FELT - Focus on ELT Journal
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The The Impact of Teacher E-feedback on Students’ Writing: A Waste of Time or a Road to Success?
No full textAcademic writing is one of the writing skills that has been taught traditionally via face-to-face physical classroom settings. However, with the new advances in educational technologies, online teaching and learning have entered the realms of educational institutions and they are not nowadays considered a foreign aspect. Especially in the last two years of great home-confinements due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teaching and learning in the online world have turned into an inescapable solution. The implementation of online teaching and learning has brought the teachers to a new avenue of teaching writing especially in the aspect of giving feedback to students’ writing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of electronic feedback (e-feedback) provided by instructors on their students’ writing in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class. The Learning Management System (LMS) was used by the students to submit their writings, and the instructors provided online feedback using the system. The results mainly show that the students benefited from receiving different forms of feedback using the system and the instructors found freedom to provide as much feedback as provided for different purposes. The results of this study indicate that e-feedback practices should be implemented more in language classes and teachers must receive training to improve their knowledge and skills in the practice to be able to use different feedback tools and resources to achieve different ends on their students
High-school English teachers’ attitudes towards using authentic materials and non-authentic materials in English lessons in Türkiye
No full textThis mixed-method design study examines high-school English teachers' attitudes toward using authentic and non-authentic materials in Türkiye. It thoroughly investigates teachers' instructional material uses and the underlying reasons for using certain materials in their teaching practices. The study comprised forty Anatolian high-school English language teachers from five schools in five districts of Kayseri. Data gathered from a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews revealed that high-school English language teachers in Türkiye had positive attitudes toward using authentic materials (materials used by native speakers in their daily life). In contrast, they had negative attitudes toward using non-authentic materials (current official textbooks). It was also pointed out that despite their negative attitudes toward these materials, teachers used official textbooks more frequently than authentic materials. The primary underlying reason for this discrepancy was explained as the relevance of these materials to the curriculum and the lack of time to adapt authentic materials. Teachers also reported that they could not use authentic materials as frequently as they wished even though these materials were appropriate for their students' needs with their engaging, communicative, and flexible content. This study's results are expected to contribute to the future development of the curriculum and teaching materials, considering teachers' attitudes in Türkiye
ESL teacher and department autonomy in English-medium international schools
Get PDFAlthough the English-medium international school market continues to grow and primarily enroll English language learners, the autonomy of ESL teachers and the ESL department appears to be eroding, as some schools have already combined ESL with the English department or Special Education Needs (SEN). This quantitative survey-based study with 279 participants explored and compared the opinions of 80 ESL, 119 Primary, and 80 Secondary English teachers concerning ESL teacher and ESL department autonomy in English-medium international schools. Data from the study showed that many participants believed that decision-making processes concerning ESL support should be distributed beyond the ESL teachers and ESL department. Further, data showed there was a statistically significant difference between ESL and Secondary English teachers concerning the combination of ESL provision with the department of English language arts or literature. However, there was no statistically significant difference between ESL and Primary teachers concerning whether ESL should be combined with SEN. Overall, the findings of this study revealed that many teachers in international schools could not differentiate between ESL support and English Language Arts and Literature and ESL and SEN, and as a result, ESL teacher and ESL department autonomy is in peril
An An Experimental Study on EFL Teacher Trainees’ Opinions about English as a Lingua Franca
No full textThe present study investigates three different groups of Freshman year EFL teacher trainees’ opinions regarding the English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Perspective in ELT. A quantitative quasi-experimental research design with repeated measures was used to investigate the initial opinions of the participants, and how their opinions changed after semester-long target culture native speaker-oriented class practices versus intercultural ELF-oriented practices as part of their Listening and Pronunciation course. A total of 83 students participated in the study. To collect data, a six-item mini questionnaire was used as pre and post survey immediately before and after the experiment. The results indicated that the teacher trainees under investigation favored native English varieties over nonnative ones while at the same time accepting the international lingua franca role of English in today’s globalized world. The three different treatments they took during the experiment caused some changes in their initial opinions as will be explained in detail in the coming sections of the paper. The overall findings of the study support previous research on language learners’ opinions about and attitudes towards different varieties of English, and their use in English lessons and course material
From Practicum to Real Classroom: Does Experience Change Perceived Self-efficacy Beliefs of English Language Teachers?
Get PDFThe present study aimed to explore the changes in the perceived self-efficacy beliefs of English language teachers over a four-year period, from pre-service through in-service. With that aim in mind, the study aimed to shed light on the differences the actual teaching experience might create on the self-efficacy perceptions of EFL teachers. The data for the study were collected through The Turkish Version of The Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale adapted from Çapa, et al. (2005). The scale was administered three times: before and after practicum and after four years of actual teaching experience. The findings of the study indicated a gradual increase in the participants’ efficacy levels in classroom management and instructional strategies over the course of time. However, the increase after four years of teaching was found to be more prevalent and remarkable
Book Review: New perspectives on willingness to communicate in a second language
Get PDFThe term Willingness to Communicate (WTC), which has an important place in the foreign language learning, teaching, and performing process, was first used in mother tongue teaching (McCroskey & Baer, 1985). Later, MacIntyre and Charos (1996) first used this term in second language teaching. Then MacIntyre et al. (1998) defined WTC as the effects of various psychological components on linguistics in foreign language teaching with the model they developed. In the following years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of studies on WTC in foreign language teaching. In these studies, motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, and personality have been observed to have significant effects on WTC (Alishah, 2015; Mahmoodi & Moazam, 2014; Peng, 2013; Şener, 2014; Tan et al., 2016; Vongsila & Reinders, 2016; Watanabe, 2011, etc.). On the other hand, there are also studies claiming that there is no direct relationship between motivation and WTC (Öz et al., 2015). After all, there are various perspectives and claims regarding not only the background of WTC but also the influence it has on using a foreign language. In this context, the editors of the book “New Perspectives on Willingness to Communicate in A Second Language”, Zarrinabadi and Pawlak (2022) have made a significant contribution to the field by bringing together eleven different qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-type studies carried out by different researchers on WTC, which has an increasingly important place in second language learning and teaching process in recent years
The opinion of ELT students on technology-based classroom approach
Get PDFTechnology integration into the classroom has been researched for more than two decades; but, studies in both qualitative and quantitative revealed varied effects on the usage of technology in the classes. However, the role of schools tends to prepare students for challenges of life after graduation and how to stay current; the ways of using the technology in classrooms are still in the hands of students. Therefore the opinions of students’ can probably affect the use of technology in a class. This study analyzed classroom technology evolution in university settings. ELT students opinions about technology-based classroom were measured via controlled Likert scale surveys. The data of this study was collected through the means of a survey. The survey was administered to three hundred and three ELT students at a public University in Turkey. Outcome of this study established that students’ opinion and attitudes towards technology-based classroom are assenting. However, ELT students did not use this approach more often. Furthermore, the use of classroom is not frequent due to these challenges, inadequate technology-based classrooms, insufficient information about the use of the various types of gadgets and programs; lack of courses for the effective training of teachers and students on how to use this approach. Lastly, this study provided methodological suggestions on how to use technology-based classroom with modern technological tools and materials, providing adequate training for students on how to use the technology-based classroom to help increase its implementation ELT settings in universities
Is tutoring a benefit for tutees only, or is it a mutual benefit?
Get PDFThis study was conducted to investigate the opinions of the ELT (English Language Teaching) pre-service teachers who attended a tutoring program as tutors and the opinions of the EFL learners who were the tutees of this program. Thirteen pre-service teachers provided tutoring to thirty EFL learners in the spring semester at one of the private universities in Turkey. Out of thirty, 22 EFL learners were volunteers to participate in this study. Data from the tutors (pre-service teachers) were collected through face-to-face interviews, and from the tutees through a questionnaire sent as an e-mail. As there were pre-existing themes in the interview questions and the questionnaire, data were analysed and coded deductively. These themes were: advantages of the tutoring program, challenges of the program, self-efficacy evaluation, communication between tutors and tutees, perceptions, and suggestions of both parties. The findings of the study revealed that not only tutees but also tutors had many gains during this program. In other words, while the tutees learnt the structures they did not understand very well in class and increased their exam scores, the tutors had a chance to study with different age group (adults), practice the theories they were taught in their departments, and they could test their content and pedagogy knowledge efficacy. Despite the abundance of studies carried out to examine the effects of tutoring programs on tutors and tutees in the literature (Cohen et al., 1982; Elbaum et al., 2000), the studies conducted to investigate the tutoring programs on both parties (tutors and tutees) in English language education at tertiary level is rare. This study aimed to contribute to the relevant literature with its findings and implications by taking this scarcity into account
An investigation into gender representations in an English coursebook
Get PDFSince the stereotypical gender representations in coursebooks produce inequalities and lead to keep the existing inequalities in society, this issue of hidden curriculum was the focus of this study. This study aimed to investigate the four units of the ELT coursebook “Progress” in order to find out what occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities are assigned to male and female characters, the proportion of male characters to female characters in images and how gender is positioned in the visual discourse. The results of the analysis reveal that the coursebook has positive messages in relation to gender representations but still has a sexist point of view in terms of the categories that were examined throughout the study. This indicates that there is an improvement regarding gender representations; yet, it does not present a fair representation of female and male characters in all categories