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Lack of Oral Proficiency in English among Secondary Students in Misurata: Reasons and Remedies
No full textThe study was conducted to investigate why the secondary students in Misurata were unable to orallycommunicate in Englishfluently, even though they had studied it as a general subject during their school education. Themain reasons for the students’ poor speaking skills are the traditional teacher-fronted method of teaching, insufficient allocation of time for oral-skills training, and theteachers themselves not taking any interest in developing oral skills. The data for the study, among other things, were mainly based on the classroom observations of the lessons presented by 12 secondary teachers at five schools over a period of more than two months. The data analysis was carried out using tables in percentageto obtain accurate results. The findings clearly proved that the points stated in the hypothesis for the poor oral production of speech by the secondary students in Misurata were correct. Based on the conclusions drawn, recommendations that can positively help to develop oral skills among the students of secondary schools were presented.
Keyowrds: secondary school students, Misurata, English language, fluenc
Culture, Identity and Foreign Language Teaching And Learning
Get PDFLanguage, culture and identity are essentially connected. But, it often happens that in foreign language classrooms teachers give little attention to the identity of the student. A student enters the classroom with his own identity and culture. When learning a foreign language, it is necessary for the student to learn and understand the culture of the foreign language, too. This is where the problem arises of culture and identity influencing teaching and learning foreign languages. In general, students are representatives of the identity and culture of their first language and where they come from. In order for the student to learn the foreign language he must feel that he can express himself freely in the classroom. However, the students are likely to become confused when they are faced with the new culture of the foreign language. They now have to understand and adjust this to their sense of identity and their culture, and this can often lead to uncertainty. It can result in the student feeling unsure as to where they belong in the community.
The teacher needs to be aware of this issue and should include it to the method of teaching and resources used. The paper deals with the question of how the process of teaching and learning a foreign language affects the students’ identity and sense of belonging to a community.
Keywords: foreign language, culture, identit
Students’ Communicative Competence and Language Program Evaluation
Get PDFThere is no dilemma at present times that language learning means learning how to use the language and not learning to know about the language. Exactly for this purpose, in today’s global world characterized by massification and mobility in the field of education, the Council of Europe - Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), as a universal instrument allowing individuals to have a record of the different elements of their language learning achievement, begins its treatment of language use through the context of communication.Language programs at different institutions organize their work in the way that learners use the general competencies they bring with them, but also develop them further. Nonetheless, successful completion of university language courses does not always mean that the student has mastered the language and can use it for communication. This mostly refers to the cases where the language courses are treated as part of the curricula while the other instruction is in the L1. The fact that students at such institutions are not required to take any standardized English proficiency test put the effectiveness of the complete language program under a question mark. In order to provide evidence that its quality language provisionresulted in improved communicative competencefor students, the Language Center (LC) of the South East European University (SEEU) in Tetovo, Macedonia, introduced final oral examination as a part of the course grading criteria. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the introduction of the oral examination as a part of the final achievement exam hashelped raise student’s awareness of the need to improve their communication skills and thus attain better performance. Participants of the study are 114 students from eight sections, two per level, starting from beginner to upper intermediate, whose final scores will be followed in the last three exam sessions. In addition, individual students will be chosen and their progress followed during three academic terms in order to show the development of their communication skills. The results are expected to be used as an indicator for program evaluation by the University management and external evaluation.
Keywords: communicative competence, children, English languag
Price Related Constructs’ Effects on Daily Deal Buying Behavior in Turkey
Get PDFAbstract: Daily deal sites have become so popular in Turkey just as they have in many other countries. Heavy discounted offers for products or services attract most of the people to these new marketplaces. Glancing over the offers before starting to work became a habit for some of the people. However, some others do not have any interest to daily deals. So, it can be said that behavioral differences are unavoidable among customers. There are different forces that initiate the buying process. In this study, factors that affect buying behaviors of people from daily deal sites are investigated. The effect of buying behavior on satisfaction is also examined. Price related constructs (price consciousness, price mavenism, sale proneness and coupon proneness) and impulse buying tendencies of customers are taken as predictors of buying behavior from daily deal sites. Results suggest that price mavenism and coupon proneness are positively related with buying behaviors from online daily deal sites. On the other hand satisfaction come about to be a positive result of buying behavior. Even though the focus of this study is specific to a limited group, it is envisaged that the results will provide insights for both academics and e-tailers.
Keywords: Daily Deal Sites, Online Shopping, Turkey, Structural Equation Modeling.
JEL Classifications: M31, M1
LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION FOR MOBILITY: INSIGHT FROM THE IEREST PROJECT
Get PDFThe increase in the number of students taking part in study abroad programmes worldwide has highlighted the need to offer intercultural preparation for this specific group of students. The IEREST European project (Intercultural Education Resources for Erasmus Students and their Teachers) has produced a set of teaching resources to help students benefit from their sojourn in terms of personal growth and intercultural learning.
The theoretical approach underlying such resources is linked to a concept of interculturality that promotes the idea of multiple identities, and to the notion that identities are co-constructed in interaction (Holiday, 2011, 2013). Furthermore, the learners are taught to recognize the subjectivity and instability of worldviews. In this sense, the activities are culture-general, and can be taught to students regardless of their specific destination.
This paper presents the activity “Meeting people abroad”. Although originally not designed for the language classroom, it was adapted for use in an Englishlanguage course for a group of future Erasmus students. Central to the activity is the learners’ engagement with other mobile students through the task of carrying out an interview from potentially non-essentialist perspectives. The target language is thus seen not as an aim in itself, but as the means to develop the learners’ intercultural communication skills and understanding.
In their new format for the foreign language classroom, the activity was tested at the University of Bologna in September 2014. Feedback was collected through focus groups at the end of the course, and was used to evaluate the materials and reflect on ways of introducing the intercultural in foreign language education (Byram, 2008), in particular in the context of student mobility
A YEAR OF CELEBRATIONS: RAISING CULTURAL AWARENESS IN CLASS
Get PDFThe multinational nature of the English speaking community as well as the increasing use of English by non –native speakers, as it has become the lingua franca of our era, may lead to the assumption that the English language is not tied to any particular culture. This paper however suggests that teachers should choose a pluralistic approach with the ultimate goal of raising their students’ intercultural communicative competence. Thus, it examines both theoretically and practically, through extensive Needs Analyses, and a posteriori students’ evaluations, the appeal of a cultural awareness approach and the success of its implementation by means of a series of organized events. The Needs Analyses prove that the students are eager to learn more about the countries which they overwhelmingly consider a possible destination for studies and/or job (mainly US, UK, Australia, Canada and to a lesser extent Ireland). Celebrations, sports, local cuisines, as well as music and the film industry are absolutely cherished.
Their participation in events including British Tea Parties, Irish Saint Patrick’s Day presentations and distinctive American Thanksgiving and Halloween celebrations prove the merit of the cultural awareness approach in EFL. Thus Clarks’s objective “to learn by doing rather than by being taught” can be applied in conjunction with a modern intercultural communicative approach and a strategy of an English language contextualization. Hence, students embark voluntarily on a learning process, improving not only their language but also their research, organizational and communication skills, while achieving cultural familiarization with all English-speaking people. In order to achieve the aforementioned, the use of computer-based technology is a sine qua non since it offers flexibility and redefines the roles of the teacher and the learners as the teacher assumes the role of the facilitator/guide on the side, leading students to autonomy
THE ACCESSIBILITY HIERARCHY OF RELATIVIZATION IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Get PDFThe accessibility hierarchy of relativization (Keenan and Comrie 1977) describes the restrictions that the grammar of a language imposes on the relativizability of clause and phrase constituents. This paper explores the applicability and validity of the accessibility hierarchy in second language acquisition and production.
It has been noticed that even Danes who are fairly proficient in English (university students) seem to have difficulties with relativizing possessors despite the fact that Danish has the exact same rules for relativization as English. All the elements listed in Keenan and Comrie’s hierarchy can be relativized, and several of the relativizers in the two languages are cognates. On the one hand, the apparent difficulties of Danes defy common sense and theories on contrastivity and cross-linguistic influence (Ellis 2009, 2012, Jarvis 2011, Lado 1957), according to which Danes should not have problems with the formation of English relative clauses. On the other hand, they lend the accessibility hypothesis support since Danes seem to be challenged by the relativization of constituents that are low on the accessibility hierarchy, suggesting that the hierarchy is not only relevant for the static differences between language systems, but also for the dynamic interlanguage of language learners (Selinker 1972).
This study investigates the nature of the abovementioned difficulties and attempts to place the accessibility hierarchy subsequently in the context of second language acquisition by analysing several types of data stemming from Danish students studying English Business Communication. Essays and summaries in English, translations from Danish into English and vice versa, as well as gap-filling tests and tests concerning the construction of relative clauses by merging independent clauses both in English and Danish are analysed
THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH L2 BY IMMIGRANT CHILDREN: EAL AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION IN MULTILINGUAL IRELAND
Get PDFSince the 1990s, Ireland has experienced considerable immigration. Currently, 12% of its schoolchildren come from immigrant backgrounds. The majority of these children learn English as a second (additional) language (ESL/EAL). The Irish Department of Education and Skills (DES) provides a programme of English language support for young ESL learners. To guide this programme, English Language Proficiency Benchmarks were developed by Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT), a campus company of Trinity College, Dublin. IILT produced two sets of context-appropriate ‘Benchmarks’, for primary and secondary education, derived from the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This paper focuses on English L2 acquisition in Irish primary schools. It reports on how the primary level Benchmarks describe L2 proficiency development across CEFR levels A1, A2 and B1 in a manner sensitive to age/cognitive stage and curriculum requirements. It discusses assessment resources based on these Benchmarks – a version of the European Language Portfolio (IILT 2004) and the Primary School Assessment Kit (DES 2007). These tools enable assessment of and assessment for learning and promote learner autonomy. Research conducted by the author of this paper (published in 2014) into the relation between learning outcomes expressed in the Benchmarks and immigrant children’s English L2 acquisition is presented. It reports on mixed-methods analysis of data from a longitudinal study of L2 acquisition involving 18 children, aged four to ten years, from ten language backgrounds (including Croatian and Serbian). The children’s acquisition of English oral and literacy skills indicate that the Benchmarks appropriately describe L2 proficiency development. Individual and interactional influences on L2 acquisition and their pedagogical implications are discussed. The paper considers how CEFR-related approaches can support language learning, teaching and assessment in an intercultural educational environment
A CASE STUDY: EFL LEARNERS’ AND WRITING TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS PERFORMANCE BASED PORTFOLIO IN A UNIVERSITY CONTEXT
Get PDFThis study has been carried out to investigate the attitudes of students and writing teachers towards the performance-based portfolio. In the study, both qualitative and quantitative research methods have been used. Within the process of qualitative research, teacher reflection papers have been used and interviews with the teachers and students have been made. Within the quantitative research process, an attitude survey designed by Brooks (1999) has been used and the student attitudes have been investigated. The participants of the study are 89 university students and 5 writing teachers. In the light of the findings obtained from this study, it has been concluded that the majority of the writing teachers and the interviewed students have a positive attitude towards the performance based portfolio while the findings from the student attitude survey displays the opposite. According to the findings from the general attitude survey, the majority of the students show a negative attitude towards the performance-based portfolio
ŽIVOTINJSKA SIMBOLIKA U IZABRANIM DJELIMA GÜNTERA GRASSA
Get PDFPromatrajući Grassove naslove, primjećujemo čestu upotrebu životinja: Mačka i miš, Pasje godine, Lumbur, Štakorica, Korakom raka, itd.. Cilj ovoga rada je analizirati zašto se Grass odlučuje za određenu životinju u izboru svojih naslova, prikazati simboliku odabranih životinja i otkriti postoji li veza između životinje i djela. Analiza se temelji na tri njegova djela: Mačka I miš (1961.), Pasje godine (1963.) I Lumbur (1977.)