English Review: Journal of English Education
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ASSISTING STUDENTS TO ATTACK WRITING TASKS ON IELTS TEST WITH “PROBING TECHNIQUEâ€
Get PDFAbstract:  Writing section on IELTS test is commonly considered one of the most difficult parts of test. The test takers can’t even understand what to do with the tasks provided. They eventually write without clearly knowing the expected direction. Therefore, there should be a fastest way to well equip students to successfully cope with such hindrances. This paper is an action research report of how to make students better understand and answer writing tasks on IELTS test by employing probing techniques as one of test taking strategies. The paper will preliminarily elaborate the characteristics or nature of IELTS test in general and writing section consisting two different tasks in particular including its indicators of what expected kind of writing the testees should be aware of. It will then discuss probing techniques in details. The attack strategies and their sequential implementation will afterward be discussed. The technique will assist students to respectively understand what and how to plan and write effectively on the test.Keywords: IELTS test, writing section, writing tasks, probing, attack strategie
INVESTIGATING THE PROBLEMS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS IN IRAN
Get PDFAbstract: The present research aimed to investigate the problems of teaching and learning English in middle schools in Esfahan, Iran. These problems are associated with the learner, teacher, textbook, syllabus, and language policy. The instrument used was a self-constructed likert scale questionnaire. All the variables had a hand in the problems among which textbook, syllabus and language policy had the most effect. Twenty five problems were distinguished among which some are as follows: students do not consider pair work important; most of the time, most teachers do not speak in English in the classroom; the textbook does not include CDs or cassettes, does not consists of all the English Skills; the syllabus does not include one or two projects for students apart from the midterm or final test, Language Policy being not completely familiar with the steps of EFL teaching, does not selecting the most qualified and proficient teachers in EFL teaching. It can be concluded that the language policy should take a practical step in reducing the problems by changing the textbooks and providing more teaching aids for the teachers.Keywords: teaching and learning English, problems of teaching and learning English, middle school, Ira
Phonological, Morphological and Syntactical Influences of Mother Tongue on Arab Learners
Get PDFArab learners' mother tongue influence on target language (English) is a very usual and well-known phenomenon in schools and universities. The present study attempts to find and analyze phonological, morphological and syntactical influences of mother tongue on Arab learners. The study aims to critically analyze students’ writing samples and focus on the problems like capitalization, punctuation, language use and spelling. It critically diagnoses teachers’ perception on the above-mentioned writing problems through a personal interview and offers some recommendations based on the findings through writing samples and interview responses. To achieve these objectives, researcher analyzes forty writing samples of students from first and second midterm examinations at PYP (Preparatory Year Program), Najran University. To the surprise of researcher, writing samples had ridiculous errors. Four writing samples are attached to expose errors of students. Twenty teachers, especially teaching writing at PYP, Najran University, were interviewed in order to investigate the real causes of extremely poor performance of students. Teachers, in the interview, denoted various causes for the present condition of students. They admitted that use of mother in the classroom was one of the major causes of the present condition of students. The study offered some recommendations (based on the findings) like elimination of GT method and implementation of CLT approach in the classroom.Key words: GT method, mother tongue influences, target languag
IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LANGUAGE CENTRES IN SALATIGA THROUGH GOOD RECRUITMENT PROCESS AND TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS STANDARD
Get PDFAbstract: The focus of this study is improving the quality of recruitment and teaching standards at three language centres in Salatiga. The purposes of this study are helping the managers of language centres in Salatiga to ï¬nd an appropriate way to recruit new teachers and helping teachers to be more effective in teaching. This research is qualitative descriptive interpretive and quantitative with a simple calculation. The data were collected by means of interview, questionnaire, and observation. The researcher suggests that researches on other samples and population on similar area need to be done so that the development of knowledge will improve sustainably. It was also found the fact that all teachers were not really up to date with the latest research, articles, journals, and books in terms of language teaching and teacher education. They should be encouraged to be more independent in searching for sources containing current teaching materials. Keywords: quality, language centres, recruitment process, teaching effectiveness standar
ENHANCING STUDENTS’ INTERACTION SKILLS AND CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING THROUGH MOVIES
Get PDFAbstract: In the context of higher education in Malaysia, the aims are to produce competent  and conï¬dent language users in the students who learn English as their second language. By incorporating movies in English language teaching, it will enable the students to learn English more actively, meaningfully and interactively. This study seeks to explore the potential use of movies as a teaching and learning tool in encouraging active participation and critical thinking in the English language classroom. The existence of technology in movies has made ways for the educators to do segmentations of the important parts in the movies for the limited classroom time. Critical thinking plays a vital role in education simply because of the personal and language enrichment. It also allows the students into self-directed thinking in making decisions more carefully, clearly and logically. It is important to incorporate the Universal Intellectual Standards of Critical Thinking Theory into the crucial foundation in encouraging active participation of students. It is believed that critical thinking will enable the students to engage themselves in their own pace of learning and provide greater freedom for expressing and arguments. Keywords: movies, active participation, critical thinking, universal intellectual standar
THE EFFECT OF USING EMAIL ON ENHANCING IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS’ GRAMMAR DEVELOPMENT
Get PDFAbstract: There has been much debate over the use of computers and the internet in foreign language teaching for more than two decades. Education, especiallyforeign language teaching, has to adapt and renew itself to be compatible with the globalized world. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of using email on improving EFL learners' grammar development and to highlight the beneï¬ts of using email in an EFL grammar class.The participantsof the study were 52 female students, aged 1318 who were randomly assigned to an experimental and control group. Each group consisted of 26 participants. The course lasted for three weeks and was held in one of the institutes in Gorgan, Iran. Theexperimental group sent their assignments through emails in addition to the traditional class activities but the control groupreceiving a placebo had the traditional class and assignments were handed in hard copies.For measuring the grammar proï¬ciency, a pretest and posttest was administered to both groups. The pretests and posttests were tests based on the materials covered in the class.The resultsOf the study show that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the posttest.Keywords: electronic mail, EFL, grammar development, e-learnin
NOT CARELESS BUT WEAK: LANGUAGE MIXING OF MALAYSIAN CHINESE IN A BUSINESS TRANSACTION
Get PDFLanguage is an inevitable tool for business transactions and regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, age and social class, interlocutors depend on it to conduct their daily dealings. In multilingual and multicultural Malaysia, it is not uncommon to hear a business transaction being conducted in various languages depending on who the participants are and what the context involves. This study focussed on the phenomenon of language (code) mixing within a business transaction that involved four Malaysians of Chinese descent. The study aimed to detect at what level language mixing occurred and what their functions would be. Data were video recorded and then transcribed verbatim. Mandarin utterances were documented in Chinese and Han Yu Pin Yin and provided with translations. Utterances containing a mixture of languages were then extracted for analysis. Findings suggest that language mixing occurred at the word, phrase, sentential and tag level. Language mixing was applied as a strategy to sustain the conversation mainly because of the interlocutors’ weak proficiency in specific languages. It was also employed for various functions such as for distancing or narrowing the social status, making emphasis and projecting a higher personal identity. A follow up interview is required in order to verify the extent of the participants’ low or high proficiency level in the various languages used in this context.  Keywords: language mixing, Malaysian, business transaction, communicatio
Error Analysis of Writing Verbs in Discussion Text
Get PDFThe objective of this study is to find out the error types of writing verbs in students‟ discussion texts and to identify the factors causing verb errors at the fourth semester students of English major in University of Kuningan. The subject of this study is 20 students. The limitation of the problem is to classify the students‟ errors based on Linville„s error types in writing verbs, there are subject-verb agreement errors, verb tense errors, and verb form errors. This research is using qualitative method by collecting data from documents, questionnaires, and interviews. The result showed that the highest error which most students made is subject-verb agreement. Its frequency is 105 errors or 78.95 %. The second common error is verb form with 15 errors or 11.28 %. The third common error is verb-tense with 13 errors or 9.77 %. The factors causing verb errors are interlingual factor and intralingual or developmental factor. It is influenced by the students‟ lack of knowledge and understanding of the use of verbs.Key words: subject-verb agreement error, verb tense error, verb form error, interlingual factor, intralingual or developmental facto
INCORPORATING A COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS APPROACH TO THE TEACHING OF A SELECTION OF FIGURATIVE IDIOMS IN EFL CONTEXT
Get PDFAbstract: Prodromou (2003: 43) states that “the way for a student of English to become more fluent in the language is not only to have a good command of grammar and vocabulary but also a good command of the ‘idiom principle’ and there is “the need for idiomatic competence is precisely what linguists propose for the non-native speakerâ€. In addition, research shows that idioms are among the biggest challenge for EFL/ESL learners. The aim of this paper is to shed some light on ways to deal with a selection of figurative idioms by employing a CL perspective and to suggest some pedagogical implications. The paper attempts to examine a small number of Vietnamese EFL learners in the use of a non CL and a CL activity to evaluate its effectiveness and learning gains. The results could be used to further explore the use of CL to the teaching of idioms.Key words: cognitive linguistics, figurative idioms, corporaÂ
WEB-BASED LANGUAGE CLUB AFFECTING EFL LEARNERS' PROFICIENCY: A CASE OF IRANIAN LEARNERS
Get PDFAbstract:Â Language clubs have been reported to be effective in learning languages, increasing motivation and independence (Gao, 2009). The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of a web-based language club on the language proficiency of Iranian EFL learners. A number of pre-intermediate learners form two universities (118) were selected among 154 through a test of proficiency (TOEFL PBL), then they were put into experimental and control groups. The participants in experimental group got on line and acted as a member of a virtual language club for a period of 6 months. They got involved with activities like emailing, chatting, and weblogging. Data were collected through TOEFL PBL. The analyzed data from the test of proficiency indicated the outperformance of those in experimental group. Consequently, it might be proposed that web-based language clubs can make language learning easier and more efficient. Â Â Â Keywords: Web-based language club, English Proficiency, EFL learner