TEFL

This essay was written by me in April/May 2010 for Module 2 of the Cambridge Delta.

The focus of the essay is why word families and derivational affixation should be considered and merit instruction in the context of teaching English as a foreign/second language.

Derivational affixation deals with how words are modified when affixes are added to words.

Comments, critiques, and questions are welcomed.

NB: Be careful, I was referred on this assignment because the assessor considered it to "academic" in nature. I think she failed it because she wanted me to do a more PPP type of lesson.

How humans possess the language ability is a matter of long controversy among the linguists. Some of them believe that the ability of language is the result of innate knowledge. Unlike other species humans possess that innate ability which is genetically coded. To them language is the outcome of nature (genes). Conversely, others claim that the ability of language is learned through experience extracting all the linguistic information from the outside environment. It is the outcome of nurture (environmental factors/stimuli). At present, there is no clear winner regarding the debate as both genes and environmental factors/stimuli seem to play a vital and important role in language acquisition.

Reticence is a prominent and complex phenomenon which occurs in foreign language classrooms and influences students' oral passivity. The present study investigated the extent in which students experience reticence in the EFL classrooms and explored the underlying factors triggering reticence. The participants were 104 Iranian freshmen undergraduate male and female EFL students, who enrolled in listening and speaking courses, all majoring in English studying at Islamic Azad University Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch and University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. To collect the data, the Reticence Scale-12 (RS-12) questionnaire which measures the level of reticence consisting of six dimensions (anxiety, knowledge, timing, organization, skills, and memory) was administered to the participants. The statistical analyses showed that the reticent level was high among the Iranian EFL undergraduate students, and their major problems were feelings of anxiety and delivery skills. Moreover, the resul...

The social language forms of English as foreign language (EFL) teachers help them dominate their students through the application of lesson plans in a classroom context. The present review paper attempts to examine the classroom lesson plan, language and power in teaching English in a foreign language classroom by reviewing the application of a lesson plan in an EFL class, language, power and lesson plan and presenting some evidence for techniques of power in pedagogical interaction. It studies language and power across the application of a lesson plan in the EFL classroom context, the paper concludes that how the lesson plan of a foreign language teacher shapes the classroom discourse and power and how language teachers in turn have the capacity to create and impose discourses. The article concludes that the lesson plan and teacher’s talk play a crucial role in the exercise of power through the language of classroom teacher and both language teachers and mentors can benefit from the role of the lesson plan in the classroom context and finally recommends the future generation of digital classroom lesson plans.

http://www.ijllalw.org/finalversion825.pdf

The main purpose of this research is to evaluate the effects of a constructivist instructional
design on a group of students and their teacher. The sample consisted of
26 students and one teacher. The research was conducted at Istanbul Technical
University, School of Foreign Languages, English Preparatory Program. The instructional
design based on the constructivist learning principles that is developed by
the teachers together with the class teacher was applied to the sample group. The
data were gathered using quantitative data collection techniques, analyzed and interpreted.
The findings emphasize that, in general, constructivist instructional design
has a positive effect both on the students and the teacher. On the other hand,
because most schools in Turkey have an exam-oriented system, constructivist ins
tructional design does not appeal to some students.

Few will argue that Teaching English through English (TETE) is an approach that many practitioners have a definite opinion on. Some praise it as the best way to conduct ESL/EFL classes; others criticize it as being inappropriate and ineffective.

Hubbard (2007) noted that contemporary language teachers not only need to have competent theoretical knowledge and social power, but they must also be responsible for the maintenance and growth of their technological proficiency. In this article, I report on my summer holiday professional development experience becoming a certified Google Educator. Soon after I started this journey, I discovered that a Google Educator’s training
does not simply amount to a lesson on search strategies or using Gmail; Google offers a range of powerful, free educational tools or apps that teachers can take advantage of in their language classrooms. Google Forms (see Milliner & Flowers, 2015), Google
Sheets, Google Docs (see Firth & Mesureur, 2010; Suwantarathip & Wichadee, 2014), Google Sites, Google Maps (see McMillan, 2013), YouTube, Google Draw, and Google Hangouts are all examples of the great tools available (see Figure 1). As I began training on how to effectively use each one of these tools, I quickly realized that I needed to become more than competent at using each one should I want to pass the Google Educators’ test and become an accredited Google Educator.

Abstract: The argument I will develop in this essay is that the foreign students are a latent human resource who can assist with overcoming English monolingualism in the Australian population. Foreign students, properly rewarded, can be a major source of skills transfer. Every one of those students is a walking compendium of language and cultural skills that Australians need to know.

This article explores the role of posture in the language learning process, and concludes that it is sometimes critical for learning success. Principles of learning and moving are outlined. The history of physical movement in study is briefly traced. A Korean case study is presented of “failed” tertiary students who learn to learn on their feet. The paper is a practical guide for teachers who wish to experiment with physical movement and location in their own ESL/EFL classrooms .

Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude sur la manière dont les enseignants de français conceptualisent les contenus didactiques en fonction des interactions en classe. La représentation qu'ont les enseignants de leur gestion des interactions a été rapportée au moyen de protocoles verbaux concomitants à une tâche de planification et au moyen de protocoles rétrospectifs immédiats. Pour répondre aux réactions des élèves, le fonctionnement fréquemment adopté par l'enseignant semble «improvisationnel». La planification de l'enseignement est fondée sur des connexions conceptuelles. Elle relie les contenus les uns aux autres selon une appréciation des besoins potentiels des apprenants.
Sur le plan cognitif, la planification est la résultante d'une accommodation entre
des éléments didactiques organisateurs et les apports potentiellement désorganisateurs
du contexte d'interaction. Ces résultats descriptifs corroborent ceux qui ont été obtenus
dans d'autres disciplines et acquièrent de ce fait une certaine généralisabilité.

Enhancing Microteaching at Sultan Qaboos University by

(Authors): Dr. Salma Al-Humaidi, Sultan Qaboos University (Oman) & Prof. Mohamed Ismail Abu-Rahmah, Suez Canal University (Egypt)

Studies in English Language Teaching,
ISSN 2372-9740 (Print), ISSN 2329-311X (Online)
Vol. 3, No. 1, 2015.
(www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt28).
E-mails:
[email protected]
& [email protected].

(Abstract)
This study was an attempt to maximize the effectiveness of microteaching at SQU. It proposed a model incorporating five components: (1) planning and feedback, (2) teaching and observation, (3) self-assessment and reflection, (4) peers’ feedback, and (5) tutor’s feedback. The model was applied to a group of 24 student-teachers of English attending the microteaching course at the College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University. To measure the effectiveness of the model, the planning tasks, self-assessment forms, reflective questions raised by peer students, and the tutor’s feedback comments were analyzed qualitatively. It was found that the proposed model helped maximize the effectiveness of EFL microteaching at SQU.
Keywords:
Microteaching, Peer-observation, Student Teachers, Effectiveness, self-assessment and Reflection

In foreign language learning the listening skill has proved to be extremely essential for carrying out coherent and effective oral communication with other people. Listening is a key skill and is better performed if there is an integration of all four skills and, especially, speaking. The present teaching proposal attempts to develop an original listening lesson focusing on the process of listening on the basis of modern pedagogical theories and methods. To this end, the paper discusses the proposal's rationale with reference to the listening input, class profile and lesson preparation as well as the procedure and listening tasks' efficiency providing a post-lesson evaluation of the teaching outcomes as well. Given that listening is the most underestimated skill in the Greek school context, this paper aims to encourage foreign language teachers to be independent course designers in order to assist their learners develop their listening competence overcoming listening comprehension problems.

This study examined the role of metacognition and intelligence in foreign language achievement on a sample of 143 Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Participants completed Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices as a measure of intelligence, and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory as a measure of metacognition. Learners' scores at the end of the semester were aggregated as a measure of foreign language achievement. The findings revealed that intelligence accounts for 12.2% of the variance in foreign language achievement, and metacognition accounts for 17.6% of the variance. Although each of them had a unique impact on foreign language achievement, metacognition outweighs intelligence as a predictor of foreign language achievement. Finally, the pedagogical implications were discussed in light of foreign language achievement.

Abstract : 1. What are we doing when we do grammar ? / 2. So what is grammar?/ 3. Where do the rules in book grammars come from ? / 4. So is grammar just about the links between words ? / 5.Language grammar always happens at the same time as lots of other things in your brain / 6. What should grammar teachers teach ? / 7. Do students learn useful language control from studying grammar books? / 8. Can teachers teach grammar? / 9. How can language teachers be most useful? / 10. Do grammar mistakes matter? / 11. Is accuracy more important than fluency?

This is the outline of a seminar on grammar teaching given as a teacher inservice for Chinese English teachers in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, on 13 May 2008. Thor May has been teaching language and linguistics since 1976.

Language minority students, many of whom come from low socioeconomic backgrounds, confront multiple obstacles to academic success and advancement.  Yet the intersection between language minority students’ K-12 experiences and their potential to obtain higher education remains understudied.  This paper examines how a set of institutional processes and practices—state-mandated classification, testing, and tracking—operates to systematically limit language minority students’ access to college-preparatory curricula.  Using data from interviews, this study investigates Hmong American high school and college students’ experiences in English language development and mainstream academic tracks, as well as their perceptions regarding access to college preparatory courses.  The evidence suggests that students tracked in English Language Development curricula not only have limited access to key resources, such as college preparatory courses, but also hold lower aspirations about college, compared to those who are in college preparatory tracks.  The limitations of this study and implications for future research are discussed.

The integration of language and culture has been one of the focal concerns of language pedagogy. This integration has become progressively more important with the increasing role of English as a global lingua franca. Therefore, it is important for language teaching materials to present various cultural elements in order to pave the way for the development of Intercultural Communicative Competence. Until now, it has been claimed that most of the government-issued coursebooks used in language classes in Turkey fail to create a meaningful relationship between home and target cultures, thereby overlooking the importance of cultural diversity. The present study is an attempt to explore whether this kind of limited cultural content persists in language teaching materials. Accordingly, a series of three coursebooks used as core language teaching texts at public elementary schools in Turkey was evaluated in terms of four cultural aspects: products, practices, perspectives, and people. It was found that contrary to the previous studies, all three of the coursebooks do take diverse cultures into account, although with a clear emphasis on Europe.

This is the handout from my presentation on "Activities to Lower the Affective Filter" delivered at the 2011 College and University Educators Conference (CUE) in Tokyo, Japan. In this presentation, I explained how Stephen Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis can be combined with Zoltán Dörnyei's work on motivational strategies to create assignments that that are more engaging for students (lowering the affective filter and boosting motivation). These strategies are aimed at the foreign language classroom but are adaptable for any teaching environment.

Although English for Tourism (EfT) is an acknowledged branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in both research and pedagogy, a clear definition of EfT and a clear methodological framework for EfT research seems to be lacking in the literature. This presentation will report the preliminary results of an exploratory study in progress that seeks to answer the deceptively “simple” question: “What is English for Tourism?”. More specifically, a representative (but not yet comprehensive) sample of all English for Tourism literature available on Google Books and Google Scholar, including both teaching material and academic literature, has been analyzed and coded in accordance with the methods of grounded theory. The preliminary results offer insights into the semantic, conceptual, theoretical, and methodological differences between the interdependent yet distinct perspectives of “English for Tourism” (EoT) and EfT, from which a working model of EfT is emerging. The results also reveal national tendencies toward either EfT or EoT and thereby expose particular gaps in the existing body of research.

This study examines the role of fear in the inhibition of more active learning in Indonesian class rooms. It examines the role that fear appears to play in contributing to passive learning styles among a large proportion of students and offers some indications on the types of pedagogical techniques that may help reduce the impact on student learning. This paper has been produced on the basis of classroom observations; the examination of various pedagogical theories; and informal class room experimentation. It is hoped that formal research and experimentation will be conducted in the future to validate or improve the suggestions offered.

We cannot ignore the necessity of learning English or any other important foreign language apart from L1 (mother tongue) in the present globalized world. Under given motivation, opportunity, and appropriate circumstances almost anyone can begin foreign language learning at any age of their life. But, the success in second/foreign language learning depends on a number of biological, social, and educational factors. Various determining factors for success in foreign language learning clearly specify that childhood is the probable perfect age for begging foreign language learning; hence for better mastering children should start learning foreign language as soon as entering school.

TEACHING PRODUCTIVITY AND ITS ENEMIES is a distribution of my original doctoral dissertation "Language Tangle : Predicting and Facilitating Outcomes in Language Education" ( http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804346 )  with a new title better reflecting its actual theme, barriers to teaching productivity.

Although the keys to teaching success are elusive, some of the destructive forces at work against success have enough constancy to be worth the trouble of a well-developed defence system. I will collectively describe forces acting against teaching success as “the enemies of language teaching productivity”.  A productive teacher is one who adds to the learning productivity of students. A productive student is one who  acquires and retains what needs to be learned (a skill, a body of knowledge or a method of thinking) with the most efficient use of his or her mental resources, time and money...

As a working teacher, I am concerned with managing the psychology of my students as well as my own. The “enemies” in this ghostly arena of the human mind are well known to any experienced teacher. However, the bulk of this book is concerned with other distractors – enemies without. Typically they take the form of individuals and groups within institutions who have agendas which clash with what the teachers and students are trying to achieve. Productivity for these other players has an altogether different meaning from the learner’s pursuit of knowledge...

Esperança é a habilidade criativa de representar visões positivas do futuro, que influencia o desenvolvimento humano. Refletindo a partir de investigações na filosofia e nas ciências cognitivas, Miccoli observa o processo de ensino/aprendizagem como um conjunto complexo de experiências nas quais o indivíduo transforma e é transformado através da interação e em situações específicas (1996; 1997; 2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2006; 2007a; 2007b; 2007c; 2007d). Através desse aporte teórico, o presente trabalho teve por objetivo identificar a esperança em experiências vivenciadas dentro e fora de sala de aula, através do mapeamento de 50 narrativas de aprendizagem de alunos do curso de Letras na Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. O resultado da triangulação das análises (qualitativa, quantitativa e fenomenológica) dos dados revelou que as experiências dos aprendizes são orientadas por expectativas e sonhos que os compele a agir – ponto de partida para a discussão de fatores relacionados à afetividade que podem promover empoderamento na aprendizagem de segunda língua.

The idea for the Plan Ceibal en Ingles (Plan Ceibal English) project in Uruguay developed because of a shortage of English teachers in the country. Experienced young learner teachers from elsewhere (Montevideo, Argentina, the Philippines) are brought into the classroom remotely via video-conferencing technology to teach once a week and to help the children's existing classroom teacher, who knows little or no English, to teach two follow-up lessons consisting mainly of practice activities. The classroom teachers are also learning English to enable them to better teach the children in the future.

Through research, evaluation and feedback from children, both of the teachers and other involved parties, we are learning much about this unique flavour of teaching, which requires the remote teacher to present and model the language and the classroom teacher to manage the class. The demands on the remote teacher are high, having to project themselves through the camera into the classroom, engage the learners and manage a variety of technology, including the video conferencing equipment and a laptop with a variety of software and websites so that the teacher can present language, practise pronunciation, show songs and videos, play games, etc. Despite this, what we have found is that the same good practice that applies in the standard primary classroom also applies in this setting, although many tried-and-tested young learner activities and routines have to be adapted to fit the special circumstances.

As well as discussing the practice of remote teaching in this context, informed by existing research, I will also present an analysis of the results of surveys undertaken of school heads, teachers, parents and children and discuss the results of the external evaluation report on the children's progress in English.

The chapter would begin with an outline of the context of the teaching and learning situation in the country and a brief description of Plan Ceibal and its achievements prior to the English programme, which include the distribution of laptops to every state school child and teacher in the country and the setting up of free to schools country-wide high-speed Internet.

This would be followed by a literature review, examining  the relevance of not only studies of best practice for young learners of this age-group (8-12), but also previous attempts in other countries to do something similar (e.g. Plasma Teaching in Ethiopia, the Hole-in-the-Wall project in India) and how the Plan Ceibal English project has learned from these.

Next would be an examination of the special circumstances of this blend of team-teaching and what we have discovered to be successful, based on observation of classes and feedback from all parties concerned, including external project evaluations.

After looking at the lessons learned and changes made so far to the project, I will outline the plans for the future and also discuss what would need to be done if a version of this project were implemented in other countries or areas around the world.

Language assessment is a progressive activity of measuring, testing, and evaluating teaching learning language. This is become important for designing not an instant measure of student's ability. Language assessment work on empowering and endeavoring students multiple language and constructiveness in problem solving indicators. The discrete points of this are always dragged into a continuous research and treatment for present and future toward students' potential

This case study re-envisions the objectives of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program as taught by expatriate staff in a Japanese university. EAP courses in Japan often assume students will study in English speaking countries and prepare them for a western academic experience. However, increasingly English medium content courses are offered in Japanese schools. These courses, while conducted in English are nevertheless grounded in a Japanese academic context and its customs. This qualitative study examines the values and opinions of Japanese Kiso Semi (a fundamental academic skills preparation seminar) teachers through questionnaires and interviews to better inform EAP decision-making. Findings reveal insights into both Japanese academic norms and Japanese faculty expectations for student behavior and performance. Understanding these norms and expectations has lead to a questioning of current EAP curriculum design and a proposed localization of that design. This has implications for specific EAP course objectives, particularly in terms of the importance of intertextuality, multimodality, the role of critical thinking, and the possible transferability of skills between content and language classes.