefit L1/L2 teachers to teach their students SRL writing strategies by which students could self-regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours throughout the writing process to achieve academic success.

Dual Training in Language Didactics of Foreign Language/CLIL Pre-Service Primary Education Teachers in Spain

2022-06-28T19:15:48+03:00

Background: Classroom-based research in second language acquisition (SLA) has focused in the last decade on the pedagogical implications concerning the mental representation of language but has not considered the didactic training of pre-service teachers. Empirical analyses have been concerned almost exclusively with the linguistic development of foreign language learners, who do not receive specific training to become language teachers.
Purpose: Due to the lack of literature regarding simultaneous linguistic and didactic training with pre-service foreign language teachers, this exploratory classroom-based research analyses a case of linguistic and didactic dual training for pre-service primary education teachers of German in Spain, both when being trained to work as foreign language teachers, or as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) teachers. The objective is to assess the effectiveness of the dual training by measuring the degree of the pre-service teachers’ (N=4) willingness to communicate (WTC) before and after each practice session (N=14). This is a mixed-methods research where data were collected through (i) a questionnaire answered by the pre-service teachers and (ii) the lecturer’s linguistic and didactic excursuses.
Results: The results show a high degree of WTC among the pre-service teachers, mainly as result of the Instructed Foreign Language Acquisition (IFLA)-based teaching practice model implemented, including linguistic training in German and didactic training (e.g., excursuses) in Spanish (L1). Factors like grouping increase the pre-service teachers’ WTC, while factors like talking to someone they know little about decrease it. However, personal traits need to be considered when it comes to WTC, even with individuals who share similar language proficiency.
Implication: The innovation of this teacher training methodology lies in the coordinated combination of linguistic (i.e., IFLA-based teaching model) and didactic training. IFLA-based teaching practices are evaluated positively by the pre-service teachers in terms of linguistic and didactic training and WTC. Final recommendations are suggested about teaching methodology.

Developing and Validating a Professional Development Inventory: Novice and Experienced Teachers’ Perceptions in Focus

2022-06-28T19:14:42+03:00

Research Background: In any successful education system, teachers as the main driving forces of the learning process are at the forefront. To fulfill their responsibilities efficiently, they need to enhance their knowledge and professional expertise. Hence, the evaluation of teachers’ professional development is of paramount importance in EFL contexts.
Purpose of the Study: In line with such a concern, the present study was conducted to investigate the underlying factors constituting a newly developed teachers’ professional development questionnaire in the EFL context of Iran.
Methods: To this end, 242 Iranian EFL teachers with different experiences were conveniently requested to partake in this study. They were asked to respond to the questionnaire, which encompassed 76 items on a five-point Likert scale. After ensuring the reliability of the scale, to scrutinize the validity of the questionnaire, content validity and factor analysis were checked.
Results: The results of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed that the questionnaire involved 7 factors, representing the teachers’ beliefs about various aspects of development, like means of development, needs, beneficiaries, motivators, methods, and obstacles of development. The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) also demonstrated that the questionnaire consists of seven factors, loading on items and sub-components of the model.
Implications: This study can provide treasured pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, teacher educators, policymakers, and materials developers through raising their awareness and knowledge of teachers’ professional development and its underlying components.

Insights into ESP Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used by Vietnamese Tertiary Students

2022-06-28T19:12:22+03:00

Research background: ESP vocabulary is pivotal for learners to master the ESP subject matter, so there has been growing interest in how vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) for ESP are used. In addition, understanding the underlying reasons for using VLS for ESP is indispensable.
Purpose of the study: To this end, this paper aims at exploring VLS for ESP in terms of metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, memory strategies, determination strategies, social (discovery) strategies, and social (consolidation) strategies employed by Vietnamese tertiary students and their reasons for such VLS deployment.
Methods: It involved 270 technical students from a higher education institution in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, who were conveniently selected. This mixed-methods research gathered data by means of a closed-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews.
Findings and Value added: The findings unraveled that participants employed strategies for learning ESP lexical items moderately. Remarkably, the metacognitive strategies were the most frequently used among six groups of VLS for ESP, whereas social (consolidation) ones received the least attention. The results further uncovered that participants used VLS for ESP because of efficiency and regular practice, while lack of confidence and environment for practice hindered them from making use of VLS for ESP. Such findings are expected to enrich the knowledge of how students learn ESP lexical items in the Vietnamese context and other similar ones.

The Missing Course. Everything They Never Taught You About College Teaching: A Book Review

2022-06-28T19:29:47+03:00

Academic Development in Research Focus

2022-06-28T19:06:28+03:00

Introduction: The editorial aims to revisit the field of academic development as it is being researched worldwide. The JLE editors analyse the notion, its origin, domains, and implementation trajectories in various countries.
Overview of Global Research on Academic Development: A short overview of the previously published research on academic development shows that most publications date between 2000 and 2020, with a focus on teaching and learning, trajectories in higher education, trends in practices of academic developers, and research as part of academic development. The authors also dwell upon the research competencies and support to the researchers that have become an integral part of academic development programmes in many countries.
Survey: To clarify the attitudes to academic development in the regions that took up academic development some ten years ago, a Survey on Perceptions of Academic Development was conducted among university staff in Russia. It found out the placement of academic development in higher education.
Conclusion: Summing up the key issues relating to academic development, the JLE editors outline the research agenda on academic development for potential authors.

Perception of Prosodic and Aspectual Cues to Politeness in Teacher Directives in L1 and L2 Russian

2022-06-28T19:10:27+03:00

Background: Several studies in interlanguage pragmatics have reported Russian directive speech acts to take a particular position within the dimensions of linguistic politeness and (in)directness, when compared to some Germanic and Romance languages extensively studied in this framework.
Purpose of the study: The present paper aimed to investigate the role of language specific cues to politeness in Russian requests by examining their perception by native speakers and L2 learners in a scenario of teacher-student interaction.
Methods: An experiment was conducted in which L1 and L2 groups rated the politeness of teacher directives in Russian on a discrete 7-point scale. Three variables were controlled for in the experimental design: the directness of the speech act (manifested in the choice between an imperative or an interrogative construction), verbal aspect, and the type of nuclear pitch accent.
Findings: The obtained data generally corroborate existing studies, demonstrating that both native Russian speakers and learners of Russian with Chinese L1 do not judge as impolite direct imperative strategies employed in teacher requests. Though both groups of participants similarly relied on intonational cues in their judgements, the L2 learners did not perform target-like in evaluating the pragmatics of verbal aspect. Within the native group, the usage of imperfective verbs both in direct and conventionally indirect constructions was perceived as a highly salient indicator of impoliteness. Conversely, the size of this effect in L2 judgements did not reach a significance level, implying that this language specific cue is not acquired through incidental learning at pre-intermediate or intermediate proficiency levels.
Conclusions: Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of explicit pragmatic instruction even for students who have sufficient experience studying abroad; furthermore, they outline new directions for empirical studies in Russian from the perspective of interlanguage pragmatics.

Oral and Written Summarizing Strategy Training and Reading Comprehension: Peer-Mediated vs. Individualistic Task Performance

2022-09-02T08:04:46+03:00

Background. The benefits of collaboration and summarizing strategy training in second language (L2) learning rest on solid theoretical underpinnings. However, the empirical evidence of those benefits in EFL context and in the spoken discourse has proven difficult. Focusing on the long-term influence of collaboration on students' reading comprehension provides another justification for this study’s novelty.

Purpose. Drawing upon Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT), this study inspected the impact of spoken and written summary training on intermediate EFL students’ long-term reading comprehension in individual and peer-mediated conditions.
Methods. 120 Iranian EFL intermediate male and female learners aged 16 to 18 years were randomly assigned into two main conditions (i.e., individual and peer-mediated). Moreover, each condition was divided into spoken, written, and no summary groups. The treatment lasted for six sessions, and then a delayed post-test, summarization scale, and a researcher-developed collaboration scale were administered at the end of the study.
Results. The outcomes of one-way ANOVA revealed that summary training was efficacious in improving EFL students’ reading skills. However, the verbal summary group exceeded the written and control groups. In addition, the findings of the independent-samples t-test demonstrated that the learners’ reading skills in peer-mediated groups significantly improved in the delayed post-test compared to their counterparts. Similarly, the findings emerging from the analysis of the questionnaires highlighted both instructors’ and the students’ positive perceptions on summarizing strategies and collaboration in the classrooms.
Implications. The implications are presented concerning the effectiveness of summary training and peer-mediation in EFL reading courses.

Initial Language Teacher Education: Components Identified in Research

2022-12-06T20:37:40+03:00

Research Background: Initial Language Teacher Education (ILTE) has moved conceptually from technical-oriented visions to socio-cultural perspectives that integrate cultural, historical and institutional settings where teachers shape their professional identities. However, relevant discussion in the field indicates that ILTE configurations are grounded on conceptual frameworks that fail to represent the complex nature of teacher preparation.
Gap in knowledge and Purpose of the study: In this systematic review we explore whether recent conceptual ILTE understandings are acknowledged in current research as this information is relevant for stakeholders in education.
Method: For this reason, this systematic review aims at analysing what teacher education components are addressed in such research in nationally ranked academic journals from 2014 to 2019 and how those components were researched.
Findings and value added: Findings indicate areas related to student teachers’ learning are still at the forefront in ILTE. Additionally, that area is still inquired from a disjoint and discreet perspective. Results also show growing discussion about the teacher as a person and contextual elements from a more holistic and interconnected perspective acknowledging the integrative nature of components affecting pre-service language teachers’ education.

Family’s role and their Challenging Commitment to English Language Learning: A systematic Review

2022-06-28T19:52:31+03:00

Background: The English language occupies a prominent role in today’s globalized world. The importance of this language is on the increase to the extent that this has become a major concern for governments, curriculum designers, educators, and parents. There are several factors, which contribute to achieving the successful learning of the English language. One of these factors is the role of the family and their involvement in the language development of their children.
Purpose and Method: The present systematic review is framed in a descriptive qualitative approach since its main objective is to analyze articles that contain information regarding family’s role and their challenging pedagogical commitment with their children to the learning of the English language. For this purpose, 16 empirical studies retrieved from SCOPUS and the Web of Science database published between 2016 and 2021 in different EFL contexts were analyzed. The present work followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and was analyzed thematically. Four themes were identified from the empirical studies and were discussed further.
Results: The results clearly suggest that the higher commitment of parents is directly proportional to the success rate in the learning of the English language. It also revealed the need for integrating the Family in the English language learning process and be considered while formulating any language/educational policy as well as curriculum development involving English as a foreign language (EFL) learning context in the future. Finally, the study provides information on limitations and implications followed by a conclusion.

The Language of Russian Fake Stories: A Corpus-Based Study of the Topical Change in the Viral Disinformation

2022-06-28T18:16:34+03:00

The spread of disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic is largely associated with social media and online messengers. Viral disinformation disseminated in 2020–2021 was related to a wide range of topics that caused panic among people. Many false narratives emerged and attracted public interest over time, which mainly reflected the general public’s utmost belief in these topics. Text mining can be used to analyze the frequencies of keywords and topic-related vocabulary in order to track the changing focus of the public concerning online disinformation. In this paper, we present the results of a corpus-based study of Russian viral fake stories circulating during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose a method for analyzing the central topics and dynamics of topical change in the context of the Russian COVID-19-fake story. In order to accomplish this objective, we make use of a set of tools to extract keywords, count their frequencies and analyze corresponding contexts. We apply these tools to the compiled specialized diachronic corpus of Russian viral false COVID-19-related stories. The obtained data is evaluated to determine the dynamic of topical shifts by tracking the changes in keyword frequencies as well as the use of other high-frequency corpus words. The findings of the work concerning topical fluctuations in the Russian viral COVID-19 disinformation agenda as well as given explanations for the identified drifts in public interest in the topics during the first year of the pandemic can contribute to developing effective strategies for combating the spread of fakes in the future.

Dealing with Emergency Remote Teaching: The Case of Pre-Service English Language Teachers in Turkey

2022-06-28T17:33:28+03:00

Education has been offered in the form of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) worldwide since March 2020 due to the spread of Covid-19. This compulsory transition has often been marked by disregard of the technological infrastructure of educational institutions, digital literacy skills of teachers and students, and their access to technology. A growing body of research discusses challenges faced in ERT; however, further studies are needed to arrive at validated conclusions to inform formal language teaching and learning. Against this backdrop, this qualitative study aimed at adding context-dependent knowledge to the literature by reporting on the case of university students majoring in language teaching. For this reason, the perceptions of a group of 67 pre-service English language teachers on ERT practices at a Turkish state university were explored. Data were collected through an interview form developed by the researchers and a focus group interview. The data were analysed inductively using content analysis. Half of the participants reported that specific skills were conducive to doing tasks in an ERT environment. They not only reported a variety of challenges related to the perceived ineffectiveness of learning, technical insufficiency, and inappropriateness of the learning environment, but also acknowledged contributions to their personal and academic development. That is, they found ERT flexible, time-saving, and favourable for learners who felt more confident in virtual classrooms, and some considered ERT as an opportunity for self-actualisation. Nonetheless, the majority favoured face-to-face education over ERT appreciating the enhanced effectiveness of in-class education. In sum, the study emphasises the need to support learners and teachers by providing instructions and strategies on how to organise learning and teaching. Moreover, schools, policy makers, and governmental authorities may need to provide ERT-tailored programmes and an infrastructure in terms of technical equipment to meet the requirements of education delivered in ERT and to realise effective language learning in virtual environments. Broadening the knowledge base concerning ERT in language teacher education, this study advises to address drawbacks of ERT and to take advantage of its opportunities.

A Telecollaboration Project on Giving Online Peer Feedback: Implementing a Multilateral Virtual Exchange During a Pandemic

2022-06-28T17:41:08+03:00

Telecollaboration, also called virtual exchange or online intercultural exchange, is a form of collaborative learning whereby language learners in different locations engage in computer-mediated communication to complete tasks online. There is ample evidence that telecollaboration promotes the acquisition of language skills, intercultural competence, and digital literacies. Challenges faced implementing virtual exchanges include differences in time zones, learning objectives, academic calendars, and cultural attitudes. The present article describes a case of a multilateral telecollaboration project based on the facilitated dialogue model involving four institutions—two in Europe and two in the United States—that was designed to prepare students for the experience of giving online peer feedback on collaborative writing assignments. Our initial goal was to explore the challenges students would face and the benefits they would receive from a complex telecollaboration project involving multiple institutions and two task sequences: 1) input and reflection on giving and receiving peer feedback, 2) completion of the collaborative writing task to be peer reviewed. However, new challenges and opportunities emerged after the switch to emergency e-learning and remote teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic. Relying upon multiple data sources—including correspondence, observations, class discussions, surveys, reflective writing, and information stored in virtual learning environments—our methods of data collection involved convenience sampling, while data analysis was predominantly descriptive. Our results demonstrate that even during a global pandemic, students and instructors face similar logistical challenges and reap similar benefits as has been reported in the literature. Yet our experience also reveals the resiliency of telecollaboration in the face of extreme disruption as well as the potential to exploit virtual exchange to develop learning strategies—such as methods for giving and receiving peer feedback—and meta-awareness of how language is used in the real-world—such as the implications of English as a lingua franca.

Who Wants to Learn English Online for Free?

2022-06-28T17:39:41+03:00

This study of demographics is aimed to help LMOOC designers develop courses that are more appealing to prospective learners, and thus fight low completion rate which remains one of the main drawbacks of MOOCs. In addition, as the world battles against the COVID-19 pandemic looking for alternative learning approaches is unavoidable. The data presented in this paper were collected between 2016 and 2020 by means of a questionnaire that over 29,000 participants completed upon registration. The questionnaire, which included three multiple-choice questions aimed at obtaining responses regarding age, level of education and gender, revealed that most learners were middle-aged adults who held a university degree. In addition, our findings seemed to indicate that female learners are more likely to take the courses than their male counterparts. The aforementioned findings, which provide an insight into the demographics of EFL MOOCs in Spanish-speaking contexts, is a good starting point for further research which could ultimately help educational authorities know the impact of EFL MOOCs and enable the latter to reach a wider audience.

Promoting Metacognitive and Linguistic Skills: Digital Learning Logs in Pre-Service Teacher Training

2022-06-28T18:52:53+03:00

This paper reports on the implementation of digital learning logs in the context of pre-service teacher training in a distance university in Madrid. The learning log, which had been previously implemented in the subject as a learning tool, has proven to be especially useful in Covid-19 times since the students had to work more independently and could use it to reflect upon their learning without the conventional teaching they were used to. The paper has a two-fold aim: first, to analyze whether the learning logs helped in promoting students’ autonomy and self-reflection, and second, to observe whether they contribute to the development of their linguistic competence in English as a foreign language. Participants of the study (n= 47) are students of the Primary and Infant Education degrees, specializing in English teaching, whose L2 level ranges between B1 and C2. At the end of half term, they were given the possibility of completing a learning log to record their learning process, review concepts and be aware of potential learning gaps and needs, and act accordingly. For this purpose, and to encourage participation, L1 or L2 could be chosen as vehicular languages. Participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire on their experience using the logs, answering questions regarding the suitability of this tool to enhance their language skills and promote effective strategies to become independent learners. The data drawn from the questionnaires submitted (n=29) were later analyzed through SPSS. In addition, individual semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect information on those participants who had not completed the learning log (n=11). The findings of the study show that the vast majority of participants agree on the potential of learning logs as a useful tool to keep track of their learning process and to develop metacognitive awareness and linguistic skills.

From On-site to Online Class: The Role of Mediation in Online Teaching Simulation

2022-06-28T18:58:31+03:00

This paper presents the findings of a pilot study that explored the relationship between mediation and teaching simulation activities during a postgraduate course for CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). A controversial factor of the experiment was the overall lockdown that happened in Spain during the Spring through Summer of 2020. These extenuating circumstances compelled the lecturers to innovate by transforming a traditional on-site classroom practice into an online training opportunity. There were forty-two participants in the English language training for the content teacher's course. This pilot project was taught at the Catholic University of Valencia. The pilot study's outcomes were the display of feasibility of the curricular adaptation by providing (1) CLIL teaching simulation planning, (2) teaching simulation assessment sheet and (3) questionnaire responses, all of them closely related to mediation and online education. The analysis of the data collected through the study outcomes yielded positive effects of the methodology used. Therefore, the initial results suggest the possibility of this curricular update. We recommend developing the connection between mediation, online instruction and CLIL teacher training opportunities by applying the lessons learned in an authentic school setting.

Account of a Foretold Death: Analysing the Response to the Pandemic in Spanish Schools

2022-06-28T17:38:28+03:00

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on education, not only due to its dramatic interruption of the school year (2019-2020) but also its potential effect on many aspects regarding teaching in the future. In particular, focusing on Spain, this year’s events have also highlighted the lack of digital resources and preparedness of the schools, which has resulted in some difficulties when adapting to the new circumstances. In this paper, the author will start by explaining how the digital competence has developed into an indispensable competence for learning in the past decade, which the current global pandemic has emphasised even more. As a consequence of this pandemic, schools and education centres remained closed from March 2020 to the end of the academic year in Spain. This article focuses on the importance of technology accessibility and digital competence in language learning, as well as the way it was overlooked in practice. The immediate response from the Ministry of Education will be analysed and compared to the way teachers and schools in the Valencian region (Spain) supported the students during the enforced lockdown in the last trimester of the academic year in primary school. For this, teachers in four schools in Castellon (Valencian region) were interviewed, and drawing from their replies, the current reality of the use of technology in primary school will be examined and compared to the national guidelines and frameworks provided for educators. Questionnaires were used and analysed using a qualitative approach, while comparing the current situation to the expected response according to the educative guidelines.

Assessment under Covid-19: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes towards Their Online Thesis Proposal Presentations vs. Face-to-face

2022-06-28T18:55:37+03:00

This study conducted in an EFL setting investigates students’ perception of the thesis proposal presentation in an online format due to safety concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic. Fifty-five students aged 20-22 years old, level B2-C1 in English, in their fourth year of a Business Informatics Bachelor’s programme at HSE University, Moscow, were surveyed regarding their end-of-course assessment experience, which involved a Skype online presentation, rather than the usual face-to-face presentation. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire consisted of 3 sections and 12 items. A mixed-method approach using quantitative and qualitative data was employed. The findings indicate that emergency transition to the new format did not affect students’ satisfaction or results of the presentation. Overall, students were more than satisfied with the online format, and the results were similar, if not better, than in previous years. To minimise the disadvantages of this format, recommendations for teachers and students were offered. This study might offer new insight on the most appropriate and beneficial oral testing system for students and staff.

Students’ Perceptions of ESP Academic Writing Skills through Flipped Learning during Covid-19

2022-06-28T18:17:12+03:00

Learners studying English for Specific Purposes (ESP) at University regard writing academic papers as a complex process since they have to consider issues about academic writing conventions as well as ethics. This current research examines university students’ perceptions of ESP academic writing within the context of the online learning which emerged due to Covid-19 and, therefore, through the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and, particularly, utilizing the Flipped Learning approach as an active learning strategy to enhance ESP academic written competence. To be more specific, we examined how students, in tertiary education, perceived ESP academic writing skills within the field of Business English. The participants are 28 students doing the Degree in Administration and Business Management in a Spanish polytechnic. A mixed method research has been conducted for this current paper since both quantitative as well as qualitative methods were utilized for data collection. Regarding this study, both a questionnaire and a focus group interview were utilized to analyse the data. The outcomes proved that students’ perceptions towards academic ESP written competence, using Business English, within the Flipped Learning approach was positive. The major results showed students’ awareness of their needs and ESP written requirements. This research concludes with some future research suggestions.

Online Learning During the Covid-19 Pandemic: How has this New Situation Affected Students’ Oral Communication Skills?

2022-06-28T17:35:09+03:00

Employing technology has become imperative to accelerate learning efforts and offer methods to enhance interactions between learners, and among learners and tutors. In this paper, we investigate the difficulties faced by learners in learning virtually and, specifically, in English language learning, with a focus on oral communication skills. Research questions of this study are related to the main difficulties that students face to enhance their English oral communication skills. The tools and methodologies that worked best for them for this purpose are also in focus. In the literature we present a review of pertinent studies connected with learning responses in the COVID-19 period and those specifically related to the topic of our study. The methodology used for the study was an exploratory survey research design using a questionnaire to collect the necessary data for our research. Results showed that students highlighted technical problems as some of the main challenges, as well as not feeling completely comfortable in the online learning environment due to the lack of real communication, which also had an impact in the perception of their progress. They also found group video or audio calls to be the most useful tool for communication purposes. The results of this preliminary study are relevant to educational developers and policymakers. They give an understanding of aspects to be considered to improve the efficacy of learners’ when it comes to enhancing their English communication skills, such as difficulties regarding interaction or level of satisfaction in an online learning environment.

Language Education in Emergencies: A Systematic Review

2022-06-28T18:59:46+03:00

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, education systems around the globe suspended on-site classes and transitioned instruction to various remote environments, creating a distinctive context for teaching and learning. This systematic review brings together the available research in language education within the current emergency setting to examine the state of affairs, as well as the situation’s inherent challenges and opportunities for language learners and teachers. A total of 38 studies were collected to reflect the current trend, with 16 of these in-depth reviewed. Research focusing on learners was dominant. Most research was conducted at the tertiary level. The studies highlighted digital tools that are capable of engaging language learners in an interactive learning experience, though they are unable to replace face-to-face instruction. Outside-of-class support such as extra channels of communication, self-access language learning (SALL) materials, and advising in language learning (ALL) were all found to complement remote learning. It is recommended that teachers try to retain their teaching principles and put them into practice regardless of the abrupt transition. Teachers’ wellbeing can be promoted when teachers accept the changes and see them as opportunities.

Covid-19: An Impromptu or Trend-setting Factor in Research on Language and Education?

2022-06-28T17:31:42+03:00

With the flood of research on Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021, pandemic-induced emergency is giving rise to new unprecedented challenges for all strata of the society, including science and education. The JLE editors focus on the first outcomes and hurdles the pandemic-caused research publishing has led to. The authors dwell upon the research on education in the context of COVID-19 constraints with a special accent on higher education and L2 teaching, considering the key trends as a response to the gaps in the field knowledge. Some attention is paid to emerging linguistic research and new word coinages to define the new phenomena. The editors summarize the obstacles that “fast-track” publishing and shortened peer review have built up, suggesting some estimates as of the Covid-19 effects of the research avalanche for science.

An Appraisal Look into Shielded Online Education in Covid Era: Resilience Revisited

2022-06-28T18:57:01+03:00

Education has been regarded as the backbone of human advancement in all areas of activities as the ultimate goal of education is to develop better citizens. Online Education has been known as the alternate approach to learning. The outbreak of Covid-19 virus has infected all nations in the world and debilitated all areas of human activities, hence, education was not an exception. The dominancy of online education in Iran experienced a breakthrough during Covid pandemic and like other activities, it witnessed a fragile stance, and, in a nutshell, reality was far from ideality. The present study aimed at depicting the adversities exerted during the implementation of Online Education in Covid pandemic era and the term Shielded Online Education could vividly justify online programs in higher education. Learners showed an astonishing accomplishment attending shielded fashion of online education in Iran in such a way that a new definition to the notion of resilience could be introduced. A resilience questionnaire before and after an online course in the second semester of the academic year 2020-2021 was conducted with 60 junior undergraduate EFL learners majoring at Translation in Islamic Azad University Tehran. The Resilience Questionnaire was collected from control group and the experimental one. The data obtained went through quantitative data analysis confirmed that shielded online courses outperformed significantly in enhancing the learners’ resiliency in Covid era and what was gained was far beyond what was expected. The education stakeholders, policymakers, teachers and syllabus designers could benefit from the findings of the present study which in turn could shed light on the ins-and-outs of the maneuverability aspects of better enactments of online courses through online education.

University and School Collaborations during a Pandemic. Sustaining Educational Opportunity and Reinventing Education: A Book Review

2022-06-28T19:04:30+03:00

Pandemic Language Teaching: Insights from Brazilian and International Teachers on the Pivot to Emergency Remote Instruction

2022-06-28T18:54:14+03:00

This article reflects on the experiences of language teachers from Brazil, Spain, France, Cyprus, Costa Rica and Taiwan during the pivot to emergency remote/online instruction during the 2020 pandemic. The research question motivating the study was what language teachers’ perceptions regarding online teaching during the pandemic were. Data were analyzed qualitatively, contrasting data from a questionnaire shared in an asynchronous online form with data from focus group interviews carried out via videoconferencing. The analysis of the questionnaire data showed that the vast majority of respondents used different digital technologies to teach online, both synchronously and asynchronously, but felt unprepared to work in this modality, mostly because of lack of institutional support and training. The analysis of the focus group interviews suggested that most teachers expressed concerns as to the limitations of online teaching for interaction and exams. In addition, some teachers displayed negative attitudes towards online teaching due to the lack of preparation and institutional support. This was aggravated by political implications of migrating to online education that could result in precariousness of the teacher profession. The positive aspects highlighted were the possibility of developing more self-directed and autonomous learning, as well as experimenting with different technologies and approaches. Overall, the analysis of the data suggests that, after the pandemic and with due preparation and support, some of the digital technologies and approaches experimented with will be incorporated into pedagogical practices in blended approaches, which represent a real trend and possibility for language teaching in the post-pandemic context.

Current Trends in ELT Educational Communication during Crises: An Overview to the Special JLE Issue

2022-06-28T17:30:06+03:00

Design and Validation of a Questionnaire for the Measurement of Students’ Perceptions of Intercultural Practices within Bilingual Secondary Schools in the European Context

2022-06-28T16:59:09+03:00

Bilingual education (BE) is widely recognised as a complex phenomenon, which constitutes a priority for key educational institutions and organisations. However, further research is needed to uproot common beliefs such as that bilingual students can easily interact with two or more cultures. The literature affirms that BE students need specific school training to improve intercultural competence. The main aim of this study is to describe the design and validation of a questionnaire to measure students’ perceptions of intercultural practices at bilingual schools. The validity of content and comprehension was carried out through the Delphi method, for which three methodological phases were established. The reliability of the scale (internal consistency) was measured through the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Factorial analysis was used to check the validity of the construct. The psychometric parameters of the scale were obtained from a pilot sample of 40 students, and later from a sample of 213 students from bilingual secondary schools in several European countries (i.e., The Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, France, England, among others). As a major conclusion, we can state that this questionnaire can be used as a tool for two research goals: the identification of good intercultural school practices in BE, and the development of relevant guidelines for the incorporation of intercultural education into BE.

Directed Motivational Currents (DMCs) in Self-directed Language Learning: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

2022-06-28T17:16:31+03:00

Directed Motivational Currents (DMCs) postulated as a novel motivational construct in second language acquisition (SLA) research to explain periods of intense and enduring behavior in pursuit of a highly valued goal or vision. Nonetheless, much of the discussion related to this new motivational phenomenon has remained theoretical, and only a limited number of empirical studies have investigated its various dimensions in language learning. The current qualitative study employed interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore a period of intense motivation experienced by an Iranian language learner in self-directed and mobile assisted language learning. The findings provided further empirical evidence for the triggering stimulus and the core characteristics of DMCs in terms of goal/vision orientedness, a salient facilitative structure, and positive emotionality in explaining the essence and the universal meaning of the phenomenon experienced by the participant of the current study.

Emotional Intelligence in Distance Learning: A Case Study of English as a Second Language via Distance Learning

2022-06-28T17:11:19+03:00

Distance learners studying English confront emotionally demanding obstacles. A mixed methods study was conducted to explore the role that distance learners’ emotional intelligence (EI) plays as they learn English. In phase one of the study, 238 students responded to a composite questionnaire that yielded their EI scores, demography, and viewpoints regarding the English course. In phase two, 18 volunteers selected based on their EI scores were interviewed to obtain qualitative data to build upon the quantitative results. This paper presents a case study of a student called Aini. The findings revealed that Aini’s EI helped her manage her emotions, perceptions, and actions, and ultimately obtain her obligatory English credits for graduation. It is imperative to inculcate students’ EI to help them manage their emotions in order to adapt and persevere, not only when learning English via distance learning but also to successfully accomplish one’s goals in life.

Moroccan EFL Public High School Teachers’ Perceptions and Self-Reported Practices of Assessment

2022-06-28T17:07:57+03:00

This study aims to investigate the perceptions and self-reported practices of Moroccan EFL public high school teachers towards traditional and alternative assessment. The data were collected from 51 teachers in Northern Morocco using a self-developed online questionnaire. The questionnaire items about teachers’ perceptions and self-reported practices were valid and both their data and sampling were acceptable for factor analysis of three subscales (traditional assessment, alternative assessment related with assessment as learning, and assessment for learning), and all scales proved to be reliable. Based on the three research questions, the study yielded the following results: (1) Teachers perceived the objectives of alternative assessment to be significantly more important than those of traditional assessment. (2) Based on their self-reported practices, teachers mainly used traditional assessment methods more often than alternative assessment methods associated with assessment as and for learning. (3) When comparing teachers’ perceptions with their self-reported practices, we found that teachers’ perceptions regarding traditional assessment matched their practices; while the majority of teachers admitted that they found alternative assessment important even though they did not often use it in order to support students to be able to reflect on their own learning or to enhance their performance in the learning process. Thus, these findings are significant for researchers, teachers, and educators to help them reconsider their perceptions of alternative assessment and how they should be enacted in practice with the aim of resolving the mismatches found in this study.

Well-being and the Perception of Stress among EFL University Teachers in Saudi Arabia

2022-06-28T14:59:10+03:00

Research on language teachers’ psychology has been shown to play a central role in the quality of teaching and student achievement. However, there is little empirical evidence to investigate the relationship between perception of stress, types of stressors, and well-being among foreign language teachers at university levels, particularly in monolingual contexts. The present study seeks to investigate the impact of stress, the number and type of stressors (i.e., chronic and stressful life events), and demographic variables (i.e., age, gender, and the length of teaching experience) on university-level EFL teachers’ levels of well-being. The data were collected through an online survey of 53 university-level EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia. A Pearson correlation was carried out to investigate the relationship between EFL teachers’ well-being, their perception of stress, and number of stressors. A multiple regression analysis was also run to examine if EFL teachers’ levels of stress, number and types of stressors, and demographic variables can predict their psychological well-being. The quantitative findings demonstrated a significant negative relationship between well-being and levels of stress. The findings also showed a significant positive relationship between the EFL teachers’ well-being and their good physical health. The results of the multiple regression indicated that high levels of well-being were predicted by low levels of stress and good physical health. This study, moreover, suggested an advantage for females in terms of psychological well-being among foreign language teachers. The findings also demonstrated that a stressful life with a heavy workload and financial concerns can negatively impact language teachers’ well-being. These findings highlight the importance of considering issues related to teachers’ psychological well-being. In line with these findings, several pedagogical implications were offered.

Enforcing L2 Learner Autonomy in Higher Education: The Top 50 Cited Articles

2022-06-28T17:18:01+03:00

Learner autonomy as both a pre-condition of self-efficacy and higher achievements in learning and an essential learning outcome has been in the highlight in the higher education domain for many years. This review aims to single out the most influential publications (with 10 citations or more) on foreign language and L2 learner autonomy in tertiary education in the highly reputed journals indexed with the Scopus database, with the publication period limited to the last ten years (2011-2020). The key findings show that the top 50 cited articles on learner autonomy broadly cover conceptual development; self-efficacy and motivation within the learner autonomy concept; educational technologies and web-based activities in fostering learner autonomy; country-specific issues of learner autonomy as the prevailing directions of study in the field of learner autonomy.

Exploring the Relationship Between L2 Listening and Metacognition after Controlling for Vocabulary Knowledge

2022-06-28T17:15:32+03:00

Metacognition is known to be important for L2 listening comprehension. However, it is unclear how much variance in listening performance it can explain after controlling for vocabulary knowledge. To examine this, data from the listening section of the TOEFL Junior test, the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ), and the Listening Vocabulary Levels Test were collected from 76 high school EFL learners in Japan. The MALQ measured five subscales of metacognition representing metacognitive skills and metacognitive knowledge. Representing skills, the MALQ measured perceptions of the ability to (1) plan and evaluate performance, (2) direct attention, and (3) overcome listening problems. Representing knowledge, it measured strategic knowledge of (4) avoiding mentally translating speech and person knowledge of (5) maintaining positive attitudes about listening. The descriptive results showed that participants used their metacognition moderately. Of the subscales, they directed attention the most, planned and evaluated performance least, and perceived their ability to avoid mental translation, solve problems, and maintain optimism equivalently. The results from the hierarchical regression analysis further showed that vocabulary knowledge and metacognition overall predicted listening performance. Of the MALQ subscales, only person knowledge predicted comprehension. These findings indicate that, contrary to earlier findings, metacognition was important for listening comprehension after accounting for vocabulary knowledge.

Investigating the Experience of Boredom During Reading Sessions in the Foreign Language Classroom

2022-06-28T17:05:31+03:00

Despite the fact that boredom appears to be one of the most commonly experienced emotions in school settings, this negative emotion remains vastly underappreciated in the field of SLA. This is the gap this article seeks to rectify by reporting the findings of a classroom-based study whose purpose was to investigate changes in the experience of boredom in an English language classroom during reading sessions. The sample consisted of 18 second-year students studying English at a Polish high school. The data were collected by means of session logs, observations and reading session plans. The gathered data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings showed that the participants reported different levels of boredom over the course of single reading sessions and from one session to the next. Factors responsible for the detected variation in the levels of boredom were related, among other things, to inactivity, performance of too easy/difficult tasks, teacher’s decisions regarding choice and use of language materials, the design of the reading sessions or individual characteristics of the learner.

Switching to Fully Online EFL Learning Environments: An Exploratory Study on Learners’ Perceptions

2022-06-28T16:54:36+03:00

One aspect of online classes that has recently experienced a paradigm shift is fully online language environments (FOLEs) – that is, learning settings where 100% of the content of the class is being delivered online. The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak in 2020 called for the use of fully online teaching in schools and universities in many countries due to confinement measures. Accordingly, schools have made extraordinary efforts towards implementing home-based schooling and delivered online courses to their students during the pandemic. In many universities, online platforms such as Blackboard Collaborate are being used to fulfil the need to keep up with the requirements of academic programmes. However, research findings addressing specific FOLE platforms are scarce, with even fewer studies focusing on learners’ engagement perceptions in those settings. Therefore, the purpose of this mixed-methods exploratory study was to delve into aspects involved in engagement, such as participation, group work, instructional materials, and learning strategies, regarded as key factors influencing the success of FOLEs. Thus, a FOLE questionnaire was administered to 54 EFL university learners, which was followed by semi-structured interviews conducted with seven participants. Our analysis drew from FOLE engagement research (Sun, 2014) and the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007; Garrison et al., 2000). The main findings revealed that the poor interactions with peers and the lack of peer rapport negatively influenced the social presence of students (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007), that the instructor can use teaching presence to increase student awareness of the relevance of the online environment and overcome adaptation issues (Kebritchi et al., 2017), and that teaching presence can help increase cognitive presence and facilitate effective interactions with the content. Implications for pedagogy were put forward as part of a FOLE approach.

Speaking Performance and Anxiety Levels of Chinese EFL Learners in Face-to-Face and Synchronous Voice-based Chat

2022-06-28T16:55:55+03:00

In recent, mobile technology is experiencing a highly development, it is necessary to explore whether it holds the potential to boost EFL learners’ language acquisition based on its instant messaging apps in synchronous voice chat (SVC) mode. With a focus on Chinese EFL learners, this study aimed to compare their speaking performance in SVC and face-to-face (F2F) chat modes. It also explored the relationship between learners’ speaking performance and anxiety levels in these two chat modes which allow real-time communication. In this mixed methods study, WeChat instant messaging was used as the platform for SVC. Forty students from a public university in China participated in 4 chat sessions in SVC and F2F chat modes over 4 weeks. Quantitative data were collected through the oral scores of the participants’ performance in the chat sessions and anxiety questionnaires. Then, qualitative data were obtained from a focus group interview. The findings revealed a significant difference in learners’ speaking performance in SVC and F2F chat. Students’ speaking performance outperformed in SVC chat compared to F2F chat. This could be linked to students’ anxiety levels which were slightly higher in F2F chat. Despite that, most of the students preferred F2F chat to SVC chat due to the practicality of F2F chat.

Changes in and Effects of TED Talks on Postgraduate Students’ English Speaking Performance and Speaking Anxiety

2022-10-10T06:24:28+03:00

This research study explored the changes in and effects of TED talks on Chinese postgraduate students’ English speaking performance and speaking anxiety over a period of 10 weeks. In this research, TED talks were used as a learning mode to provide a quasi-realistic sociocultural context for speaking English. 166 students from the experimental group using TED talks and 156 in the conventional mode participated in the quasi-experiment. They made eight-minute oral presentations and answered the 12-item English Speaking Anxiety Scale prior to and after the experiment. Analyses of the data revealed three major findings: 1) both the experimental and control groups did significantly better in English speaking performance and became significantly less anxious about speaking English over the 10-week period, 2) the experimental group did significantly better in move structure and were significantly less anxious about speaking English than the control group at the end of the 10-week period, and 3) the learning modes had a significant effect on students’ move structures of oral presentations but had no effect on their oral presentation performance and English speaking anxiety. These findings support the benefit of supplementing EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching and learning with TED talks and other similar virtual situated learning. Thus, the present study not only contributes to the current literature, which is short of studies on the effects of technology on SL/FL teaching and learning and the dynamic characteristic of the emotions associated with SL/FL learning, but also suggests that virtual situated learning like TED talks should be incorporated into SL/FL teaching and learning.

Teacher Positioning and Students with Dyslexia: Voices of Croatian EFL teachers

2022-06-28T17:04:49+03:00

How students with dyslexia are positioned by their language teachers and what roles teachers assume when working with this group of students have rarely been investigated. In this study, using positioning theory as a theoretical framework and collecting data by means of an in-depth semi-structured interview and lesson observations, which were subsequently coded, we enquired about the positioning of 10 in-service Croatian primary and secondary school teachers. We wanted to know how teacher participants positioned students with dyslexia and how they positioned themselves towards this group of students. The analysis revealed that participants expressed positive attitudes, whereas their positioning was diverse. Participants positioned themselves as caring teachers and teachers of all learners. By recognising various learner needs, they created an inclusive learning environment by adapting teaching approaches and providing accommodations. However, this caring resulted in emotion labour, with both emotional costs and rewards. These results imply that teaching students with dyslexia may be challenging, and we hope that discussing teacher positioning in this context can help educators better understand teacher agency when working with students with SpLDs.

Developments in SLA and L2 Research on Psychological and Emotional Factors: A Bird’s-eye View

2022-06-27T22:57:49+03:00

Listening Boredom, Listening Boredom Coping Strategies, and Listening Performance: Exploring the Possible Relationships in Saudi EFL Context

2022-06-28T17:09:15+03:00

Researchers paid ample attention to an important variable called boredom in numerous contexts; however, limited research exists regarding the association of boredom with listening comprehension performance in EFL settings. Thus, the current study aims to establish the association between listening boredom and listening comprehension performance by deploying listening boredom coping strategies as a mediating construct. A quantitative research approach, and a cross-sectional and correlational research design was used to conduct this study. A listening comprehension test and questionnaires were used to gather the data from 313 Saudi EFL learners. Results directed that there exists a negative yet significant association between listening boredom and listening comprehension performance. In addition, listening boredom showed a positive and significant association with all of the four listening boredom coping strategies. Furthermore, three out of four listening boredom coping strategies (i.e., behavioral, cognitive, and behavioral avoidance) showed a positive and significant association with listening performance; however, cognitive avoidance strategies showed a significant yet negative association with listening comprehension performance. Lastly, results regarding mediation indicated that listening boredom coping strategies mediated the relationship between listening boredom and listening comprehension performance. Based on the results, various recommendations were presented to EFL learners, instructors, and policymakers.

New Understanding of the Barriers to Foreign Students Adaptation in the Changing Educational Landscape: A Narrative Analysis

2022-06-28T17:13:16+03:00

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed nowadays life in every aspect so irreversibly that there is no doubt that the educational landscape must be continuously re-evaluated and revised. In this regard, particular emphasis is given to the issues of academic mobility and adaptation of foreign students. The aim of the study is to clarify a new understanding of the issues traditionally faced by foreign students in universities in the host country and to analyze new barriers that have arisen as a result of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reports on a narrative research study exploring the experiences and perceptions of 42 first-year bachelor and master foreign students having come to Russia for the first time. Taking into account that human behaiviour can be predicted through language patterns, we analysed language features to compare the participants’ rational and emotional perception of the barriers to adaptation highlighted from their narratives. The findings suggest that almost all issues traditionally faced by foreign students have received a new understanding or have changed their hierarchy in their perception. Contemporary challenges have also created new barriers to adaptation. Temporalities and restrictions in physical movement received special emphasis as an obstacle to adaptation of foreign students. In the context of the total transformation that awaits higher education after the end of the pandemic and its transition to a hybrid format, the results of this study can be used by academic developers to establish a system of foreign students’ psychological adaptation.

On Using Languages Other Than the Target One in L2 Adult Language Education: Teachers’ Views and Practices in Modern Greek Classrooms

2022-06-27T21:59:03+03:00

Current developments in language education call for a reassessment of the role that students’ already-established linguistic repertoires can play in language teaching. This study probed into adult second language education in Modern Greek offered in Greece, where classes are culturally and linguistically diverse. We investigated teachers’ views and perceived practices regarding the use of other languages in their classes. A mixed-method design was followed. Data on teachers’ opinions was collected via a questionnaire completed by 30 teachers. Complementary data on teachers’ practices collected through observations of two classes was also studied. The results indicated that English was mainly used by the teachers as a mediation language, although a wide variation was reported in the amount of other-language use. Large variations were also reported in the students’ behaviour. Teachers stressed several benefits from using other languages in class, but also expressed concerns about excessive reliance on other languages and on how using a support language would impact students with limited proficiency in this language. These findings were discussed in light of recent developments in language education and implications for teacher training were considered.

The Effect of Text Messaging on EFL Learners' Lexical Depth and Breadth

2022-06-27T21:53:28+03:00

Using technology in the classroom context can be an effective way to learn a foreign or second language. Vocabulary is considered one of the important skills for identifying a learner's performance in various academic and non-academic contexts. The present paper investigated the effect of text messaging on learners' lexical knowledge and vocabulary size by using mobile learning ( m-learning). After the administration of an Oxford Placement Test, a total of 37 EFL learners were selected as the sample of the study. Before the treatment process, a word association test (WAT) and the updated vocabulary level test (UVLT) were administered as pre-tests. The learners received six vocabulary items selected from their coursebook through SMSs three times a week in addition to the in-class instruction. After finishing the treatment process, the WAT and the UVLT tests were administered again as post-tests to assess the learners' achievement and the effectiveness of the treatment. Since the normality of data distribution was not confirmed, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was run for mean comparisons. The findings showed no meaningful difference between the pre-tests and post-tests regarding the vocabulary depth scores, while there was a statistically significant difference based on vocabulary breadth. Therefore, it can be claimed that text messaging via m-learning had a significant impact on learners' vocabulary breadth. Curriculum developers and EFL teachers can benefit from the findings of the current study by considering the significance of text messaging for teaching different aspects of lexical knowledge.

Content Subject Teachers’ Views of Implementing the English Across the Curriculum (EAC) Approach: A Study of Some South African High Schools

2022-06-27T22:01:55+03:00

This article explores the views held by content subject teachers on the implementation of the English Across the Curriculum (EAC) approach in their high school classrooms. In South Africa, the EAC approach has been part of the school curriculum since 2014; however, to date, there is a paucity of studies that have focused on understanding how high school teachers implement this approach. In 2017, the South African Department of Basic Education reported that high school teachers were not using this approach without indicating why this was the case. To provide the views of the teachers, the present study drew theoretical insights from reflective teaching to explore the phenomenon. We conducted a qualitative intrinsic case study inquiry, during which we examined the views that 15 high school teachers held on implementing English language skills in content subjects. We collected data using a focus group interview form prepared based on Gibb's model. The findings indicate that content subject teachers have views on (i) the merits of EAC in general language development, (ii) EAC as a challenge to pedagogical-content knowledge, and (iii) strategies for improving the implementation of the EAC approach. This exploratory study has certain implications for the practice of implementing the EAC approach in content teaching, finding that there may be merit in the use of targeted continuing professional development for content teachers when implementing EAC. Secondly, there is a need for partnerships between teachers of English as a second language and content subject teachers, as this cross-curricular collaboration has the potential to enhance the implementation of the EAC approach in high school classrooms.

Foreign and Bilingual Language Education in the UK and Spain: A Study of Similarities and Differences

2022-06-27T22:06:02+03:00

Language learning, as a means to promote intercultural awareness and communication as well as to help citizens prosper professionally, is one of today’s main goals of educational systems around the world. In Europe, several guidelines have been published, and significant efforts have been devoted to encouraging the development of the quality of foreign and bilingual language education to improve citizens’ communicative skills. Although there were attempts to foster foreign language proficiency in some parts of the United Kingdom between the 1990s and the early 2000s, the country has not traditionally considered languages among its educational priorities. Nonetheless, Brexit seems to have increased the need to learn languages in the country. In some other European countries, however, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), an additive bilingual approach, has been implemented since the early 2000. Considering that the nations in the United Kingdom and the regions in Spain have the freedom to organise educational affairs, an analysis of the provision of foreign and bilingual language education in the United Kingdom and Spain appears relevant. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of 2012-2020 literature in the field of foreign and bilingual language education in both contexts. The differences that exist within the United Kingdom concerning foreign language teaching are discussed, and information in relation to the provision of CLIL in some Spanish regions is also examined. The findings show that foreign language teaching is provided across the United Kingdom, whereas bilingual education is offered in the form of Welsh-, Irish-, and Gaelic-medium education mainly, although CLIL is also implemented in England.

University Students' Multidimensional State Boredom and Strategies to Cope with Classroom Boredom

2022-06-27T22:03:17+03:00

This study sought to examine how university students' state boredom dimensions (i.e., disengagement, high arousal, low arousal, inattention, and time perception) and their boredom coping strategies (i.e., cognitive approach, behavioral approach, cognitive avoidance, and behavioral avoidance) in the classroom are mediated in relation to gender and academic year. A total of 186 undergraduate students from a Turkish university, majoring in English language teaching in the faculty of education voluntarily participated in the study. The results indicated that the male participants experienced higher levels of boredom than the females in all levels of the state boredom. Additionally, the females had more inclination to use cognitive approach, while the male participants exhibited more behavioral approach to cope with boredom. Secondly, the participants with different academic levels only scored differently in disengagement, a state boredom dimension, and in cognitive approach, a boredom coping strategy. The findings highlight the significance of identifying student boredom and thereby specifying strategies to relieve their boredom in the classroom. Indeed, by gaining a proper understanding of the reactions triggered by boredom in classes, we would be able to spot the developmental paths of these reactions and thereby adopt the necessary measures to deal with student boredom.

Autonomy in Language Education. Theory, Research and Practice: A Book Review

2022-06-27T22:09:58+03:00

Previous studies have several limitations …: Indonesian Doctoral Students’, Indonesian Academics’, and International Authors’ Research Gap Strategies in ELT Research Article Abstracts and Introductions

2022-06-27T21:44:06+03:00

Presenting research gap(s) in a research article (RA), particularly in the abstract and introduction, should be considered by authors, since it functions to show the novelty of the research. As there have been limited studies on the possible variations in authors' research gap strategies and the problems in identifying research gaps, this mixed-method study aimed to fill the gaps. Using genre analysis, this study compared the use of research gap strategies in English Language Teaching (ELT) RA abstracts and introductions by three groups of authors, namely, Indonesian doctoral students, Indonesian academics, and international authors. The results of the quantitative analysis in this study indicated that the three groups share similarities and differences in using the types of research gap strategy in their ELT RA abstracts and introductions. Then, the qualitative analysis using semi-structured interviews with ten doctoral students revealed some problems encountered by them in identifying research gaps during research activities. Finally, this study demonstrates the extent to which our findings have theoretical and practical implications concerning the use of strategies in presenting research gaps in RAs.

Repair Practice in the Classroom Conversations of Indonesian EFL Students

2022-06-27T21:43:09+03:00

This study examines repair practice by English as a Foreign Language ( EFL) college students to address the understanding problems that may cause communication breakdowns in classroom conversations. Conversational data were elicited from 40 second-semester students performing jigsaw and information gap communicative tasks. Using the conversation analysis theory and methodological approach, the recorded and transcribed conversations were analyzed to scrutinize the frequency and types of repair strategies, trouble sources, and repair outcomes. The findings show that to address the understanding problem, the EFL college students employed 11 other-initiated repair strategies: Open-class or unspecified strategies; WH-interrogatives; Partial repeat plus WH- interrogatives; Repetition or partial repetition; Candidate understanding; Correction; Request for repetition; Non-verbal; Asking for definition, explanation, translation, example, or spelling; Explicit display of non-understanding; and Request to speak up. These other-initiated repair strategies were triggered by the presence of lexical, semantic content-related, and sequential/speech delivery trouble sources. Attempts to resolve the understanding problem were conducted by a set of repair outcomes, including Repetition, Acknowledgment, Repetition or acknowledgment plus expansion, explanation, and/or translation, and Repetition or acknowledgment plus translation. The study provides language educators with new insights on how EFL learners deal with understanding problems in communication so that they could respond appropriately to the repair practice initiated by the students.

Exploring the Relationship Between Language Learning Strategies, Academic Achievement, Grade Level, and Gender

2022-06-27T21:52:43+03:00

Learning efficacy can be substantially improved through the frequent use of learning strategies, whose practicality has been confirmed through extensive research. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to contribute to this wealth of research by determining whether learning strategies are significant predictors of students’ achievement in learning English as a foreign language (EFL) as well as by exploring strategy awareness and variations in strategy use by gender, grade level, and overall grade point average (GPA) among 206 high school students. The results indicated that cognitive strategies are significant positive predictors, while memory and affective strategies are significant negative predictors of students’ achievement in foreign language learning. Moreover, the findings revealed a significant impact of overall GPA and an insignificant impact of gender and grade level on the use of strategy subtypes, with the most frequently used strategies being metacognitive and the least frequently used being affective strategies. Furthermore, this research highlights the importance of incorporating strategies-based instruction methods into foreign language curriculums in the Bosnian context and also aims to raise teachers’ awareness of the importance of their application in the classroom milieu.

Exploring How Rhetorical Organization Contributes to the Readability of Essays

2022-06-27T21:50:29+03:00

The facilitative benefits of genre-specific reading have often been cited as a truism in the field of writing education. In line with this, writing center self-access libraries typically provide a selection of composition texts, including rhetorics (anthologies of model paragraphs and essays). Readability formulae (e.g., the Lexile Readability Formula) are often used to determine whether these texts will be a good fit for potential readers, and although the Lexile Formula reliably and validly assesses two features (i.e., semantic and syntactic), it does not consider other contributing features during the text selection process (e.g., rhetorical organization). To address this, this sequential, mixed-methods study explored the effects of rhetorical organization on undergraduate English language learners’ perceptions of difficulty when reading exemplars (i.e., essays) excerpted from rhetorics. The results indicated that rhetorical organization influences readability both as (a) a primary (i.e., an isolated feature) and (b) a conjoined feature (i.e., comprising two or more associated entities where the second impacts the first). The article also provides a suggestion for writing education professionals and the publishing industry: Readability formulae should be administered in a hybrid fashion, where additional features such as rhetorical organization are subjectively considered when assessing the difficulty of exemplars.

Role of Task Repetition and Content Familiarity in EFL Students’ Fluency and Accuracy in Narrative Tasks: A Case Study

2022-06-27T21:46:42+03:00

Developing writing skills has become a priority for many students in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. To this end, classroom practices should be facilitative of opportunities to communicate accurately and fluently in written and oral forms. Drawing on evidence which suggests that task repetition allows students to perform subsequent tasks more efficiently and accurately, the study examines the likely effect of procedural repetition with four narrative tasks (i.e. narrating stories in written form after watching short animated videos) on five EFL students’ fluency and accuracy (AF). To do this, the levels of the students’ AF were measured during the performance of each task. Moreover, qualitative data from questionnaires administered to the students after each task were also included to better understand the behavior of the AF levels in relation to their perceptions of the task performance and the familiarity with the content of the tasks. The evidence shows that the students’ AF tended to progressively increase as weeks went by. The highest AF levels were found in the tasks where the content was familiar to the students. The opposite was observed when the students claimed not to be familiar with the content. The argument that we put forward in this article is that task (procedural) repetition may be beneficial for enhancing students’ AF in writing task performance; however, if this practice combines with the students’ lack of content familiarity, AF may engage in a dynamic interaction in which trade-off effects can be observed.

Giving Voice to the Voiceless: Probing Current Issues for Student Teachers in EFL Teacher Education Program in Iran

2022-06-27T21:57:16+03:00

The present study attempted to give insight into the features of an effective English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education program by exploring student teachers’ beliefs, ideas, and the challenges they encounter during their teacher education program. The data were collected through several semi-structured focus group interview sessions with a total number of forty-one BA, MA, and PhD students studying teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) at university. The qualitative grounded theory design was used to analyze the data, and the findings of the study were corroborated with interpretations obtained from the informal observation of several university classes in a TEFL teacher education program in Iran. The inductive analysis of the data resulted in developing the following categories: the challenge of developing the ability to move back and forth from theory to practice, the struggle to establish a professional identity, the quest for the ‘self’, less-practiced reflective practice, and the missing connection between teacher education programs and schools. The discussion concerning the challenges and issues culminated in implications for EFL teacher education programs through which they can take the issues that student teachers normally experience into account and help them pave the way for an effective EFL teacher education program.

Experiencing the Peer Feedback Activities with Teacher’s Intervention through Face-to-Face and Asynchronous Online Interaction: The Impact on Students’ Writing Development and Perceptions

2022-06-27T21:48:28+03:00

The objectives of this study were to compare the impact of peer feedback implementation with teacher involvement through training in the classroom and asynchronous online communication on the quality of students' writing revisions, as well as to investigate students' perceptions of peer feedback activities. Twenty-five students participated in the experimental study. Eleven students were willingly to be interviewed. Inferential statistical analysis was used to interpret the quantitative data collected from students’ essay writing scores. Meanwhile, the data obtained through observations and interviews was interpreted using qualitative coding analysis. The results of the inferential statistical analysis revealed that peer feedback activities conducted through asynchronous online interactions had more significant effects compared to those conducted face to face on students’ writing revision. Further, after conducting a thematic analysis, six themes emerged: 1) peer feedback activities could increase students’ autonomy in learning, 2) the teacher's involvement in peer feedback activities was beneficial in terms of improving the consistency of feedback and revision, 3) peer feedback through asynchronous online interactions gave extra time to produce more beneficial comments, 4) peer feedback activities through asynchronous online interactions gave more chances to become a writing audience, 5) communicating via Facebook made the students feel awkward, and 6) recorded feedback via Facebook comments was more beneficial for students’ revision. The implication of the research is that teachers of English needs to consider asynchronous online interactions for students’ writing revision when teaching writing.

Collaborative Climate and Knowledge Sharing among ESP Teachers: A Mixed Method Study

2022-06-27T21:55:54+03:00

Research on teacher collaboration emphasizes the key role of collaborative culture for teachers’ functioning; however, there is little empirical evidence to investigate its relationship with knowledge sharing among university ESP teachers. In the present study, the relationship between EFL teachers’ collaborative climate and knowledge sharing was sought. The data were collected through two surveys of 328 Iranian ESP teachers. A Pearson correlation was carried out to investigate the relationship between the two variables of the study. A multiple regression analysis was also run to examine if ESP teachers’ collaborative climate predicts their knowledge sharing. A follow-up interview with 13 ESP teachers was conducted to consolidate the findings and explore the contribution of teachers’ collaborative climate to their knowledge sharing. The Pearson correlation coefficient test demonstrated a significant positive correlation for four measures (organizational culture, the head of department, teachers’ attitude, workgroup support), and the collaborative climate. The results of the multiple regression also indicated that four subscales of collaborative climate were the predictors of ESP teachers’ attitude towards knowledge sharing. Analysis of the interview data, on the other hand, indicated how teachers’ collaborative climate contributes to their knowledge sharing through one of the four main sources, namely helpful atmosphere, encouragement received from the heads of departments, the expectation of reward, and work group support. In line with these ﬁndings, several practical recommendations were offered.

The Effects of Computer-assisted L1 and L2 Textual and Audio Glosses on Vocabulary Learning and Reading Comprehension across Different Learning Styles

2022-06-27T22:04:26+03:00

The current study investigated the effects of computer-assisted L1 and L2 textual and audio glosses on vocabulary learning and reading comprehension across various learning styles. Based on the PET test, 30 homogeneous Iranian EFL learners took the VARK questionnaire and were divided into five learning style groups. Twenty-eight words were selected to be glossed in four reading passages. The selected passages, which were glossed in the four different forms of L1 and L2 audio and L1 and L2 textual by creating hyperlinks on the target words, were presented to the participants through a computer screen. All groups underwent all the treatment conditions and then took posttests. Three-way ANOVAs were run to investigate the effects of learning styles, modes, and language, and their two-way and three-way interactions on the performance of EFL learners on the vocabulary and reading comprehension posttests. While no significant differences between language and mode of glosses on the reading comprehension posttest scores were observed, it was revealed that L1 glosses were more beneficial than L2 glosses for vocabulary learning. The study also showed that the textual glosses were more effective than audio glosses for vocabulary learning. The results further displayed significant differences between learning styles on the vocabulary learning and reading comprehension posttest scores.

The Language of Argumentation: A Book Review

2022-06-27T22:08:33+03:00

The Language of Argumentation by Ronny Boogaart, Henrike Jansen, & Maarten van Leeuwen (Eds). Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 2021 aims to provide important theoretical insights to the international community of argumentation theorists by informing them of recent developments in the field. Some aspects of argumentative texts may emerge as a result of the argumentation process. This book covers different types of argumentative procedures and enthymematic argumentation, argumentation structures, argumentation schemes, and fallacies. Specifically, contributions are solicited from authors trained in informal or formal logic, modern or classical rhetoric, and discourse analysis or speech communication.

Short Teacher Responses in the EFL Classroom: A Corpus-Approach Assessment

2022-06-27T22:00:24+03:00

Teacher’s positive feedback in the form of immediate succinct response is an indispensable motivational factor crucial to students’ oral production and classroom participation. The present study was intended to assess the range and authenticity of teacher responses used by a number of Russian teachers of English in everyday classroom interactions. The study adopted theCorpus Approachas a reference tool to verify the research data against a Corpus-driven evidence that isto examine and assess the authenticity of the most frequent responses given by the study participants (21 practising EFL teachers working in Orel, Russia, most of whom are graduates of Orel State University, andwhose teaching experience ranges from 11 to 25 years). The results indicated that the phrases the teachers used in the classroom differed from those native speakers use in similar authentic environment. The analysis revealed that the teachers did not resort to clear and concise positive reinforcement often enough to stimulate the students’ engagement. In addition, a finite list of highly authentic TRs was recommended for more frequent use in ordinary EFL classrooms and among would-be English teachers. Overall, both teachers in the field and trainee teachers need to be more informed on how and in what particular way to encourage their students’ classroom participation.

Improving Submissions to Scholarly Journals via Peer Review

2022-06-27T21:41:53+03:00

Due to their commitment to better publishing standards and desire to improve their journals’ academic reputation, editorial boards, editors, and editorial teams seek to refine submissions they receive. Though, the peer review process serves as a filtering and assessment system, it is believed to greatly contribute to better quality of scholarly journals. Based on the analysis of the peer review internationally, the JLE editors focus on the peer review in the Journal of Language and Education, sharing their experience with the JLE potential authors. The editorial contains some reflections on the efficacy of peer review in the JLE. Potential authors may find some tips as to how to interact with recommendations and criticism on part of their peer reviewers and to make their voices heard.

Qualitative Adjectives in EFL Students’ Reflective Writing Essays

2022-06-27T20:53:41+03:00

Qualitative adjectives are often used in expressive writing, including reflective writing. They express and (de)intensify feelings and emotions, thereby expressing stance. This study investigates the adjective profiles of 60 first-year EFL students’ reflective essays and compares male and female university students’ utilization of qualitative adjectives and those used as attitudinal stance markers. Data were collected from a reflective writing task after students participated in a seminar on effective listening. Analyses were conducted considering the General Service List (GSL), the Academic Word List (AWL), and words that do not appear in either of the preceding lists. The results indicated that qualitative adjectives accounted for 6% of the words in these reflective writing essays, and the male students used a greater number of adjectives than the female students. This difference, which was at a statistically significant level, likely stems from male students’ greater use of adjectives from the Academic Word Lists. The results also showed that 47.5% of the adjectives used in these essays were attitudinal. There was no statistically significant difference between the frequencies with which the male and the female students used these attitudinal adjectives. The results are discussed and recommendations are made to increase students’ effective use of adjectives in reflective writing.

Self-Disclosure and Moroccan EFL Learners’ Writing Development: Effects on Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

2022-06-27T20:58:49+03:00

This article addressed the relationship between students’ self-disclosure—that is, sharing social and positive information—and writing development in the English language classroom. The pre-test-post-test research design was adopted to assess whether students’ reflections on personal positive experiences including feelings and opinions help improve their writing output as measured by complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The participants, drawn from a convenience sample, were 15 Moroccan students enrolled in the department of English studies at a Moroccan university. These participants were included to establish a homogenous level of English proficiency in writing. The participants completed a pre-test, six positive self-disclosure topics, and a post-test. A paired-sample t-test was computed to determine if a significant mean difference existed between the pre- and post-tests. Although the descriptive statistics suggest that the learners showed relative improvement in complex and fluent language, their overall writing development did not reach a statistically significant difference level. Although differing writing prompts and learners’ academic learning experiences influenced the overall findings, this study contributes to the debate about the role of self-disclosure activities in improving certain language components in writing and calls for developing study programs that consider students’ personal lives in language arts classes.

The Impact of Social Networking Sites on Study Habits and Interpersonal Relationships among Vietnamese Students

2022-06-27T21:05:31+03:00

Social media has a profound influence on every aspect of human beings nowadays. This study investigated the impact of social networking sites on study habits and interpersonal relationships at the tertiary level. A total of 125 college students from different universities in Hanoi were chosen through a convenience sampling technique. Quantitative methodology was employed for the research instrument and a descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The researchers designed questionnaires with Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients of at least 0.84 to collect data for the study. Analysis of the data was carried out using frequencies, percentages, means, t-tests, and Pearson correlation statistics at the 0.05 alpha level. The findings revealed that students’ level of using social networking sites had a negative influence on their study habits and their interpersonal relationships. Based on the findings, it was recommended that regular orientations should be given to students on how and when to use social media to enhance their study habits or to spend time improving their interpersonal relationships with their families, friends, and teachers.

The Integration of Verbal Humor into EFL Classrooms: The Issues of Appropriateness and Relevance in Focus

2022-06-27T20:48:56+03:00

The present study examined the manifestations of Iranian male and female EFL teachers’ use of humor in the classroom environment. To this end, a qualitative study with 30 participants was implemented in two English language institutes in Iran. Equally, 15 male and female EFL teachers were selected by convenience sampling and their classes were audio-recorded and later transcribed for the examination of the types of humor they used and their frequency. Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszcyk, and Smith’s (2006) method of humor analysis and categorization of appropriateness was exploited for the analysis of the types of humor collected from the participants of the study. The results suggested that the use of humor by male teachers was more frequent than that of female teachers. It was revealed that 57% of the humor production was by male EFL teachers and 43% was produced by female EFL teachers. The results revealed that the most frequent humor type in male teachers’ classrooms was “funny comments” (27%), with “teasing students” (3%) being the least frequent one. In the case of appropriate humor use, similarly, female teachers used “funny comments” (52%) as the most frequent one, while there was no instance of “providing humorous examples”. Considering inappropriate humor use, both male and female teachers used “funny comments” (45%) as the most frequent type. The findings of the present study can be of use to EFL teachers and suggests the need for workshops and training courses on the integration of humor into EFL classes.

Corpus linguistics for education-A guide for research by Pascual Perez-Paredes: A Book Review

2022-06-27T21:08:46+03:00

The book Corpus linguistics for education was written by Pascual Perez-Paredes (2020) and published by Routledge. The book aims to provide a guide for how corpus linguistics (CL) methods can be used in educational research. The book consists of seven chapters and an additional conclusion chapter. The book addresses different themes that are relevant for the inclusion of CL methods in the education research field such as frequency register (texts) and keyword analysis, among others. The book is distinguished by the inclusion of a good number of tables and figures providing step-by-step guides for all the selected methods of analysis. This book is very important for researchers and students who are interested in using CL methods in the field of education. This review consists of a brief summary of the eight chapters and a critical discussion of three key issues raised in the book. The review also provides an overall evaluation of the contributions this book has made to this particular discipline.

‘Publish and Flourish’ instead of ‘Publish or Perish’: A Motivation Model for Top-quality Publications

2022-06-27T20:59:50+03:00

Although the ‘publish-or-perish’ principle has spread globally, many authors believe that it is a negative reinforcer (motivator) and harmful. With this paper, we have tried to help overcome the growing pressure of negative reinforcers on researchers. The paper aimed to propose a model for factors influencing researchers to publish in WoS/Scopus journals, based mainly on positive reinforcement and a combination of concepts including theories of control, management, stakeholders, and psychology. The model was intended for Bulgarian universities. It covered 17 motivational drivers and 29 potential features of internal university stakeholders directly involved in the topic. Factor ranking was not incorporated in the model. The research methodology covered the methods of expert evaluation, analysis/synthesis, induction/deduction, and the toolkit consisted of a comprehensive survey and Kendall’s rank concordance coefficient. The model was implemented at a Bulgarian state university. The empirical study was conducted among 120 researchers. It resulted in factor rankings by university internal stakeholders. The highest-ranked motivational driver was reputation, and the lowest-ranked was the publish-or-perish pressure reducing. The highest-ranked potential features were university prestige and potential and support for promotion. We believe that this model contributes to the theory of behaviour control. The model will also improve university research management by enriching its tools.

The Relationship between Critical Thinking, Self-regulation, and Teaching Style Preferences among EFL Teachers: A Path Analysis Approach

2022-06-27T20:56:16+03:00

Teachers are world makers. They can change the thinking, attitudes, and lives of their students. Thus, it is essential to study the factors that foster teachers’ competency. Critical thinking, self- regulation, and teaching style are some of the factors influencing the effectiveness of teachers. In line with this argument, the present study delved into the possible impact of critical thinking abilities and self-regulatory strategies of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers on their teaching style preferences. The possible influence of critical thinking abilities on teacher self- regulation was also studied. To do this, Watson-Glaser’s Critical Thinking Appraisal (Form 1), the Teacher Self-Regulation Scale (TSRS), and Grasha’s Teaching Style Inventory (TSI) were administered to 320 EFL teachers who were teaching at different private language institutions in Iran. A path analysis was utilized to ponder their causal relationships. The findings indicated that teachers with higher critical thinking abilities and self-regulatory skills tend to implement learner- centered styles (namely, Facilitator and Delegator) while teachers with lower critical thinking abilities and self-regulatory skills tend to do the opposite. Moreover, the significant effects of critical thinking on teacher self-regulation were determined. The implications of this study may open up new perspectives into successful pedagogy for policymakers, curriculum designers, and teachers.

The Effects of a CLIL Programme on Linguistic Progress at Two Different Points in Time

2022-06-27T21:02:15+03:00

In an attempt to explore the effects of different kinds of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning contexts, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has been at the centre of FL acquisition research over the past decade. Studies have focused on the features and gains this setting brings, whether content is learnt at the same level of success as when taught in the learners’ L1, and whether that L1 is negatively affected by CLIL. However, to our knowledge, very little attention has been brought to how the seniority of the programme affects learner progress in the target language. This study aims to fill such a gap in the understanding that the programme will have developed and improved in terms of quality of exposure and interaction, and that learners’ EFL performance will be higher. To do that, we measured the efficacy of a long-standing CLIL programme in Barcelona twelve years after it was launched and examined the reading, writing, and lexico-grammatical abilities of CLIL EFL learners aged 8, 11, and 14 compared with results obtained by learners measured at the onset of the programme in 2005. The results showed that the quality of the programme has increased over the last decade, guaranteeing a higher level of EFL student proficiency when raw scores are considered, but not in terms of linguistic gains, in which only improvement in older students’ grammar and reading skills can be observed.

A Systematic Overview of Issues for Developing EFL Learners’ Oral English Communication Skills

2022-06-27T21:10:43+03:00

The objective of this systematic review is to present a critical overview of current studies to explore issues such as the factors causing EFL learners’ poor oral performance and the teaching and assessment methods of oral English communication skills (OECSs) for developing tertiary level learners’ OECSs in EFL contexts. For this purpose, 51 empirical studies of the 2907 retrieved from SpringerLink, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and the Google Scholar database that were published between 2010 and 2019 in different EFL contexts were analyzed. This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and was analyzed thematically using NVIVO 12, followed by the Mendeley reference management software. Studies that were conducted in native English contexts and non-empirical studies were excluded from consideration for this study. The findings showed that the environmental factor was the primary factor for learners’ poor OECS performance in EFL contexts. For the method of teaching and assessment of learners’ OECSs, the use of technology is rapidly increasing in different EFL contexts. This study suggests some implications for both future researchers and academics for developing EFL learners’ oral English communication skills dealing with environmental, psychological, and linguistic factors along with teaching and learning resources at the tertiary level in EFL contexts.

Becoming an ESL Researcher: A Personal Monologue

2022-06-27T21:07:39+03:00

This reflective paper narrates my research journey from a naïve researcher to a critic and from a behaviorist to a post-structuralist. It highlights the different philosophical, methodological, and theoretical dilemmas I faced in conceptualizing students’ experiences in an English as a Second Language program in higher education during my doctoral studies. This journey is divided into three phases: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. In the construction phase, I conceptualized students’ experiences from my own established knowledge, which was grounded in my presumptions about teaching and learning. During the deconstruction phase, I questioned my understanding of knowledge and social realities. In the reconstruction phase, I interacted with Phenomenography, Activity Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Communities of Practice, and Bourdieusian Structuralism. This paper narrates these interactions, focusing mainly on the dilemmas I faced as a researcher. These reflections could be highly beneficial for new researchers who may face the same situations at different stages of their research careers.

The Efficacies of an Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Model on ESL Learners’ Vocabulary Size and Writing Skills

2022-06-27T21:04:16+03:00

Vocabulary size is believed to have positive correlations with learners’ language skills, reading comprehension, knowledge acquisition, and academic achievement. In Malaysia, the lack of vocabulary has been identified as one of the causes for students’ inability to acquire a second language. This quasi-experimental study examined the efficacies of employing the Contextualized Word Family (CWF) Model for direct vocabulary instruction (DVI) on vocabulary size and writing skills among secondary school students based on three proficiency levels. Through a purposive sampling method, 143 Grade 8 students were classified into three proficiency groups and were administered a similar treatment of contextualized word families. The Productive Vocabulary Level Test (PVLT) was used to measure the participants’ vocabulary size and guided essay writing tests were employed to obtain their test scores in the pre-test and post-test. The findings revealed the positive effects of using the CWF Model for enhancing students’ vocabulary size and writing ability. After a ten-week intervention, the majority of the students from low, intermediate, and high proficiency groups were able to increase their vocabulary size from below 1000 words to 1000-2000 words. There was also an increase in the number of students who were able to reach the 2000-word level of vocabulary size for all three groups. The findings from this study ascertained the positive effects of using the CWF Model to boost not only the vocabulary size, but also the writing skills of the high and intermediate proficiency students. On the writing tests, the high proficiency students showed a significant increase while the intermediate proficiency students experienced a slight increase in their writing test scores, but it was insignificant. Surprisingly, the low proficiency students experienced a significant decrease in their writing test scores after the treatment despite experiencing an increase in their vocabulary size. Future studies are recommended to utilize a true experimental design with a longer treatment period especially for examining the efficacies of the model on students’ writing skills.

Exploring How ELT Teachers Perceive and Practice English Language Assessment

2022-06-27T20:57:52+03:00

As a well-designed language education program naturally requires a well-designed assessment component, the pivotal role of assessment in language education needs to be stressed. This study focuses on how English language teaching (ELT) teachers receive training in English language assessment, and how they perceive and practice assessment in Turkey. The study was conducted with the participation of 198 ELT teachers from 24 K-12 level schools and eight universities. A mixed-methods research design was chosen and the data were collected through a questionnaire, follow-up interviews, observations, personal conversations, and sample exam evaluations. The findings indicated that the assessment practices of the teachers were shaped by the teachers’ language learning and teaching experiences, their intuition, adherence to assessment traditions, and the emulation of what other teachers conducted to conform to group norms. It was also observed that as the teachers did not receive proper pre-service and in-service assessment training, their assessment knowledge was low. Moreover, it was found that the assessment component of teacher training programs remained peripheral and did not help equip teachers with assessment-related theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Finally, the assessment quality in these schools was found to be low and assessment was taken as a formal requirement to grade students. In the final part of the paper, some suggestions for effective assessment are put forward.

The Status of Theme in Research Article Abstracts in Seven Dentistry Subdisciplines: A Text-Based Study of Intradisciplinary Variations and Similarities in Thematic Choices and Thematic Progression Patterns

2022-06-27T20:50:45+03:00

A research article (RA) abstract provides an overview or summary of the whole research. It is one of the most important sections in an RA since it is the first section researchers read to decide if the article is relevant to their research or not. Researchers need to know the intradisciplinary (within the same discipline) variations and similarities in the choice of Theme and thematic progression (TP) patterns in RA abstracts in their discipline. Several studies have investigated variations and similarities in the use of Theme across disciplines. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of studies investigating intradisciplinary variations in the use of Theme in RA abstracts of dentistry subdisciplines. As epistemological differences exist between the various dentistry subdisciplines, it is pertinent to examine if there are intradisciplinary variations in the construction of Theme in the subfields of dentistry. The present study aims to investigate if there are any intradisciplinary variations and similarities in the use of Theme and TP patterns across seven dentistry subdisciplines: oral sciences, periodontics, endodontics, operative dentistry, prosthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and orthodontics. The study is framed by Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics’ approach to language and Daneš’s model for TP patterns. The findings revealed intradisciplinary significant differences between the subfields of dentistry in terms of the use of Theme types at p < .05 (p-value=0.0294), while there were no significant differences in the use of TP patterns and thematic markedness. Various interesting linguistic features characterizing the subdisciplines were found, although no significant interdisciplinary differences were found between dentistry RA abstracts and the findings reported in the literature of other disciplines. Finally, implications for novice dental researchers attempting to write an RA abstract are presented.

The Collaborative Discussion Model: Developing Writing Skills through Prewriting Discussion

2022-06-27T21:01:17+03:00

This study aims to investigate the effect of peer-assisted prewriting discussion on second language (L2) academic writing and its benefits for students with different proficiency levels. While there is a significant body of research exploring the positive impact of collaboration on L2 writers' written performance and the ways it could be organised, there is little practical consideration on how to formulate explicit instruction. The rationale for this research lies in designing and arranging explicit instruction that could lead to L2 learners producing a higher quality writing output. Based on both qualitative and quantitative methods, and drawn on students’ written texts and data analysis, the current study was conducted to devise and test a proposed model, which the author will term the ‘collaborative discussion model’ (the CDM). The control and experimental groups of Russian EFL students (n = 48) were engaged in written assignments after naturally occurring discussions and then the latter group was involved in an instructor-led discussion. The practice writing tasks were rated with the analytic rubric used in IELTS, assessing task response, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range. The findings suggest that collaborative prewriting tasks, accomplished in the experimental group of students with different levels of L2 proficiency, may encourage students to engage more in reflection about the content and language of the text. As the texts produced after introducing the CDM were scored higher, especially on the criteria of task response and lexical resource, it is suggested that scaffolding prewriting discussions can potentially augment the writing skills of learners and the CDM can be used as a complementary activity to address the challenges associated with academic writing. The results of the questionnaire can imply that there are benefits of explicit instruction for students with different levels of L2 proficiency, although in nuanced ways and different degrees.

Autonomy Orientations of English Language Teachers in Turkey

2022-06-27T20:51:59+03:00

The present study aimed to explore autonomy orientations of English language teachers' work at an intensive language school in Turkey. The autonomy orientations of the teachers were analysed through self-determination theory. The study also investigated if these orientations vary according to the teachers’ gender, years of experience, and department of graduation. The investigation was carried out through an autonomy orientations questionnaire. Data were collected from 111 language teachers, 11 of whose opinions were utilized for further analysis. The results showed that teachers had moderate autonomy supportive orientation, which was reported to be risky. Moreover, gender was the only variable that had a significant effect on the autonomy orientations. The teachers mainly blamed the education system for restricting their adoption of the autonomous orientations. The results imply the necessity of explicit training on how teachers can be encouraged to have more autonomy supporting orientations.

The Socio-linguistic Profiles, Identities, and Educational Needs of Greek Heritage Language Speakers in Chicago

2022-06-27T20:54:56+03:00

The present study aims to further the research on heritage language speakers (HLSs) by providing the socio-linguistic profiles and identities of an uninvestigated community of heritage speakers, namely the Greeks of Chicago, thus offering data for a less-studied HL, Greek. The participants were fifty-four (N=54) first, second, and third-generation Greek HLSs. The socio-linguistic data were collected through an online survey, while identification with Greek culture as well as ethnic attachment and practice of Greek traditions were investigated through the content analysis of data from the Greek Heritage Language Corpus. The results of the study are discussed with respect to how they can improve our knowledge of the educational needs of Greek HL learners. This research-based knowledge can be employed for addressing the academic needs of HL learners through educational programs. The authors propose an agenda for a more linguistically and culturally responsive education program for HL learners, in general, and Greek HL learners in diasporic communities, in particular.

Education for Sustainable Development: Glocal Implications for Universities

2022-06-27T20:47:24+03:00

The editorial overviews the key research aspects of embedding sustainable development into university systems worldwide. The JLE editors dwell upon the pivotal role of higher education in transferring knowledge, skills, and underlying values in promoting Sustainable Development Goal No.4 (Quality Education for Sustainable Development). The editorial analysis is underpinned by the most cited Scopus-indexed articles (Top-50 as of March 2021) on sustainable development in higher education. JLE potential authors will find some recommendations on the subject field gaps and key directions to be published in the journal upcoming issues.

Using Debate to develop Writing Skills for IELTS Writing Task 2 among STEM Students

2022-06-27T20:13:14+03:00

The paper focuses on the issue of developing essay writing skills in the context of IELTS preparation and explores the issue of whether academic debate can enhance STEM students’ ability to structure their essays, develop a smooth progression of ideas, and provide supported and extended arguments, which, in turn, may result in higher scores for the IELTS Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion categories. To answer this, a study was undertaken in the academic years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 among STEM undergraduate students in the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. The study involved two groups of students (36 students in each): the group that attended regular IELTS preparation classes and the other that, in addition to regular classes, attended debate classes where among other things Toulmin’s argument structure was taught. At the beginning and end of the experiment both groups submitted essays that were analysed according to IELTS rubrics for Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion, and the presence or absence of the elements of Toulmin’s argument structure. In addition, the essays were assessed by an independent IELTS teacher. An independent-samples t-test and Levene’s test were utilised to determine the significance of the collected data. The findings revealed that, on average, the students of the experimental group scored well in Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion, yet some results were inconsistent, which requires further research.

Enhancing Language Assessment Skills among Faculty Members in Saudi EFL Context

2022-06-27T20:28:30+03:00

In Saudi higher education, assessment has shifted to incorporate intended learning outcomes rather than merely textbook content. Subsequently, faculty members unwillingly participate in high-stakes competitive and harmonized assessment in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) courses during the preparatory year (PY). These challenges emphasize the importance of need-based training for faculty members. Accordingly, this context-specific study scrutinized faculty members’ needs as well as the impact of a training program on engaging the participants and on fostering language assessment skills (LASs) among them. In so doing, an action research design used pre- and post-questionnaires and included a training portfolio to collect data from 31 faculty members. The study first identified those needs as instructional skills, design skills, and educational measurement skills. In the context of professional development, the researchers designed a training program based on those reported needs. During training, the participants expressed their satisfaction with the language assessment. After the training, the participants greatly improved their LASs. The paired tests indicated that the faculty members increased their instructional skills, design skills, and skills of educational measurement. Further research is recommended for enhancing LASs among EFL students.

Self-Image Improvement and Iranian EFL Learners’ Oral Performance: Effects on Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

2022-06-27T20:11:41+03:00

The present study intended to investigate the effects of self-image improvement on quality of Iranian EFL learners’ oral productions. To this aim, 30 lower-intermediate university students were randomly divided into an experimental (EG) and control (CG) groups. The main focus in both groups was enhancing the students’ oral performance while only the EG received the treatment via self-image improving techniques. Their self-image was measured with the aid of Offer Self-Image Questionnaire and their oral performance was examined using two parallel IELTS speaking tests before and after the treatment. It was found that by receiving self-image training, participants’ self-image improved, which led to a parallel improvement in their speaking skill. More specifically, the EG improved significantly in oral complexity and two components of oral fluency, MLR and speech rate A. However, regarding oral accuracy and speech rate B, no significant difference was observed between the two groups.

Advanced Russian EFL Learners’ Awareness of Idiomatic Synonymy, Antonymy, and Polysemy

2022-06-27T20:23:51+03:00

Foreign language acquisition is notoriously constrained by learners’ lack of awareness of the systemic relations that are obtained among stable multiple-unit lexical items. This results in learners’ inability to variegate their performance (both written and oral) with idioms that stand in complementary (synonymy) or contrastive (antonymy) distribution to one another. Nor are learners typically able to distinguish between the multiple senses of English idioms. Given these impedimenta, the present research investigates the degree of entrenchment of idiomatic synonymy, antonymy, and polysemy and, on the back of it, sets the agenda for partial revision of the practice of exposing learners to English idioms. Data were collected to investigate the knowledge of idiomatic synonymy, antonymy, and polysemy amongst Russian EFL learners. The results of the ANOVA analysis revealed that the degree of awareness of the major types of idiomatic paradigmatic relations significantly differed between the groups, with learners being more aware of synonymy and polysemy than antonymy. The findings suggest that current EFL materials and dictionaries need to be updated and revisited with a view to exposing foreign learners to an extended network of paradigmatic idiomatic relations.

Analysing Cultural Elements in L2 Mandarin Textbooks for Malaysian Learners

2022-06-27T20:25:32+03:00

Culture is an important aspect of foreign or second language education as the teaching of foreign languages straddles two languages, the learner’s first language and the target/foreign language, and the different cultures associated with them. Textbooks for the teaching of foreign languages must inevitably orient to cultural elements from at least two cultural practices and environments. In this study, cultural elements in four Mandarin as a second language textbooks written by Malaysian authors were examined using content analysis. The conception of cultural elements proposed by Zhang and Chen and the categorizations of types of culture proposed by Cortazzi and Jin and Chao were employed to investigate the extent to which cultural elements (knowledge-culture or communicative-culture) and types of culture (source, target, international cultures or intercultural interaction) are represented in these textbooks. The analysis found that both knowledge-culture and communicative-culture are embodied in the textbooks. Furthermore, most of the cultural elements identified in the textbooks represent source and target cultures which refer to learners’ own culture and culture of the target language. The presence of international cultures and intercultural interaction, on the other hand, is lower in these textbooks. This study contributes towards a better understanding of how Malaysian authors of Mandarin as a second language textbooks for Malaysian learners incorporate cultural elements in the books they write. It highlights the importance of integrating cultural elements and representing a diversity of cultures in textbooks for teaching Mandarin as a second language.

Graduate Students’ Perceived Needs and Preferences for Supervisor Written Feedback for Thesis Writing

2022-06-27T20:29:16+03:00

A plethora of previous research has explored students’ preferences for written feedback from teachers to respond to students’ writing in the classroom. However, little or no research has investigated graduate students’ needs and preferences regarding written feedback provided by their supervisors in response to thesis writing. This study examined the feedback needs and preferences of EFL graduate students to the three nominated themes defining supervisor written feedback to thesis writing in this study: content, genre, and linguistic feedback to thesis writing. Data was collected from 32 master’s students from the TEFL and Media and Communications at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia using a questionnaire and an unstructured interview. The participants’ responses were tabulated and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results indicated that both groups commonly preferred feedback on content the most. When sub-categories of this feedback were examined further, it was found that TEFL students favored gaps in theoretical understanding, but Media and Communications students preferred coverage and gaps in the literature. They also showed discrepancies regarding their preferences for part-genres in thesis writing and the various features of linguistic accuracy. The results of this study suggest that feedback on theses should be realized in regard to the needs and preferences of graduate students. Finally, implications for further research that could shed light on the resonant understanding of feedback on thesis writing are presented.

Applying Freire’s Critical Pedagogy to Iranian EFL Bilingual and Monolingual Speaking Performance

2022-06-27T20:22:27+03:00

The purpose of the present pre-experimental study is to examine the extent to how Critical Pedagogy (CP) may function in EFL teaching in Iran. Compared with the growing but far from conclusive body of research, virtually few studies have been covered comparatively among monolinguals and bilinguals. Also, no studies have examined Freire’s CP among monolinguals and bilinguals especially in Iran, which considered as two privileged and less privileged groups respectively. Therefore, this study was done among sixty Iranian monolingual and bilingual university sophomores to know if CP affects them differently. The study is done under two available classes in bilingual and two other classes in monolingual context. The first groups received problem-posing and the second groups were exposed to banking model. The scoring procedure of participants’ performance was based on IELTS speaking band descriptors. Findings reveal that applying problem-posing model cause improvement in speaking performance of both monolingual and bilingual learners than banking model. More importantly, it is concluded that there is no significant difference between monolinguals and bilinguals in terms of problem-posing model, perhaps because the standards of educational justice have been partially observed among both communities. Finally, implications were drawn for EFL teachers and syllabus designers.

Lexical Bundles of L1 and L2 English Professional Scholars: A Contrastive Corpus-Driven Study on Applied Linguistics Research Articles

2022-12-07T16:56:09+03:00

The current study examined the structural and functional types of four-word lexical bundles in two different corpora of applied linguistics scientific articles written by L1 English and L1 Indonesian professional writers. The findings show that L2 writers employed a higher number of bundles than L1 writers, but L2 writers underused some of the most typical lexical bundles in L1 English writing. Structurally, unlike previous studies, this study reports the frequent use of prepositional phrase (PP) - based bundles in the articles of L2 writers. However, besides the high frequency of PP-based bundles, L2 authors also used a high number of verbal phrase-based bundles, suggesting that these L2 writers were still acquiring more native-like bundles. In terms of functional types, L2 writers employed fewer quantification bundles than their counterparts. This study has potential implications for teaching English for academic writing. Teachers need to raise their students’ awareness of the most frequently used lexical bundles in a specific academic discipline and pay attention to the discourse conventions of academic writing, helping L2 students transition from clausal to phrasal styles.

ELT Master’s Programmes in Thailand: Focused Areas and Research Trends

2022-06-27T20:30:25+03:00

The increasing demand for competent users of English and qualified English teachers has accelerated the growth of graduate programmes in English language teaching (ELT). In Thailand, ELT master’s programmes have been serving as a training ground for Thai English teachers for decades. This study explores the focused areas and research trends of Thai ELT master’s programmes. The analyses involved ten ELT master’s programmes offered by ten different universities and 201 master’s theses submitted between the years of 2014 and 2018. Foundation and core courses were categorised into twelve content areas. The findings show that teaching and research methodology courses were the most common areas, indicating that the programmes were not only pedagogical but also research-oriented. In consistence with the international trends of ELT research, the Instructional effects research area still prevails. The number of studies on Assessment and Curriculum/Programme is relatively low compared with the number of courses in such areas. Also discussed are considerations for programme management, lecturers, and students. It is also recommended that all the courses offered be treated as a gateway to research opportunities in addition to teaching practice and professional practice improvement.

The Relationship Between Language Mindsets and Feedback Preferences in L2 Writings of EFL Learners

2022-06-27T20:31:50+03:00

The present study intended to investigate intermediate Iranian EFL learners’ language mindsets and examine the possible relationships between language mindsets and feedback preferences in L2 writing. To achieve these aims, 150 EFL volunteer learners were recruited from several language institutes in Isfahan, Iran, and their language proficiency level was determined through a proficiency test. The learners were then given the Language Mindsets Questionnaire and the Feedback Preferences Scale to fill out. Frequency counts, mean scores, one-sample t-tests, and SEM in Smart PLS were employed to analyze the collected data. The results of the study indicated that for the three subcomponents of the mindsets questionnaire (i.e., general language intelligence beliefs, second language aptitude beliefs, and age sensitivity beliefs about language learning), the learners did not agree (though not significantly) with the entity items, while they expressed significant agreement with the incremental items. The SEM results also revealed that the model (examining the relationship between entity/incremental mindsets and feedback preferences) indicated that entity mindsets were a significant predictor of feedback preferences, yet the incremental mindsets failed to do so. Among the feedback types, EFL learners’ preferences, in a deductive order, were found to be for commentary and conferencing significantly, and then for peer correction, prompts, self-correction to a non-significant extent. The significance of the obtained results are presented and the implications of the study are enumerated.

The Art of Saying “No” to University Students: A Pragmatic Analysis of the Speech Act of Refusal in Teacher-Student Role-Plays

2022-06-27T20:19:22+03:00

The current study aimed to investigate how university teachers decline students’ requests. To this end, the realization strategies of the speech act of refusal by 60 faculty members at a private Saudi university were examined. Data were collected through role-plays and were coded by using an adapted version of Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz’s (1990) model of refusal strategies and an adapted version of Trosborg’s (1995) model of internal modifiers. The results showed a clear preference for indirect strategies, a limited use of modifiers, particularly internal ones, and a minimal influence for gender and the teaching experience on the realization strategies. The results are interpreted in light of Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) politeness theory, the use of English as a lingua franca, the specific context of teacher-student talk and the existing literature.

Beyond «Listen and Repeat»: Investigating English Pronunciation Instruction at the Upper Secondary School Level in Slovakia by R. Metruk: A Book Review

2021-01-03T21:31:08+03:00

Peer Teaching to Assist Tertiary EFL Grammar Learning: Indonesian Tutors’ Perceptions of Challenges and Strategies

2022-06-27T20:33:36+03:00

As an essential language component, grammar plays a crucial role in communication. However, with the need to master various L2 forms within several years and an L1 that has a very different grammatical system from English, many tertiary EFL students find grammar learning challenging. To solve this issue, peer teaching/tutoring can be a very effective way to assist students in improving their grammar. While isolated grammar teaching has its downsides, it is superior in clarifying complex concepts and promoting accuracy. It may help increase students’ grammar competence when combined with other methods as an eclectic approach used in a communicative language program. As grammar tutors play a crucial role in helping their peers, this study examines the challenges they perceive in peer tutoring at the tertiary EFL education level and their strategies for overcoming difficulties. Using interviews to collect data from ten EFL grammar tutors, this qualitative study revealed some issues the tutors faced. Besides identifying problems such as motivating students, preparing the materials, and dealing with less/more proficient students, this research demonstrated that peer teaching might lead to ‘cognitive dependence’ among the lower-level learners. To deal with the various issues, the peer tutors applied practical strategies they had developed mainly from intuition and experience.

Mapping the Current Research Agenda on Scholarly Publishing: Scopus-Indexed Reviews

2022-06-27T20:09:13+03:00

Nearly ten years ago, scholarly publishing came to the fore in research on scientific communication spurred by the evolving Open Science system, the reinvention of peer reviews, and new attitudes to scholarly publications in the ranking-based academic environment. Here, the JLE editors revisit the field of scholarly publishing and identify the most popular areas where potential JLE authors might have difficulty. In this editorial, Scopus-indexed reviews are analysed to map the prevailing trends. The editorial review shows that the trends include open access, peer review transparency, the changing role of libraries in scholarly publishing, CrossRef’s initiatives, outsourcing and skills lacking in publishing, the impact of universities’ prescribed lists for publishing research, open-access monographs, and the role of commercial publishers.

A Pre-Experimental Study on a Process-Genre Approach for Teaching Essay Writing

2022-06-27T20:14:56+03:00

This study explored the feasibility of using a process-genre approach (PGA) for teaching academic writing from the perspective of EFL undergraduates. The sample consisted of 15 students enrolled in a four-year English program at the College of Education in Socotra, Yemen during the academic year 2018-2019. The study followed a pre-experimental design in which a pretest was given to the sample, and an extensive 30-hours program was pursued using the PGA. Additionally, ten informants were singled out for interviews to explore their opinions about the PGA-based teaching they experienced during the experiment. A Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to calculate the degree of significance in students’ improvement on opinion essay writing (Z=3.408, p < 0.05) between the pretest and posttest in favor of the latter. The findings also revealed that students had positive perceptions towards the PGA that was applied by their instructors. The findings suggest that applying such an approach in writing courses could engage learners in writing practices that they view positively.

Developing a Model for the Evaluation of Iranian EFL Teachers’ Awareness of the Code of Ethics in Research

2022-06-27T19:45:37+03:00

Conducting educational research is not an arbitrary practice. When implementing educational research, teachers, as researchers, need to adhere to ethical rules and norms. Thus, developing an instrument for evaluating English as foreign language (EFL) teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics in research can guide Iranian ELT professionals to work towards setting standards in the assessment of Iranian EFL teachers’ professional development and may assure consistency in EFL teachers’ quality assurance. The principal determination of the present study was to develop a scale to evaluate EFL teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics for conducting research in Iran. This work’s theoretical framework is based on the most influential ethical issues and elements in research in Samadi, Motallebzadeh, Ashraf, and Khajavy’s (2020) study. To this end, 272 Iranian EFL teachers (chosen using convenience sampling) participated in the analysis to fill out the scale in the piloting stage. The scale consisted of five main categories: (F1) Before the beginning of the research, (F2) the Beginning of the research, (F3) Gathering the data, (F4), Analyzing the data, and (F5) Writing, reporting, sharing, and storing the data. The first draft of the scale consisted of 60 items. As part of the validation procedure, the reliability of this scale was determined through Cronbach’s alpha, and its validity was measured by running a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) through a structural equation modeling approach. After performing the CFA, it was found that the questionnaire had high construct validity. Finally, the statistical findings were presented, and the implications of the ELT domain were given. The findings provide empirical evidence that provides a framework for assessing and evaluating EFL teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics in research.

Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness of the Learning by Teaching Technique among University-level English as a Foreign Language Students

2022-06-27T19:32:17+03:00

Learning via teaching has been accepted as one of the best ways to achieve a deep understanding of a topic. This research was aimed at seeking scientific evidence to support this claim by comparing the scores the university-level EFL students obtained through the learning by teaching technique and those obtained by students who were taught traditionally using a teacher-centered approach. The experimental group consisted of 22 students who were taught pedagogical content knowledge, i.e. English Language Testing, traditionally for half of the semester and then teaching students at another university afterward. The control group consisted of 24 students who were taught language testing traditionally by the same instructor for the whole semester. Both groups were given a test to measure their content knowledge achievement; one test at the beginning of the semester and one at the end of the semester. Two-way ANOVA was used to compare the two groups’ scores, and find out how the differences in the scores was affected by the type of instruction. The results showed that there was significant evidence that the students’ scores improved significantly in both groups. However, the difference in test scores between pre-test and post-test did not depend on the type of instruction. Because the experimental group could achieve the same performance as those of the control group regardless of the shorter instruction period, it can be concluded that learning by teaching has potential as an effective method for teaching pedagogical content knowledge. Suggestions for possible modifications of this technique are discussed in this paper.

The Dogme Approach: A Radical Perspective in Second Language Teaching in the Post-Methods Era

2022-06-27T19:52:22+03:00

This paper aims to make a critical discussion of Dogme ELT, an innovative pedagogy in English language teaching first developed by Thornbury (2000). This paper first provides a comprehensive review of second language acquisition and pedagogical theories as well as post-methods era perspectives in English language teaching. After that, the authors discuss different aspects of Dogme ELT and figure out the room for Dogme ELT in English language teaching in the post-methods era. Dogme ELT is rooted in a conglomerate of compatible theories in second language learning and teaching. The most noticeable perspective may be that the language teachers should not rely mainly on prescribed coursebooks, but teach design tasks based on learners’ problems and interests. There should be more studies on various aspects of Dogme ELT, although it satisfies most, if not all, basic principles in English language teaching theoretically. The authors also figure out gaps in research and recommendations for English language teachers and learners.

The Students, the Local and the Foreign: Drama of Identity and Language in Mongolian-English Bilingual Schools

2022-06-27T19:48:58+03:00

Education in bilingual schools aims to equip learners with balanced bilingualism, increased (bi)cultural capital and a global mindset. Nevertheless, in a growing number of countries only local children attend such institutions, where foreign teachers are the almost exclusive manifestations of ‘globalness’. Dynamics among foreign and local teachers and students shape learners’ attitudes, their learning outcome and identity formation to an unexpected degree. This often produces unhealthy perceptions and behaviour towards among the groups and the taught languages as well, eventually students not benefiting from bilingual education to the expected extent, if at all. One of the oldest and one of the newest bilingual schools in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, were observed for this study. Local and foreign teachers of these schools contributed with their experiences in the form of unstructured interviews, while classroom observations shed light on students’ attitudes. The findings reveal that students respect local educators more and display more respect and discipline with them. However, pupils are usually more emotionally attached to foreign teachers, confiding in them and seeking their company on a daily basis, yet refusing to be disciplined and to study for their classes. Students’ unbalanced attitudes towards the two groups of teachers generated unease between the educators as well. This paradox created an unhealthy milieu in the schools and discouraged the development of a healthy perspective on (foreign) languages and identity. Teachers’ attitudes further compromised learners’ behaviour, as local educators stressed nationalism, while foreigners pressed towards the development of a more global mentality. Unfortunately, as none of the institutions had any policies to address this dilemma, eventually students developed behaviours contrary to the intended by the schools.

Attitudes toward the Use of Project-Based Learning: A Case Study of Vietnamese High School Students

2022-06-27T19:47:01+03:00

It is universally acknowledged that project-based learning (PBL) plays a fundamental role in language teaching and the learning process. In some developed countries with advanced education, PBL has been applied to language teaching and learning widely and effectively. However, in the context of Vietnam, PBL is unlikely to be viewed as an integral approach to enhance students’ self-directed abilities in their learning. This paper aimed at investigating EFL high school students’ attitudes towards PBL when they implemented PBL with the new English textbooks at Bui Thi Xuan High School in Vietnam. This study involved one hundred and fifty-five EFL high school students in answering the questionnaire and forty students in responding to semi-structured interview questions. The quantitative data were processed by SPSS in terms of descriptive statistics (means, standard deviation, and frequency), and content analysis was used for analyzing the qualitative data. The findings of the study showed that EFL high school students expressed positive attitudes (i.e. cognition, affection, and behavior) toward PBL. The data from the semi-structured interview were coded and analyzed to make the results of the study clearer. These preliminary findings are hoped to contribute to a better understanding of the current perspectives of applying PBL into language learning in the Vietnamese context so that practical implications should be made in order to enhance the quality of teaching in English language education in Da Lat specifically and Vietnam in general.

Factors Affecting Students’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Moroccan Higher Education

2022-06-27T19:39:09+03:00

Self-efficacy, or confidence in one’s ability to do a task, is a key element that affects students’ motivation and performance. For that reason, the main purpose of this study was to collect specific information about students’ self-efficacy and factors affecting it. This includes comparing the differences between three Moroccan universities representing public and private institutions in terms of students’ self-efficacy. A sample of 365 undergraduate students responded to the questionnaire on self-efficacy for self-regulated learning on a 5-point Likert scale. The findings demonstrate that students' level of self-efficacy is moderate. With regard to the differences between the three universities, a slight difference was found in favor of the private one. Meanwhile, third-year students reported greater self-efficacy than first and second-year students. However, no statistically significant differences were found between male and female students. More importantly, the results reveal that students’ living circumstances during the academic year and their initial motive behind enrolling in university affected their self-efficacy beliefs. Overall, this study provides teachers and practitioners with insights about self-efficacy that could be used to promote students’ success in Moroccan universities.

The Language of Praise in Russian Students’ Evaluation of Teaching

2024-03-08T01:50:20+03:00

Recent decades have seen a dramatic rise in student evaluation of teaching (SET). However, they have overwhelmingly focused on quantitative ratings, neglecting students’ written feedback. This study addresses the lack of qualitative research on SET by applying a semantic theory and computational methods for analysing the language of positive feedback comments provided by students of the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Russia. Analysing a corpus of student commentary about teaching also contributes to the theory of pragmatics as the approach to analysing qualitative evaluations of teaching is based on the premise that students’ positive feedback can be treated as a sort of the compliment/praise speech act reflecting cultural specificity. Our findings showed that quantitatively the most common semantic pattern used by HSE students is ACTOR + (AUGMENTOR) EVALUATOR + PHYSICAL/MENTAL ACTION PERFORMED BY THE ACTOR + (AUGMENTOR) EVALUATOR. Thus, HSE students tend to praise the teacher more often than the other components of the teaching process and the teacher’s behaviour, thoughts, and feelings are viewed as more important than skills and speech.

The Role of the English Article System in Developing Dialogical Context: A View from Russian Science

2022-06-27T19:29:34+03:00

A common issue arising in international scientific communication concerns the use of zero-, indefinite- and definite articles in English. While existing pedagogical approaches are successfully used to teach near-native competency in the use of English articles, the final stage of native-equivalent competency continues to evade even advanced ESL / EAP students, especially those whose first language (e.g. Russian) does not possess articles. Therefore, the present work is aimed at developing a conceptual approach to article use based on a consideration of the development of context in scientific communication. A literature review of some existing theoretical approaches shows a clear development from semantic and transformational-grammatical attitudes towards more pragmatic explicatory strategies based on dialogic communication. A qualitative content analysis of article errors appearing in the text of research papers written by Russian scientists and corrected by a native English editor revealed the presence of nine major article-related error types, of which the use of zero article with singular NPs instead of the definite article (SxØ√D) was the most common. NPs in sentences containing article errors were also evaluated according to Bickerton’s NP semantic function typology, Hawkins’ location theory and Liu and Gleason’s major types. The hypothesis that Russian scientists, being highly educated, would generally tend to overuse the, a and an in an overcompensation for the tendency of less-well-educated Russians to drop articles when using English was not confirmed by the results of the content analysis. The analysis of article-use error types appearing in different sections of an IMRaD research paper showed that errors related to the overuse and underuse of the definite article the are particularly characteristic of the Introduction section. However, the largest number of article-related errors were found in the Discussion section, where the SxØ√D error significantly outweighed other error types as compared with other sections. While existing conceptual approaches to explicating the function of the English article system have limited utility, a comprehensive system has yet to be developed. The authors recommend a dialogic approach for teaching the English article system to non-native speakers in the context of scientific communication.

Seven Deadly Sins: Culture’s Effect on Scholarly Editing and Publishing

2022-06-27T19:50:09+03:00

The opinion piece aims to draw readers’ attention to the effects cultures other than English-related ones exert on the processes of scholarly editing and publishing. Non-Anglophone writers with little academic English skills or a weak command of English tend to face desk-rejections or very difficult and time-consuming rounds of edits and revisions. Second-language researchers often are biased toward national schools of thought with the most prominent international research ignored. Such authors are unaware of the recent developments in their field on a global scale and are sometimes prone to misunderstanding scientific and academic genres in the internationally accepted mode. Non-Anglophone writers are also inclined toward native-language patterns of thought and, consequently, rhetorical schemas different from English. Such second-language researchers may have their specific understanding of ethics and criticism, responding to the latter in an unexpectedly harsh way. This combination of factors can lead to unoriginal, vague, unimportant, and unacceptable submissions to international journals, resulting in failures to disseminate their research globally. The authors share their approaches to curbing unpleasant and inefficient experiences for second-language contributors, editors, and reviewers.

Qualities of a Good and Effective Teacher: Slovak EFL Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers’ Perspectives

2022-06-27T19:35:30+03:00

A plethora of researchers have attempted to examine the characteristics of a good and effective teacher in order to enhance the process of teaching foreign languages. In line with those explorations, this study aims at performing a comparison between Slovak pre-service EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ and Slovak in-service EFL teachers’ perceptions of a good and effective language teacher. To achieve this objective, a convenient sample of Slovak university EFL students who were pre-service teachers (n = 74) and Slovak lower-secondary and upper-secondary school teachers (n = 63) were employed in the study. Using a 57-item Likert-type questionnaire, independent-samples t-tests were conducted to investigate the potential differences between the perceptions of the pre-service teachers and in-service teachers. Moreover, the 10 highest-mean and 10 lowest-mean items of both groups were analyzed. The research results revealed that statistically significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) were detected in only 12 of the 57 items. Furthermore, a closer examination of the differences and the items with the highest and lowest means indicated that the pre-service teacher participants favored traditional teaching more than their in-service teacher counterparts, who preferred CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) to a greater extent. The potential implications of these findings indicate that the fundamental principles of CLT such as employing plenty of pair-work and group-work activities, facilitating learners’ autonomy and responsibility for their own learning, or varying classroom interaction strategies deserve more careful attention during pre-service teacher training.

The Challenges Facing Female English Language Teachers in Secondary Schools in Jordan

2022-06-27T19:22:33+03:00

This study aimed to identify the obstacles facing female secondary teachers of English in Al-Qaser Directorate of Education in Al-Karak, Jordan. For the purpose of the study, a quantitative approach was adopted. The sample was randomly selected and included 170 female English language teachers. A questionnaire consisting of 29 items covering five domains was administered and 150 questionnaires were returned. The results showed that these teachers faced many academic challenges and obstacles in various domains, such as in the student, community, and parent domains, as well as teacher skills, curriculum, and school environment domains. The results also revealed that there were statistically significant differences in the challenges and obstacles faced by the teachers in terms of the experience variable. The study, thus, recommends adopting a more effective strategy to improve the school environment and having a suitable psychological context for female English teachers in order to enhance the quality of the students’ learning outcomes.

Exploring EFL Teachers’ Classroom Management: The Case of Indonesian Remote Secondary Schools

2022-06-27T19:24:21+03:00

Geared by the scant number of studies on EFL teachers’ classroom management in remote secondary schools in Indonesia, this study seeks to investigate teachers’ involvement in classroom management complexities and to what extent they deal with such predicaments. Data were collected through interviews with the teachers within three months and analyzed narratively. The findings suggest that they encountered multi-facet complexities such as (a) lacking learning facilities in terms of electricity supply, (b) students’ demotivation and inability to use English, and (c) teachers' dilemmas in applying the new curriculum. To deal with such quandaries, the teachers made use of (a) a teacher-centered approach, (b) group learning, (c) students’ row seating positions, and (d) non-integrated language skills learning. The implications of this study are discussed at the end of the paper.

Successful Global Collaborations in Higher Education Institutions. Abdulrahman AI-Youbi, Adnan H. M. Zahed, William G. Tierney (Eds.), Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2020. 93 p. ISBN 978-3-030-25524-4 ISBN 978-3-030-25525-1 (ebk)

2020-10-05T23:33:19+03:00

Analyzing Digital Discourse. New Insights and Future Directions. Edited by Patricia Bou-Franch and Pilar Garcés Conejos Blitvich (2019). ISBN 978-3-319-92663-6 (pbk)

2020-10-05T23:33:08+03:00

Teaching is Not Always Easy: Mexican Pre-service English Teachers’ Beliefs on Teaching and Learning

2022-06-27T19:26:58+03:00

One of the main goals of language teacher education programs is to prepare professionals who can respond to the growing demands of society for quality instruction. However, we often find that training in current theories and methods has limited impact on pre-service teachers’ long established beliefs and ultimately on their practice. The purpose of this qualitative interpretative study is to explore the conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 2008) used by pre-service teachers when writing their teaching philosophy as a way of unveiling their underlying cognitive mappings. We propose that making future teachers aware of the entrenched metaphors they use to talk about teaching and learning might be a first step in changing their observable behavior. The results of this study show that in spite of exposure to current theories on teaching and learning, pre-service teachers tend to keep outdated theories. This work in conjunction with other strategies will help teacher trainers to foster integration of current ideas about teaching and learning in their students and to recognize their role in improving language education.

Second Language Teaching and Teacher Education in Diverse Contexts

2020-10-01T11:35:14+03:00

Language Attitudes and L2 Motivation of Korean Language Learners in Malaysia

2022-06-27T18:16:21+03:00

This study examined relationships between language attitudes and L2 motivation of learners of Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) in a large public university in Malaysia. It employed the socio-educational model of L2 motivation and focused on the relationship between the language learners’ attitudes toward speakers of the target language and their motivation to learn Korean. A systematic statistical analysis was performed to analyse the data collected from 19 (N=19) students. A robust statistical procedure adopted in this study allowed some worthwhile insights into the language attitudes–L2 motivation nexus. The findings indicated that there existed a statistically significant relationship between the language learners’ instrumental orientation and their attitudes toward the speakers of Korean language.

A Comparative Study of Saudi and International Journals of Applied Linguistics: The Move–Bundle Connection Approach

2022-06-21T16:54:12+03:00

The present study implemented a genre-based approach to analyze the rhetorical structure of English language research articles (RAs): specifically, the Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion-Conclusion (I-M-R-D-C) sections. Next, lexical bundles (LBs) associated with patterns of moves were identified by applying a corpus-driven approach. The study analyzed two corpora of 30 RAs purposely selected from 16 peer-reviewed journals of applied linguistics published in Saudi Arabia and internationally during the years of 2011-2016. First, a genre-based approach was used to identify the move structures of RAs through analyzing different RA sections by different models. Next, lexical bundles associated with each identified move in each IMRDC section were analyzed using a corpus-driven approach, based on structural and functional taxonomies. The study findings showed that both corpora share similarities and differences related to rhetorical structures and lexical bundles. These findings have pedagogical implications for novice writers, graduate students, and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction, including raising awareness of rhetorical structures and LBs in academic writing for publication, which could help produce more successful publishable research articles.

L2 Motivation, Demographic Variables, and Chinese Proficiency among Adult Learners of Chinese

2022-06-27T18:13:00+03:00

The present research explored L2 motivation, demographic variables and Chinese proficiency among adult learners of Chinese as a second language. A total of 83 international students studying in a Chinese university in Beijing answered the 54-item L2MSS questionnaire and a Demographic Questionnaire. Analyses of the data revealed the following findings: a) the L2MSS scales were significantly highly related to one another and highly reliable, b) ideal L2 self was significantly correlated with gender and the number of foreign languages learned (NFLL); integrativeness was significantly positively related to NFLL, c) the whole sample, as well as male and female participants, scored high on all L2MSS scales and had (great) motivation to study Chinese, d) female respondents held significantly more favorable perceptions of their ideal selves than their male peers, and e) L2SSM had no predictive effect or interactive effect with demographic variables on the students’ Chinese proficiency. Nevertheless, length of stay in China and gender proved to be powerful positive predictors for the latter. Evidently, the L2MSS scales are important dimensions of L2 motivation and closely related to second/foreign language learning. Understandably, it is necessary to continuously explore, understand and enhance students’ L2 motivation.

Modeling Student Evaluations of Writing and Authors as a Function of Writing Errors

2022-06-27T18:20:08+03:00

Writers are often judged by their audience, and these evaluations can encompass both the text and the authors. This study built upon prior research on writing evaluation and error perceptions to examine how interconnected or separable are these judgments. Using a within-subjects design, college students evaluated four essays demonstrating no errors, lower-level errors, higher-level errors, or both types. Evaluations included writing quality traits (e.g., conventions, ideas, organization, sentence fluency, and voice) and author characteristics (e.g., creativity, intelligence, generosity, and kindness). Exploratory factor analyses identified latent constructs within these ratings. One construct, Writing Quality and Skill, appeared to combine writing traits and authors’ intellectual ability (e.g., intelligence and knowledgeability). The second construct, Author Personality, seemed to comprise interpersonal author traits (e.g., kindness and loyalty). The two constructs were significantly and positively correlated. These results suggest that students tended to form holistic impressions of writing quality and authors rather than distinct judgments about individual traits. The spillover onto perceptions of authors’ personal characteristics may be representative of latent biases. Student raters were also more sensitive to lower-level errors than higher-level errors. Implications for biases and training related to peer assessment are discussed.

Trilinguals' Identity Synergism Through Pragmatic Skills

2022-06-27T18:20:42+03:00

Recent studies on bilingualism and pragmatics paid little attention to trilingual speakers. This investigation examined the trilinguals' identity synergism by drawing on their linguistic repertoire and discursive identity through pragmatic skills. For this purpose, twenty advanced EFL learners with Persian and Turkish as their mother tongues were homogenized through IELTS and played roles in Persian, Turkish, and English languages. For modeling, three monolingual native speakers of the English language responded to the English version of written discourse completion tests taken from the same role-plays. The data underwent content analysis to extract and codify the themes. The results revealed a synergy among the trilinguals' discursive systems when performing apology, complaint, refusal, and request speech acts. Multidirectional transfers among the trilinguals' Turkish, Persian, and English languages developed a form of English communication that was different from that of the native speakers' model. Gestures and mimes were the non-verbal strategies employed more in the trilinguals' Turkish and English languages than their Persian. This study helps researchers and teachers gain insight into identity, pragmatics, and multilingualism.

The Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety Scale: Preliminary Tests of Validity and Reliability

2022-06-21T17:00:57+03:00

Although anxiety in the foreign language learning context has been studied extensively, the anxiety experienced by foreign language teachers, who are important stakeholders of classroom contexts and language learners themselves, seems to be overlooked. While research mainly focuses on foreign language anxiety in a learning context, there is not sufficient research to contextualize foreign language teaching anxiety (FLTA). In addition, in the current literature, few studies were performed to measure FLTA. In light of this, this study aims to present the preliminary results of the validity and reliability of the Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety Scale (FLTAS). A background questionnaire and the FLTAS were administered to 100 senior pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL), before performing Cronbach’s Alpha and exploratory factor analysis. The findings showed that the scale obtains a high reliability coefficient and internal consistency in a five-factor solution. The study ends with recommendations for further research.

A Comparison of EFL Fifth Graders’ Vocabulary Acquisition through Skype Videoconferencing and Face-to-face Picture Book Storytelling

2022-06-21T17:38:19+03:00

This quasi-experimental study explores the relative efficacy of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and face-to-face picture book storytelling for promoting young EFL learners’ English word acquisition. Thirty-two young EFL learners participated in a 40-minute story session in the two aforementioned modes. Receptive and productive word gains were assessed through immediate and delayed receptive vocabulary tests and productive story recall tests. To better explain how the CMC and face-to-face settings affected the participants’ word gains, their involvement in the two types of storytelling settings was evaluated using an involvement load survey. The results show that the participants’ task involvement was higher in the face-to-face setting than the CMC setting, which led to better word gains. Within each setting, high-involvement participants’ word gain was better than that of their low-involvement counterparts. However, the difference between high-involvement and low-involvement participants was only manifest in the receptive word gains for the participants in the CMC setting, but not the productive word gains. These findings suggest that face-to-face storytelling might be the more effective setting when picture book storytelling is adopted to promote EFL young learners’ word gains, especially for receptive word gains.

Indonesian Language Learning Methods in Australian Elementary Schools

2022-06-27T18:11:48+03:00

Previous studies have largely focused on the importance, problems, and challenges of teaching second languages in Australian schools, but very few have investigated the teaching methods used in the classroom to do so. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the methods applied by teachers who teach Indonesian as a second language in one of the public primary schools in South Australia to enable their Australian students to comprehend the instruction in the Indonesian class. The data were collected through observational field notes and video recordings of three class meetings from two teachers. Evidence gives validity to analysis, and thus the data were analysed using the transcription conventions as proposed by Burns, Joyce & Gollin (1996). The results showed that the most frequently used methods by the teachers in teaching Indonesian to the Early Year level students were TPR (total physical response) and GTM (grammar-translation method). TPR was useful as the act of moving around seemed to help the children remember the vocabulary. Furthermore, GTM helped the teachers clarify the meanings of words and sentences for the students by translating them into their first language, i.e. English. These methods were not taught in isolation but were integrated by the teachers with other methods such as the direct method and audio-lingual method. The reflection of this teaching practice is considered a worthwhile contribution for other teachers who are also teaching Indonesian in other countries and as additional insights to immerse themselves in their language teaching practice. Moreover, considering the benefits of becoming bilingual, such as in communication, culture, cognition, character, curriculum, and economy, schools should provide more training for teachers to help them be able to use the best techniques in teaching the second language to enable and empower them to integrate other languages into their classes.

The Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners’ Emotional Intelligence and Metacognitive Reading Strategies Use

2022-06-21T16:57:49+03:00

Although emotional intelligence (EI) and metacognitive strategies have been addressed by different researchers across the globe, the relationship between EI and the use of metacognitive reading strategies by L2 learners needs further exploration. To fill this gap, at least partially, the present study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and the use of metacognitive reading strategies by EFL learners. Based on the convenience sampling method, 119 Iranian EFL learners across the age range of 18-27 were selected as the earlier subjects. These subjects were then homogenized through the administration of the PET reading test, which reduced the number of the participants to 102 intermediate EFL. The main instruments included Bar-On's (1997) Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire and Mokhtari and Sheorey’s (2002) Survey of Reading Strategies Questionnaire (SORS) that measured metacognitive reading strategies use. The results revealed a moderate and positive correlation between a) emotional intelligence and the use of metacognitive reading strategies; b) intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, adaptability, and general mood and global metacognitive strategies; c) intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, and general mood and problem-solving metacognitive strategies; and d) intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, and general mood and support metacognitive strategies. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis results indicated that the EI scales of general mood and interpersonal skills significantly contributed to the prediction of the use of metacognitive reading strategies by EFL learners.

Increasing EFL Learner Participation through Eliciting Language: Insights from Conversation Analysis

2022-06-21T17:34:57+03:00

The idea that interaction shapes learning in the second language classroom by increasing opportunities for participation, and that teachers can achieve this by adequately eliciting language from learners has been discussed in the literature. However, research specifying interactional resources deployed by teachers when eliciting language from their learners has been scarce. To this end, the present study used conversation analysis to examine the interactional resources produced in the elicitation of questions belonging to a specific lesson stage, namely, the ‘classroom context mode’ (CCM). In the CCM, fluency and meaningful exchanges are encouraged, and learners are prompted to talk about their feelings, emotions, and experiences, which represent a fruitful interactional juncture for eliciting learner language. The data collected in the present study come from four teachers and their students in an adult English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom at a language institute in Chile. The participants were audio-recorded over a total of six lessons that were delivered as part of a 10-week course. From the analysis, two novel elicitation resources, namely the ‘effective management of closed questions’ and the ‘use of open referential questions as initiators of CCM’, were found to promote a facilitator-oriented approach to teaching. The pedagogical value of these resources is discussed in terms of their potential for initiating and sustaining a CCM, and their inclusion in a framework that seeks to develop teachers’ classroom interactional competence.

Margaret Cargill and Sally Burgess (Eds.), Publishing Research in English as an Additional Language: Practices, Pathways and Potentials. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Press, 2017; 260 pp., ISBN 9781925261523 (hbk)

2020-07-08T18:38:52+03:00

Intercultural Competence in the Eyes of State School English Language Teachers in Turkey

2022-06-21T17:05:35+03:00

Equipping students with intercultural competence (hereafter IC) is a critical aim of English foreign language classrooms nowadays, and EFL teachers have emerged as essential players for accomplishing this. These teachers should essentially be competent in their intercultural skills so that they can pass these on to their students in order to foster interculturally competent language learners. However, teachers' perceptions regarding IC remain uncertain, particularly in the Turkish context. Thus, before asking teachers to apply methods and strategies so that they can enhance students’ IC in the classroom, it is vital that we investigate what they understand about IC. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to reveal middle and high school teachers’ understanding of the IC phenomenon and their description of the characteristics of an interculturally competent foreign language learner and teacher. In addition, teachers’ perceptions regarding their own and their learners’ IC were also explored in this study. The participants were 30 middle and high school English language teachers teaching at state schools in Turkey. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data. MAXQDA was exploited in order to analyse the data, primarily to code, categorize, and systematize the findings. The results indicated that the teachers considered IC to be the ability to communicate with people from various cultures effectively, having knowledge about one’s own, target, and other cultures, and developing positive attitudes toward other cultures and societies. They also emphasized the inseparability of language and culture and the importance of English as an international language. The teachers also indicated why they viewed themselves and their learners as interculturally competent or incompetent, which could provide insight into where to start intercultural learning and teaching in foreign language classrooms and how to train EFL teachers about different dimensions of IC.

Teacher-research: Agency of Practical Knowledge and Professional Development

2022-06-27T18:22:38+03:00

Educational research has generally attracted negative criticisms for its generalisability, contextual independence and inadequacy in addressing teachers’ practical problems in their own educational settings. Moreover, as classrooms are always complicated, teachers are therefore encouraged to become active researchers of their own classrooms in order to maximize their instructional performance and provide optimal learning opportunities for their students within their particular context. To promote teachers’ self-inquiry into their own practices, this paper will first define what teacher research is, followed by the arguments for its need and significance in the teaching profession. Suggestions to help teachers become engaged into classroom inquiry are provided after difficulties commonly reported to be encountered by teacher-researchers are reviewed. This paper is expected to provide some considerable insights for classroom-teachers as well as school administrators in their search for practical, concrete and contextually-rich knowledge.

Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Scholarly Communication in International Peer-Reviewed Journals

2022-06-21T16:52:06+03:00

The editorial dwells upon the challenges L2 scientific authors have to rise to. ‘Publish or perish’ policy pursued globally leads to an increased international market of predatory journals in response to persisting university requirements to academics’ publications in international journals. The quality issues of scholarly publications are coming to the fore, with re-focusing on skills and competencies necessary to produce research acceptable to high-tier and well-established journals. Non-Anglophone L2 writers face more barriers to English-language international periodicals than native speakers of English, as they tend to follow distinct cultural patterns of thought. Consequently, rhetorical moves and steps of scholarly texts may substantially differ from those written by Anglophone researchers. The scholarly community has to handle a growing set of problems related to L2 scholarly writing in English to ensure their successful submissions to well-established international journals.

Natalie Reid, Getting Published in International Journals: Writing Strategies for European Social Scientists (2nd ed.). Albuquerque: Professional Publications Press, 2018; 301 pp., ISBN: 978-0-682-92995-7 (pbk).

2020-07-06T16:29:13+03:00

Use of Nonlinear Dynamic Motivational Strategies to Manage L2 Academic Entitlement and Psychological Reactance

2022-06-14T20:00:43+03:00

Expanding the dynamicity and nonlinearity of L2 motivation introduced by Bahari (2019a) based on the complex dynamics systems theory has served as the theoretical framework to introduce and contextualize nonlinear dynamic motivational strategies (NDMSs). The present study used the NDMSs to manage L2 academic entitlement and psychological reactance as two obstructive factors in the L2 learning-teaching process. For conceptualization purposes, a mixed methods approach was conducted among teachers as well as learners to examine the effectiveness of proposed strategies as a pedagogical tool to manage and minimize these obstructive factors in academic contexts. The observed effectiveness of the NDMSs at managing and minimizing the analyzed obstructive factors along with replacing teacher-centered and test-oriented L2 classrooms with a learner-friendly motivating L2 classroom has significant pedagogical and theoretical implications. The major finding of the study following a rigorous methodological triangulation of the data that was collected confirms the effectiveness of the NDMSs as an L2 teaching strategy to cater to the diversity of individual differences for the purpose of improving teacher-learner interactions. Drawing on the results, it can be safely concluded that the NDMSs as the independent variable of the study showed significant impact on managing and minimizing academic entitlement and psychological reactance.

A Case Study of Vietnamese EFL Teachers’ Conception of Language Output and Interaction

2022-06-14T20:06:25+03:00

There exists a gap between what second language acquisition research has to say and what teachers do in the classroom. As part of an attempt to bridge this gap, this study is driven by the motive to understand how pedagogical innovations such as task-based language instruction can be influenced by teacher beliefs. Drawing on the perspective of research on teachers’ thinking which aims to inform language teaching pedagogy and teacher education, the study employed multiple data sources (focus group, lesson plan, and stimulated recall interview) to tap into the conception of six Vietnamese EFL instructors regarding language output and interaction. Cross-case analysis showed that most of the teachers geared language output and interaction activities towards achieving a targeted linguistic aim. Further analysis revealed that this view reflects a synthetic, product-oriented conception of teaching and learning by skill-building, and is in line with traditional approaches which emphasise transmission style and form instruction. This finding implies that constructivist perspectives on teaching such as task-based language instruction may run counter to teachers’ existing conception of teaching. The implementation of task-based instruction thus needs to consider negotiating between supporting teachers to focus on meaning and the need for form-focused instruction.

The Container Image Schema as the Conceptual Basis of English Adjectives’ Semantics

2022-06-14T19:57:39+03:00

This paper focuses on the cognitive foundation of the semantics of English adjectives that denote mental and moral characteristics of human beings. Research into these adjectives seems a challenging task because they denote abstract qualities that cannot be perceived through vision, hearing, or touch; and here a question arises: How are abstract qualities interpreted in English encoded through adjectives? To answer it, this study follows the idea of two-level semantics, i.e. word semantics is treated as a two-level phenomenon that comprises the semantic (external) level and the conceptual (deep) one. This study is the first to address adjectival semantics from this perspective. Here a novel approach to revealing the cognitive foundation of adjectives is introduced: given that adjectives originated from old syncretic items and a word cognitive model forms at the moment of word creation, cognitive models underlying adjectives' semantics are unearthed via analysis of their etymological data. Our contribution is two-fold. First, the approach has revealed that the image schema CONTAINER guides semantics of an array of various adjectives independent of their morphemic structure or date of origin. The examples demonstrate that abstract human qualities are interpreted via the following container features: boundary, container substance, size, hardness/softness of a container shell, etc. The semantics of affixed or compound adjectives appear to stem from the integration of concepts represented by an affix and a root or two roots, respectively. Second, the findings show that the value given to every container feature appears to predetermine the evaluation conveyed by an adjective. Container features tend to possess ambivalent value, realizing the positive or negative one due to the interaction with a frame in which the CONTAINER is incorporated, therefore the same polysemantic adjective may develop both positive and negative meanings. To reveal the whole inventory of cognitive models that govern adjectival semantics in English, further research needs to be conducted.

Factors Preventing in-service University English Language Teachers from Becoming Action Researchers in Pakistan

2022-06-14T20:28:51+03:00

Research suggests that TR enables classroom teachers to address their classroom-specific problems without having to rely too heavily on published research. However, despite the fact that TR narratives of language teachers have increased lately, there is still need for studies investigating the perceptions of university English language (EL) teachers about TR, and exploring the factors affecting their engagement with TR in culturally diverse contexts. The current study was designed to explore the perceptions of university EL practitioners about the factors that inhibit or encourage them to engage in TR in a university context in Pakistan. Data were obtained from fifteen EL teachers from four public sector universities through semi-structured interviews. Results show that teachers appeared to possess only simplistic knowledge of research as an activity aimed at finding something new. While a majority admitted to have done no research, even the engagement of others who claimed to have done some research seemed sporadic and less than systematic. The main factors responsible for teachers’ dis-engagement from TR included academic culture, management’s attitude, power relations between senior and junior faculty, workload, lack of monetary benefits, and large classes. A number of implications have also been discussed.

Rapid Changes in Foreign Language Learning Anxiety Caused by a Multiplicity of Topics: An Idiodynamic Approach

2022-06-14T20:23:35+03:00

Considering the dynamicnature of foreign language anxiety (FLA), we applied an idiodynamic method to explore topic-based variations of FLA. Before the study was conducted, a class of 20 female intermediate English as foreign language learners were assessed using the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS). Two low-anxiety learners and two high-anxiety learners were selected to participate in this study. The idiodynamic method involved videotaping the participants’ responses to four topic-based questions, their self-ratings of fluctuations in FLA while answering the questions, and drawing attributions for topic-based changes in FLA. The results demonstrated both within-individual and between-individual stability and variation in FLA. Linguistic block, topic familiarity, topic interest, and topic-related emotional loading were revealed as the major factors affecting the dynamics of FLA. The pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

Corpus Linguistics for Vocabulary: A guide for Research by Paweł Szudarsk. Routledge Publications 2018. 239 pp. ISBN: 978-1-138-18721-4

2020-04-01T17:19:49+03:00

Euphemisms of Corruption among Students of Higher Institutions in South West Nigeria

2022-06-14T20:19:44+03:00

Corruption is a pervasive practice in Nigeria that is commonly associated with government officials who divert public funds for private use, while minimal attention is paid to acts of corruption in the educational sector. This study, which is part of research on how language is used to drive and conceal corruption in Nigeria, aims at revealing some corrupt practices in Nigerian higher institutions that are concealed because of the euphemistic language used by students to describe and help perpetuate corrupt practices in their relationships with academic and non-academic staff of different institutions. Four institutions of higher education in south-west Nigeria were purposively selected and focus group discussions were conducted with 54 conveniently selected students of these institutions to collect qualitative data on the explanation of linguistic codes derived from the first phase of this study. The findings revealed extensive usage of ‘runs’ as a superordinate code for diverse acts of corruption including: sex for marks, cash for marks, sex/cash for grade alterations, examination malpractice, and the use of fake documents. Parents and guardians need to listen closely to the language of students in higher education for early detection of assimilation and acceptance of corrupt practices as a way of life.

An Investigation of the Relationship between Global Perspective and Willingness to Communicate in English in a Chinese University Context

2022-06-14T20:04:38+03:00

In an era of increasing global connectivity, acquiring a global perspective (GP) and being able to communicate in English are important for both personal and professional development. People with a GP are expected to be more willing to engage in intercultural activities, and more willing to communicate in English. Although previous studies have focused on having a GP and willingness to communicate (WTC) in English, few have investigated whether there is a correlation between these two variables. This study, conducted at a Chinese university, aimed to determine the relationship between GP and WTC in English. Data were collected from students via a questionnaire (n = 114) and interviews (n = 7) at the end of the autumn semester in 2018. The findings demonstrate that the students’ GP and their WTC in English through the English curriculum did not progress to a significant extent, and their GP and WTC in English were correlated. Furthermore, three themes that affected the interviewees’ WTC were extracted from the interviews: global cognition, self-actualization, and intercultural experience. These findings suggest that it would be beneficial to learn English by developing a GP, and that educators can enhance students’ WTC by helping them cultivate that perspective.

The Relationship Between Burnout and Self-Efficacy among Iranian Male and Female EFL Teachers

2022-06-14T20:37:35+03:00

Teaching is a job marked by high levels of burnout. Teacher burnout has been extinsively studied in connection with other important psychological qualities, such as perceived self-efficacy. However, little research has examined this relationship among teachers in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. In this light, this mixed-method study was intended to a) investigate the relationship between the degree of perceived self-efficacy by Iranian EFL teachers and their professional burnout level, and b) see whether gender could make a significant difference in the teachers’ burnout level. To these ends, 80 male and female Iranian EFL teachers from several high schools in Isfahan, selected through convenience sampling, participated in the study and responded to the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator’s Survey (MBI-ES) and a modified version of Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES). To triangulate the data, a semi-structured interview was also conducted with 15 teachers. Correlational and t-test data analysis showed that there was a strong significant correlation between the participants’ perceived self-efficacy and their burnout level in a negative direction. The gender variable also had a modifying effect on the teachers’ burnout. Female teachers, in fact, had a lower burnout level. The follow-up interview further confirmed the relationship and revealed the three main themes of mental fatigue, contact avoidance, and stress in explaining teacher burnout. The implications for school administrators and teacher educators are discussed.

Instructional Goal Structure, Gender, and Second Language Motivation Affecting English Language Achievement

2022-06-14T20:32:19+03:00

The study opted to: 1) Investigate differences between cooperative and competitive learning modes in the extent to which they affect English language achievement; 2) Find gender, intra-gender, and inter-gender differences in English language achievement within and across the cooperative, competitive, and control group learning conditions; and 3) Study the relationship between students’ motivation to learn the English language and English language achievement. The cooperative and competitive learning groups were used as treatment groups while the control group was the individualized learning group. An English language test was administered to 120 secondary school grade nine students. The 12-item mini-Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (Mini-AMTB) was administered to the students. Different parametric tests were used in the pre-test and post-test data analysis. Post-test data analysis results revealed that cooperative learners significantly outperformed both competitive learners and the control group, but the control group significantly outperformed competitive learners. The gender difference in English language achievement was not significant. The cooperative learning (CL) mode was favored by both male and female students but more favored by males. The five aggregate measures of the mini-AMTB (Integrativeness, Motivational Intensity, Attitudes towards the Learning Situation, Instrumental Orientation, and Parental Encouragement) produced significant positive correlations with English language achievement; however, Language Anxiety negatively and significantly correlated with English language achievement. The CL mode, with its effective CL technique, was recommended to be researched and applied by trained teachers to improve student achievement. Its implications for teacher training were also given. Treatment of second language motivation was recommended as an important issue in second language learning.

The Structure of Cross-Linguistic Differences: Meaning and Context of ‘Readability’ and its Russian Equivalent ‘Chitabelnost’

2022-06-14T20:26:48+03:00

The article presents the results of an original study aimed at finding (1) frequency fluctuations of the term ‘readability’ in American discourse and its Russian equivalent ‘chitabelnost’ in Russian discourse over the period from 1920s to the present; and (2) semantic similarities and differences between the English term ‘readability’ and its Russian equivalent ‘chitabelnost’ over the same period of time. A contrastive analysis of the words testified to inconsiderable differences in the semantic structures of the terms in the period under study: the term ‘readability’ has been used with the following meanings: (1) ‘the quality of being legible or decipherable’ and (2) ‘the quality of being easy or enjoyable to read’. The Russian equivalent ‘chitabelnost’ has two contemporary meanings similar to the aforementioned English meanings as well as the obsolete ‘library book checkouts’. With the help of the Google NgramViewer, we identified the 1980s frequency peak of both terms when the modern notion of the concepts was formed. The research into the topical context of readability as ‘the quality of being easy or enjoyable to read’ demonstrated empiricist tendencies in American studies focused on two types of parameters, i.e. the ‘objective’ parameters of texts, i.e. sentence length, word counts, number of high/low frequency words, ratio of high/low frequency words to total words, sentence complexity, etc. and ‘individual’ variables affecting a potential reader, such as ‘word familiarity’, cognitive and linguistic abilities, cultural and topic knowledge, etc. The Russian school’s view, until the 1970s, had traditionally been more holistic and ‘biased’ towards an individuals’ factors. The results of the study have the potential to contribute to cross-linguistic research in the area of text readability assessment, semantics, and scientific literature searches.

Pressure to Publish Internationally: Scholarly Writing Coming to the Fore

2022-06-14T19:53:53+03:00

JLE editors touch upon the trends and challenges arising out of the changing landscape of scholarly communication as well as two sets of major problems non-Anglophone researchers face in publishing their research in international English-language journals. Firstly, if not desk rejected, they encounter continuous revisions of their submissions to such journals. Secondly, English as lingua franca of international scholarly communication may lead to some disengagement of national scholarly elites who essentially publish in English and to a wider national scientific community decoupled from English and limited to their native language communication. Given the challenges, the editorial offers a refined and widened JLE scope regarding language- and education-related issues of scholarly written communication.

Computerized Group Dynamic Assessment and Listening Comprehension Ability: Does Self-Efficacy Matter?

2022-06-14T20:35:24+03:00

The present study investigated the effect of group dynamic assessment (DA) through software on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension ability. The main question of the study was whether dynamic assessment via CoolSpeech software had any effect on the listening comprehension ability of learners with high and low self-efficacy. To find the answer, 80 Iranian intermediate learners were selected from among a population of 120, based on their scores on a placement test. A self-efficacy questionnaire was then used to assign selected participants into two experimental groups as low self-efficacious experimental group (n=20) and high self-efficacious experimental group (n=20), as well as two control groups, each containing 20 participants. Next, a pretest of listening comprehension ability was administered to all groups, and no significant difference between their mean scores was observed. After a period of two months, during which the experimental groups received treatment of dynamic assessment through CoolSpeech software and the control groups received a placebo, a posttest of listening comprehension was administered to all groups. The data analysis results revealed that the participants in high self-efficacious experimental group achieved significantly better scores than the other groups. However, in the second experimental group, no significant change was observed, and participants in the second experimental group did not significantly outperform the control group. It was concluded that the group dynamic assessment method via software could have a significant effect on the listening comprehension ability of EFL learners with high self-efficacy.

The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level

2020-04-16T19:25:26+03:00

The importance of reading is especially emphasized nowadays when the majority of information, irrespective of the source (books, daily press, professional literature, web sources, etc.), is primarily accessed via reading. Therefore, effective reading and reading comprehension are important in everyday life, but also in an academic setting. This particularly refers to pre-service preschool and primary school teachers, whose teacher training courses imply a good command of reading skills, but also teaching skills required for the development and teaching of pre-reading and reading skills. In L2 reading, there are additional issues that need to be considered, principally the possibility of skill transfer between the mother tongue and the second/foreign language. Hence, this research aimed to test reading comprehension in both Croatian (L1) and English (L2) languages in a group of university students (N=83), studying to become pre-service preschool and primary school teachers. Reading comprehension tests and a background questionnaire were used as research instruments in this mixed-method research. Contrary to our expectations, reading comprehension test results were fairly low, i.e. out of a total of 17 points, the mean results for the Croatian language reading comprehension test were M=13.6 (SD=2.05), while for the English language reading comprehension test they were M=11.29 (SD=2.24). The results were further correlated with the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading abilities in both languages. A positive correlation was found only between the English language reading comprehension test and the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading ability. Based on the obtained results, it may be proposed that teachers should focus more on developing reading skills and reading comprehension at all levels as well as in all of the languages that the learners are acquiring, especially in view of the proposed possibility of the transfer of skills among languages.

Development of Foreign Language Education in China under the Belt and Road Initiative

2020-04-16T19:28:29+03:00

China’s launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has had profound linguistic implications on its foreign language education policy. Successful foreign language programs are vital to any country’s national security and global interest promotion. An analysis of China’s current foreign language education with the BRI compliance will provide the backdrop for this paper’s suggestions. The challenges and opportunities associated with the development of foreign language education in today’s China will be analyzed under these four aspects: 1) improving in the variety and quality of foreign language education, 2) developing students’ international and intercultural competence, 3) deepening general education in target languages, and 4) strengthening English as the lingua franca for expertise training. Even with the significant progress made thus far since 40 years of “Reform and Opening-up”, China still has a long way to go in developing its national foreign language capacity to serve its expanding national interests for development.

Exploring Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Skills via TED Talks: Does Medium Make a Difference?

2020-05-05T16:17:15+03:00

This quasi-experimental study examined whether TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks could improve the listening skills of Iranian EFL learners. The study also explored whether the different media of instruction could have differing impacts on the students’ learning. Sixty intermediate level male learners aged between 18 and 20 in three intact classes (n1=n2=n3=20) were the participants selected through convenience sampling. The groups were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group after ensuring that they were at the same level of language proficiency. One of the experimental groups watched TED talks via mobile devices, another group watched them through laptops, and the control group practiced listening through DVDs and CDs of the course textbook (American File 2) for ten sessions. It is worth mentioning that the mobile group watched the videos outside of the class, whereas the laptop and control groups practiced listening in the class. Every session, the participants answered some comprehension questions to enable the researchers to measure their development. The repeated measures ANOVA showed the improvement of the listening skills of all participants in the three groups during the treatment. The results of the one-way ANOVA and post hoc comparison revealed statistically significant differences between the mobile group watching the TED talks and the control group, but no differences were found between the mobile group and the laptop group or between the control and the laptop groups. The researchers inferred that the observed difference was due to using TED talks via mobile devices in the study. They could also conclude that TED talks are useful sources of practicing listening skills. The study shows the efficacy of self-directed learning via mobile devices and has implications for teachers and practitioners who are seeking ways to extend language learning beyond the confinements of the classroom.

The Effects of Collaborative Note-Taking in Flipped Learning Contexts

2020-04-16T19:24:44+03:00

While the benefits of shared note-taking during live lectures have been studied, the effects of shared note-taking in e-learning environments merit examination since such courses often feature asynchronous video lectures, allowing students to work together to construct notes over longer periods of time. A study (n=92) was conducted in the context of a flipped scientific writing course at a Korean university to investigate the effects of collaborative online note-taking on student learning. Students in the course were divided into two groups: members of the control were simply directed to view course videos and take notes individually, and members of the experimental group were asked to take collaborative notes in a shared online document. Student learning performance was measured through six online quizzes related to the course video lectures and through six related individual writing assignments. No differences were found in the learning outcomes of the control and the collaborative note-taking groups. However, significantly higher scores on related online quizzes and individual writing assignments were found in groups who took notes actively and for individuals who were major contributors to the group notes.

Teacher Beliefs about Students’ Use of Cohesion in Writing: What Does the Textual Evidence Reveal?

2020-04-16T19:24:22+03:00

Despite an extensive research base in the domain of analyses for academic writing, a study of how pedagogic perceptions are revealed in students’ actual writing performance is relatively an under-researched area. This study aimed at finding out the relationships between teachers’ beliefs and textual evidence in regard to students’ use of cohesion in academic writing. Structured questionnaire and open-ended interviews were used to gauge teachers’ perceptions about the subject. Cohesion analysis of the samples of students’ academic essays was performed and collated with the teachers’ perceptions. The results revealed statistically significant correlations between pedagogic perceptions as well as between textual manifestations of cohesion use in the sample texts. Both agreement and disagreement were observed between what teachers believed about students’ ability to use cohesion as a text-forming resource and the textual analysis of cohesion. The study proposes a review of pedagogic practices with focus on academic writing literacy as well as a further research initiative with a larger sample to conduct a micro-level analysis of cohesion to be collated with both teachers’ and students’ beliefs.

Embracing Multilingualism Across Educational Contexts. Edited by Corinne A. Seals and Vincent Ieni Olsen-Reeder. Wellington, Victoria University Press, 2019. 389 pp. ISBN 9781776562916150

2020-04-16T19:29:14+03:00

Perfectionist Types in the English as a Foreign Language Teaching Profession in Russia

2024-04-04T21:34:27+03:00

This study examines perfectionism in the English language teaching profession in Russia. The aims are threefold: 1) to use latent profile analysis (LPA) to classify English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers into different types of perfectionists; 2) to compare different types of perfectionists using depression-anxiety-stress indicators (DASS); 3) to study the link between perfectionism and the perception of one’s professional teaching activity. We used convenience sampling by collecting data from 117 English teachers (5% males, 95% females; age range 20-64; M= 39; SD=12) with the Short Almost Perfect Scale (SAPS) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). LPA was conducted to determine the optimal number of types of individuals based on their SAPS profile. Three distinct classes of perfectionists were found (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists). 27% of the respondents fell into the category of maladaptive perfectionists with high scores on both the Standards and Discrepancy subscales. Teachers with higher Standards tend to be more aware of their perfectionism. Teachers who are less satisfied with their English proficiency tend to be more stressed at work. However, the results of the study did not indicate significant differences between the perfectionist types on anxiety, depression, and stress. The findings suggest the need to develop these scales further for measuring perfectionism in the teaching profession and in EFL teaching particularly.

Referential Coherence of Academic Texts: A Corpus-Based Analysis of L2 Research Papers in Management

2020-04-16T19:27:46+03:00

This paper focuses on referential coherence, which is seen as a crucial attribute of effective academic writing. Findings are reported from a corpus study of Russian students’ research proposals. The learners’ use of anaphoric expressions is compared with a reference corpus, which comprises research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. It was hypothesised that learners use anaphora less frequently than professional writers and face some difficulties when using anaphoric expressions. The results of the analysis partly confirmed the hypothesis and allowed the identification of particular problems connected with the students’ use of anaphoric expressions, which were then classified into several groups. Examples of exercises aimed at dealing with the identified problems are also provided. It is hoped that the reported findings, as well as the author’s suggested reasons for the problems and possible ways of dealing with them, will be useful for EAP practitioners, researchers, and students writing their research papers in English.

Pragmeme of Political Humour in Selected Nigerian Political Cartoons

2020-04-16T19:26:38+03:00

Political humour is a recurring element in print media and other genres, touching various areas of Nigerian political discourse. A number of research studies have investigated political humour in contemporary Nigerian political discourse. The political humour deployed in responding to some prominent political events in 2016, however, is relatively unexplored. This current endeavour, therefore, attempts to examine the pragmeme of humour in selected 2016 political events that are remediated in political cartoons. These include political matters such as Nigeria’s 56th Independence Anniversary, the crusade against corruption, which Muhammadu Buhari commenced when he became the President of Nigeria, and the alleged 2016 budget padding scandal that rocked the House of Representatives. The frameworks for the study comprise Flamson and Barrett’s Encryption Theory of Humour and Mey’s Pragmeme Theory. The six political cartoons that were subjected to discourse interpretations were culled from Aprokotoons Media, Nigeria’s foremost internet-based cartoon journal with a large collection of relevant cartoon resources for print and electronic media. The results revealed that audiences who were well informed on these political activities were able to decrypt the cartoons because they shared the same key political knowledge as the cartoonist. Thus, honest laughter is produced, but on the other hand, the cartoons’ essential features are subordinated to the pragmeme of humour of idle campaign promises and Nigeria’s hopeless condition at 56; self-centred leadership, lawmakers who are lawbreakers, and that the worst form of corruption is selective justice. Hence, these findings enhance the public perception of the country’s political actors, and underscore the need for rethinking the sensibility of political acts, promises, and decisions.

Integrating Information and Communication Technologies in English for Specific Purposes

2020-04-16T19:28:53+03:00

Does Autonomy Really Matter in Language Learning?

2020-04-16T19:27:18+03:00

The main aim of this study was to unravel the possible relationship between individuals’ level of autonomy as EFL learners and academic success in terms of language learning at the tertiary level. Additionally, this quantitative study focused on exploring EFL learners’ level of autonomy and also the relationship between learner autonomy and some personal factors, including gender, age, English level, and the length of English education. In order to assess the participants’ levels of autonomy, a questionnaire consisting of 66 items was administered to 267 university students, who were Turkish-speakers of English as a foreign language. The findings showed that more than half of the learners (65.2%) had a high autonomy level with a mean autonomy score of 461.37 out of 660. As for the personal variables, only gender was found to be a significant factor in regards to learners’ autonomy, in this case, in favour of females. Correlation analysis revealed a positive correlation between learner autonomy level and the academic success of language learners. In other words, the academic success of language learners increased with their autonomy and vice versa. In accordance with the literature, the present study revealed that learner autonomy could be considered one of the factors that affects the success of language learners. Based on the findings, it might be suggested that learner autonomy and possible ways to promote it in and out of class should be given more importance. Further empirical research was suggested in order to comprehend unexplored aspects of learner autonomy in language learning.

The Plasticity of Students’ Language Learning Beliefs: The Interplay of Gender, Grade and Educational Level

2020-04-16T19:25:05+03:00

Understanding learners’ epistemological beliefs as one of the core segments underlying one’s learning experience is of cardinal importance both from the point of conveying as well as acquiring new knowledge. In English language teaching studying language learning beliefs has aroused a widespread research interest, with its genesis found in the seminal paper by Horwitz (1987), whose instrument (BALLI) was employed to collect the data in the present paper. In the under-researched context of Bosnia and Herzegovina the current study explores language learning beliefs of 233 elementary school and university students, taking into account the main and interaction effect of three factors: gender, grade and educational level. Through ANOVA and MANOVA statistical analyses, the results revealed an insignificant main effect of gender and grade on the BALLI while the latter significantly affected one of the subscales. Conversely, educational level demonstrated a significant main effect on both the BALLI and one subscale. Most importantly, the study showed interesting interplay of the three factors on the shaping of learners’ stances. These findings bring a significant realization of the complexity of the beliefs as well as their ever-changing nature with relevant pedagogical implications for the field of second language acquisition.

Skills and Competencies in Higher Education and Beyond

2020-04-16T19:23:50+03:00

The editorial focuses on the employability skills and the ways they are reflected in the research field of higher education. The topics related to competencies, abilities, attributes and skills are crucially important as they substantially determine the chances of successful employability for university graduates. The multiple approaches and frameworks covering various kinds of qualifications have been emerging since the 1980s, starting from the 21st century skills to the recent key skills required within education for sustainable development. The UN, European Union, OECD, and other international institutions regularly put forward comprehensive frameworks to address the pressing needs of the transforming economy and society for professionals and specialists ready to face the new challenges. The editorial gives a glimpse of the trends JLE is willingly ready to bring out for our readers in the coming years.

Gamification as a Field Landmark in Educational Research

2020-01-04T19:31:55+03:00

In their editorial review, the JLE editors consider the concept of gamification, its spread in higher education research, and relevance at present. The authors analyse the current Scopus statistics to prove the prominence of the theme for researchers. The JLE scope can be further enriched via more studies on gamification in higher education and games in learning at large. The editorial may prompt the potential authors to proceed with more profound research in gamification learning techniques applicable to education.

Pragmatics of musical rhetoric in the post-2015 elections in Nigeria

2020-01-04T19:32:19+03:00

In linguistics, most studies on rhetoric are approached from the perspective of persuasive ideologies of social actors such as community, religious, and political leaders with a concentration on their speeches and the impacts of the speeches on their followers and society at large. As a result, music as a form of persuasion and political strategy has been under-researched. This paper investigates the rhetoric embedded in politically-motivated musical renditions in the post-2015 elections in Nigeria and identifies ideologies of persuasion, pragmatic choice(s), and implications of the narratives on the Nigerian political landscape. Mey’s pragmatic acts serve as the theoretical base. Two popular and viral musical renditions in (Nigerian pidgin) English from social media were selected for the study. Analysis of the selected songs which critiqued the leadership style of President Muhammadu Buhari from two opposing angles was carried out. Both songs exhibited the Pragmemic activity of (in)direct speech acts as well as conversational and psychological acts through their rhythm and lyrics adapted from Harry Song’s popular ‘Reggae Blues’ and re-titled as ‘The (Change/Truth) Blues’. Musical political rhetoric relies on co-texts conveyed through verifiable information, (satiric) visuals, history, antecedents, and socio-political realities and sentiments as strategies of persuasion. The pragmatic acts employed include narrating, condemning, accusing and counter-accusing, blaming, justifying, (partial) veiling, threatening, hoping, and praying. The study reveals the political consciousness and conflicting perceptions of some Nigeria citizens in governance and makes a case for ‘truth awareness’ among the governed. Citizens’ active participation and better access to information about the political leadership of the day is, therefore, advocated. All these are invaluable for the reposing of trust in the government and also engender citizens’ active participation.

The Impact of Vocabulary Knowledge on the Reading Comprehension of Saudi EFL Learners

2020-01-04T19:33:05+03:00

Vocabulary knowledge is the building block of learning a second language and the degree of success for learning any language depends on the amount of vocabulary a learner possesses. Vocabulary knowledge contributes to mastering language skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking). Therefore, the present study aims at determining the role of vocabulary size in reading comprehension among Saudi EFL learners. The participants of this study included 64 male students who studied at the first level in the academic year 2018/2019 at King Khalid University. Both the Vocabulary Size Test developed by (Schmitt et al.) and reading comprehension test taken from the TOEFL preparation manual were used to collect the necessary data for the study. The results of the study revealed that the overall vocabulary size of Saudi EFL learners was 2025 word families. This amount helps students to comprehend 90% of written texts as pointed out by many researchers in this field. The results also showed a significant relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension. Vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor for comprehending written texts. The study provides some implications for educational stakeholders such as putting more emphasis on teaching vocabulary and using different teaching strategies that assist in the acquisition of vocabulary in general and academic vocabulary in particular.

Keywords: vocabulary knowledge; vocabulary depth; vocabulary breadth; reading comprehension; Saudi EFL learners.

The Effects of an EFL and L2 Russian Teletandem Class: Student Perceptions of Oral Proficiency Gains

2020-01-04T19:33:28+03:00

In response to the growing demand for highly proficient foreign language (L2) speakers in professional work settings, scholars and educators have increasingly turned their attention to methods for developing greater fluency in their learners who aspire to such jobs. Engaging in persuasive writing and argumentation has been shown to promote both written and oral proficiency among advanced L2 learners (Brown, 2009). This study focuses on the application of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency guidelines and standards to the design of teletandem courses in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and Russian as a Foreign Language developed to promote Advanced and Superior-level language gains. ACTFL Can-Do statements were used to evaluate learners’ self-reported language gains as a result of participating in the course. The results indicated that such an approach can indeed yield significant perceived gains, especially for spoken language, for all the participants regardless of their target language and home institution.

Literacy: From the Perspective of Text and Discourse Theory

2020-05-05T16:44:36+03:00

Literacy is a critically important and contemporary issue for educators, scientists, and politicians. Efforts to overcome the challenges associated with illiteracy, and the subsequent development of literate societies, are closely related to those of poverty reduction and sustainable human development. In this paper, the authors examine literacy from the lens of text and discourse theorists who focus on the higher-order comprehension processes involved in literacy. Discourse processing models make the assumption that comprehension emerges from the construction of a mental model of the text, which relies on the reader generating inferences to connect ideas within the text and to what the reader already knows. The article provides a broad overview of the theoretical models that drive research on text comprehension and production, as well as how this research shapes literacy instruction and effective interventions. The authors focus on two interventions with proven success in improving deep comprehension and writing, iSTART and the Writing Pal. Increasing literacy across the world call for a greater focus on theory driven strategy interventions to be integrated within classrooms and community at large.

Leadership Potential of Professional Teacher Associations in Russia: Formation of Middle Leaders

2020-05-05T16:58:12+03:00

This research study is aimed at investigating distributed leadership practices in the Russian school system, of which professional teacher associations (PTA) constitute a distinct feature. In particular, we set out to investigate the PTA leadership potential, as well as the role and specific personal characteristics of middle leaders in the Russian school education system. These associations are formed by the school administration on the basis of subject areas, bringing together teachers of maths, history, etc. Teachers join PTAs on a voluntarily basis. The key function of such organisations consists in the implementation of innovative educational approaches and techniques. In order to analyse their leadership potential, we carried out a sociological survey among the employees of high-profile secondary schools (gymnasiums and lyceums) situated in the major Russian city of Ekaterinburg. The research methodology comprised structured interviews with 110 respondents, along with in-depth interviews with 2 school directors, 4 school deputy directors and 6 heads of professional teacher associations. Our results show that the fundamentals and principles of distributed leadership are actively implemented in Ekaterinburg schools. The school administrations encourage the creation of professional teacher associations grouped around subject areas, delegating to these structural units the functions of improving the quality of teaching the respective subjects and disseminating educational innovations, at the same time as fulfilling the requirements of the state and regional education authorities. Such associations are headed by middle leaders, who are nominated by their colleagues and whose candidacy is approved by school seniors, taking into account their professional achievements, experience of leading pedagogical innovations and the presence of the right personal qualities necessary for productive collaborative work. These people perform the role of mediators, operating at the interface between various levels within the school. Although viewed as a school’s personnel reserve for the positions of principals and head teachers, our respondents consider themselves to be ‘more teachers’ or ‘innovators in education’ than administrators. The development of the leadership qualities of such professionals in the Russian school system is shown to be hindered by a ‘glass ceiling’ – a certain limit in their career growth. This discouraging factor results in some middle school leaders searching for professional self-realization opportunities outside the school system, in the spheres of business, science or culture that are believed to provide more opportunities for self-advancement.

The Impact of Cooperative Learning on Developing Speaking Ability and Motivation Toward Learning English

2020-05-05T16:58:50+03:00

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cooperative learning in English language classrooms to enhance Iranian students’ speaking skills and motivations. A pre-test–post-test control group design was employed to compare the impact of the cooperative learning approach with that of traditional whole-class instruction on speaking skills and six aspects of learning motivation: intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation. The data of the current study were gathered at multiple points of time before and after the end of the experiment to determine the effectiveness of cooperative learning on the sample’s speaking skills and motivations. In practical terms, the sample’s speaking skills were first examined through an English oral test prior to and after some cooperative learning instructional activities were provided. Next, a seven-point Likert scale-questionnaire was administered to the sample before and at the end of the course to check students’ motivation towards the use of cooperative learning in English classes. The data were analyzed using basic and inferential statistical methods including mean scores, standard deviations, independent and paired sample t-tests, one-way ANCOVA, and effect size. The findings showed remarkable development in the students’ speaking skills after the introduction of cooperative learning techniques. Moreover, the findings suggested significant differences in favor of cooperative learning for improving intrinsic motivation, but no differences were found on other aspects of motivation. In light of the findings, the researchers recommend that teachers could benefit from applying CL in English classes, which may in turn develop students’ speaking skills and motivation.

The Medium of Instruction Policy in Nepal: Towards Critical Engagement on the Ideological and Pedagogical Debate

2020-05-05T16:59:29+03:00

Although there were attempts to develop multilingual and multicultural education in Nepal, changes have remained more discursive than pragmatic at the working level. Problems discussed have remained unsolved. The issues of protection and promotion of the historically residing linguistic diversity have been addressed through the current constitution (Constitution of Nepal-2015) which provides an appropriate legal framework for substantive legal protection for the national indigenous languages as MOIs. However, the successful implementation of this provision is further complicated due to the global political economy, interdependence, and the ‘sandwiched’ geopolitical status of Nepal. It has been noted that education policymaking is highly centralised and implementation is top-down (Edwards, 2011) in many countries such as Nepal, the current trend of English-medium instruction supported by parents, communities, and the private sector from the bottom up will further weaken the attempts for mother tongue MOI in Nepalese schools. Moreover, the social capitalisation of English from the bottom up will have grave consequences for language policymaking in education, which are obviously dismal but essential nonetheless. Despite the research findings revealing that multilingual education offers the best possibilities for preparing the coming generation to participate in constructing more equitable and democratic societies in the globalised world, the translation of such findings into real-life practice is telescopic. This article emphasises the need for the critical engagement of scholars, educators, investors, and policymakers in order to develop contextually realistic, sustainable, and efficient MOI policymaking that justifies the use of mother tongues, national language, and the global language in an integrated framework sufficient for future generations to compete both locally and globally.

Teaching Language and Teaching Literature in Virtual Environment by Maria Luisa Carrio-Pastor (eds)., Springer Verlag, Singapore, 2019. XXI+293 pp. ISBN 978-981-13-1358-5 (eBook)

2020-01-04T19:35:28+03:00

Native and Non-Native EFL Teachers Dichotomy: Terminological, Competitiveness and Employment Discrimination

2020-05-05T17:00:11+03:00

The application of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ labels to EFL professionals has been influenced by the argument over their discriminatory nature. L1 proponents claim that natives are innate with linguistic competence while non-natives are referred to as second-best. A review of studies investigating the coherence of these terms supported the validity of this phenomenon. However, competing theories emphasise the importance and impact of discriminatory terminology not addressed by natives This paper looks at this debate in some detail and aims to balance the need for accurate descriptive labelling against the damaging effects of pejorative categories. It also discusses teaching and linguistic competence in light of both “native” and “non-native” categories. The discourse focuses on the advantages and disadvantages attributed to the native versus non-native EFL teacher and employment discrimination issues faced by non-native EFL teachers in institutions, job advertisements, and in the administration of institutions themselves today. It was concluded that a more refined approach to describing different types of EFL professionals is required, which does not negatively disadvantage either L1 or L2 teachers of English.

Scoping Reviews: What is in a Name?

2019-11-03T01:21:54+03:00

The editorial dwells upon scoping or otherwise called mapping reviews that have recently come to the fore. Starting to appear from the early 2000s, scoping reviews initially came out in medicine and biosciences. The present-day unprecedented boost in the scoping review quantity is spurred by a general thrust for structured analysis and synthesis of scientific information across fields and disciplines. The authors aim to overview the methodology of scoping reviews with regard to their prospects for social sciences and humanities.

The Influence of the Teaching Style of Communication on the Motivation of Students to Learn Foreign Languages

2019-11-03T01:21:52+03:00

Nowadays, when the role of knowing foreign languages is extremely high and the demand for specialists who are proficient in a language is continuing to increase, we face the problem of a lack of desire to learn foreign languages among non-linguistic majors. We supposed that the type of teacher-student interaction style (authoritarian, democratic, and liberal) could influence students’ motivation type (internal, external positive, external negative, or amotivation) and this was the aim of the study. We surveyed 230 second-year students of the intramural form of study seeking a baccalaureate degree from Moscow State University of Food Production. Among the respondents there were 143 girls and 87 boys aged 18-20, citizens of the Russian Federation. The experiment was divided into three stages and it took three semesters to complete the study. The aim of the first stage was to investigate students’ preferences related to teacher-student interaction style, and the prevailing type of learning motivation to study and to learn foreign languages. The second stage of the study was aimed to investigate how teacher-student interaction style influences the nature and type of students' motivation to learn. In the last stage of the study, the output testing of student performance was implemented and all the results from the previous stages were compared and analyzed. The results of the experiment clearly demonstrated that both authoritarian and democratic teacher-student interaction styles could have a positive influence on students’ educational behaviour and academic performances while the implementation of the liberal teacher-student interaction style led to amotivation. At the same time, the democratic style, contrary to the authors' hypothesis, predominantly provoked external motivation, while an authoritarian style significantly activated internal motivation.

Science Culture, Language, and Education in America: Literacy, Conflict, and Successful Outreach by Emily Schoering. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 145 pp. ISBN 1349958131

2020-05-05T17:07:59+03:00

A Cognitive Approach to the Instruction of Phrasal Verbs: Rudzka-Ostyn’s Model

2019-11-03T01:22:05+03:00

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners find some phrasal verbs problematic because of their idiomatic and polysemous nature. They are frequently used in spoken English and textbooks suggest an arbitrary way in teaching them. Cognitive linguists proposed that the particle plays a major role in determining the meaning of such phrasal verbs. This study investigated the effectiveness of a cognitive approach (i.e., Rudzka-Ostyn’s Model) in teaching taught and new phrasal verbs including metaphorical ones. Using a list of frequent phrasal verbs, a quasi-experimental design was used in which an experimental group was required to create mind maps of the common meanings of each particle with example phrasal verbs. The control group, on the other hand, was asked to memorize the frequent senses of the most frequent phrasal verbs along with their translations. The experimental group did not outperform the control group on the post-test. This was attributed to a number of problems such as the fact that some senses given by some particles are not outlined in Rudzka-Ostyn’s Model. Further, the analytical procedure followed by students to cognitively understand phrasal verbs should be made explicit and address the interaction between the verb and the particle. Additionally, following a cognitive approach, instructors should focus more on the particles up and out since they have many senses and contribute a lot to phrasal-verb formation.

Tense and Aspect in the Academic Writing of Arab L2 Learners of English: A Corpus-Based Approach

2019-11-03T01:22:09+03:00

This study aimed at explicating the use of tense and aspect in the academic writing of Arab L2 learners of English. The scope was restricted to two absolute tenses (simple present and simple past), perfective and imperfective aspects, and verb-form errors arising from the deletion or addition of the third person singular-s besides the omission of copula and auxiliary verbs. The study was conducted on the basis of a comparative, quantitative analysis of the target forms between a learner corpus and a similar-sized native one. In pursuing and achieving the stated objectives, it also concentrated on the types and sources of the tense, aspect and verb form errors in learners’ performance. In addition to the significant disparity between the two corpora in terms of the frequency count and percentage of most of the target forms, the findings confirmed learners’ tendency to use more verbs than native speakers. Results also showed that learners’ use of the preterit (simple past), and perfective and imperfective aspects were largely constrained by their L1 grammar and semantic interpretation of verbs (independent of the target language norm). Moreover, the findings revealed some common inconsistent erroneous forms attributed to the omission or addition of the third person singular-s and the omission of copula and auxiliary verbs. Several main factors were identified as potentially responsible for learners’ errors, that is, inconsistency inherent in L2 rules, learners’ limited exposure to (authentic) L2, overgeneralization, redundancy reduction, and language transfer. The findings suggest the need to introduce appropriate pedagogical methods to best present the target language rules.

Internationalization and English as a Medium of Instruction in Mongolian Higher Education: A New Concept

2019-11-03T01:22:02+03:00

The impact of globalization leaves no choice to universities but to go toward internationalization in order to survive in the growing competition in higher education. Following the global trend of internationalization, Mongolian universities plan to increase courses and programs in English in order to improve their competitiveness and ultimately to become internationally visible, at least in Asia. Based on two types of data, documents and an online survey, this study discusses the current process of internationalization at Mongolian universities and explores how faculty members perceive the rationales of implementing English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI). The findings revealed that the Mongolian government is the key player in internationalization through policies, taking initiatives, and encouraging national universities. The faculty members of the two leading private universities in Mongolia perceived that the introduction of EMI at their universities intends to improve their graduates’ English language skills to operate globally and as well as to promote their university’s international profile.

Nihongo Speech Trainer: A Pronunciation Training System for Japanese Sounds

2019-11-03T01:21:56+03:00

This article will present the methodology, as well as the results, of a pilot study of the ‘Nihongo Speech Trainer’ aimed at helping Thai learners improve their ability to identify Japanese contrasts. The pilot study was performed on 15 participants. The tool focuses on specific contrasts that are problematic for Thai learners such as Japanese fricatives and affricates. Perceptual training uses a high-variability phonetic training method (hereafter referred to as “HVPT perceptual training”). Each training session included 90 minimal pairs in which the target contrasts were embedded in initial, medial and final positions. The training stimuli were produced by seven Japanese native speakers. The results of the pilot study showed that the use of the Nihongo Speech Trainer can lead to better perception of the trained Japanese sounds. The results of a questionnaire among the participants also showed that the system helped to improve their perception and production ability. However, despite these positive results with the use of the Nihongo Speech Trainer, there is room for improvement, which may lead to better training results.

Positive Psychology and Mastery of the L2 Academic Self

2019-11-03T01:21:58+03:00

In order to determine how best to prepare students for university and to participate meaningfully in the activities of their intended academic discourse community (ADC), the influential model proposed by Anne Beaufort in 2007 suggests that this can only occur once a learner has mastered the domains of knowledge pertaining to the target ADC, including those of subject matter, genre, rhetorical techniques and the writing process. However, this article will argue that mastery of a domain and entry into an ADC involves more than this; both of these things can occur only once a student has been able to ‘master’ him/herself. In order to address the question of the nature of ‘self-mastery’ and how to guide students towards achieving it, this article draws upon theories from the emerging field of positive psychology, showing how notions such as self-efficacy, mindfulness and flow can be interwoven with concepts more commonly associated with English for Academic Purposes or ‘EAP’ (e.g. learner autonomy, motivation and noticing) to provide insights into how mastery of the second/additional language learning (L2) academic self can be facilitated. The application of these proposed strategies in the classroom is intended to give students the tools to not only to enter their chosen ADC but also to leave their mark on it.

Teaching Business English with TED Talks: Putting Ideas into Practice

2019-11-03T01:22:07+03:00

TED.com is used in teaching EFL to enhance exposure to English, to promote authentic vocabulary and to develop multiple foreign language skills. For university students studying business as their major and English for professional communication as a part of their university curriculum, TED talks provide a cutting-edge business context, which aims to increase the learners’ English language proficiency, develop the learners’ professional competencies and expand their outlook by acquainting them with business practices from around the world. Through authentic models of effective communication, students build fluency to achieve academic and personal success. Business English with TED talks, an EFL resource book, is the result of the author’s approach to creating educational materials based on authentic and up to date video content. Using the example of ‘Business English with TED talks’, this paper describes criteria for selecting TED talks for different groups of students, the structure of a TED talk lesson and provides teachers with other resources for supplementing TED talk lessons.

Does Communicative Language Teaching Help Develop Students’ Competence in Thinking Critically?

2019-11-03T01:22:00+03:00

Critical thinking is one of the non-subject related learning goals which students are expected to develop in British education. Undergraduate students are offered to study language through the Institution-Wide Language Programme (IWLP) in the UK and most language teachers use Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Paying attention to these two facts, this study investigates if CLT helps develop students’ critical thinking. Using Hofstede et al.’s educational culture as a framework, the underlying pedagogies for both CLT and critical thinking were identified and the similarities and differences are compared. It was concluded that CLT helps to develop students’ critical thinking as it shares with critical thinking pedagogies and elements of an educational culture. However, the pedagogy of independence was not shared. It is suggested that language teachers should give students the opportunity to think for themselves during class in order to encourage students’ independence using CLT.

English as a Lingua Franca in a Multilingual India

2019-11-03T01:23:36+03:00

In this opinion article, we highlight that the cultural policy of language in India has resulted in an impasse in regard to determining and deciding upon a national language policy. We then summarize how English use across India has been elevated to the status of a lingua franca (amidst the language policy impasse), making it an indispensable part of the system and the economy. In that context, this opinion article presents the various tenets of the language policy issue with recommendations for educators in India on how to utilize best practices from literacy, culture, and language education (LCLE) literature to improve and maintain the quality of education whilst operating within the confines of the language policy impasse.

The Younger, the Better? A Multi-Factorial Approach to Understanding Age Effects on EFL Phonological Attainment

2019-11-03T01:23:38+03:00

Second language (L2) phonological acquisition is constrained by a complex interplay of extra-linguistic factors, among which the age factor is frequently investigated. This study adopted a multi-factorial approach to examine the effects of the age of learning English (AoLE), along with ten other extra-linguistic factors, on the ultimate English phonological attainment of 318 university students in Chinese context for English as a foreign language (EFL) as a whole and across three cohorts: first-year non-English majors, first-year English majors, and third-year English majors. The participants were administered background questionnaires and receptive and productive EFL phonology tests. The results of regression analyses indicated that the AoLE was not a predictor for the whole sample, while English pronunciation self-concept (EPSC) turned out to be the most predictive. Predictors for each cohort varied in number and content. Whichever cohort the participants came from, EPSC remained a constant and potent predictor, whereas the AoLE could merely predict the phonological attainment of first-year non-English majors, accounting for 4% of its variance. The findings of the study contribute to the long-standing debate over the viability of the critical period hypothesis, provide methodological implications for age-related L2 phonology research, and inform early EFL educational decisions.

Pictorial Framing in Moral Politics: A Corpus-Based Experimental Study. Abdel-Raheem A., New York, NY & London, UK: Routledge, 2019. 209 pp., including 50 b/w figures and an index. ISBN 978-1-1-138-35176-9 (hbk), 978-0-429-43508-9 (ebk)

2019-11-03T01:23:34+03:00

The Top 100 Cited Discourse Studies: An Update

2019-11-03T01:23:30+03:00

The editorial review of the top 100 most cited articles on discourse in the subject area of ‘linguistics and language’ aims to define the dominating trends and find out the prevailing article structures for JLE authors to follow as the best practice-based patterns and guidelines. The top 100 quoted articles were singled out from Scopus database, filtered through subject areas (social sciences; arts and humanities), language (English), years (2015-2019), document type (article) and keywords (discourse; discourse analysis; critical discourse analysis; semantics). The research finds out that educational discourses and news media coverage discourses are the most popular themes with 23 publications each; other prevailing topics cover media, policy-related, ecology discourses, metaphors, racism and religion in discourses. As the top 100 cited articles include mainly original articles (both theoretical and empirical), the study focused on the article structure, calling JLE authors’ attention to the journal editors’ stance on article formats.

Decoding Encoded Yorùbá Nomenclature: An Exercise of Linguistic Competence and Performance

2019-11-03T01:23:44+03:00

The study investigated word formation experience in Yorùbá names. At the deployment of ellipsis, as the instrument of analysis, one observed the effectiveness of terminologies of competence and performance, being operational in the clipping of statements to nominal lexemes, illustrated with names of ten towns in South West Nigeria. The study exhibited flexibility in the development of Yorùbá, which depended largely on users’ needs. Historical facts of business, religion, hunting, war and conquest supported the formations, without seemingly consistent linguistic principles. Eliminations of linguistic components occurred to the statements and sometimes with twists in pronunciations, displaying new lexemes and meanings. Although, individuals might attempt to regulate ways that people employ language to formulate words, the study suggested that language communicators should be allowed to deploy language as pleased. As language analyses seem descriptive, utilizing language as delighted might yield novel items to enhance language development in unique forms.

The The Arabic Aspectual Marker Qad from the Perspective of the Two-Component Theory of Aspect

2019-11-03T01:23:40+03:00

The study examined the Arabic aspectual particle qad within the framework of Smith’s Two-Component Theory of Aspect, which views aspectual meaning as a combination of covert situation types and overt viewpoint markers. The analysis, which was conducted on Modern Standard Arabic, revealed that the Arabic aspectual marker qad has a tendency to be used perfectively, but it also has imperfective uses. However, as far as situation types are concerned, the analysis found some variation when it comes to the use of imperfective and perfective qad. The findings were also correlated to different constructions in which qad typically occurs.

Examining Undergraduate Students’ and In-Service Graduates’ Perceptions of Their Professionally Oriented Foreign Language Needs

2019-11-03T01:23:42+03:00

Increasing workplace demands on foreign languages skills in professional settings call for a number of considerable changes in the university learning context regarding foreign language teaching. The present study aimed to assess the language needs within and across employed university graduates, first, third, and fourth-year students of non-language majors to further inform such changes. All four language skills, the context of both current foreign language education programs and the use of a foreign language at the workplace were considered. Questionnaires including Likert scale, multiple choice, and open-ended items were distributed among 110 students and 35 currently employed graduates. Descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey HSD and Holm-Bonferroni tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated several areas of agreement among the participants: A clear need for all four language skills to be developed as high as C2 level and the consistent need to improve speaking. However, several noticeable discrepancies between the perceptions of the target groups regarding the context of workplace language use, such as how often, where, and with whom they expect to communicate, and need for professionally oriented foreign language were revealed. Overall, students may need to be more informed about the challenges regarding the workplace context for language use.

Meaningful Learning and Its Implications for Language Education in Vietnam

2019-11-03T01:23:32+03:00

This paper attempts to make an argument for meaningful learning as an essential factor in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Meaningful learning rests its theories against cognitive processing. While contemporary literature shows knowledge of language in general is essential for second language use, this research is mainly concerned with ways of improving students’ language use. It has proved that meaningful learning facilitates the retention of knowledge as it makes learners organize their knowledge logically. In the classroom, the teacher should offer activities that relate the new input to learners’ existing knowledge, for which cognitive engagement is required. In English language teaching, it is important for teachers to know that learner-centeredness should be applied because they are the ones who process knowledge. This paper begins with an overview of different approaches of foreign language teaching, then presents theories in which meaningful learning is grounded and rooted. The discussion of how one’s knowledge of a first language is essential for foreign language learning is given prior to giving implications of meaningful learning in the Vietnamese context.

Fairness and Ethics in Multiple Choice (MC) Scoring: An Empirical Study

2019-11-03T01:23:46+03:00

One among the main concerns of language testers in the design and implementation of tests is selecting the method of scoring for the tool used to perform the evaluation. This attribute indirectly reveals the tester’s ethical beliefs and personal stance on testing pedagogy. This is another study challenging the typical 1-0 method of scoring in Multiple Choice Tests (MCT) and implements, for experimental purposes, a simple polychotomous partial-credit scoring system on official tests administered for the National Foreign Language Exam System in Greece (NFLES-Gr). The study comes in support of earlier findings on the subject by the same authors in analogous smaller-scale studies. The MCT items chosen were completed by a total of 1,922 subjects in different levels of the NFLES-Gr test for Italian as an L2 in Greece. Results clearly indicate that the tested scoring procedure provides refined insights into students’ interlanguage levels, enhances sensitivity in scoring procedures, and may provide significant differences for testees found to be close to the pass/non-pass borderline without jeopardizing test reliability.

An Examination of Relative Clauses in Argumentative Essays Written by EFL Learners

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

Syntactic complexity has received a great deal of attention in the literature on second language writing. Relative clauses, which function as a kind of noun phrase post-modifier, are among those structures that are believed to contribute to the complexity of academic prose. These grammatical structures can pose difficulties for EFL writers even at higher levels of proficiency, and it is therefore important to determine the frequency and accuracy with which relative clauses are used by L2 learners since understanding learners’ strengths and weaknesses in using these structures can inform teachers on ways to improve the process of their instruction in the writing classroom. This paper reports on a corpus-based comparison of relative clauses in a number of argumentative essays written by native and non-native speakers of English. To this end, 30 argumentative essays were randomly selected from the Persian sub-corpus of the ICLE and the essays were analyzed with respect to the relative clauses found in them. The results were then compared to a comparable corpus of essays by native speakers. Different dimensions regarding the structure of relative clauses were investigated. The type of relative clause (restrictive/non-restrictive), the relativizer (adverbial/pronoun), the gap (subject/non-subject), and head nouns (both animate and non-animate) in our two sets of data were manually identified and coded. The findings revealed that the non-native writers tended to use a greater number of relative clauses compared to their native-speaker counterparts.

Effects of Mastery Learning Instruction on Engineering Students’ Writing Skills Development and Motivation

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

This study was aimed to investigate the effects of mastery learning instruction on engineering students’ academic writing skills and motivation in an EFL context. The participants were software engineering and computer science first-year students, and they were selected using a multistage sampling technique. Observation, a questionnaire, and pre- and post-tests were employed as data gathering instruments. The research was designed through a time series quasi-experimental research design. The data were analysed through repeated measure ANOVA, independent t-tests, as well as descriptive statistics. The findings indicated that there was a statistical difference between the experimental and the control groups. Hence, students who participated in mastery learning instruction improved their writing skills and achieved better scores in writing skills assessment. Particularly, learners who learned through mastery learning instruction were able to develop paragraphs and essays with clear topic sentences and thesis statements. They also developed paragraphs with proper punctuation and minimized various mechanical errors that were observed during the pre-test. Furthermore, the students who engaged in mastery learning instruction had better levels of motivation. Thus, individualized instruction and continuous feedback helped them improve their engagement in writing activities. Hence, this study calls for more attention to self-paced instruction, regular feedback, assessment, and continuous support in writing classrooms.

Role Playing in Storytelling Classes and Its Impact on Iranian Young EFL Learners’ Narrative Writing

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of role playing in storytelling classes on Iranian young EFL learners’ narrative writing. Forty-seven pre-intermediate young EFL learners who were within the age range of 9 and 16 participated in this study. They were members of four intact classes, which consisted of two classes of boys and two classes of girls. One class of boys and one class of girls were randomly assigned to the experimental groups and the other two to control groups. The researchers used the role-playing technique for storytelling classes in the experimental groups and only reading stories aloud for storytelling classes in the control groups. After the treatment, the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was run to compare the four groups’ improvement on narrative writing. The results signified that the use of role playing in the storytelling classes had a significant impact on the narrative writing of Iranian young EFL learners as compared to the reading stories aloud technique. Furthermore, the findings showed that using role playing in storytelling classes enhanced learners’ understanding of the narrative writing style and patterns of the target language.

Functional and Linguistic Characteristics of Donald Trump’s Victory and Inaugural Speeches

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

The current research is devoted to the comparative and contrastive analysis of Donald Trump’s victory and inaugural speeches. Its objective is to identify their similarities and differences from the functional and linguistic points of view. The research consists of several stages. First, the two genres of discourse in question are defined. Then, an overview of their functions is provided. Next, the linguistic means of performing them are analyzed. The results of the research indicate that, due to their main goals, the genres in question express certain functions, which can be verbally expressed in various ways: in Trump’s victory speech the inspirative function comes to the fore, while in his inaugural address the integrative and the performative functions dominate the other ones. Furthermore, in each case linguistic peculiarities correlate with the functions: in the victory speech the focus is on the ‘greatness’ of everything and everyone, whereas in the inaugural speech words connected with patriotism prevail, which is expressed mostly by means of personal pronouns. The results of the current research may function as a basis for further analysis of the genre of the victory speech, as it has not received enough scholarly attention yet, and of the peculiarities of Donald Trump’s political discourse.

Learner Autonomy through Role Plays in English Language Teaching

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

Nowadays, learner autonomy is considered to be a multidimensional and diversified concept. A number of scientists have found support for the importance of learner autonomy but there is little empirical research on using different strategies for promoting and evaluating students’ autonomy. Accordingly, in order to become better language learners, students should plan, implement, and evaluate their own learning. This study aims at fostering and evaluating students’ autonomy by scaffolding their speaking practices through role plays in an English for Special Purposes (ESP) course. The research suggests that role-play strategies should help students develop their autonomy in acquiring ESP speaking skills. The study argues that developing autonomy is an efficient way to improve students’ performance in ESP speaking skills as it provides them with relevant scaffolding. This article provides theoretical grounding for autonomy. The entry-level and post-study speaking scores (IELTS test) are compared across experimental and control groups. A class-based training course of ESP speaking was offered in an institutional setting to 38 (15 male, 23 female) second-year students at a national research university in Russia. A special questionnaire was developed to assess learner autonomy in ESP speaking, which proved that role play promoted learner autonomy and encouraged students to master ESP speaking skills. The results of the study indicate that students who were developing their speaking skills via role play performed significantly better than their peers in the control group. The level of their English language competence improved. The role plays in the ESP speaking course proved to be a viable and productive teaching strategy for fostering autonomy among students.

Innovations in Integrating Language Assistants: Inter-Collaborative Learning

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

A language assistant (LA) program was introduced into a university-level Japanese program. The LAs in this program consisted of Japanese study abroad students, that is English as a second language students, coming to study from Japanese universities for either one semester or one academic year, as well as American learners returning from a one-year academic study abroad program in Japan. In the southeastern region of the United States, the Japanese language is not yet considered a major foreign language, thus few opportunities exist for American learners to connect with native speakers of Japanese. The LA program endeavors to ease this limitation. It has been extremely beneficial for our American learners to have opportunities to communicate regularly with Japanese study abroad students in the classrooms. Furthermore, it was found tremendously valuable for Japanese study abroad students and greatly helpful for the instructors as well. This paper describes the procedures and examines the effectiveness of introducing an LA program into Japanese language classes. To analyze the program, questionnaires were distributed to LAs (N=20); five department instructors wrote comments concerning the program; and five Japanese language learners submitted reflection papers. Analyses of the qualitative data indicate that the LA program has many advantages for everyone participating.

Mother Tongue of Turkish Immigrant Children in Berlin: to Be or not to Be?

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

How do bilingual Turkish children develop their mother tongue knowledge in German kindergartens and what are some of the difficulties they face? These are the questions which this paper tries to answer. For this purpose, a study with Turkish kindergarten children from Berlin, Germany was conducted. A total of 40 children were divided into two groups between 3 and 6 years old and tested twice in a year with the TEDIL Test . The test consists of pictures and measures the knowledge of Turkish nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and syntax. All of the children were tested individually by a native Turkish speaker and by the researcher. The testing was done in the kindergarten setting. The results showed that the knowledge of both age groups on different grammatical categories in Turkish was equal on the first test and there were no statistical differences. However, during the second test the group of older children showed a decrease in their knowledge of the grammatical categories in their mother tongue. This paper discusses the factors that influenced the regression in the knowledge of Turkish. This study is one of only a few on bilingual Turkish children and it presents new information about mother tongue loss among kindergarten children, discusses the reasons, and suggests that kindergartens and families should cooperate and work together in order to prevent mother tongue loss from a very early age as well as its effect on the cognitive development of bilingual children.

Multimodal Pragmatics and Translation. A New Model for Source Text Analysis, Dicerto S. Palgrave Macmillan (2018). 178 pp. ISBN 978-3-319-69343-9

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

Job Focus: Revisiting Students’ Communicative Needs and Industrial Demands

2019-11-01T23:55:15+03:00

In an attempt to develop students’ employability skills through a job-specific, needs based English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, this paper investigated conducting a needs analysis to understand the perceptions of the final-year technical students, alumni, and Human Resources (HR) managers for promoting placements in the campus recruitments. By employing a qualitative ethnographic approach, an open-ended questionnaire was conducted with final-year information technology students and structured and unstructured interviews with the HR managers and the alumni respectively. In this study, the communicative needs of the final-year technical students were specifically addressed to provide them with career education and placement training and raise employment opportunities in their course of study. Based on the results of the questionnaire-based survey and subsequent observations in the structured and unstructured interviews, it is widely examined that all of the HR managers reflected on the importance of English language in corporate communications. The findings of the survey also reflected that the perceptions of the alumni and the expectations of the HR managers on verbal and nonverbal skills were well received by the final-year technical students. This is a positive development on the part of students as they were found to be thoroughly aware of their workplace needs and were keen to develop language, communication, and soft skills for successfully entering into the job market. This research implies that connecting institution and industry is a significant factor in helping students obtain job offers and develop the job-specific skills that meet the requirements of the industry.

An Overview of Trends and Challenges in Higher Education on the Worldwide Research Agenda

2020-03-31T15:34:15+03:00

Being a crucial part of the JLE scope, higher education is witnessing an era of supra-national, national, and institutional changes, including massification via massive online open courses (MOOC), politically launched or influenced trends like the Bologna process, increasing academic mobility spurred by globalisation and continued development of internationalised education, interculturality and multiligualism, worldwide innovations in higher education and teaching approaches (deep active learning, blended learning methods, gamification, storytelling, alignments of higher education and work, translanguaging in higher education instruction).
Further, the JLE editors dwell upon other relevant issues, including transformation of universities, student-teacher relationship, social equity and access to higher education, students’ engagement and commitment to learning, university excellence factors.
The editorial entails some guidelines for potential authors regarding priority themes JLE is going to promote within its scope.

Pragmatics of Crisis-Motivated Humour in Computer Mediated Platforms in Nigeria

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Humour, an established means of releasing stress and tension has attracted scholarly attention over the years. In the Nigerian discourse context, studies on Crisis-Motivated Humour (CMH) via CMC platforms are scanty. This paper investigates humour shared through the social media which reflects the socioeconomic/political challenges in Nigeria in order to identify CMH as a form of humour through which real-life experiences of other people can be understood. Ethnography of Communication and Pragmatic act theory serve as the theoretical framework. Ten anonymous humorous compositions were randomly selected from WhatsApp and Facebook. CMH is a creative composition of jokes which reflects the Nigerians’ experiences, perceptions, imaginations and assumptions. They are purposefully composed by Nigerians, in order to downplay the effects of the crisis and bring temporary reliefs to the audience. These jokes elicit amusement, high-level wits and satirise the crisis situation(s). CMH are composed mainly in English with a blend of pidgin and a reflection of some Nigerianism. They are replete with verifiable, but exaggerated facts deployed through varying practs. Use of the first person singular pronoun ‘I’ and second person singular/plural ‘you’ with the use of simple present tense of verb among other grammatical elements, are a norm. All these make some of the jokes believable and also establish CMH as a unique genre of humour with an unlimited audience. CMH are often preserve-able and re-usable and thus serve as a relevant medium through which political leaders can assess the plights of the populace and access first-hand information on the ‘real’ impacts of the crisis.

Linguistic Politeness in Yemeni Arabic: The Use of Request Perspective

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

This article attempts to investigate the use of request perspectives in Yemeni Arabic. The sample of the current study consists of 336 undergraduate students, namely 168 male respondents and 168 female respondents. They were asked to respond in Yemeni Arabic to twelve different situations in which they carried out the speech act of request. The data were collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT). They were analyzed according to the models proposed by Blum-Kulka, et al. (1989), whose analytical framework classified request perspective into four types: hearer-oriented request, speaker-oriented request, inclusive, and impersonal. The results of the study revealed that native speakers of Yemeni Arabic that used the direct head acts of requests were mostly from the hearer-oriented perspective. The respondents employed a hearer-oriented perspective either in the direct strategies or conventionally indirect strategies in order to show solidarity and paying attention to others. However, the indirect head act of request used various perspectives such as hearer-oriented, speaker-oriented, inclusive, or impersonal. The respondents employed speaker-oriented perspective, inclusive or impersonal in order to be free from the imposition of others and to show that they respected the rights of others to their own autonomy and freedom of movement or choice. Furthermore, the results revealed that in general, the respondents in M-M and F-F interactions and M-F and F-M interactions employed hearer-oriented and speaker-oriented perspective more than other perspectives. In particular, the results revealed that the respondents in M-M and F-F interactions and M-F and F-M interactions had a great tendency to use hearer-oriented perspective only in direct requests.

'Linguistic Diversity on TV': A Program for Developing Children's Multiliteracies Skills

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

In this article, we present a program designed for and carried out with young children, which was based on the four-stage multiliteracies model: experiencing, conceptualizing, analyzing and applying creatively. The main purpose of the study was to develop children’s critical awareness of linguistic diversity through popular culture texts in a collaborative, creative and multimodal educational environment. The program was carried out for two school years: a) in the first school year, an intervention was implemented to 2^nd grade children of a Greek primary school, and b) in the second school year, a similar intervention was applied to children of the 1^st grade. In this article, we report on the results of the first school year’s intervention. The results revealed the positive impact of the program on children’s ability to easily distinguish between different types of speech styles due to geographical, age and socio-economic factors. The children understood – at least to some extent – that the texts of popular culture tend to display language diversity in a distorted and stigmatized way. The results of those implementations were very encouraging; a fact that stimulates our interest in continuing respective ventures by involving a wider sample of students and incorporating a greater range of popular culture texts.

An Exploration of Beliefs about Gender Differences in Language Use

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

It is the natural order of things for humans to acquire beliefs and conform to stereotypes in an attempt to explain phenomena surrounding them. These mental constructs are known to have a pervasive influence on the way people think and act, and therefore are partly responsible for shaping our social reality. Thus, due to their impact, scientific exploration is needed to illuminate their nature and so enable humans to act upon these findings. Beliefs or stereotypes that are being studied in this particular research are those held about the differences in language use by men and women. Acknowledging that people in Bosnia and Herzegovina largely comply to traditional, patriarchal social norms, this study aims to elucidate the matter by investigating whether students of a private university situated in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, conform to widespread stereotypes about language and gender, women’s speech and men’s speech in particular, and whether males and females differ in conformity to the stereotypes.

Academic Subject Areas and English Language Learning Strategies: Any Relationships?

2020-02-10T19:17:47+03:00

This study is an attempt to resolve the contradictory findings concerning the relationship between learners’ English language learning strategies and their academic subject areas. A two-phased mixed-methods research approach, consisting of a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, was adopted for the study. 250 students speaking English as a second language and studying five different subject areas at various London universities responded to a questionnaire on the English language learning strategies they used. The results showed that the preference for learning strategies differed significantly between students of different subject areas. Whilst cognitive strategies were reported to be the most commonly used ones by medicine and finance students, metacognitive, memory-related and social strategies were mostly used by law, music and social science students respectively. The least common set of strategies reported to be used by law and finance students was affective strategies, whereas compensatory, cognitive and metacognitive strategies were the least used ones by medicine, music and social science students in turn. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 10 of the participants to disclose the reasons behind these learners’ choices of learning strategies and the contributory factors which might influence their choices. The results showed that the participants attributed their choices to factors such as the nature of their academic exposure, of their academic instructions, their learning styles, their motivations and their domestic backgrounds. The pedagogical and research significance of the study are described in the concluding remarks.

The Influence of Students’ Sociocultural Background on the IELTS Speaking Test Preparation Process

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

The article is aimed at highlighting the sociocultural factors a teacher/IELTS instructor should consider preparing Russian students for the IELTS exam. The main focus of the study was on four speech functions most frequently used in the IELTS Speaking Test: explaining and paraphrasing, expressing personal opinion, providing personal information, and summarizing. The study aims to question the assumption that the problems arising in the use of these speech functions are provoked by the students’ low language level and to investigate if there are any sociocultural issues connected with the use of the above-mentioned speech functions influencing students’ performance during the IELTS Speaking Test. The study was conducted among first-year students at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in the Faculty of Computer Science. To see the problem from a different perspective, the study involved not only the first-year students who seem to struggle with the speech functions but also their English teachers who can provide trustworthy first-hand information on the problems the students frequently face. The results of the study demonstrate that the cause of problems students encounter using the speech functions should not be attributed only to their language knowledge, as do the majority of interviewed teachers. The way students tend to explain, paraphrase, summarize, express their opinion and provide personal information is culturally defined which influences students’ ability to perform these functions effectively. To help Russian students avoid sociocultural problems preparing for the IELTS Speaking Test, a teacher/IELTS instructor should aim to increase students’ sociocultural awareness of the pitfalls in the use of the essential speech functions and sociocultural competence in a foreign language.

Teaching For Justice: Introducing Translanguaging in an Undergraduate TESOL Course

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

This study investigates how introducing translanguaging as a way to affirm language and culture impacted students’ understandings of learning and teaching in a TESOL certificate course offered at a university in the northeast of the United States. As researchers, teachers, and students committed to justice, we explored the impact of introducing translanguaging in a course that was originally designed as a Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) course through collaborative, qualitative approaches of thematic analysis and macro- and micro-level analyses of power based on our unique individual experiences in the classroom. We found across our analysis that introducing translanguaging provided opportunities to shift assumptions and that, overall, students demonstrated critical sociocultural understandings of language that are foundational in teaching for justice. Ultimately, while we recognize the need for more explicit discussion about the purpose and pedagogy of translanguaging, the shifts towards teaching and embracing multilingual and multicultural realities through translanguaging which the study identified can contribute to the field of language education by demonstrating how teachers might open up possibilities in teaching for justice.

The Prospects of Kiswahili as a Medium of Instruction in the Tanzanian Education and Training Policy

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Based on the research findings, Tanzania has been cognisant of the fact that students can learn better in a language they understand. The government has been issuing policies with the intent to make Kiswahili a medium of instruction at all levels of education but without implementation. The study was conducted using documentary review, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to examine government generated documents, namely the Cultural Policy of 1997, Education and Training Policy of 1995 and 2014 on the use of Kiswahili as medium of instruction (MoI). The focus was to examine the government generated documents on the intent to use Kiswahili as a medium of instruction and the implementation of this decision, to analyse stakeholders’ views on the appropriate medium of instruction, and to give a critical analysis as to why the proposal to make Kiswahili MoI in the Education and Training Policy could face some challenges in implementation. Previous policies, reports, the perceptions and views of education stakeholders were analysed. The findings indicate that there have been some initiatives to make Kiswahili a medium of instruction at all levels of education but such initiatives have been crippled by lack of a political will and misconceptions by some stakeholders who question the possibility for the learners to use Kiswahili as the MoI and still learn English, the language Tanzania needs for wider communication. The article concludes that although the proposed policy is suitable in Tanzania and actually long overdue, we are sceptical of its implementation. This is based on the previous state of affairs in which the government did not implement the proposed switch to Kiswahili as indicated in the reviewed policies and government pronouncements.

Educating for Creativity within Higher Education: Integration of Research into Media Practice. McIntyre, P., Fulton, J., Paton, E., Kerrigan, S., Meany, M. , London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 240 pp. eBook ISBN 978-3-319-90674-4

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

The Relationships Between the Accuracy of Self-Evaluation, Kanji Proficiency and the Learning Environment for Adolescent Japanese Heritage Language Learners

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

This paper focuses on Japanese heritage language (JHL) learners in an Australian context. The paper reports on a research project in a hoshuu-koo institution, a Japanese supplementary school, and explores the experiences of a group of Year 7 students. This study was initiated by identifying to what extent JHL learners can recognise their own skills, especially in proficiency in kanji, one of the Japanese scripts. It was predicted that several elements could relate to the accuracy of self-evaluation. By exploring levels of self-evaluation skills and the elements concerned in Japanese learning, the aim of the research was to help develop differentiated curriculum in the future. Data were based on student performance on kanji tests and answers to questionnaires, and the Excel Correl Function was used to calculate correlation coefficients. Graphs were also used to analyse the data. It was found that students who had relatively high kanji proficiency, especially in higher year levels, recognised their own skills but an overall overestimation was found amongst other students. Specific areas of kanji learning, such as okurigana and radicals, were identified as areas that need to be enhanced for appropriate self-evaluation for most of the students. Learning environment related to evaluation skills was also identified. Concluding comments centre on implications for further teaching approaches and research on the enhancement of kanji self-evaluation skills.

“West” or “Vest”? Pronunciation of English Consonants [w] and [v] in the Utterances of Slovak EFL Speakers

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

The paper investigates the pronunciation of the labiodental fricative [v] and the labial-velar approximant [w] in the word-initial position in English utterances by Slovak speakers. The objective of the study is to explore which of the two consonants appear to be more problematic for Slovak learners of English. 40 students from a Slovak university produced spontaneous monologues in English, which were recorded using a computer and a standard microphone. Afterwards, two native English speakers conducted a subjective auditory analysis in an attempt to identify errors in the subjects’ pronunciation. The results demonstrate that Slovak learners of English frequently encounter difficulties in pronouncing the two consonants, sometimes substituting [v] for [w] and vice versa. The data obtained indicate that the subjects were beset with problems mispronouncing the two sounds to almost the same degree. Possible causes of the erroneous pronunciation seem to involve native language interference, devoting extra effort to approach authentic English pronunciation, and the neglect of pronunciation instruction.

Bulgarian University Students’ Learning Style Preferences in ESL Classrooms

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Students’ attitudes towards learning and the perception and beliefs behind them may have a profound influence on learning behaviour and learning outcomes. Teachers’ awareness of such needs and preferences will result in more realistic and useful teaching strategies which, in turn, will have a facilitative effect on the learning process. Thus, learners should be given opportunities to express their own language learning preferences, especially in reference to the definition of objectives in general and awareness of strategies for learning. Moved with the conviction that learners and their preferences are of crucial importance in the development of learner autonomy, 74 students in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, were asked about their perceptions and preferences on ESL classroom activities. The results showed that learners were not always able to clearly define their preferences. This may be due to the fact that learning a foreign language is a culturally and psychologically different process than learning any other subject via the individual’s first language. Thus, educators have the additional responsibility to help learners to find their learning strengths, and by cognitive training help students to expand their learning style preferences. Also, implications from this study clearly display that teacher training programmes should seriously examine and implement innovative ways of teaching English considering students’ identity, character, and limitations.

Impact of Mobile Assisted Language Learning on Learner Autonomy in EFL Reading Context

2019-11-11T23:37:33+03:00

Traditional classrooms confine English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading to the textbook and the classroom setting, something that demotivates active reading. With the advent of mobile technology, however, such boundaries can be broken to include external reading materials where students could read and share anytime and anywhere. This paper investigates the role of mobile technology in enhancing Learner Autonomy (LA) in the EFL reading context among students in the Preparatory Year (PY) of Najran University in Saudi Arabia. A reading class of 30 students utilised mobile applications (WhatsApp and internet search engines such as Google) to access external reading materials and interact with their peers and teachers outside the classroom. Qualitative data collection underwent a number of procedures. The baseline data was constructed from the students’ portfolios, which reported the participants’ traditional reading practices and use of mobiles. Then, the participants were encouraged to use internet search engines and WhatsApp group to share their readings. Finally, five participants were interviewed. The data analysis revealed that the participants’ LA is improved through the use of selected mobile applications in terms of taking responsibility for and making decisions about reading materials and the time and place of reading. The study recommends further investigation into the role of mobile applications for generating learners’ own tasks and writing skills.

Overcoming the Grammar Barrier in Foreign Language Learning: The Role of Television Series

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Mastering the grammar of a foreign language requires learning the rules as well as the contexts within which the structures are used. Formal grammar instruction should therefore be augmented by exposing learners to authentic language. According to the literature, watching television series in the target language improves listening comprehension and enhances vocabulary acquisition. No study to date, however, has investigated the recursive use of one series, in the classroom and over an entire course, to explicitly teach grammar. Presenting apt pedagogical arguments substantiated by the literature on grammar instruction and evidence from the classroom, this article maintains that a television series can be an invaluable source of authentic language and an excellent means to teach grammar in context. It recommends using the dialogues in the scenes to teach and illustrate grammatical structures, especially those that are very different or do not exist in the learners’ mother tongue. The article also proposes giving students pertinent writing tasks and adequate corrective feedback to help them internalize these structures. Consistent with recent studies indicating a strong connection between emotion and cognition, this method raises the students’ motivation and enhances grammar learning; as such, it can supplant or complement conventional practices of grammar instruction and thereby warrants empirical studies. Finally, the article delineates directions for future research to elucidate how television series contribute to the teaching and learning of grammar.

A Study on the Attributes of Effective English Lecturers as Perceived by EFL Learners: The Case of Indonesia

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

This study aims to uncover the attributes of effective English lecturers and any significant differences between male and female EFL learners in determining the attributes of effective EFL lecturers. The study utilized a descriptive study design by asking 52 EFL learners to be respondents by filling in a questionnaire. The results depicted that the attributes associated with the ‘rapport’ category were friendliness, relationship, experiences, positive attitudes, and sense of humour. An independent t-test also showed there was no significant difference between male and female EFL learners in determining these attributes. The attributes of the ‘delivery’ category included enthusiasm, clarity, correction, and encouragement. The attributes of the ‘fairness’ category included treatment and standard. The attributes of the ‘knowledge and credibility’ category included proficiency and knowledge. The attributes of the ‘organization and preparation’ category included preparation, course contents, objectives, and materials. As for the implications, the attributes enable EFL lecturers to figure out various strategies for teaching English. Moreover, it is advantageous for EFL learners in that they can adjust their learning styles with the attributes.

Androcentrism of English proverbs and Anti-Proverbs with Gender Components

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Since the 20th century with the birth of feminism, gender studies have undergone analysis in many areas of knowledge. Special attention has been paid to the theory of androcentricity in the English language and the deficiency of female images in speech. In this article, the images of men and women presented by English proverbs and anti-proverbs are analyzed. The objective of this research is to find out if proverbs are androcentric and present male mindsets and world views. The other aim is to check whether anti-proverbs reflect the changing role of women in society. To fulfill these purposes, proverbs with gender components (man/woman, wife/husband, he/she etс.) were selected and underwent a semantic analysis. In order to reveal the evolution of the images of men and women we compared the images of men and women illustrated in proverbs with those shown in anti-proverbs with the same gender components. As a result, we came to the conclusion that both proverbs and anti-proverbs are androcentric; however, in anti-proverbs female opinions are more representative when compared to proverbs. To sum up, it is obvious that the role of women is changing and the changes are reflected in the language.

French Grammatical Accents: Practices, Sociolinguistic Foundations, and Pedagogical Implications in a Multilingual Setting

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

The present paper probes the use of French grammatical accents by English-speaking learners of French in a multilingual country: Cameroon. Its aim is twofold. First, it highlights the extent to which the various appropriative uses of French by French-speaking Cameroonians influence the form of the language spoken by their English-speaking counterparts. Then, it checks the effect of the language spoken by these learners on their written language. The data were collected among 160 Form 3 and Form 4 pupils from two high schools in the town of Maroua, Far North Region, Cameroon. Six tests and fifty tape recordings were carried out among the target population. Also, four French teachers were tape recorded during the exercise. The analysis of the errors made by the informants revealed significant patterns of acute and grave accents in the spoken language of respondents. These patterns of oral usage were found to strongly correlate with their written production. It therefore appears that Cameroon French displays some specific phonological characteristics, which severely spoils the acquisition of grammatical accents by English-speaking Cameroonians. These findings may revive the debate over whether French in former colonies should adapt to its contexts or keep its native purity.

Key Issues in English for Specific Purposes in Higher Education. Yasemin Kirkgöz & Kenan Dikilitaş (Eds.), Vol. 11. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2018. 353 pp. ISBN 978-3-319-70213-1

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Learner-Centered Approaches: Their Effect on the Oral Fluency of Students

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of learner-centered approaches on the oral fluency of the second-year students in English 202-Communicative English. The study employed a quasi-experimental method, particularly the pre-test and post-test experimental group design. Two groups of students were utilized as the experimental groups of the study. The findings of the study revealed that both groups acquired the same level of oral fluency before the intervention but acquired different levels of fluency after. Based on the result, the conclusion was that the level of speaking fluency of the participants exposed to cooperative learning improved significantly more than those exposed to task-based teaching. An experimental study conducted over a longer period of time and employing randomization could be considered to further investigate the possible results.

“That German stuff”: Negotiating Linguistic Legitimacy in a Foreign Language Classroom

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

This qualitative case study of one German suburban high school classroom in the Midwestern United States examines how learners of German negotiate their linguistic legitimacy, which is defined as discursively constructed acceptance or validation for their language use. Specifically, it investigates how the students negotiated legitimacy for using their target language German in their classroom. Based on the premise that linguistic legitimacy is crucial for the maintenance and development of speakers’ languages, data was collected and analyzed from classroom recordings, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations. Findings revealed that, while English dominated the lessons as the default legitimate language among the students, using German was accepted and valued under certain circumstances. Such instances of linguistic legitimacy included the use of German for entertainment or in role plays, a pattern which points to the students’ desire to mitigate investment and display “uninvestment” in learning or using German. Implications for foreign language (FL) pedagogy and teacher education are discussed.

Incidence and Nature of Negotiations for Meaning during Uncontrolled Speaking Practice in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

The past three decades have seen an increasing interest in negotiation for meaning as interactional processes which advance language acquisition. Motivated by this claim, a number of studies have set out to determine the tasks that best promote negotiations for meaning (NfMs). However, this research has mostly tended to investigate NfM under experimental conditions, leaving considerably unexplored the negotiated interactions that might take place in real English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms. In response to this, the present study sets out to investigate the incidence and nature of NfM in three uncontrolled EFL classrooms. In examining several teacher- and learner-led speaking tasks at basic, intermediate and advanced levels, the findings indicate that the amount of NfM is lower than those reported in previous studies. Moreover, a qualitative analysis of the interactional data suggests that the NfM across proficiency levels was limited in nature, and thus did not provide learners with all the learning benefits inherent in negotiation for meaning. These findings raise intriguing questions as to teachers’ and learners’ opportunities to negotiate meaning during EFL classroom interactions, and ways through which they can promote negotiated interactions in their EFL classrooms.

The Effects of Mnemonic Vocabulary Instruction on Content Vocabulary Learning of Students

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

The present article is an investigation about the effects of mnemonic vocabulary teaching to improve content vocabulary learning in EFL classrooms. A major issue with the most of the past studies was that they paid little or no attention to the effects of using mnemonic strategies to improve content vocabulary learning. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how key word mnemonic vocabulary teaching can improve the comprehension and learning of the content vocabulary for the students. To this end, 256 third year senior high school students from 6 senior high schools in Zanjan (Iran) were selected through a multistage cluster random sampling method and based on the Cambridge placement test (2010), 230 students proved to be upper intermediate. A quasi-experimental design was used to determine the effects of a mnemonic vocabulary intervention on content vocabulary learning. In this article there were one control group (A, n=115), and one experimental group (C, n=115) all of which were male and there were selected randomly. This study was done in May 2017, and over four weeks, in two thirty-minute sessions per week, group C received key word mnemonic instruction. In order to test the effects of mnemonic vocabulary teaching on content vocabulary learning, the covariance analysis was employed and the results demonstrated that by eliminating the covariance factor of the pre-test, mnemonic vocabulary instruction improved content vocabulary learning for students. The use of keyword mnemonics as a means to differentiate instruction is an educational result that can assist teachers.

The Validation Process in the IELTS Reading Component: Reading Requirements for Preparing International Students

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Although IELTS is coordinated under a framework for test development and validation, there is some controversy about exam results’ correlation with students’ post-admission intellectual, academic and professional performance. The theoretical part of the research aims to investigate the extent to which the IELTS reading component relates meaningfully to interpretations of validity. The empirical part addresses questions about perceptions of the impact of the IELTS reading preparation on adjustment to the challenges of academia and further academic performance and variances in these perceptions depending on the area of study and the level of language mastery. While having quite different views on assessing IELTS validity, the researchers agree that academic success is enhanced through and based on extensive substantive reading. The methodology relied on both qualitative and quantitative data derived from an anonymous online questionnaire: 133 international students with Russian citizenship, Global Education Programme (GEP) finalists, participated in the survey in summer 2017. Five different result interpretations were taken into account: overall results, those for sciences and humanities, higher and lower achievers’ results. The discussion is built around test-takers’ opinions on the IELTS exam, the reading component and scores. The issues discussed include, but are not limited to: reading strategies, information sources required at university, tasks effectiveness, exam preparation usefulness to academic adjustment and its influence on academic achievement, its resourcefulness for the formation of linguistic capabilities, and respondents’ perception of extra factors for exam success. Potentially increasing jeopardy of negative washback is shown as an emerging problem. Although test-taking ability is not depicted as a crucially important factor affecting exam success, it is increasingly significant and its harmful effects may be expressed in illusionary higher levels of validity due to visually improved results. Quality preparation for the reading test can train a number of essential skills required in academia; however, preparation itself does not appear to be a significant factor for smoother adjustment to academic challenges, as it is highly dependent on preliminary linguistic background. There is a necessity to communicate broader information to learners through the IELTS handbook, website and other communication channels. EAP tutors should encourage their students to make efforts to cover the subject without framing it within boundaries of measurement, but with a clear understanding of future academic and professional challenges.

There is no Alternative! Student Perceptions of Learning in a Second Language in Lebanon

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

Since 1997, children in Lebanese state schools are taught most of the curriculum in English or French. The children’s first language, Arabic, may be used even less in private schools, which educate 70% of children. In many countries, mother tongue education is seen as a right but in Lebanon it is taken for granted that children are taught in English or French. Written opinions were collected from seventy-five university students who were asked about the language in education policy. The results of a thematic analysis were discussed with a focus group of eight students. Findings point to a widespread acceptance of the policy, partly based on an underlying belief in the unsuitability of Arabic for the 21st century and a perception that the Lebanese are culturally predisposed to learn languages. Using the concept of linguistic imperialism, we discuss these results with reference to French colonialism and the global spread of English medium instruction. We also use a critical definition of ideology to discuss how a discourse in favour of the language in education policy, which actually favours the interests of the Lebanese elite, has been internalised by the students who see emigration as their only future.

Influence of L1 Properties and Proficiency on the Acquisition of Gender Agreement

2019-11-01T23:55:16+03:00

This research investigates the influence of L1 properties and proficiency level on the acquisition of the Spanish gender agreement system. French and English-speaking learners of Spanish participated in the study. Subjects were divided into four different groups considering their L1 (French and English) and their proficiency level (intermediate and advanced). Subjects completed three different tasks: an untimed grammaticality judgment (UGJT) to measure learners’ explicit knowledge, an elicited oral imitation (EOI) and an eye-tracking to assess their implicit knowledge of the Spanish gender agreement system. From this multi-tiered methodology, this research project aimed to examine whether L1 properties and proficiency level influence learners’ explicit and implicit knowledge of the Spanish gender agreement. The results from the UGJT suggest that both French and English learners can notice noun-adjective discord. As for the EOI and eye-tracking tasks, only the French advanced learners clearly demonstrated integrated implicit knowledge of gender agreement. Therefore, based on these results, we can imply that implicit knowledge of gender agreement is acquired later and that L1 properties influence this whole process, even at an advanced proficiency level.

EFL Reading Metacomprehension from the Developmental Perspective: A Longitudinal Case

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

As the first half of the literacy equation (reading + writing = literacy), reading is primarily considered a dynamic meaning-focused interaction in which the reader is required to build comprehension of a text in a non-linear way. In other words, the reader is constantly checking the degree to which he or she understands the given information, simultaneously trying to identify comprehension failures and employ efficient repair strategies. This ability is termed metacomprehension; when it is enhanced, comprehension is generally more successful. Metacomprehension appears to be even more important for non-native readers because of their limited vocabulary and grammar. This is the key theoretical background of the single case study described in the current paper since it follows the developmental path of an EFL learner (Croatian teenager) with special focus on his reading ability. The main aim of the study was to see how his metacomprehension would develop over an extended period of exposure to EFL in the school setting. It was based on the hypothesis that extended exposure would result in better awareness of comprehension during the reading process. The study was conducted in two parts (Grade 5 and Grade 8) and comprised a number of stages. Being a case study, multiple sources and techniques were applied in gathering data, both qualitative and quantitative, such as: a multiple-choice comprehension test, a questionnaire for measuring the reader’s awareness of strategic reading processes (in Grade 5), an English proficiency test, a text restoration task, the self-revelation (stream-of-consciousness data) technique, a post-reading interview, and observation notes (in Grade 8). The results obtained initially indicated the participant’s good EFL reading comprehension performance but later showed that he was less successful, which was related to his poor EFL proficiency. In terms of reading strategy, it can be added that, despite some initial strategic abilities, the participant did not significantly develop his strategic behaviour for EFL reading. To conclude, prolonged exposure to EFL did not lead to better reading metacomprehension in this particular school learner.

Gender, Power and Political Speech. Women and Language in the 2015 UK General Election. Deborah Cameron and Sylvia Shaw. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-137-58752-7

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

A Survey of Teachers’ Experience in Implementing Yoruba Medium of Instruction in the Lower Primary Schools of Ikire Nigeria

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

The paper investigated the local implementation of the National Policy of Education (NPE) on the use of mother tongues or the languages of the immediate community. Using a case study approach of Yoruba medium of instruction in Ikire in the south-western part of Nigeria, data were collected from 50 teachers from both private and public schools. These respondents were selected on being able to satisfy the following conditions: first, they should be able to communicate in Yoruba; second, they should have adequate teaching experience; third, they should have good academic qualifications; and fourth, they should have been teaching, for more than a year, Elementary Science (the particular classroom subject the study examined being taught to the pupils). These conditions ensured the teachers engaged had cognate experience in teaching a science subject that can reveal the level of terminology development within Yoruba as an adequate medium of mother tongue instruction. The result affirmed the advantages of Yoruba medium of instruction over English; however, Yoruba was not exclusively used for the pupils contrary to the expectation in the mother tongue medium of instruction policy. Most of the teachers used in the study preferred to employ a bilingual mode of instruction combining Yoruba with English, claiming that English had better educational resources for the subject they were teaching. This paper, though, based on a local case study, can be used to estimate the expected limitation to be encountered while implementing mother tongue instruction in a similar linguistic domain.

Maternal Ideology in an MTN® Advertisement: Analysing Socio-Semiotic Reality as a Campaign for Peace

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

It seemed that the issue of maternal ideology as a device to curb social menaces has not attracted scholars. Thus, the study examined the use of maternal ideology in mobile telephone network (MTN®) as a means of influencing recipients against vices instead of the primary assignment of the product advertising. The author utilised an advert of MTN, Sharing is good, as an object of analysis. The theoretical underpinning of the investigation was the concept of Theme as a functional approach to social semiotics. Theme interconnects the text with visual images to elucidate the meaning-making potential of the framework. The study revealed that the mother and the daughter operate in the same functional environment without any objections from either. The relationship demonstrates humility, complementarity, shareability and generosity. The message of the advert could influence corrupt elements of society such as terrorists, kidnappers, and violence campaigners to abandon nefarious acts and to embrace good behaviours. The idea propagated, perhaps, deserves voluntary emulation. Thus, the article argues that national and international stakeholders could make policy to direct advertising professionals to communicate their thoughts with materials that can support peace and harmony in our society. Such an exercise could persuade advertisers to reduce their focus on mental capitalism alone.

Test Takers’ Perceptions towards BEC Exams: a Case Study of a Russian University

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

This is a qualitative study of candidates’ motivation to take BEC exams and their expectations towards the exam results, which was conducted at the Cambridge Exam Preparation Center in a Russian university. The research dataset comprised 33 participants who took part in face-to-face in-depth semi-structured interviews. Overall, candidates show a positive attitude to BEC at different exam levels. The main reasons for preparing for and taking the exams are extrinsic and defined by the institutional environment. The respondents opt for BEC exams as they intend to receive an international education (master’s level) and/or build a successful career in international organizations. The study also revealed a connection between candidates’ expectations toward exam results and their age and level of language proficiency.

The Semantic Expansion of ‘Wife’ and ‘Husband’ among the Yorùbá of Southwestern Nigeria

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

Although one of the existing studies on Nigerian or African kinship terms has argued that semantic expansion of such words constitutes an absurdity to the English society, none has argued for the necessity of a specialized dictionary to address the problem of absurdity to the English society, the custodian of the English language. This is important especially now that the language has become an invaluable legacy which non-native speakers of the language use to express their culture as well as the fact that the English people now accept the Greek and Hebrew world-views through Christianity. This paper provides additional evidence in support of semantic expansion of kingship terms like ‘wife’ and ‘husband’ not only in a Nigerian or an African language but also in Greek and Hebrew languages. The paper argues that if English is to play its role as an international language, it will be desirable if our lexicographers can publish a specialized dictionary that will take care of kinship terms, as it is the case in some other specialized dictionaries on the different professions such as medicine, nursing, linguistics and agriculture, to mention but a few, so as to guide against ambiguity or absurdity that may arise in language use in social interactions.

Roundtable Discussion in Language Teaching: Assessing Subject Knowledge and Language Skills

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

Roundtable discussions have been effectively used for educational purposes for years. However, being widely used in an academic environment as a tool for education, roundtable discussions remain under-investigated as a form of summative and formative assessment. The purpose of this research was to determine the efficiency of a roundtable discussion to evaluate subject knowledge and to test EFL/ESL proficiency level both during the classroom assessment and final examination. To use a roundtable discussion as an objective assessment tool, clear criteria were developed. They included but were not limited to scoring the task completion, macro and micro skills in speaking and language components, which were assessed according to the CEFR descriptor bands appropriate to the students’ level of learning. Being crucial to the development of general communicative competence, macro and micro skills in speaking were also taken into account during the assessment stage. Results of the research showed that roundtable discussions were clearly advantageous to face-to-face interviews in honing general academic skills, assessing subject knowledge of the course and students’ EFL/ESL language skills. This suggests that the use of roundtable discussions can be recommended as a form of summative and formative assessment.

Stressed and Unstressed Syllable Alternation in Educated Edo (Nigerian) English

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

Standard British English (SBE) rhythm is characterised by stressed and unstressed syllable alternation. Phonological investigations from non-native English such as Nigerian English (NE) have claimed that NE differs remarkably from SBE, especially in the area of rhythm. Existing phonological studies on Educated Edo English (EEE) – a sub-variety of NE – have been on word and variable stress while studies on stressed and unstressed syllable alternation have been rare. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which Educated Edo English Speakers (EEES) stressed and unstressed syllable alternation conforms to SBE rhythm. Prince and Liberman’s (1977) metrical theory, which explains the alternation of strong and weak constituents in SBE rhythm units, served as a theoretical framework. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 150 (75 males and 75 females) EEES while 2 SBE speakers served as Native Baselines (NB). Speech Filing System (SFS) version 1.41 was used to record the production of a validated instrument of 40 rhythm units, with stressed and unstressed syllable alternation. The recordings were transcribed and subjected to a perceptual analysis (frequency and percentages). Out of 6000 expected instances of stressed and unstressed syllable alternation, the participants had 694 (11.6%), while inappropriate use was higher, with 5,306 (88.4%). The performance of EEES males showed 5.7% and the females 5.9%. The grids of EEES showed proliferation of Strong/Strong (S/S) juxtaposition of stressed and unstressed syllables in rhythm units, compared to the NB alternation of Weak/Strong (W/S) or Strong/Weak (S/W). Results confirmed that EEES alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in rhythm units differ ‘markedly’ from those of the SBE form.

The Style and Timbre of English Speech and Literature. Marklen E. Konurbaev. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 203 pp. ISBN 978-1-137-51947-4

2020-05-05T18:01:30+03:00

Vocabulary Strategies and Bridging the Gap from Learning to Read to Reading to Learn

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

The present study offers a solution to students’ difficulties in reading by examining the effect of two instructional strategies for teaching reading: semantic mapping and morphological analysis, using multimedia as a vehicle for achieving the desired goals. Technology in the present study incorporates fun, meaningful resources that enhance the experimental group students’ vocabulary, and allow the reading instructor to assess the students’ progress in reading. 58 EFL university students enrolled in the first year of the English Department at Al-Imam University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia participated in the present study. They were chosen randomly and were divided into two groups; an experimental group and a control one. Each group had 29 participants aged between twenty and twenty one years old. A pre-test was applied to check out their standard in comprehending the reading texts before the inauguration of the experiment. During the time of the experiment, the control group was taught by the traditional method which focuses on relying on their memorization of long lists of vocabulary, rote learning, reading aloud, repetition and the translation of the new vocabulary. Participants of the experimental group were taught by semantic mapping and morphological analysis that focus on the comprehension of the key vocabulary and concepts included in the reading texts. The experimental group only was taught in the reading classes by implementing the semantic mapping and morphological analysis strategies while the control group was taught by the traditional previously mentioned way. The post-test was applied on both groups of the study at the end of the experiment to check out the students’ reading comprehension standard. The experiment lasted for three months’ time during the first semester of the year 2015. The findings revealed that teaching reading by semantic mapping and morphological analysis strategies improved experimental group students’ comprehension of the reading texts.

Directions in Discourse Analysis: Theory & Method. Jalilifar A. R. (Eds.). Ahvaz, Iran: University of Ahvaz Press, 2014. 370 pp. ISBN 978-600-141-158-8

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

Plenty of books have written in Discourse Analysis, and the book, Directions in Discourse Analysis: Theory & Method, is another welcomed addition to this vital field of Applied Linguistics. Many books in this field are limited to a specific framework of discourse analysis (Coulthard, 1992; Christie, 2002; Gee, 1999; Walsh, 2006) to name but a few. Introducing a specific theoretical framework and orientation has almost been a tradition in preparing such textbooks, while it seems that there is a need for publications which take into account the fast-growing field of discourse analysis, where discerning similarities and differences are becoming subtle. I think similar to Hyland & Paltridge (2011), Directions in Discourse Analysis: Theory & Method by Professor Jalilifar is another attempt to meet such a need. As the title of the book indicates, the emphasis is on a wide range of recent approaches, wherein the author presents them under a separate but a related chapter. He successfully brings together similar and contradictory themes under a single topic.

The Importance of Accuracy in the Use of Grammatical Terms and Concepts in the Description of the Distinctive Properties of Plains Algonquian Languages

2021-03-08T15:50:11+03:00

The subject of this paper was inspired by my collaboration on a project involving the long-term histories of grammatical traditions led by Dr. Philomen Probert at the University of Oxford. Owing to my interest in linguistic typology and the study of the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface in a number of languages, – especially Native American languages, which differ in many respects from Indo-European languages, –, I have observed that some languages cannot be accurately described if we use the grammatical terms and concepts commonly applied to the analysis of extensively studied languages such as English, Spanish or French, as certain grammatical properties of one language may not be equivalent to those of another and, consequently, require a different treatment. Thus, firstly, by adopting a holistic comparative perspective deriving from all areas of grammar, I aim to reveal the distinctive features that Plains Algonquian languages such as Cheyenne / Tsėhésenėstsestȯtse (Montana and Oklahoma, USA), Blackfoot / Siksiká, Kainai, and Pikani, (Montana, USA; Alberta, Canada), Arapaho / Hinóno´eitíít (Wyoming and Oklahoma, USA), and Gros Ventre / White Clay or Atsina / Aaniiih (Montana, USA) display when compared with Indo-European languages such as English, Spanish, French or German. The subsequent examination of these data will provide examples of terms and concepts that are typically used in traditional grammatical descriptions, but that do not serve to characterize the grammar of these Native American languages accurately. Finally, I will attempt to propose alternative terms and concepts that might describe the distinctive grammatical properties exhibited by these languages more adequately.

Enquiry-Based Approach in Mobile-Supported Classroom to Develop Language Skills

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

This article investigates the pedagogical impact of both the mobile-testing system PeLe and an enquiry-based approach to language skills development in the context of mobile-assisted language learning. The study aims to work out a methodological framework for PeLe implementation into a language classroom through immediate feedback and formative assessment. The framework was developed and pilot tested in a joint research project, MobiLL, by EFL teachers at Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia) and University College HiST (Norway). The analysis based on quantitative research data demonstrated that PeLe-supported language classes resulted in language skill gains. The qualitative data analysis highlighted the positive effect of mobile formative assessment and of post-test activities on learner motivation and collaboration skills. This study suggests that the use of technology was effective in engaging students in enquiry-based tasks to cultivate collaboration.

Applied Discourse Markers in Casual Conversations of Male Students in Dormitory Settings and Their Pedagogical Implications for EFL: An Iranian Case Study

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

This study is designed to investigate the specific discourse markers that mostly occur in casual conversations among university students who live in dormitories, and to study the amount of attention these expressions receive pedagogically in the context of improving EFL speaking skills. Regarding gender, the investigation was carried out on male students and special topics they talked about are also examined. To fulfill this objective, 6 hours and 3 minutes of casual conversations among 50 students (28 BA and 22 MA) located in 10 dormitory rooms (5 in the BA and 5 in the MA) was audio-recorded and transcribed based on Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s transcription system. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was used to investigate participants’ attitudes towards the degree of emphasis of EFL teachers on Discourse Markers (DMs). The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively (interview transcripts). According to the findings, 70 discourse markers recurred in the students’ interactions. Likewise, specific topics that received more attention in their conversations were identified. Moreover, the results of the semi-structured interview indicated that discourse markers did not receive sufficient attention in EFL settings. The findings of the current study suggest that instructors and material developers could give more specific attention to discourse markers. Explaining their roles in the production of accurate utterances or bringing samples of natural usage of discourse markers could be of great help to boost learners’ oral skills in the EFL context.

Fostering Economics Students’ Listening Skills through Self-regulated Learning

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

This study aims at fostering students’ listening skills by scaffolding their self-study learning practices in the English for Special Purposes (ESP) course. While there is a significant body of research exploring classroom-based teaching approaches, there is little empirical research into how students develop their ESP listening skills outside the classroom. Our study suggests that developing a self-regulated model for acquiring ESP listening skills in a self-study mode is an efficient way to improve students’ performance as it provides them with relevant scaffolding and makes the listening process more transparent. The article provides theoretical grounding for the self-study model. The entry-level and post-study tests in listening scores (IELTS test) are compared across the control and the experimental groups (60 students in total). The results of the study indicate that students who were developing their listening skills in a self-study mode via the designed scaffolding performed significantly better than their peers in the control group. Scaffolding self-study listening practices of students outside the classroom prove to be a significant factor in facilitating English learning in an ESP classroom.

Displacement and Overall Conflictual Relations (OCR) as Patterns to Instantiate Academic Conflict in Major Applied Linguistics Textbooks

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Following Giannoni’s classification of the rhetorical strategies for overt (rather than covert) negative evaluation, the current study aimed to investigate lexico-grammatical structures to instantiate Overall Conflictual Relations and Displacement as two major rhetorical strategies to realize Academic Conflict in two distinct corpora of textbooks in applied linguistics specifically taught at MA and PhD levels. Adopting a Mixed-Methods Approach, the study revealed the various lexico-grammatical items that were frequently used to instantiate Displacement and Overall Conflictual Relations. Qualitatively, the emerging patterns and the functions they served were delineated. At the quantitative stage of the approach, the corresponding distributions of the emerging patterns were investigated and recorded. This corpus-based study also found that the two corpora utilized resources for expression of Overall Conflictual Relations with an almost similar distribution; however, there was a statistically significant difference between the MA versus PhD textbooks concerning the use of Displacement. The study found the important functions of the strategies as the ways to put two ideas in opposition to later take side with one at the expense of discarding the other. The study also found that the strategies were among the prominent incentives to construct knowledge in the field.

Gendered Patterns in Teacher-Student Interaction in EFL Classroom: The Greek Context

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

The present research endeavours to shed light on the role that gender plays in the language classroom in the Greek context. As no systematic investigation has considered special aspects of gender and interaction in primary school classrooms, this study seeks to investigate how teachers and students position themselves within different discourses in EFL classroom interaction. The issues discussed include turn-taking and interruptions, praise and reprimand, class dominance, teacher attention and class participation in classroom interaction. Drawing on language and gender research, it was hypothesized that gender of the learner affects the learner’s language use and behaviour during EFL interaction. This study advances our understanding of gendered classroom interaction and highlights important ways in which students’ gender influences teacher-student, as well as student-student interaction. Moreover, this study sheds light on gender bias which occurs in the classroom and thus impedes teachers’ abilities to work successfully with all students. The Greek data revealed great similarity with findings of previous studies by supporting the assumption that: (a) teachers are biased in favour of boys, especially with respect to giving them more attention; (b) male students demand more teacher attention and more instructions from the teacher than their female peers; (c) female students are more likely to receive praise and positive comments, whereas male students are reprimanded by the teacher; (d) male students are more active in class participation, by taking more turns, volunteering and calling out.

University of Ilorin Final Year Students’ Experience in Practice Teaching Exercise

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

Practice teaching is a vital aspect of the teacher preparatory program in teacher training institutions. This study examined the University of Ilorin final year students’ experience in a practice teaching exercise. It made use of descriptive survey research design. The population for this study were all students of the Faculty of Education, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. The researchers’ self-developed questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.63 was used for data collection while the data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics of independent t-test. It was found that during the course of practice teaching exercises, student-teachers acquired skills which enabled them to use a variety of teaching methods, and instructional resources, improved their skills in tests construction, scoring and recording, built their teaching confidence and presentation, among others. However, student-teachers were faced with a number of challenges in the course of lesson presentation during practice teaching. It was, therefore, recommended among others, that student-teachers should not perceive their personality and logical presentation of instructional objectives as challenges but rather should embrace and exploit it to improve and widen their (cognitive) domains.

Gamifying Content and Language Integrated Learning with Serious Videogames

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

New methods and approaches focusing on foreign language teaching are continuously being developed and applied in the classroom at different educational levels. The interest in raising learners’ competences in foreign languages has been a fact in the last few decades. In this sense, approaches integrating the learning of non-linguistic content through a vehicular language that is not the learners’ mother tongue have been widely used around the world. However, it seems that some benefits of those approaches integrating language and content could be further strengthened if the time of exposure to content and language was higher and if students were highly motivated to learn. To this purpose, this article suggests that serious videogames could be a suitable tool to provide learners with further teaching support and increase their motivation in a playful context and introduces a model that aims at gamifying and integrating content and language learning through serious videogames.

Second and Foreign Language Education. Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl & Stephen May (Eds.), 3rd ed., Vol. 4. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2017. 458 pp. ISBN 978-3-319-02245-1

2019-11-01T23:55:17+03:00

More on the Categorial Status of (T)àbí in Yorùbá Grammar

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Yorùbá language is one of the major languages spoken in Nigeria. The term is also used to refer to the language and the native speakers. As shown in Oyetade, Yorùbá language is spoken in six states that constitute the southwest of Nigeria – Lagos, Ọ̀yọ́, Ọ̀ṣun, Ògùn, Òndó, and Èkìtì. This study investigated the Standard Yorùbá used in the Southwest Nigeria by focusing on the conjunction t(àbí). Findings reveal that there are varieties of Yorùbá language based on the location of the speakers and the state they occupy in Nigeria: Ọ̀yọ́ dialect, Ègbá dialect, Èkìtí dialect, Òndó dialect and Ọ̀wọ̀ dialect to mention a few. Previous scholarly works on Yorùbá grammar show that (t)àbí performs two functions and it is ascribed with two nomenclatures namely conjunction and polar question word. However, this present paper provides another view that is different from the views of the earlier scholars. Findings in this study reveal that t(àbí) is a conjunction in all its positions of occurrence and the researcher argues against its use as a polar question word. It is established in this study among other things that its occurrence at sentence initial position is as a result of ellipsis. The study also maintains that where it appears at sentence medial position, the polar question word has been deleted.

Relative and Conditional Clause Constructions in Ìyàgbà Dialect

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Relative Clause has been discussed as a subordinate clause used to qualify a noun. It narrows down the meaning of the noun it qualifies. A relative clause marker tí is inserted to accomplish the noun qualified having coded in the sentence initially in Yoruba language on the one hand. On the other hand, a conditional clause in Yoruba language is introduced with tí-clause by coding it in the sentence initially as well. The paper focuses on relative clause and conditional clause constructions in the Ìyàgbà dialect of Yoruba; a regional dialect in the north-east Yoruba. The author observes that though there are many scholarly works on the relative and conditional clause constructions in the Yoruba language, attention has not been paid to the relative and conditional clause constructions in the dialects of Yoruba. The data were collected from the informants from these dialect communities who reside in these communities and speak the dialects fluently, and the literature materials on these topics. The data presentation shall be based on descriptive analysis. Findings reveal that relative clause markers in the Ìyàgbà dialect are in complementary distribution; they occur in an exclusive environment. Apart from that, conditional clause markers are not attested in the dialect.

Vowel Deletion and Insertion in Úwù

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Úwù is one of the many endangered languages in Nigeria.The number of its fluent speakers is believed to be less than 2000.The language is spoken in a small community known as Àyèré in Ìjùmú Local Government Area (LGA) of Kogi state. This paper describes the manifestation of vowel deletion and insertion in the language with the view of testing earlier assertions on the nature of vowel deletion and insertion in languages that are genetically related to Úwù. Apart from this, the paper is also an attempt to document these phonological phenomena (i.e. vowel deletion and insertion) before the language goes into extinction. About six hundred (600) lexical items of Úwù were collected for this research work with the aid of the 1000 word-list of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Both linear and non-linear models were adopted for analysis in this research work. Cases involving segmental phonemes were analyzed with the linear phonology, while cases of feature stability and feature spread wereanalyzed using the non-linear model. The paper, among other things, reveals that the pattern of vowel deletion is predictable in Úwù, auto-segments like tone (mostly high tone), nasality and labial or round features usually persist even when the vowel which bore them was deleted. Apart from this, the paper also reveals that [i] is the epenthetic vowel in Úwù, and lastly, it is argued in the paper that nouns in Úwù are virtually vowel initial.

Assessment and Evaluation Techniques

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Assessment and evaluation have always been important; they are linked to language teaching methodology, program outcomes, language teacher competencies, language standards and second language acquisition training. They can serve many different policies and can come in different forms. Assessment and evaluation have always been seen as the responsibility of the specialists, but they have rarely been included as a component in English language teacher (ELT) training. However, the ELT field has been experiencing a major shift in assessment and evaluation with effects on teachers, and learners around the world. It has also been influenced by a major questioning of traditional forms of testing and the underlying psychometric principles of measurement in ELT. Recent studies reveal that the reconceptualization of English language assessment and evaluation provides systematic information about student learning in relation to their performance and contributes to better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. In many ways ELT has lagged behind the rest of education in the exploration of new theories and assessment and evaluation tools, including self-assessment. This research gap was generated partly because of the lack of integration with mainstream educational theory and practice in many areas of ELT, and partly because of powerful positions of traditional English language tests. The attempt to bridge this gap has lead to the research carried out. The aim of this article is to elaborate different assessment techniques that may better address student learning needs, improve student learning and engage students in self-assessment, including the sequence of steps that could lead to self-assessment. The study shows that the techniques implemented to develop self-assessment enable students to perform well.

The Role of Music and M-Learning in English: Vocabulary Gain Among Tertiary Students

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Undoubtedly, mobile technology has started to be visible in the field of education, as can be seen by the increasing number of publications that have appeared in recent years. This can also be proven with the existence of the new term in education – M-learning. Several types of mobile devices are accessible, such as wireless laptops, portable MP3 players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and electronic dictionaries, although smart phones and iPads are the devices that have started to attract particular attention from educators. It is also noticeable that listening to music is one of the most important features in the aforementioned mobile devices. Against this backdrop, this study explores the benefits of integrating music and mobile devices in English vocabulary learning among tertiary students in a private university in Malaysia. As this study uses quantitative approach, a pre-test and a post-test were used to obtain data to analyse whether there was a gain in students’ vocabulary knowledge after vocabulary lessons using English songs and mobile devices were conducted. In addition, a survey was used to show if students had a positive outlook in learning vocabulary through music and mobile devices. The findings of this study indicated that there was an increase in the students’ vocabulary knowledge and students were enthusiastic to learn vocabulary. Integration of music and mobile devices provide more opportunities to enhance English vocabulary learning and act as a suitable tool for learning anytime and anywhere. Therefore, educators should find innovative ways to use mobile devices to teach the future students.

A New Training Workshop for Students’ IELTS Exam Mastering

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

The paper is devoted to the problem of improving written communication skills in the university. It is intended to underline the importance of mastering writing skills when teaching a foreign language. Much attention is paid to teaching experience and approaches for students’ mastering of the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exam. This article is intended to fill the gaps in methodological and pedagogical aspects of teaching description of visual information materials in English. The authors worked out and implemented a new training workshop which is aimed at teaching and practicing graph description of visual information. Based on the curriculum a new syllabus has been drafted that provides further distribution of thematic, lexical and grammatical material given the specific nature of graphical material. The authors propose a two-stage teaching approach and methodological algorithm about how to work out exam strategies and form the required exam competences. The article highlights the outcomes and the challenges that are likely to arise when implementing the approach suggested by the authors. The proposed methodology can be used as a part of general foreign language training.

Creating High-Frequency, Naturalistic Opportunities to Develop Small Talk Skills in EFL Classrooms

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

The paper is the outcome of an action research project that investigated factors that keep students from participating in classroom small talk (ST). In-class observations, surveys and students’ logs, backed by the author’s self-reflection resulted in an intervention plan which aimed to help students with their anxiety and ST apprehension. The final role plays, as well as the survey demonstrated that there was a change in how the students noticed and used the opportunities to utilize ST. Specifically, they started to see the potential of classroom talk for putting ST skills into practice. Another finding is the need to raise the students’ awareness of ST as a social and linguistic skill, to clearly establish ground rules for practising ST, and to create high-frequency, naturalistic opportunities to develop ST in class. It is argued in the paper that ST skills can be practised in the classroom beyond the purposefully designed activities, i.e. in spontaneous interactions between the teacher and the students. Such interactions may decrease the students' anxieties and reluctance to get engaged in small talk. This change would have a positive effect on their outside-the-classroom interactions in English, both in academic and work-place situations.

Move Structure of Research Article Abstracts on Management: Contrastive Study (the Case of English and Russian)

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Although a plethora of papers have proved a seminal role of move-based genre analysis in cross-linguistic research of academic communication and EAP/ESP teaching and learning, there is a lack of respective linguistic or pedagogically motivated studies of research articles (RAs) and their parts aimed at comparing English and Russian. Using Hyland’s (2000) 5-move model, the current research seeks to determine the most obvious cross-linguistic differences in the move structure of abstracts of research articles on management for these languages. Based on a move analysis of the English- and Russian-language corpora each comprising 20 unstructured RA abstracts, the research revealed conformity of most English-language abstracts to Hyland’s model, while the Russian abstracts principally displayed a three-move structure containing ‘purpose’, ‘method’ and ‘product’, and included the ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’ moves only occasionally. Other significant discrepancies comprised the English-language authors’ tendency to provide precise or detailed indication of research methods and results, in contrast to their brief indication or over-generalized mentioning by Russian writers, as well as greater length of the English-language abstracts and their stricter concordance to standard move sequence than those of the Russian abstracts. Though the research was conducted on relatively small corpora and was descriptive in nature, its findings might be of interest to genre analysts as well as to L2 theorists and practitioners.

Hancock, M. (2017). PronPack, Books 1-4. Chester: Hancock McDonald ELT ISBN 978-0-9957575-4-7

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

Story Genres in SFL: A More Flexible Taxonomy. Extrapolating a Taxonomy of Story Genres in Spanish to Story Genres in English

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

The purpose of this article is: (i) to highlight the importance of makingthe generic structure of the story genres proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) more flexible within the Systemic Functional Framework (SFL); (ii) to take up a taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish (Salmaso 2009, 2010 a, 2010 b, 2012 a , 2014) which grants more flexibility to the generic structure of the five genres of the narrative family (‘recounts’, ‘narratives’, ‘anecdotes’, ‘exempla’ and ‘observations’) (Plum 2004, Martin and Rose 2008); (iii) to engage in a comparative study of the generic structure of one of the story genres: ‘anecdote’.To this end, nine instances of ‘anecdotes’ wereanalyzed. All of the ‘anecdotes’ are written by native speakers of English belonging to different age and gender groups but with similar educational backgrounds (higher education). The examples are analyzed following Salmaso (2010, 2014) and comparisons are drawn between some aspects of the analysis presented herein withthe analyses done following Plum’s (2004) and Martin and Rose’s (2008) taxonomies. Results show that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy of story genres in Spanish to English, in particular with respect to the genre ‘anecdote’ which is the focus of this article. Furthermore, this taxonomy enriches the analysis of ‘anecdotes’ andmay be simpler and clearer for applied purposes, such as teaching.

Motivation of Russian Students Towards the Learning of English

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

This paper seeks to analyze the attitudes and motivation for learning English of students in the city of Surgut, in the Russian Federation. The investigation was carried out in November 2013 by means of self-completion questionnaires distributed to 30 students aged between 13 and 17 who had studied English for at least two years in private language schools although all of them had studied at least one foreign language within the Russian national education system. The students were divided into two main categories: students who are citizens of the Russian Federation who come from bilingual families (BF), such as Tatar, Bashkir, Ukrainian or others, and students from Russian monolingual families (MF). The results were analyzed from different motivational views, namely achievement, instrumental, integrative, extrinsic, and intrinsic motivations. This methodology allowed the researcher to acquire a multi-perspective vision of what impelled Russian students to learn English, what they expected of that knowledge, and whether there were differences between both groups. The results showed a high level of motivation among both genders of bilingual students and among girls from Russian monolingual families, while non-bilingual boys’ results were much more discreet. Although this research was
carried out in according to concrete standards of age and education, the results can increase the scientific understanding of motivation for second-language learning in contexts where that second language is not necessary, used or even known by the community in its daily life, as well as the perception of language learning by monolingual and by bilingual individuals.

Chronopotic Information of the Non-Dialogic Part of American Dramatic Text (Based On 20th Century American Plays)

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

It is well-known that any dramatic text consists of two main blocks – the dialogic represented by actors’ speech and the non-dialogic part represented by the author’s indications (remarks). This article seeks to analyze the informative potential of the non-dialogic part of a dramatic text from the point of view of its content-related and semantic characteristics, and in its peculiarity is considered as a distinctive feature of the American linguocultural area. The topic of the content of the non-dialogic part is rendered by chronotope and anthropocentric information, which reveal the point that a dramatic text is encoded in the verbalization of extra-linguistic space/time and of a human being. Special attention is paid to spatiotemporal indications as the constituents of chronotopic information. The interior and scenery descriptions as subtypes of spatial loci are subjects of the research as well.
The investigation was carried out on the bases of 45 dramatic texts created by American authors of the 20th century. The research methods were component data mining, descriptive analytical method and linguistic comparison. The results showed that the distinctive feature of the American plays of the first half of the 20th century was the presence of large pieces of text and specific information in spatiotemporal indications in the non-dialogic part. Furthermore, the results affirmed that during the reading of modern American dramatic texts it might seem as though the authors forgot about the original orientation of plays for performance on stage. Some of the spatiotemporal indications were bound not to be embodied by a stage director and were available only for a reader, who in this aspect was equal to a reader of a prosaic text. As for a viewer, they are highly unlikely to perceive the author’s descriptions of the scenery in full informational content and consequently they would face a definite information gap.

Give an Envelope for the Boss/Give a Brown Envelope for the Boss- On the Semantics and Characteristics of the Metaphors for Bribe Across Cultures: Focus on Cameroon and Nigeria

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

This paper sets out to study in a comparative perspective the semantics and the characteristics of the metaphors for bribe used by Cameroonians and Nigerians and discuss the factors which can account for the choice of these metaphors. The data for the study were collected from participant observation, novels, interviews, scientific papers and online sources and the work is discussed from the vantage point of functional grammar and cognitive linguistics. The findings of the study reveal that in order to lessen the appalling nature of the act of asking for bribes, avoid sounding ridiculous and render incomprehensible the message of asking for bribe from people who are not familiar with it, these language users utilize various types of metaphors (object metaphors, anthropomorphic metaphors, vegetative metaphors as well as zoomorphic metaphors). These metaphors display some similarities (which can be accounted for by the geographical proximity between the two countries) and differences: both utilize almost the same types of metaphors and to a lesser extent the same lexical items to refer to bribe but in different proportions (object metaphors, anthropomorphic metaphors, vegetative metaphors as well as zoomorphic metaphors). Furthermore, it is found that the values conveyed by these metaphors fall under the domains of foodstuff and drinks, fauna, human beings and body parts, mailing and transportation as well as abstract realities. Also, some of these metaphors can be characterized as being meliorative, pejorative, vindictive and kinesthetic. Moreover, it is found that cultural, social and economic factors can provide insights to the understanding of the choice of the values used to refer to bribe by these language users. In addition, the values used to represent bribes in these countries are a depiction of their multilingual complex nature.

Textual and Prosodic Features of an Oral Academic Text

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

‘Discourse is the way that language – either spoken or written – is used for communicative effect in a real-world situation (Thornbury, 2005, p. 7). Thornbury considers the text as the product and the discourse – as a communicative process that involves ‘language and the record of the language that is used in this discourse, which is ‘text’ (ibid). Although presentations are generally categorized as spoken text types, an academic presentation is a compromise between spoken and written text types: on the one hand, it is given in a classroom as an oral text; on the other hand, it is thoroughly prepared as a home assignment in the form of a written text. This article focuses on the analysis of such linguistic features of students’ presentations as cohesion, coherence, and prosody. For this analysis, data were collected from 60 2nd year students of the International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF) presentations on various economic topics which were recorded and examined (the time limit for each of the presentations was 10 minutes); out of 60, 10 presentation texts were selected for auditory analysis, and thematic centers (TCs) were examined using acoustic analysis. Measurements of prosodic parameters such as pitch, intensity, and duration (rate of utterance) were obtained using the computer programs Speech Analyzer 3.0.1 and Pratt (v.4.0.53). The results of these analyses show that students’ presentations are cohesive, coherent and contain TCs, which are characterized by specific prosodic parameters that have a certain effect on the comprehension of these texts, their expressiveness and pragmatic value.

The Status of Sì in Yoruba

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

This paper examines the syntax of sentential conjunction in the Yoruba language with the view of ascertaining the actual syntactic function of sì on which opinions have been polarized in the syntax of Yoruba grammar. This paper argues that the Yoruba language has a sentential/clausal conjunction element but its structural position is not the between the two clauses. The researcher conducted a series of structured interviews and also consulted existing works targeting the sì in compound clauses so as to generate the data for the research. The research adopts the Minimalist Program (MP) as its theoretical tool for the analyses presented in the article. MP views syntactic derivations as resulting from computational systems whose operations are based on operation Select and operation Merge. Syntactic structures are built in a par-wise fashion from bottom to top by putting two items together at a time. The research shows that there are three different sì in Yoruba occurring in seemingly similar environment but they are performing different syntactic functions. One sì denotes “emphasis” as a preverbal element; the second one denotes “consecutiveness of action” while the third one performs the function of sentential/clausal conjunction, an overt realization of the in the second clause. The overtly marked sentential/clausal conjunction also has a variant, which is an abstract realization between the two conjoined clauses.

Comparative Study of English and Russian Phraseology: Component Theory of Identity and Difference of the Seme Organization

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

This research is aimed at comparative study of English and Russian phraseology and semasiology. It provides new scientific approach to the solution of one of the most complex problems of comparative study of the phraseological material of different languages on the semantic level. This work is of great importance as it helps to define similarities and distinctions in the language picture of the world and reveal the peculiarities of different languages. It also allows to investigate ways of reflection of reality into language which gives the chance to study language picture of the world.Our research suggests that component analysis method, based on the criteria of identity and difference of seme organization of phraseological units, provides a more complex and in-depth analysis of the description of the semantic structure of phraseological meaning in English and Russian. Over 1750 phraseological units have been analysed from monolingual and bilingual phraseological dictionaries, English and Russian explanatory dictionaries to describe the structure of English and Russian phraseological units, identify stable semantic correlations between them. We further reveal three types of interlingual phraseological compliances / non-compliances: semantic equivalents, semantic analogues and partial semantic analogues. The results show strongly expressed quantitative prevalence of semantic analogues over semantic equivalents. The quantity of semantic analogues exceeds the quantity of semantic equivalents by 0.5%, which can be explained by the peculiarities of the development of the two remotely related languages. Our further study could address the comparative investigation of ways of the translation of phraseological units with no direct equivalents (culture-specific vocabulary) in other languages, which would enable translators to provide the interpretation which is more or less adequate and close to the original meaning.

Lexical and Grammatical Means of Distancing Strategy Performed in American Political Discourse

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

This article provided a survey of the English lexis and grammar constructions that serve to realize communicative intention of request aimed at distance enforcement in the American political discourse. The research method was the discourse analysis and the statistics data analysis and its interpretation. As a result, the most common and effective lexical and grammatical language means expressing the communicative intention of request were singled out and their choice explained. The results showed that in the course of the political discourse the opponents used those linguistic means that helped to minimize the pressure and save the face, thus having discussed topical disputable issues. Moreover the study showed the importance of further investigations in order to explain how communicative intentions will be received by its targets and thus how it may succeed (or fail) as a form of persuasion and influence.

Celebricities: Media Culture and the Phenomenology of Gadget Commodity Life. Anthony Curtis Adler. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2016. 264 pp. ISBN: 978-0823270804.

2019-11-01T23:55:18+03:00

The Phonetic Means of Creating a Ludic Sense in the English Nonsense Text

2019-11-02T19:47:22+03:00

Research into the creative use of language can be a source of new knowledge about language structure and its implementation. The paper describes segmental phonetic means involved in the formation of identical or similar acoustic images which interact in the limited semantic space of such English nonsense texts as a limerick and a literary work containing transposed sounds, syllables and words (also known as spoonerisms). This ludic interaction provides the sophisticated plane of expression putting less emphasis on the conveyed message. The analysis included the following stages: 1) identifying the cases of sound-based play in typically English pieces of creative writing; 2) describing the structure and semantics of language units which embody ludic acoustic images; 3) looking at the phenomena in question with relation to such constituents of speech act as the message, the addresser and the addressee. The findings reveal that English nonsense texts the plane of expression of which is foregrounded by the creative use of phonetic means demonstrate simultaneous presence and absence of meaning. The results show that dealing with ludic senses allows to appreciate the ludic possibilities of the English phonemic inventory as well as the metalinguistic awareness and literary appreciation of the author and the recipient.

Online Forums as a Mirror Reflecting the World of ESP

2019-11-02T13:42:13+03:00

The article presents the analysis of most frequent threads in four Internet forums to see what can be learnt about ESP teachers’ interests and understanding of the concept of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The results show that the majority of discussions revolve around the choice of materials for different types of ESP. This might suggest that forum members know very little about oral and written communicative strategies of a given profession and rely on the expertise of course books writers to provide them with such knowledge. Moreover, the analysis shows that forum members do not discuss how to teach individual language skills but how to teach different types of ESP which might indicate that there is a greater difference between teaching the same skills in two branches of ESP than there is between teaching different skills with a single type of ESP. The results also indicate that some users feel that ESP teachers should be interested in more than just linguistics, but there are those who claim that the main difference between ESP and general English lies in vocabulary. This polarity of opinions shows that no established view of ESP may exist. The analysis further suggests that the distinction between ESP and EGP is clearer to those who are more interested in learners’ professional needs. Finally, the choice of topics in the analysed threads indicates that forum members and their visitors are interested not only in ESP, but in subjects which have nothing to do with ESP.

Textbook Evaluation as a Means of Discovering Learners' and Teachers' Needs

2019-11-02T13:41:57+03:00

Needs analysis is considered an essential step which normally precedes English for Academic Purposes course design. It allows course developers to identify the tasks the target audience has to complete, and the skills they need to master. Based on the experience of the 'English for Academics' textbook writing project, the paper shows that needs analysis can be extended to the materials evaluation stage of textbook development. The piloting undertaken at this stage involved a questionnaire which required qualitative and quantitative responses from teacher and learner participants. The respondents were encouraged to evaluate different aspects of the course implementation, e.g. timing, relevance, difficulty, sequence, clarity of instructions, etc., and suggest improvements. The questionnaire was analysed which provided course developers with the opportunity to identify additional learners' needs and to explore teachers' needs and expectations, which in many respects coincided with each other. Consequently, the learning and teaching materials were restructured in accordance with the evaluation. The changes which were introduced into the textbook and the Teachers' Notes are described. It is concluded that piloting can be an instrument to expose both pedagogical and linguistic needs, thus, providing for the triangulation of the methods and reliability of the results.

On Tenor and its Prosodic Markers in Rhetorical Discourse

2019-11-02T13:42:27+03:00

In rhetorical discourse, tenors can be formed intentionally and used as rhetorical strategies to implement the speaker's goals. The article reports on a study of the contextual category 'tenor' and its prosodic realisation in rhetorical discourse. The paper examines rhetorical, auditory and acoustic features in the samples of English academic presentations (lectures). The author argues that tenors can reflect both the relationships of the participants of a particular speech event and the relationships associated with a broader sociocultural context. Analysing tenor as a sociocultural phenomenon the author demonstrates its correlations with some specific features of British speech culture. Special attetnion is given to the role of prosody in conveying and identifying tenors. The article contains an overview of the prosodic markers of tenor: tone of voice, pitch parameters, temporal characteristics. The study of tenor and its prosodic markers contributes to a fuller understanding of the influence of contextual factors on the prosodic realisation of discourse. The observations made in the paper may be useful to develop cross-cultural communication competence and rhetorical competence of EFL students.

Temporal and Aspectual Forms of Verbs in Proposition of Commissive Speech Acts: the Case of Promise, Swear and Bet

2019-11-02T13:42:42+03:00

Numerous research on Speech Act Theory considers the pragmatic functions of various types of speech acts, their illocutionary forces and implementation in language, focusing either on their locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary constituents or on their taxonomies, whereas the analysis of semantic and syntactic properties of performative formula remains scarce. The present paper reports on the study of temporal perspective of commissive speech acts in the English language. Specifically, it examines temporal-aspectual forms in propositions of performative verbs of promise, swear and bet. The methodology to investigate temporal-aspectual features of verbs in proposition includes literature review and a continuous sampling method with the help of which the author analysed approximately 1,800 performative utterances containing commissive performative verbs. The results of research demonstrate that the set of temporal-aspectual forms as well as their frequency differ from one commissive under the study to another, while the syntactic structures of propositions is homogeneous. The study also established the correlation between the illocutionary force of commissive performative verbs and temporal-aspectual forms of verbs in proposition. The results of the study might have practical implications in teaching English as a foreign language in terms of grammar and sociocultural aspects.

Graph Description as an Issue in L2 Academic English Writing

2019-11-02T13:42:56+03:00

Young people’s interest in taking international exams such as IELTS results from student mobility and their willingness to appraise language abilities. In this paper, Academic Writing Task One of IELTS is examined. This task implies candidates comprehending graphic information and processing it in written discourse. The gap between a host of graph description tests and an insignificant number of efficient teaching methods has provided a rationale for the current study. It focuses on graph description as a cognitive, psychological and educational process and employs the analysis method in the theoretical section. Based on the action research method, drawing on 25 students’ written samples, the study has quested for peculiar language problems detrimental to processing the graph description task. The data have revealed the key pillars of successful written graph presentation: the combination of all four main skills, i.e. reading, listening, writing, and speaking; skills transfer; critical thinking and writing; the appropriate use of style; graphic literacy. It is concluded that the “constant nudging” method, a skills transfer, the use of appropriate vocabulary for describing trends alongside academic functional phrases and grammar features, the analysis of mass media information with numeric data are solutions to graph description issues. The findings have implications for preparing students for IELTS.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Challenges of Minority Teachers in a Western Society: Experience in Austria

2019-11-02T13:43:09+03:00

The aim of this reflective article is to investigate firstly, the preconception of professionalism in teaching; secondly, whether minority teacher’s identity influences their professionalism; and, thirdly, how minority teachers affect minority students, since minority teachers face real inequality in white societies. The issue of teacher professionalism has always been controversial due to the changing nature of the profession and society’s expectations of how the profession should be. There has not been an investigation regarding minority teachers in Austria. I wish to address this gap in the research by investigating the experience of a Laotian-American in a secondary school. The investigation reveals that in spite of the efforts that governments in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have put into recruiting minority educators, minority teacher population does not keep pace with the minority student populations. Regrettably, Austrian government does not have such a recruiting scheme. This study has the potential to raise debates about minorities in the Austrian educational system and contribute to existing discussion about minority educators in white society.

Efficiency of Individualised Resources in the Russian EFL Classroom

2019-11-02T13:43:29+03:00

In order to plan lessons that include effective instructional strategies, it is critical for teachers to be aware of student aptitudes, personality variables, learning strategies, interests, aspirations, and talents. This paper presents a way for Russian teachers to improve their students’ speaking abilities when learning foreign languages, called individualised resources, which are based on the concept of individualisation. Individualised resources are designed to help students to actively participate in the learning process, contribute to their productivity of learning and compensate for missing abilities when mastering foreign languages. In order to verify the effectiveness of this educational tool, qualitative and quantitative indicators were applied to a classroom-based study. Research findings illustrate how the approach enhanced the students’ speaking abilities in terms of purposefulness, richness of speech content and logical progression of speech. The results presented in the article indicate that this type of training may be sufficient to shape speaking skills when teaching English.

English for Public Speaking. Ljudmila Sergeevna Chikileva. Moscow: Urite, 2016, 203 pp. ISBN: 978-5-9916-7973-2.

2019-11-01T23:55:19+03:00

The Pragmatics of Nigerian English in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Novels

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

There are relatively few studies that have examined the pragmatization of Nigerian English in Adichie’s novelistic oeuvre. This study seeks to fill that gap by undertaking a pragmatic analysis of Nigerian English in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah in order to account for the pragmatic relation between utterances and meaning explication. The theory adopted for this study is pragmatic context. The analysis indicates that the use of English as reflected in the novels is pragmatically oriented which, by and large, helps elucidate the particular use of English in the non-literary situation in Nigeria. Also, the analysis demonstrates that the contexts, in which these Nigerian English expressions occur, significantly, draw from Nigeria’s sociocultural milieu, and the sociocultural milieu shapes the meaning or sense discourse participants squeeze out of utterances in interactive situations.

Arthur Ransome and Dmitri Mitrokhin: Translating the Russian Folktale

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

This paper focuses on Arthur Ransome’s and Dmitri Mitrokhin’ s collaboration in translating the Russian folktales. Old Peter’s Russian Tales (1916), Ransome’ s first serious (and sustained) success, was the translation product of his early sojourns in Russia, illustrated by Dmitri Mitrokhin. The aims of the research are threefold: (1) to explore the cooperation between the British translator and the Russian artist in translating Russian folktales as an insight into the intense British-Russian dialogues of the time; (2) to examine the interaction of the translated texts and the images in terms of the translation strategy employed, as well as the influences of the contemporaneous tastes and trends; (3) to gain a better understanding of the translator’s agency and human interaction in building an important link between the cultures and the countries. The research has required close reading of primary and secondary sources, including archival materials, as well as the textual analysis of the translated stories, the translator’s correspondence and other papers pertaining to his micro-history. These latter are used to explore the interplay of the translated text and the pictures against the background of personal, as well as wider British-Russian cultural interaction at the turn of the twentieth century.
Ransome’s book of over three hundred pages was illustrated with Mitrokhin’s seven full-page coloured pictures and twenty nine black and white head-pieces and end-pieces, which the author found admirable and his publishers were pleased with, though later editions would be illustrated by the other artists as well. Ransome’s translation strategy in retelling the Russian tales to his young reader at home was largely domesticating; however, he was careful to convey their culturally specific character, which was enhanced by Mitrokhin’s effort to acquaint the foreign reader with the Russian peasant world. The main result achieved is that the examination of the interplay between the text and the picture shows the specific relevance of aesthetically and emotionally powerful images in rendering the culturally distinct character of folktales. This is, therefore, a case study of the intercultural dialogue between the translator and the artist which produced an interesting interpretation of Russian folklore for the international reader and made an important contribution to the cultural links between the countries.

Pragmalinguistic Features of American Presidents’ Inaugural Addresses of the Last Century (1913-2013)

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

This paper studies the pragmalinguistic markers of the political discourse in American presidents’ inaugural addresses made from 1913 to 2013 and concentrates on the language units that reveal the potential of perlocutionary speech acts. The study analyzes the role of such domains of pragmalinguistics as deixis, reference, presupposition, cognitive structures in inaugural addresses, and their representation in speeches. The method of discourse-analysis, the method of contextual analysis, and the method of quantitative processing are used in the study.
The means of deixis have several functions in these speech texts, providing some extra-linguistic information and additional meaning for the utterances. Firstly, the change of deictic center conveys a certain shift of attention and redirects the addressee’s thoughts. Secondly, the means of deixis represent presuppositions, ones which members of the public are unlikely to question since these presuppositions are explicitly referred to and the information provided includes people’s background assumptions. Thirdly, personal, temporal and spatial deixes are integrated in the actualization of the most important concept found in every speech of every American president – the concept of the “American nation”: deictic forms along with nouns with evaluative implications add to the pragmatic effect of the concept reflected in speech. Fourthly, the deictic means participate in the construction of a binary that juxtaposes “us” vs. “them”, typical of political utterances in the genre of inaugural addresses.
A special form of reference constituting an important part of the concept of the “American nation” in inauguration addresses is precedent phenomena. Their main sources are the Bible, speeches of former politicians, texts of famous American documents. Reference to religious discourse and parts of national history familiar to everyone brings the feeling of joy to the public appealing to a basic national myth of a happy community. Thus means of deixis, presupposition and special type of reference are the characteristic of American inauguration speeches used for the purposes of strong pragmalinguistic effect. The dynamics of the usage of the precedent phenomena and other constituent parts of the concept “American nation” reflects the changes in political context of the epoch.

Exploring Meaning: Verb Semantics and Quality

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

This paper examines the syntagmemic structure of verbs and their correlations with their logical-semantic quality drawing on the methods of componential analysis and morphothemic analysis proposed by A.I. Fefilov. The former approach helps us to single out the word standard semes, which are fixed in a language, whereas the latter is particularly useful in studying the nature of word semantics, its structure, and correlation with the concept and category of thought. Our research suggests that the method of morphothemic analysis provides a complex, multifaceted, in-depth analysis of the semantic structure of the verb.
One hypothesis raised by the study is that the verb reveals the processual peculiarities of the quality. The logical-semantic quality is fixed in verb semantics in terms of its propositional relations, which are implicit in a verb. The results show that the quality represented by a verb is concomitant as it goes together with relationality, the main component of a verb syntagmeme. Our research studied the effect of the verbal part of speech categorization on the manifestation of quality in a language.
The work provides new insights into the semantic structure of language units, exploring for the first time the logical and semantic qualities of verbs, which were subjected to a systematic morphothematic analysis. A further study could address the comparative investigation of the category of quality in different languages in terms of its translation. Additionally, this would enable an identification of the main trends of representing quality with the help of a verb in different languages and would distinguish a new unconventional syntagmeme that changes and modifies the category of quality in speech and consequently find out the ways in which a language determines categories of thought.

Linguistic Approaches in Teaching History of Science and Technology Courses through a Content Block on Cognitive Sciences

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

History of Science and Technology (HST) courses are increasingly becoming part of core curriculums for undergraduate students due to an increased emphasis on scientific literacy. HST courses should aim to help students gain an understanding of the nature of science and should enable them to reflect epistemologically. The authors suggest teaching HST courses through several interchangeable content blocks, and herein, present the material and discussion topics that they believe should be implemented in a content block on cognitive sciences through a linguistic component.
Language has a special meaning for humankind as it indicates its unique ability in the evolutionary development and in creating a new social environment. Therefore, paying special attention to the linguistic component when teaching HST courses helps students obtain a basic level of linguistic knowledge as its interdisciplinary approaches are increased through the study of cognitive sciences such as evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, and artificial intelligence.
In order to represent a practical meaning of linguistics in the processes of constructing social environment, the authors conducted an empirical study based on the analysis of media texts. We asked 63 sophomores majoring in social sciences and humanities, who are affiliated with the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations to choose 60 media texts, both broadsheets and tabloids, on social and political content. Estimating and analyzing the surveys allowed the authors to determine students’ abilities to identify communicative strategies that were used in the media texts, to understand the role of the strategies in forming the social environment of a person or a group, and to recognize how using the tools of cognitive linguistics enhances sophisticated thinking and develops synergetic perceptions of every individual.

Resiliency in Education: The Case of Foreign Language Teachers

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

The article covers the basics of resilience and the factors promoting sustainability within the field of education. With escalating demands on teachers in terms of increasing social pressures and expectations regarding quality of pedagogical provision, ’resilience’ is a topical area of research. The main objectives of the study include ascertaining how prone to professional stress are educators compared to other professionals, pointing out the areas where the major mismatches lie, and revealing the factors influencing professional adjustment in the sphere of foreign language teaching. The correlation and interdependence of resilience, emotional intelligence, social support and other individual factors have been studied using a valid sample of specialists in language teaching: resilience was considered one of the central, individual protective factors, as well as a serious prerequisite for a successful and fulfilling life. The sample of the study comprised three groups: first, senior students (future teachers); second, university academics (senior professors) and thirdly, university junior specialists. To analyze the results, statistical and correlation methods were used: different types of interdependence were indicated through regression analysis, the Kruskal–Wallis test, violin plot, and others.

Developing Teacher-trainees’ Assessment Awareness in the EFL Classroom through Project-based Learning Activity

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

Due to the Russian State Educational Standard, beginning ESL teachers should possess professional competences, including being ready to implement in their classrooms modern methods and techniques of assessing students’ achievement. However, teacher trainees are not provided with opportunities to acquire assessment skills during their learning process. Developing teacher trainees’ professional competencies during a practicum, that is, a four-week period of school-based practice teaching, may be a way to solve this problem. The key aim of the study is to investigate whether experiencing project-based learning (PBL) activity during a content-based course might raise teacher trainees’ assessment awareness and enable them to put assessment skills to practical use in their future classrooms.
The methodology of the present study includes developing assessment criteria for self- and peer-reflective weekly journals, developing survey questions and descriptive rubrics for grading oral presentations of PBL activity. The results of the research demonstrate that experiencing a PBL activity as a learner can trigger a deeper assessment awareness of project-based learning activities and can help develop confidence in recognizing teacher trainees’ personal strong points essential for their future professional life. By experiencing a PBL activity, teacher-trainees gain insights about its process and observe how students’ self-awareness and confidence in assessment practice are fostered through authentic tasks during a content-based course. This study therefore proposes that project-based learning activity can raise teacher-trainees’ assessment awareness and should be integrated in the teacher-training ESL course at the Astrakhan State University, Russia.

Facebook Birthday Postings from a Language Ecology Perspective in Russian, German, American English, and French

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

The aim of the paper is to examine Facebook postings from an ecological language perspective as a special type of discourse of “everyday life” with an orientating function, to evaluate the environmental potential of this network that influences the character of the posts, and to determine cultural differences in thinking and expressing birthday greetings on the Facebook platform.
The paper outlines some specific features of the Facebook environment or niche such as the reduced characters of the message, the use of abbreviations, simple structures, merging and interaction of written and spoken languages, and the use of graphical signs to convey emotions. The methodological approach was to compile a database by randomly gathering, from various Facebook timelines, 680 birthday postings in Russian, American English, German, and French. The posts were then analyzed according to three dimensions: (1) focus of the greetings on the specific day or years to come / life in general (Western vs. non-Western countries, analytical vs. holistic mindsets); (2) use of nominal structures; (3) stress/emphasis on characteristic features of a person, compliments.
Various psycholinguistic and cultural aspects of the verbal greetings from the timelines of Russian, American, German, and French users of the social net are singled out in terms of holistic and analytical types of critical thinking. The data collection shows that while Russians and Germans predominantly display holistic thinking, as expressed in birthday postings of a general character and wishes in general for the upcoming year or years to come, Americans and the French display analytical thinking as their birthday posts are more focused on that special day. Most birthday postings are usually short and have one similar pattern. Americans use a lot of praise and stress personal relations. French postings are very emotional often expressing love and kisses.
This study shows that analysis of Facebook birthday postings should be multimodal and complex, taking into account a complex interaction of a number of internal and external factors and a personal inclusion into socio-cultural interactions.

A New Type of Lexicographic Product: Thesaurus of Text Strings. Field of EFL/ESL

2019-11-01T23:55:20+03:00

The “Thesaurus of Text Strings: The field of EFL/ESL” (TTS) is a structured collection of text fragments extracted from various texts, both printed and digital, that deal with teaching and learning English as a foreign or second language. While the sublanguage of ELF/ESL has been vastly discussed in literature, the TTS is a radically new type of dictionary due to the nature of its constituent objects, the text strings. A text string (TS) is a lexicographic object of unique status; as such, it has not been used before. It is different from all other objects traditionally treated in dictionaries of various types, such as words, collocations, idioms, proverbs and other reproducible linguistic units. TSs have been extracted from specialized texts, they are supposed to reflect the various aspects, even the minute ones, of the referential situations presented in the texts. The TSs in the Thesaurus are arranged mostly according to the conceptual structure of the Foreign Languages Teaching Methodology (a deductive logical procedure, ‘head – bottom’), but on the lower, more concrete, levels of analysis the TSs have to be grouped following the opposite logical direction, ‘bottom – up’ as the Teaching Methodology concepts prove to be too general to differentiate between finer meaning distinctions of numerous TSs. The TTS supplies a considerable amount of carefully structured professional information in language form. It is aimed primarily at teachers of English who are not native speakers of the language and who wish to make their professional communication in English more authentic. It can also be used in classroom activities with students who are preparing for teaching careers. Thus, a conclusion may be justified that the TTS has both the theoretical significance for lexicography and the practical value as a good professional teaching material. The TTS may also be meaningfully considered against the background of today’s Corpus Linguistics. Though not a ‘true’ corpus per se, it has certain features that are essentially similar to those of contemporary linguistic corpora.

A Comparative Analysis of Temporal Structure of English Poetic Texts for Adults and Children

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Poetry has always been under the focus of scholars’ attention, though the problem of performing a comparative analysis of children’s and adults’ poetry has not received enough attention yet. The study undertaken is aimed to fill in this gap and provide the analysis of English poetry for adults and children with the attempt to identify some grammatical peculiarities of the corresponding poetic texts. The scope of the texts for examination is limited to English poetry of the nineteenth – twentieth centuries focused on the animal theme. The analysis of the temporal structure of the texts selected was based on the method elaborated by Ludmila Nozdrina in her work “Poetics of grammar categories” (2004). The results of the study have proved the hypothesis stated: there are some differences in temporal structuring of the nineteenth–twentieth century poetic English texts focused on the animal theme. The main difference lies in targeting the poem: whether it appeals to adults or children. The current study contains quantitative information on the usage of certain grammatical phenomena within the texts analyzed, and the attempts of their interpretations. Consequently, the study might be of particular interest for those scholars who do research on differentiating grammatical peculiarities of poetry in general and drawing differences between children’s and adults’ poetry, in particular.

Shakespearean Charactonyms in Translations into Russian

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Despite a long tradition of translating Shakespeare’s works into Russian, names as a stylistic device have been underestimated by scholars. The study deals with the space or environment of characteristic names (charactonyms) and its rendering into Russian in the works Henry IV, Part II and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The material for the research is a dozen translations into Russian done in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries including annotated editions which may show additional interpretations of the names. Comparing the puns based on names and their equivalents as a method shows how to identify overlapping approaches to translating stylistic devices involving charactonyms. The analysis of the translations reveals a variety of ways to render names, in particular within text, which is rare, and the application of commentaries in annotated editions. This research demonstrates that some equivalents of names have been repeated in several translations and hence the translators relied on the best practice instead of suggesting their own solutions. The research also shows the strategies and patterns employed by Russian translators and writers, which may be a good resource for literary translators.

Perceptions and Use of English by Secondary School Students From Central Asia

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

After almost two centuries of functioning almost exclusively through the medium of Russian, the governments of the now-independent Kyrgyzstan are trying to implement the knowledge of English among the population as an auxiliary tool of interaction with the rest of the world. Nevertheless, and despite the huge amount of money invested in English education, there is a lack of studies about the attitudes of the Kyrgyzstani students toward this language and the use that they intend to do of it. This paper analyses the attitudes toward the learning and use of English by Kyrgyzstani secondary-school students from four educational models in two regions of the country. A questionnaire given to 182 students from different local and foreign ethnic and language backgrounds was used to collect data. The results of the research show different approaches depending on the location of the schools and the educational program followed. For most students English may be a good asset but very few consider it a language that can be used in contexts other than the classroom.

The Problems of Russian-Speaking Students of non-Ninguistic Specializations in CAE Speaking. Test: Analysis of Teaching Experience

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Today Russian undergraduate students of non-linguistic specializations aspiring to careers in different spheres succeed in acquiring Certificates in Advanced English. Nevertheless, the candidates state that they experience the most serious difficulties while sitting the Speaking Test of the CAE exam as they lack oral language skills. The researched literature does not consider Russian students’ predicaments purposely and gives a broad overview of the main students’ concerns. This study is an attempt to explore the particular Russian students’ problems of forming oral language skills arising in the process of their training for the Speaking Test and to work out the ways of their remedies. Qualitative methods have allowed finding out the highly specific nature of individual experience. The methods used in the study also included an open-ended language learning questionnaire and a survey to support the assessment of the received data. The results indicate that there are quite a number of pedagogical and educational variables that should be permanently trained and developed as they can influence students’ success.

On the Question of the Semiotic Typology of Signs

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

he article is in the context of linguistic and semiotic studies related to theoretical issues of base units’ typology, in particular, theoretical linguistics and “pure” semiotics. Sign is one of the basic units of linguistics and semiotics. The way of understanding the nature and structure of the sign essentially influences the nature of almost all studies. The depth, consistency and completeness of perception of signs are reflected in the currently existing classifications of signs. The article fills in a gap in the perception of the sign variety nature in the semiotic and linguistic understanding. It provides a tool for the correct interpretation of a large body of facts related to the secondary use of proper names in the specific function and precedential units in a broad context. The analysis of the actual texts indicates that the current classifications of signs do not reflect in their entirety all the signs which actually exist and function in the space of language and culture. Beyond the limits proposed by these classification schemes are left the phenomena of sufficient frequency. The article based on the appositive and distribution methods describes and analyzes the type of signs that has not been previously perceived by researchers as an independent one and has not been studied at all. This sign is called a bifocal sign and it is consistently described in terms of its specific features which do not allow mixing it with other types of signs. The results show that an adequate interpretation of any text which includes a bifocal sign is impossible without taking into account the specificity of this sign.

Strategic Hedging: A Comparative Study of Methods, Results and Discussion (and Conclusion) Sections of Research Articles in English and Russian

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

A great deal of research has established the importance of hedging and its cross-linguistic differences for intercultural academic communication and, consequently, for L2 EAP/ESP teaching and learning. However, strategic hedging seen as discourse-based hedging strategies related to the rhetorical structure of research papers seems to be underexplored. The article reports on a mainly descriptive study of its cross-linguistic variation in the Methods, Results and Discussion (and Conclusion) sections of English-medium and Russian-medium research articles in the field of management and marketing. Based on D. Koutsantoni’s taxonomy, this paper analyzes 20 published articles to compare the types, frequencies and reveal some tendencies of using strategic hedges in both languages. The research detects the same two major categories of strategic hedges (agreement with other research and limitations) for both languages, with the same further subcategorization for each of them. The findings reveal differences between the languages in the overall frequencies of strategic hedges and the frequencies of their subtypes, as well as in tendencies of their usage including Russian writers’ preference for referring to general opinion, implicit ways of expressing limitations and giving one explanation for obscure results, as compared to English writers. The research outcomes indicate that cross-linguistic variation of strategic hedging in English-medium and Russian-medium research articles is an important feature to be taken into account in EAP/ESP teaching and learning.

Polysemy in Linguistic Terminological Systems Based on the Analysis of French Linguistic Terms

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

The article reports on the features of polysemy in French terminological systems of linguistics at inter-system and intra-system levels. The existing studies concerning terminological semantics allow pointing out two aspects of the term structure: a semantic structure representing a complex of meanings, and a structure of the terminological meaning representing a complex of semes. The first aspect supposes the analysis of terminological polysemy regarded as a negative characteristic of terms. According to the second aspect some particularities of denotative and significative levels and their correlation to scientific concepts can be analyzed. In the given study the component analysis of the definitions of French terms – such as ‘sémantème’, ‘mot’ and ‘signe’ – reveals different types of polysemy and terminological variation. The analysis of semantic structures of these terms shows that terminological deviations are caused by objective differences at significative and denotative levels of the meaning as well as by the subjective use of occasional contexts of terms in linguistic research. The suggested results allow constructing a new classification of meaning relations of linguistic terms. Each type of relations is correlated to different elements of the term structure. The hierarchy of these elements is embodied into an abstract model that can be applied for the analysis of any term of the modern linguistic terminology.

Systemic Genesis Approach in Psychology

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

This article analyses V.D. Shadrikov’s scientific work in the field of psychology. V.D. Shadrikov is Doctor of Psychology, Professor, and Fellow of the Russian Academy of Education. The article briefly covers his fundamental publications on activity, abilities, and the human inner world, examining the issues raised in his publications in the context of the evolution of educational theory and methodology. Shadrikov develops the methodology of systemic genesis approach in psychology, demonstrating that the systemic genesis paradigm opens new aspects in fundamental and applied psychology. This paradigm provides an opportunity to carry out research on a new level.

Learning From Collaborative Teacher Development in an EAP/ESP Context

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

‘Collaborative teacher development is an increasingly common kind of teacher development found in a wide range of language teaching contexts’. Teachers can collaborate with other teachers in writing materials, books, doing research, and analysing observed lessons. Even the format and the content of a teaching journal can be developed in cooperation with other colleagues. The article reports on collaborative teacher development of English language teachers at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) in Moscow, Russia. The study used a survey to investigate needs for teacher development at NRU HSE. Findings reveal that not all teachers practise self-observation; many teachers believe that feedback must be personal; the majority of teachers find peer observation subjective; almost all teachers have teaching journals but their understanding of what a teaching journal is seems to be erroneous. These results indicate that without a clear understanding of the listed above issues and their implementation in a given context professional development can hardly be possible. The author analyses the results of this research and makes suggestions about teacher development as a continuous and collaborative process.

The Role of English as a Medium of Instruction in Reshaping Bahraini Senior Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Roles as Middle Leadership in their Schools (An Exploratory Study)

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

This paper investigates the role English plays as the medium of instruction in reshaping Bahraini senior teachers’ perceptions about their actual role in their schools during their professional development program at the Bahrain Teachers College at the University of Bahrain. The data were collected using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion with an opportunity sample of the senior teachers who recently graduated from the program. The quantitative findings show that using English played a significant role in motivating the participants to form positive attitudes towards their professional development program while the qualitative data reveal how the target language participated in enabling those teachers reshape their perceptions about certain professional practices and assisted them in gaining new skills to improve the overall performance of their teachers in school. The study concludes with implications of how using English as the main medium of instruction facilitates conceptual change in professional development programs.

Taking a MOOC: Socio-cultural Aspects of Virtual Interaction In a Multicultural Learning Community

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Featuring different approaches to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) among education policy makers, theorists and practitioners in the field and highlighting an increasing popularity of this educational phenomenon worldwide, the article provides a brief record of MOOCs’ success at Harvard University and the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) making the authors move gradually towards the main focus of this paper – socio-cultural problems, that Russian students frequently face while taking a MOOC in English. The survey described in the article revealed that HSE students establishing online communication with their peers from other countries often complain about sudden, unexpected communication breakdowns that they find difficult to explain and that are likely to occur due to the socio-cultural differences existing between communication partners in a multicultural learning community. The results of the survey presented in the article indicate that there is an urgent need to find effective ways to increase the students’ level of socio-cultural competence that would allow them to communicate successfully in a new virtual learning environment.

Developing Chemistry Students’ Study Skills through Integration of Visual Organizers in Teaching ESP

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

This study is aimed at development chemistry students’ study skills through integration of visual organizers (VOs) in teaching English for Special Purposes (ESP). The research specifically examined the students’ attitude toward the chemistry content of English classes and the achievement of two groups of 54 students under study. The results of the study indicated that there is a significant difference between the level of study skills in dealing with chemistry in English of the students in the experimental group before and after the experiment. The result of students’ perception about visual organizers, as a strategy and approach to teaching English through chemistry, highlighted the rаtionale in this undertaking. All communicative activities and presentations used by the teacher in the class incorporating visual organizers in identified formats such word webbing, web diagram, flowcharts, concept maps, Venn diagram and pictorial graphics obtained a positive perception of chemistry information in English. Performance, on the other hand, indicated the VO’s effectiveness in facilitating the learning of English and study skills development. This analysis implied that the experimental group performed significantly better than their peers in the control group. Facilitating English learning through chemistry content can be made through integrating visual organizers that help develop students’ study skills. Hence, the use of visual organizers effect changes in learning chemistry content for the better. Visual organizers help students perform better and improve their attitude toward learning English for professional communication.

The Influence of Self-editing on Micro Skills Development in Academic Writing in English as a Second Language

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Self-editing skills are extremely important in foreign language learning; without them university students tend not to write appropriately in academic contexts. These skills are, however, often less developed in school graduates and it is thus essential to understand the challenges faced by university students. The present study was conducted to answer the research question: whether self-editing as a final component of written production can boost the writing micro skills of learners. It analyzes English-language essays written by 50 second-year ESL students in the Faculty of Economics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and reports on the most frequent errors committed in their formal writing. The aim of this study is to focus on the stage of self-editing and identify the role of self-editing in micro skills development. Findings reveal that students are most often weak at producing coherent and cohesive paragraphs; they also lack appropriate argumentation and are often inaccurate in using grammatical structures and lexis. Results also suggest, however, that L2 writing students can improve their own writing by transferring micro skills they learn when editing texts. The present study may contribute to teachers’ views on developing micro skills of student writers.

The Modern Educational Domain: Prerequisites and Prospects for Individual Learning Path Development

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

This article considers the prerequisites and perspectives of individual learning path (ILP) development in the framework of a student-centered educational paradigm; it defines the rationale of ILP and examines the introduction of project learning technology (PLT) into ILP modeling in higher educational institutions. We claim that identification of students’ individual features and compliance with their requirements becomes feasible via the integration of project learning technology into the educational process with relevant pedagogical and computer support. The special emphasis is put on the idea that ILP framing is aimed at enhancing students’ autonomy and responsibility for their education, fostering cooperation skills in a close dialogue with other participants in out-of-class projects and teachers. In this scenario an individualized approach is to be implemented in a harmonious solidarity with principles of cooperation and collaboration.
To verify the above-mentioned ideas we conducted an experiment based on cognitive, diagnostic and empirical methods. Two groups of students participated in our research project at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in September – November 2015. They are second-year undergraduate students majoring in Economics and studying English as a second language. We designed individual study routes (ISR) for each student and handed them out. The ISR contained progress steps of the project, a set of assignments and deadlines for project submission. The students were provided with opportunity to play an active role devising and altering an ISR.
Research findings show that ILP modeling boosts student’s motivation to learn English as a second language, enables students’ reflexive skills, identifies their individual features while simultaneously developing cooperation and collaboration skills.

Constructions Expressing Inaccurate Quantity: Functions and Status in Modern English

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

The article reviews lexical units expressing evaluative (inaccurate and/or unspecified) measurement in Modern English. The study reveals that this measurement, located on the periphery of scientific and traditional metric systems, has great significance for operational partitioning and measuring different kinds of objects in the everyday life of native English speakers. To date, there have been no detailed descriptions of lexical representations for evaluative measurement in the English language since existing papers do not approach this issue systematically. The present article, based on the British National Corpus and English dictionaries, as well as on extracts from modern American fiction, is the result of an analysis and systematization of the constructions, or patterns, expressing inaccurate and unspecified quantities in Modern English. In particular, the article provides a list of such constructions and their corresponding classifications based on their functions as specific classifiers. It also studies the structure of each type distinguished, the semantics of their components and their combinatory specificities. The analysis determines the status of these constructions in the paradigm of the category of measure in relation to the other language means of the given conceptual category, with which the constructions in question form the corresponding functional-semantic field. The results of the conducted research reveal how the “human factor” manifests itself in the English-language culture when expressing quantity evaluation of the outward things.

Discourse Elements in English Academic Discourse

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

This paper presents a study of discourse elements in spoken academic discourse – a lecture – and identifies their specificities. The study seeks to identify discourse elements in a wide body of research material; to study structural, functional and pragmatic features of discourse elements in terms of the implementation of the intentions of the speaker; to identify from the auditory analysis any prosodic features of discourse elements. Discourse elements are specifically defined from the point of view of their pragmatics: the intention of the speaker influences the language of the lecture and the way in which ideas are connected with words.
The study on discourse elements included several stages. Research material consisted of audio recordings of Philology lectures to students studying English as a foreign language by three native speakers of English (General American standard of pronunciation), all of whom are professors at American colleges and universities. In total, 6 lectures were recorded; they formed a wide body of research material lasting 7 hours 33 minutes. This wide body of research material consisted of 2 306 linguistic facts, i.e. discourse elements in context. From these, 150 fragments containing various discourse elements were then chosen to form a narrow body of research material lasting 40 minutes.
The phonetic research consisted of auditory analysis: dividing the fragments of discourses into syntagms; defining the boundaries of syntagms; specifying pitch movement, tone level and type of scale; using perceptual gradations of each prosodic feature, etc. Prosodic marking was carried out in accordance with the method of notation adopted at the Department of English Phonetics at Moscow State Teacher Training University (1997). Scaling enabled the classification and sorting of all the studied elements (discourse elements). The authors used the following types of scales: nominative, ordinal and interval. Structural analysis proved that discourse elements have different structure and may be one-word elements and predicative phrases S+P incorporated into the structure of the academic discourse. All discourse elements can be divided into two large groups – connecting elements (connectors) and pragmatic elements.
The results of the research show that the studied elements differ structurally and can perform various functions. The functions of the discourse elements, their structure, intentions of the speaker and also their position in the phrase determine their prosodic features.

Historical and Symbolic Aspects of Linguistic Representation of the World

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

The article is an attempt to offer a theoretical understanding of the notion of a “Linguistic world-image” (LWI) within symbolic contexts as represented in the current literature, define the symbol’s features, its influence on LWI in historic perspective, and investigate its functioning within idioms or metaphors. We have undertaken the review of previous LWI investigations and, as the methodological basis of our research, we have used ethno-semantic and linguistic-philosophical approaches to language; specifically, the method of multiple etymology, introduced by V. N. Toporov and developed by M.M. Makovsky, which permitted us to identify the correlation of LWI with linguistic signs as a carrier of symbolic meaning. It should be noted that studying symbolic language properties and linguistic signs within the linguistic world-image, which were not taken into account before, is conductive to a more profound comprehension of the correlation between language, culture, and mutual understanding index in the intercultural communication process.
The LWI concept is considered as a subjective-objective dynamic multilevel construct, which presents its primary features through a lexical-semantic language system within a world and national culture formed as a result of the reflection of sensorial perception, facts, understanding and estimation of the objective phenomena in national linguistic consciousness, in the experience of correlation of language concepts, images and symbols throughout the cultural historical development of the language. Therefore, two approaches to studying LWI are evident - cognitive and cultural-philosophical - which are not so much conflicting as mutually reinforcing.

Baranova, J., Dingemanse, M. (2016). Reasons for requests. Discourse Studies, 18(6), 641-675

2020-05-03T22:31:25+03:00

ESP in Polish Tertiary Language Courses – in Search of Definition

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

In the Polish educational system it is mainly institutions of higher education that conduct English for Specific Purpose (ESP) courses, partly because of the regulations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, which stipulate that a B.A. graduate should know a foreign language at least at the B2 level of CEFR and its specialized variety1. This article presents an analysis of Polish ministerial and faculty documents such as ministerial teaching standards and faculty learning outcomes that influence the teaching of ESP at tertiary level in Poland. It also presents an analysis of ESP syllabi from eight higher education institutions published at Internet websites of faculties of economics and management. The aim of the analysis was to see how ministerial and faculty documents define ESP and what type of ESP students of economics and management learn and what are the main course materials for syllabus design for students of economics, management and their various specializations. All the documents and syllabi were subject to qualitative analysis which showed that neither teaching standards nor faculty learning outcomes provide a clear indication of what language for professional or specific purposes is supposed to be. Furthermore, it showed that while teaching students of economics and management, language teachers reach for business English course books which offer a general set of topics and skills, and use one and the same course books with students of different specialties. This shows that the lack of clear guidelines from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education makes it difficult for teachers to provide ESP courses beyond a certain level of generality.

Graphic and Functional Algorithms of Sequence of Tenses in English Grammar for the Effective Education and Automated Systems of Text Synthesis and Editing

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

The article describes the optimal graphic language of presenting and studying English grammar using information technology. Among the studies on the use of graphics in teaching a foreign language, there are mostly descriptions of static objects. The authors propose to use a universal graphic language for describing processes. The authors suggest theoretical foundations of visualization of the English grammar rules using time-sequential conversion scale in the sequence of tenses transformation. The research question is the method of archiving knowledge of English grammar to simplify and speed up the memorization and to increase the volume of information memorized. To achieve this goal, the authors used a graphic algorithmization of the English grammar and visualization of grammar rules, as well as the comparative monitoring of the knowledge gained. As part of research, a series of experiments on the visualization of the rules of sequence of tenses were conducted in student groups. The research showed that a simple language of symbols facilitates and accelerates the memorization of English grammar. Systematic tabulation of grammar rules, where each verb tense gets its finished graphic image, becomes easy to understand and quick to memorize. The application of the presented approach is the following: effective linguistic education, local and global automatic synthesis system and text editing.

Semantic and Cognitive Structure of Emotion States Love, Lust, Infatuation, Passion

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Conceptualization of emotions, especially those which are neither universal nor elementary, is a contested area of cognitive linguistic research. The present paper investigated the semantic and conceptual structure of four emotion states of the thematic field ‘romantic relationship’: love, lust, infatuation, and passion. The specific questions asked in the paper are as follows. First, what are the similarities and dissimilarities between these emotion states? Second, in what way does the conceptualization presented in dictionaries depart from conceptualization that emerges through corpus investigation? Finally, which of the conceptual metaphors posited for emotion concepts by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson are most entrenched in the collective and individual consciousness of speakers of English? To answer these questions, the advantages of four methods were tapped into: introspection, definitional analysis, a native speaker survey and corpus study. Findings reveal that dictionary definitions of love, lust, infatuation, and passion offer an impoverished, if credible, insight into the conceptual structure of these emotions. Results are suggestive of some specific conceptual elements which should be taken account of in a classroom setting by language instructors and L2 learners and indicate which appropriate collocations are to be taken heed of by dictionary compilers.

The Backyard of EFL Teaching: Issues Behind L1 Prosodic Interference in Russian English

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Modern EFL teaching in Russia pays much attention to variations in the cultural schemata represented by students’ L1 and the target language, as well as behavioral patterns of their speakers. However, teaching practitioners scarcely address certain issues of Russian L1 prosodic interference that cause attitudinal confusion on the part of native English speakers. The study explores the wrong pragmatic effects created in English due to the transfer of Russian intonation contours and the reasons behind the failure of Russian EFL teachers to address the issue. Specifically, it investigates English speakers’ negative perceptions of Russian L1 intonation and examines Russian teachers’ practices and beliefs with regard to the place of intonation in a language classroom. The paper draws on findings from recent studies on effects of Russian L1 prosodic features in English and the results obtained from a survey conducted by the author among 29 Russian EFL teachers. The paper argues that whereas L1 intonation interference seriously affects learners’ cultural image, its role in EFL teaching is significantly undervalued as compared to that of grammar and vocabulary. It concludes by suggesting practical ways to facilitate intonation teaching in a Russian EFL classroom.

The Development of Stance-taking Strategies in L2 Students’ Academic Essays: the Case of a Content-based Russian-American Teleconference Course

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Due to internationalization of education, students in the majority of leading Russian universities are increasingly likely to use English as a medium of instruction. At the same time, they are not offered preparatory courses in English academic writing. As a result, students are able to develop their academic writing skills mainly while undertaking content-based courses. Recent research indicates that one of the major concerns for novice writers is to be able to express their stance. The key aim of the study is to show that implementing some methods of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) into a content-based course might improve students’ ability to take a stance in their writing. The paper presents the analysis of 45 essays written in English by L2 novice writers during a teleconference course taught to a group of Russian and American students. The study employs a comparative linguistic analysis of some stance markers (pronoun ‘I’, reporting verbs, epistemic modal and evidential expressions) used in students’ essays written at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the course. The results suggest that the students’ ability to take a stance might be developed through the integration into the course of some elements of EAP teaching.

Successful ESL Writing for Publication: The Role of Writers’ Autonomy Linguistic Competence and L1/L2 Critical Reading Skills

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

The main aim of the research is to examine professional L1 (Russian)/L2 (English) writing experiences among staff members of one Russian research-intensive university as well as to provide more insights into the universal pedagogies of professional writing. The empirical paper focuses on assessing writers’ ability to reflect upon linguistic competence, independent L1/L2 writing skills and L1/L2 critical reading issues which help multilingual scholars position themselves as successful writers in L1 and L2. Text-based semi-structured interviews aimed at measuring self-assessed overall writers’ autonomy in L1/L2, linguistic competence and critical reading skills in their L1/L2 writing experience were conducted. The key findings include L1/L2 writing features and support the idea that successful professional and autonomous writing seems to be closely related to a set of one’s metalinguistic competences, defined in this paper as a critical reading competence, once a certain level of L2 proficiency has been achieved. The paper concludes with some pedagogical implications in the field of writing for publication.

Implementing Peer Assessment in a Russian University ESP Classroom

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

In order to develop the skills and competences required in a professional environment, university students have to reflect on their own role in the learning process. The traditional methods of assessment do not assess reflective thinking, critical thinking, self-evaluation and peer evaluation. Peer assessment may be a way to solve this problem. In this paper, it is researched how peer assessment could be applied to higher education and the effect of using this form of assessment on the quality of learning. The methodology to investigate the effect of peer assessment as a part of the learning process includes literature observation, case study, developing protocols and marking criteria rules for peer assessment, examples of peer assessment strategies and activities. The results of the research demonstrate that peer assessment methods of either written or oral performance can trigger a deeper involvement of students both in the learning and in the assessment process, keep motivation up and develop some qualities essential for future professional life. Therefor peer assessment could be effectively integrated in the course of ESP at the Moscow Higher School of Economics.

Fostering Positive Transfer through Metalinguistic Awareness: A Case for Parallel Instruction of Synonyms in L1 and L2

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Numerous studies on transfer in language learning focus on the nature of transfer, its mechanisms, and its impact on language proficiency and literacy. The majority of implications for teaching methods concern interpretive skills such as reading, whereas the data on effective transfer strategies related to productive skills such as speaking are scarce. This study focuses on speech development based on metacognitive knowledge built into L1 (Russian) as a tool for fostering transfer regarding language universals into L2 (English). An intervention experiment involving elementary school students was based on parallel instruction of synonyms as explicit metalinguistic knowledge. The findings show that, in contrast to the control group, participants from the experiment group displayed a significantly higher gain in skills regarding synonyms in L2, even though metacognitive knowledge of the subject was presented in L1. The results of the study suggest that metalinguistic awareness can facilitate transfer and its instruction can be an effective teaching strategy in speech development in early childhood education.

External Influences on English: From its Beginnings to the Renaissance. D. Gary Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 252 pp. ISBN: 9780199654260

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Slovak Language of Roma Children: Mother Tongue or Second Language

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

This paper presents a study conducted with 40 Roma children from Slovakia, aged between 4-8 years, who are speakers of an ethnolect learned from their parents, but which in Slovak society is not considered to be a “good Slovak language”. Diagnostic tests in the official Slovak language were administered to the children in order to determine how well they know the complex grammatical categories of official Slovak: wh-questions, wh-complements and passive verbs. One hypothesis raised by the study is that the Roma children follow the normal linguistic development path of other children and, by the age of 5, already know the deep structure of complex sentences in Slovak. The results show that although the Roma children grow up with a particular variety of the Slovak language that is an ethnolect, they are able to comprehend and produce deep linguistic structures of Slovak, which serves for them as a mother tongue.

Sophisticated Thinking: Higher Order Thinking Skills

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The information-based society determines that the key factor to achieve success is the development of sophisticated thinking. That said, the thinking process cannot be just a mere imitation of cognitive work, since the digital age requires the authentic skills of working with a flow of information that is being constantly updated.
This paper deals with the last stage of the study devoted to the development of sophisticated thinking. It focuses on the enhancement of higher order thinking skills. We claim that the cognitive processes should be based on three phases: development of disposition towards both thinking process and processed information; development of lower order thinking skills which serves as an indispensable basis for developing higher order thinking skills; and development of higher order thinking skills. The omission or reordering of any of these phases may result in significant deterioration of the obtained results. The special emphasis is put on the idea that higher order thinking skills are more effectively developed when lower order thinking skills have already been interiorized. Furthermore, the development of disposition is regarded as the cornerstone of the development of sophisticated thinking in general. Also, due to its defining feature of polysemy, a literary text is considered to be the most appropriate basis for enhancing students’ thinking skills.
For the purpose of verifying the theoretical ideas, a qualitative study has been conducted. The two groups of students, who participated in the first and second stages (three-month cycle each) of our project, continue to be involved in this one. They are second-year bachelor students of the Higher School of Economics who are studying English as a second language. On the basis of the ideas expressed by B. Bloom about the division between lower and higher order thinking skills and by J. Mezirow about transformative learning we designed tasks to enhance higher order thinking skills. These tasks were related to the short stories written by D. Barthelme and printed as a collection, Sixty Stories. To teach the students of both groups (control and experimental), the text-based approach with special techniques to measure the students’ level of understanding and the ability to apply the given information was used. The results of the experiment indicated that the students of both groups made headway in their application of thinking skills. However, the students of the experimental group demonstrated a more significant shift due to the fact that the development of their disposition towards cognitive processes and processed information had been specifically targeted over the course of the first and second stages of the project. Another important outcome of the study was that the participants’ frame of reference was extended which allows us to speculate that the development of sophisticated thinking may result in the change of a person’s interpretation of socio-cultural situation. Hence, a further in-depth study of the issue should be conducted.

Research on the Business English Training Model within MBA Program

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The paper presents a brief summary of the research on the Business English training model within MBA program students.
This study is devoted to the problem of developing a professional foreign language communicative competency of MBA program participants. A particular feature of additional MBA qualification is its international status which presupposes that its graduates (mid-level and top managers) should realize their professional tasks in a foreign language.
The analysis of literary works follows in order to find out if activity and competency-based approaches are chosen as instructional bases for developing the model of a business foreign language training that can ensure building a professional foreign language communication competency of the MBA program participants.
The result of the study is the model of a business foreign language training that guarantees the development of a professional foreign language communication competency within the process of obtaining additional professional MBA qualification and that includes the following structural components: learning objective, content, a set of forms of organizing the learning process and technological description of each of the five modules.
The next part of the paper suggests the result of the research based on testing of the business foreign language training model that guarantees the development of a professional foreign language communication competency when achieving additional professional MAS qualification including a description of the process and the results of assessing the developed dyadic model.
The testing consisted of summative and formative assessment and was carried out in the the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in several stages (from 1999 to 2007 and then again from 2010 to 2014). When analyzing the results of assessing the dyadic model both the data obtained in control groups (teaching based on the traditional system) and in experimental groups (teaching based on the developed model) were compared.
On the basis of the studies the conclusion was made that business English language training, aimed at the development of professional foreign communicative competence of MBA students, organized in accordance with our didactic model, can achieve the goal of real-verbal communication in English in professional environment (business English should become a tool for solving professional problems), and fully meet the needs of students.

Lexical Representation of Knowledge about a Human Being in English

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

This paper presents the research in the sphere of lexical representation. On the premise that word meaning offers insights into conceptual knowledge stored in the mind, we have analyzed the semantics of the set of synonyms denoting a human being without reference to gender, age, occupation or peculiarities of personality and without any evaluation of the referent. These lexical items are person, individual, human being, and one of the meanings of man and personality. Use of etymological, dictionary, derivational, collocation, context analysis and conceptual modelling enabled us to build a list of conceptual components that comprise the knowledge about a human being represented in the English language. To date, the conceptual models used to visualize knowledge do not seem applicable to visualizing knowledge about a human being; therefore, we could only formulate the main features that are characteristic of this knowledge in the English world-view.

Verbal Representation of Ethnic Stereotypes about the Dutch in English (an Insight into Cross-Cultural Perception via the Language)

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The paper presents a brief summary of the multi-level interdisciplinary research on Englishmen’s ethnic stereotypes about the Dutch and the ways they manifest themselves in the English language. Unconventionally, the national stereotype is investigated as a subject of Cognitive Linguistics. As a result, the term “conceptual model” is proposed as an equivalent to “conceptual metaphor”, and two conceptual models verbally represented by the ethnonym “Dutch” and phraseological units with this component are described. A literature review examines if the identified conceptual models are supported in literary discourse, then the usage of the key lexis is analyzed meticulously for the same purpose. The last part of the paper suggests the results of the experiment held to verify if the stereotypical perceptions of the Dutch are maintained by people in contemporary Great Britain. The results indicate that language plays a significant role in stereotype formation and maintenance.

Cognitive Aspect of Intercultural Communication

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The research of cognitive aspects of intercultural communication is aimed to explore national linguistic consciousness, its peculiarities in order to determine the universal basics which make the intercultural communication possible while preserving national cultural identity and language diversity. This scientific analysis can become a background for developing skills of comprehending foreign speech and providing learning and teaching paths towards communication competence in accordance with Common European Framework of References for Languages. The analysis of texts has shown a fast-growing process of penetration of anglicisms into national languages which leads to obvious structural changes in the national languages. The effects of this interference on cognitive process should be studied and discussed as there is a strong awareness that substituting foreign verbal means for the native ones leads to weakening the immunity of the national language consciousness in general and undermines the national traditions of verbal communication approved and used by a national community. The linguistic analysis of professional activities of interpreters in the process of consecutive translation, students’ experimental with work with texts and material for comprehension and translation in class, survey of psychological tests on perception mechanism made it possible to describe a cognitive scheme of human reflection and interpretation of the real world and its developments which make up the contents of perceived texts during listening and reading. The concept of a subject whose activities are performed at a certain place at a certain time can be given the status of a three-coordinate (subject, place, time) cognitive scheme. The didactic exploitation of this cognitive scheme is seen in teaching students to identify these coordinates in the process of comprehending speech or text and thus to perceive its message by structuring and organizing the information. It is thought to be an effective method of developing productive communication skills as well as to be a reliable scientific basis to create and exploit learning and teaching techniques of handling and integrating information, including that of taking notes and organizing received facts in the process of consecutive translation.

Postmodern Discourse and its Semiosis

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Symbolic representation is a specific, uniquely human form of objectification of the real world, a powerful means of communication activity of its reflectivity. Understanding of the phenomenon of sign representation, its modeling and the definition of the sign and its meaning depends on the sign language system and aspects of the language to be interpreted – dynamic or statistical, functional or structural aspects are taken as a basis. This article is an attempt to review the main components of the sign of the postmodern discourse.
It should be noted that in modern science there is a tendency to revise the linguistic nature of the sign. Among all areas of linguistics there is a domination of the theoretical reflection, according to which all phenomena are regarded as the implementation of language text, discourse, narrative. Therefore, the full range of human culture is the sum of texts of the intertextuality. Consciousness also appears in the form of text that can be read by the relevant rules of grammar, or, by using the decryption of codes. Foreign linguists developed a new direction in science: the main emphasis is placed on the special role of the interpretation procedures and the importance of reading both cognitive and communicative signs, because any schematization of reality is a sign. The analysis of postmodern texts suggests that thought can not be just interpreted, but also disinterpreted in postmodern discourse. In these texts, the notion of the sign takes on a different, broader meaning than that of word mark. One of the important issues of semiotic analysis of postmodern discourse is to examine and identify the codes that exist to decipher all kinds of signs.
Thus, in the context of our research the quite relevant question is to define the temporal signs (linguistic or non-linguistic) to be expressed in the postmodern discourse. As is known, the category of ‘time’ appears as a symbol of life / death, meaning as a cultural reality, and so forth. In modern linguistics it is assumed that postmodern text is regulated by a set of codes: the linguistic code of natural language, the literary code that defines the connectivity of the text, the genre code, and meta-language of a writer. In our view, the essence of postmodern discourse is a combination of mosaic codes, which include the following types of: linguistic, cultural, semiological, interactive, and metatextual codes.

Barack Obama and Modern American Caricature

2019-11-01T23:56:40+03:00

Olympiad in the English Language as a Form of Alternative Language Assessment

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Although a variety of the English language written olympiads (language competitions) exist, fairly little is known about how they are different from traditional forms of language assessment. In Russia, olympiads in the English language are now gaining currency because they provide an opportunity to reveal creative thinking and intellectual abilities of pupils. The present study examined major differences between language olympiads and traditional forms of language assessment. A comparison of five main olympiads in the English language in terms of their levels, assessed skills and task types is made and their distinctive features are outlined. The results of a testing of a new written olympiad of the Higher School of Economics “Vysshaya proba” (Highest Degree) in the English language are analyzed. A set of test items was developed for 120 secondary school pupils in Moscow to find out whether they can easily cope with non-traditional form of assessment, which is language olympiad. The results indicate that language competition as a form of alternative assessment may be introduced at schools to encourage better learning.

Prosodic Variation in Academic Public Presentations

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The article reports on a study of the prosodic characteristics of academic public presentations. Prosodic variation is analysed with regard to the social and cultural context which is significant for the adequate description of discourse prosody. The paper draws on the findings made in the course of the analysis (auditory and acoustic) of presentations delivered by British lecturers. The article contains an overview of contextual factors and discourse strategies used in academic presentations. Special focus is given to prosodic variations in spoken discourse determined by the extralinguistic context. The author argues that that the choice of prosodic means depends on a variety of contextual parameters: speaker-audience relationships (reflected in the tenor of discourse), the speaker’s rhetorical competence, method of delivery, rhetorical tradition and others. The observations made in the paper may be useful to develop expertise in the delivery of academic public presentations which is an important aspect of EFL teachers’ professional training.

Professional Development, Motivation, and Community in a Moscow In-service Recertification Course

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Between September 2010 and May 2013, the author conducted six cycles of an 8-week recertification course for in-service English teachers in Moscow, Russia. The course syllabus was built on developing a community of practice, as a motivating factor in teacher development. The community was fostered both during in-person meeting time and online participant interaction. While the participants’ objectives were varied, the overarching goal of the course – beyond knowledge and skill building – was to engender a sense of ownership among the participants, both of the course itself and of their own continuing professional development. This was realized in both small incremental ways, such as launching a new discussion online, and in bolder, farther-reaching ways, such as organizing a mini-conference for a local school district.

Teachers’ Written Feedback: Does the Delivery Method Matter?

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Responding to student writing, which is a widely researched area, is still one of the most challenging parts of the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teacher’s job. Little attention has been given to analyzing the role of systematic feedback on students’ improvement of writing at the university. The paper reports on the results of a small-scale action research conducted among first-year undergraduate students, which explored the effect of record sheets, used as a tool to track student progress in writing argumentative essays. Apart from student portfolios and record sheets, the 8-week study used other methods of data collection that included recorded semi-structured interviews and a survey. Findings show that providing consistently structured (praise and criticism) selective (global and local) feedback to students has a positive effect both on the teacher and on student perception of feedback and, generally, their achievements in developing writing skills. The study may motivate EAP practitioners to change their current classroom practices and seek more effective ways of responding to student writing.

Reading Accuracy in EFL Students with a Transparent L1 Background – a Case Study from Poland

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Research indicates that L2 reading competence is influenced by L1 reading ability, L2 proficiency, and L2 decoding competence. The present study investigates the significance of two variables, regularity and frequency, in relation to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading accuracy in students with a transparent L1. Fifteen 6th grade students in their sixth year of regular instruction in English took part in this study. Their mother tongue is Polish whereas English is their foreign language; thus, their language competence in L1 and L2 differs substantially. The research design followed Glusko (1979), Plaut (1996), and Wang and Koda (2007). There are four sets of real words. Two features of real words are manipulated for regularity and frequency. The study reveals that both conditions of script, regularity and transparency, affect reading accuracy in EFL students. However, the dimension of regularity is a stronger predicator of accuracy than the frequency with which the students encounter a word. From the pedagogical perspective, the collected data supports the use of structured reading instructions in the EFL classroom in order to restrain negative transfer of L1 to L2 reading strategies.

English Phraseology: Integration with Terminology Science

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The article is devoted to the study of English semi-idioms (a term suggested by A. Kunin), units with both terminological and metaphorical meanings. These units were studied from different angles but here their dual nature is viewed through the possibility of providing an experiment. The paper shows how a linguistic experiment can reveal not only the meaning of some unit, but the peoples’ attitude towards the use of these phrases, their individual level of understanding, interpreting and realising. As cognition is very important in the understanding of semantics, as well as a new perspective in the study of phraseology, a synergetic approach as well as a cognitive one is becoming one of the ways to scrutinising the nature of terminological phraseological units. The paper focuses on the possible ways of showing that terms can develop metaphorical meanings though sometimes people have no ideas of the etymology of some units. An experiment to show the dual nature of such units as terminological phraseologisms was provided on the bases of a specially created questionnaire. The result of the experiment proved that some terms can acquire new metaphorical meanings and function in the language and speech as phraseological units. The results of the experiment as well as various references to the matter of the study – semi-idioms – may turn to be useful in language studies, learning English as a second language, investigating English Terminology and Phraseology.

Teacher Corrective Oral Feedback in the Classroom

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The article reports on a study of teacher corrective oral feedback in Iris Becker Elementary School, a public school serving pupils from kindergarten-5th grade in Dearborn, Michigan. Some researchers claim that teacher corrective oral feedback is beneficial to L2 learning while others discard its merit. This study is an attempt to explore this topic further with young learners. The method used in the study included one classroom observation. The participants included one mainstream classroom teacher and about 25 students. The results show high teacher corrective oral feedback.

The Last Word on Words. Lectures on English Lexicology. Morozova Nataliya. Moscow: University book, 2010. 178 p. ISBN 978-5-91304-152-4

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Self-Regulation Skills: Several Ways of Helping Students Develop Self-Regulated Learning

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

Empirical research supports the long held assumption that self-control, self-esteem, and motivational orientations of adult language learners are important factors in their language learning behavior. However, precisely these variables influence the language learning process has yet to be investigated. The goal of this paper is to examine the role of how self-control, self-esteem and motivational orientations influence the English language learning process. Recent methodological advances and various theoretical frameworks that have guided the present research are considered in this paper. A special “bidirectional course” turning on teacher-learner interaction was designed - a communicative course which promoted learner autonomy. The results indicate that active involvement in learning, monitoring motivation, self-control and self–esteem are positively related to learning outcomes, demonstrating that the acquisition of self-regulation skills have a positive impact on the learning of English.

New approaches to teacher development in an EAP context

2019-11-01T23:56:42+03:00

Professional development is an important part of teachers’ professional lives. It involves improvement of individual skills, personal performance, chances of obtaining a good job, and career advancement. The article reports on teacher professional development of English language teachers. It, first, explains the need for teacher training seminars and an increased demand for new IELTS exam teaching skills based on a study conducted by the author; then it outlines standards for English teachers and, finally, it looks at various areas of teacher development at the tertiary level, such as teaching portfolio, collaboration, teacher study groups, workshops, and research seminars. Findings reveal that teachers lack experience of teaching for IELTS and its assessment; they have also difficulties in teaching academic style to students and explaining the text structure for two IELTS essays; the format of the speaking part is also a problem with several teachers. These results indicate that there is a need for teacher training seminars as the first step in teacher development and a demand for continuous professional development in a particular university context.

Investigating the Gap between L2 Grammar Textbooks and Authentic Speech: Corpus-Based Comparisons of Reported Speech

2019-11-01T23:56:42+03:00

Corpus Linguistics (CL) has made significant inroads into the field of second language acquisition (SLA) and pedagogy. As more corpora have become available, researchers and teachers alike have begun to realize the importance of empirically testing ideas that have long been taken for granted and accepted as fact. This is especially true for grammar textbooks written for second language (L2) learners. Do the textbooks that are being used reflect real world grammatical usage? The current study is the first of two in which three corpora were used to examine real world usage of reported speech (RS) as compared to typical presentations of RS in popular L2 grammar U.S. textbooks as they existed in and up to the year 2007. Results show that indirect reported speech (IRS), direct reported speech (DRS) and alternative forms of RS constructions in combination are not only frequent in spoken English but also dependent on register and context. Further, simplifying RS explanations in terms of backshifing with the use of a past tense main reporting verb may be providing inaccurate information to L2 learners of American English. Results generally support, with some exceptions, the findings in previous studies which employed corpus-based analysis to study the relevance of EFL/ESL textbooks (Al-Wossabi, 2014; Barbieri & Eckhardt, 2007; Khojasteh &Shakrpour, 2014; Šegedin, 2008). A forthcoming study will examine new corpora and revised textbooks to measure the degree of change that has occurred since 2007, thereby seeking to replicate the results of a more general review on the same topic done by Khojasteh and Shakrpour (2014).

EST for EMI: A Problem-Based Learning Approach to Domain-Specific Fluency

2019-11-01T23:56:42+03:00

An English for Science and Technology (EST) course is offered as a potential bridge to English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) in the sciences. Consisting of four modules, each organized around a “big problem” in science or technology, the course challenges students to collectively arrive at solutions through critical and creative thinking that ultimately finds expression in three modalities: verbal (e.g., expert panel discussions, debates) graphic (e.g., problem statements, action plans), and visual-spatial (e.g., graphs, models). It is suggested that Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approaches to language learning – especially ones propelled by critical thinking frameworks (e.g., SPRE) – not only ease the transition to science courses where English is the medium of instruction but promote the acquisition of general competencies thought vital to 21st century success.

Looking for an EIL Pronunciation Standard: A Literature Review and Classroom Experience from the Russian L1 Perspective

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

This article concerns itself with the identification of language units essential to the intelligibility of communication of non-native English speakers (NNESs) in international settings, or English as an international language (EIL) communication. It focuses on a seemingly narrow but nevertheless significant area of speech production and reception – pronunciation. Based on the works of pronunciation scholars and classroom experience, we outline areas of concern for NNES training and suggest pronunciation foci for Russian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). We specifically examine areas where academic discourse goals overlap with the goals of developing NNES pronunciation fluency and rhetorical competence, targeting those features that, if improved upon, would make NNES speech sound intelligible, educated and cultured as the academic environment requires. We consider these features in view of their importance for two emerging pedagogical domains: English as a lingua franca (ELF) and English as a medium of instruction (EMI), particularly taking into account their approach to NNESs’ identity and attitude.

Language, Task and Situation: Authenticity in the Classroom

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

There is debate on the use of authenticity in language classrooms in terms of language, task, and situation. “Authenticity of language” spans a continuum that begins with inauthentic materials – wholly created by a teacher or materials developer – to constructed materials, modified from real-world materials, to those materials created for non-pedagogical L1 purposes. “Authenticity of task” questions whether students are engaging with language materials in a way that would appear natural outside the classroom. “Authenticity of situation” refers to non-classroom contexts. Complicating ideas of authenticity is the question of materials selection. This paper explores teachers’ awareness of authenticity and suggests ways to incorporate authentic language, tasks, and situations to enhance classroom learning.

On the Conceptual Basis of the English Adjectival Category

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The paper focuses on the cognitive foundation of English adjectives that denote mental characteristics of human beings. Several cognitive models have been advanced in an attempt to account for the semantic structure underlying the lexical category in question. After reviewing these models, a method for determining which of them most accurately captures the “cognitive reality” of English adjectival “deep structure” is proposed. The paper concludes with arguments for the inclusion of additional “motion attributes” to Lakoff’s ICM (1987), namely, “guide’s support” and “speed”.

Russian Students’ Associative View of Germans

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00

The article investigates semantic forms of the association field ‘German’ in the linguistic consciousness of Russian students. It systematises Russian stereotypical ideas of Germans through a word association experiment. Five thematic areas of the semantic form ‘German’ are described. Both direct (from stimulus to response) and inverse (from response to stimulus) test items probing the associative field ‘German’ were analysed. The results indicate how stable stereotypical ideas of Germans are in the consciousness of today’s Russian students.

Current Trends in the Development of Psycholinguistics in Russia

2019-11-01T23:56:41+03:00