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Generative artificial intelligence in EFL writing: A pedagogical stance of pre-service teachers and teacher trainers
Get PDFThis study examines pre-service English language teachers’ grounds and connections between the use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in EFL writing skills and future prospects to integrate them into their teaching practices. Employing a qualitative research paradigm, a researcher-developed survey was used to elicit the perspectives of 28 pre-service English language teachers and 10 teacher trainers. The stages of qualitative data analysis were followed, emergent ideas embedded in the responses were labeled and the codes were clustered into broader themes to obtain a description of their reflections. This study documented reflections on the transformative impact of generative AI in EFL writing. Benefits were reported considering the use of AI tools to overcome writer’s block and get language support, and instantaneous and personalized feedback to the texts. Foregrounding concerns regarding academic misconduct, a need was highlighted for ethical guidelines and enhancement to AI literacy to ensure the validity of AI-generated content. Further, they suggested reformulating assessment and evaluation in EFL writing skills and moving away from result-oriented exams suggesting the adoption of performance-based and process-oriented assessments. Accordingly, ethical and pedagogical implications were offered to adopt a critical stance to improve AI literacy skills in EFL writing development
Shaping academic identity: The influence of journal editorship on Vietnamese EFL lecturers
Get PDFThis qualitative study investigates the impact of the role of journal editor on the sense of self within the academic community, focusing on Vietnamese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lecturers. Amidst Vietnam’s evolving EFL academic environment, this research aims to explore how transitioning into a journal editor role influences lecturers’ professional identity, recognition, and sense of belonging within the academic community. Employing a qualitative methodology, the study utilized semi-structured interviews with two Vietnamese EFL lecturers who had recently transitioned into journal editor roles. Through thematic analysis, three key themes emerged: an enhanced sense of professional identity, increased recognition and influence within the academic community, and a shift in perceptions of role and responsibility. The findings reveal that assuming a journal editor role significantly impacts lecturers’ professional identities, enhancing their sense of self and positioning within the academic community. The study highlights the role’s transformative potential in elevating academics’ professional trajectories and reshaping their professional identities. This study contributes to the understanding of academic identity dynamics, particularly in non-native English-speaking contexts, offering valuable insights for academic institutions, scholarly publishers, and individuals navigating the complexities of academic roles and identities
Exploring Legal English teaching at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb: A comprehensive analysis
Get PDFThe paper describes teaching of Legal English at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, the use of digital tools in teaching and some current challenges in the teaching process. Courses in Legal English or German are obligatory for all 1st and 2nd students. More than 90% of students take Legal English. The Faculty offers a number of elective courses for the 5th year students, among which are Advanced Legal English and Comparative Legal Linguistics. Legal English differs from other languages for specific purposes because of its specific characteristics, such as technical vocabulary, polysemy, archaisms, long and complex sentences, borrowings from other languages, passivization, subordination, nominalisation and so on. Legal English courses are designed to upgrade the students’ ability to understand and analyse legal texts written in English in their studies and later in their professional work, as well as to improve their translation skills and language competence. To achieve these goals, a new textbook has been prepared by the members of the Department of Foreign Languages taking into consideration the needs of today’s students of law.
Politeness perception of university students and lecturers in email requests: A comparison study
Get PDFAs digital communication lacks key aspects of face-to-face communication, such as the absence of paralinguistic clues, improving the quality of digital communication is a need in today’s world. In educational settings, digital communication often takes place through emails, especially between students and lecturers. The interaction between two parties must be investigated to contribute to effective communication quality because emails might lead to misunderstandings between students and teachers. In Turkish culture, politeness is expected to be expressed in the interaction while communicating with a person with a higher rank, and the same is also expected while communicating online. For this reason, this present study aims to investigate students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of politeness in email requests. Five sample emails, each adopting different politeness strategies: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, positive and negative politeness, and off record, have been sent to lecturers and students from different universities. While lecturers were asked to rate the politeness of email requests, students were asked to rate the likelihood of sending the sample emails to their lecturers. The results have suggested an overall match between students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of politeness with both groups rating negative politeness strategy as the politest way to request emails
A child-oriented corpus-based study of semantically related verbs using sketch engine
Get PDFThis paper presents a corpus-based study on four pairs of high-frequency verbs: say and tell, do and make, see and look, and go and come, which are semantically related but do not show the same grammatical or collocational behavior, and therefore can easily be confused in their usage by Spanish young learners (YLs) of English. The study is child-oriented in two senses: First, the corpus used, a corpus of Children’s Short Stories (CSS), was compiled with texts addressed to children, so they display specific linguistic features. Secondly, the research has been conducted with YLs in mind, so the choice of the pairs of common verbs studied is based on their difficulty for Spanish-speaking YLs and the data-driven learning (DDL) activities proposed are directed to YLs (aged 10-12). The methodology comprises the selection of verbs, their grammatical patterns, and an inventory of the strongest collocates for each category, based on word sketches and the typicality score (Log Dice) provided by Sketch Engine (SE) text analysis software. By identifying the most frequent semantically closely related verbs and their use in grammatical and phraseological structures, and by providing EFL student teachers with this information, awareness can be raised about a) how to find vocabulary especially worth teaching in primary education because they are high-frequency words, simple in meaning but difficult in usage, and b) how to teach these words, including direct and indirect corpus-aided language learning, like DDL, simplified and adapted for YLs, and the inclusion of authentic examples in the teaching materials
Journaling about interaction: Metacognition around language learning
Get PDFOpportunities for interaction are not guaranteed in study abroad experiences, as they are premised upon fragile new language identities that are supported (or not) by a constellation of relationships, meaningful encounters, and a sense of belonging. This study focuses on a journaling activity added to a regularly occurring group meeting at a US university to engage international graduate students in conversational English. Through weekly journals and small group discussion, students reflect upon how context and interlocutors influence what they can do in a new language. Students were invited to consider both micro-contexts (situation-based) and macro-contexts (geopolitics, racialization) of their interactions, and explore interactional “successes” as well as breakdowns. Findings include increased awareness of the considerable burden for international students in engineering interactional “success,” and the diversified, yet persistent tendency of native speaker ideology to influence learner perspectives
Comparison of individual differences and Hofstede’s culture layers in the SLA process
Get PDFThe preliminary idea of incorporating culture into language teaching has not been thoroughly framed from the Sociopragmatic and Pragmalinguistic dimensions, whereas second/foreign language learning was the focal point of attention in the various contexts. At this point, Hofstede defines the term "culture," and its six dimensions: Masculinity/Femininity, Indulgence/Restraint, Power Distance, Individualism/Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long/Short Term Orientation. It is helpful to remember that each of the six culture layers that Hofstede established may help us to comprehend individual differences, which is the fundamental idea behind the SLA (Second Language Acquisition) process. The relationship between language and culture is examined in the present narrative study by using the lens of Sociolinguistics and SLA principles to understand the role of culture in the SLA process via unrevealing the similarities between Hofstede’s culture layers’ and the principle of individual differences in SLA (Dörnyei, 2007). Depending upon the results of the present narrative literature review study, the process of learning a language is culture-specific, which is also supported by the idea of "culture" being homogenized. There is undoubtedly no objective tool for assessing culture inside a certain society. Nonetheless, during the SLA process, taking into account the unique characteristics of EFL environments could aid in the development of both large- and small-scale policies and initiatives that will further the process
Language, culture, connection: The medium of instruction and intercultural communicative competence
Get PDFEnglish medium instruction (EMI) is becoming widespread day by day, especially among non-native English speakers. Moreover, Partial English Medium Instruction (PEMI) is gaining popularity due to some factors. Thus, investigating the intercultural structures of these programs is crucial. In this respect, this study, which is a quantitative one, seeks answers to uncover the relationship between tertiary-level students’ intercultural communication skills and the type of medium of instruction they get. In addition, the relationship between learners’ self-perceived language proficiency levels and their Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) is examined. Moreover, this study investigates the relationship between students’ language learning mindsets and intercultural communication skills. The findings of the study reveal that there are significant relationships between ICCs and type of instruction. Students in EMI programs develop higher levels of attitudes, intercultural communication, and cognitive skills. In addition, Turkish Medium Instruction (TMI) students obtain higher levels of entity mindsets, which might influence their enrollment preferences
Analyzing grammarly software for corrective feedback: Teacher’s perspective on affordances, limitations and implementation
Get PDFProviding support and feedback in the development of ESL writing skills is imperative for engineering students. The goal of the current study is to assess the potential of using Grammarly software in editing the writing of ESP students while taking into account the current technological advancements in providing computer-mediated corrective feedback and the propensity of engineering students to use digital tools. 35 short essays submitted by first-year students at the University of Novi Sad's Faculty of Technical Sciences were examined in the study. A random selection of essays was made from a pool of online essays written by students during the academic year 2021/2022. In order to compare Grammarly-provided suggestions with the teacher's corrections, the selected essays were corrected by both the teacher and Grammarly software. For the purpose of determining the affordances and limitations of using this digital tool to provide corrective feedback, the authors examined the differences between Grammarly-suggested corrections and teacher-made corrections by classifying them into five groups. According to the results, this tool can be beneficial to ESP classes to some extent, but teacher feedback still plays an important role
Preface to the special issue “Exploring the intersection of technology and pedagogy: Advancements in English language teaching for the digital age”
Get PDFTeaching practices have become versatile more than ever in the 21st century. Students no longer silently listen and take notes to teachers presenting materials. Instead, they are engaged in a communicative approach that requires adjustments and additional tools. Following needs analyses, students’ levels of digital literacy demand an equally interactive and adaptable approach to English Language Teaching (ELT). Moreover, a student’s motivation and desire to improve their language skills further motivates them to strive for excellence and personal growth. This special issue aims to identify the (small) issues and tools that can enhance success in ELT. Our intention has been to include articles that provide valuable insights into utilizing current technological advancements in the classroom in order to provide students with new knowledge as well as computer-mediated feedback during their learning process. Considering the students’ inclination toward digital tools, articles in this issue explore how technology can enhance language learning and engagement, including the possibilities of utilizing generative Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, audio and video lectures, videoclips and content-based practice sheets, mobile glossary and other tools to enhance specific language skills, facilitate the acquisition of specialized terminology, and promote authentic language use. On the other hand, it also explores the intersection of literature and innovative technologies in the classroom. Furthermore, this special issue has welcomed articles that explore the vital subjects of motivation and feedback, and also teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, in illuminating the potential for digitally improving ELT effectiveness and ultimately leading to improved language learning outcomes