Indonesian JELT
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Thematic investigations with Indonesian EFL pre-service teachers: From descriptions to social critiques and beyond
Get PDFThis paper aims at illuminating EFL educators with the application of “thematic investigation” as endorsed by a Critical Pedagogy exponent, Paulo Freire. The investigation involved 14 EFL pre-service (student) teachers and me as a teacher-researcher. In the investigation, four pictures (a McDonald’s advertisement, a beauty pageant, a crowded city, and a beggar in front of a temple) became the media for these teachers to make sense of realities. Using English as the medium of expression, these teachers suggested nuanced interpretations of the pictures. In view of various senses of “critical”, the student teachers’ interpretations represented various “breadths” and “depths” (i.e., the scope) of criticality. Knowing the scope of criticality is essential in being more aware of limits that restrict one’s views. The analyses on the generated themes will become the bases for further reflections to transcend the restrictions of one’s own perspectives
Bilingualism policy in Singapore elite schools
Get PDFThe Singapore government has been promoting the mastery of the English language as well as the mother tongue since 1987 in the hope that Singaporeans can be fluent in both the working language and one related to their native roots. From then on, all Chinese schools are required to teach in the English language, and English is officially known as the first language of all students. This paper aims to study the policy’s background, specifically in the area of Mandarin, and find out whether this policy has managed to achieve its goals, how it has affected Singapore students’ language development in elite schools, how to improve the policy to benefit students in the future as well as provide some implications for enhancing Chinese teaching pedagogy
An investigation of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use: Changes and differences
Get PDFThis paper reports on the results of a study of the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in English learning in terms of changes and differences during a term at the tertiary level in Chinese EFL contexts. A 35-item survey involving 934 undergraduate non-English majors revealed that: (1) the whole participant sample, as well as males and females, reported a low use of the cognitive strategies of practicing and creating structure for input and output but generally a medium use of the other cognitive and metacognitive strategies both at the beginning and toward the end of the term; (2) towards the end of the term, the whole sample, as well as males and females and the three university samples, tended to utilize significantly more frequently
most of the cognitive and mecognitive strategies but less frequently the strategies of centering one’s learning; (3) significant
differences occurred in the strategies of creating structure for input and output, centering one’s learning, and evaluating one’s learning
between male and female students at the beginning and/or toward the end of the term, and in almost all the categories of cognitive and metacognitive strategies among the three university samples both at the beginning and toward the end of term; (4) the three university samples demonstrated differing patterns in using the cognitive and metacognitive strategies both at the beginning and toward the end of term. Based on the results, some implications and suggestions for future research are discusse
Do EFL students like graded readers?
Get PDFGraded readers are widely used in English as a foreign language programs, but we have little information about whether students find them interesting. In this study, 14 to 16 year old students of English as a foreign language in Taiwan were asked to evaluate the readers they had read. Overall, 41% found the books to be interesting, and 24% did not, but only 4% strongly agreed that the books were interesting. This is an encouraging result, but if our goal is to help students find truly compelling reading material, we will have to look elsewhere for additional reading material
A three-year longitudinal study of in-class sustained silent reading with Taiwanese vocational college students
Get PDFThis study examined the effects of three years of in-class sustained silent reading with a group of vocational college students in Taiwan. Readers outperformed comparisons on tests administered after one semester and increased their advantage on tests given at the end of the first year. The gap between the groups narrowed the second year, but readers maintained their superiority at the end of the second and third year. The initial gains were probably due, in part, to the Hawthorne Effect. It is likely that the progress made in the second and third year were more modest, because of external demands on students’ time, which limited the amount of reading students could do outside of class. Overall, the results clearly support the practice of in-school self-selected reading
Writing theories and writing pedagogies
Get PDFThis paper explores the main approaches to understanding and teaching writing. Making a broad distinction between theories concerned with texts, with writers and with readers, I will show what each approach offers and neglects and what each means for teachers. The categorisation implies no rigid divisions, and, in fact the three approaches respond to, critique, and draw on each other in a variety of ways. I believe, however, this offers a useful way of comparing and evaluating the research each approach has produced and the pedagogic practices they have generated
Lexical profiles in EAP speaking task performance
Get PDFThe present study investigates lexical competence in performance on speaking tests. It examines the extent to which learners preparing for tertiary study in English-speaking countries are able to demonstrate their ability to use a wide range of vocabulary in carrying out academic speaking tasks. Ninety-six task performances over four different tasks and two task types were drawn from three different levels. The performances were transcribed and analyzed using the WordSmith program (Scott, 2004). The results showed that test-takers’ vocabulary varied according to task and task type. The results of the study have implications for task design in academic speaking tests and teaching/learning vocabulary in EAP courses
Reading in English by children in Korea: Frequency, effectiveness, and barriers
Get PDFA study of the English non-textbook reading of fourth graders in Korea revealed that about 80% had done at least some reading, confirming that there is enthusiasm for English reading. About half, however, had read only five books or fewer. Non-readers said that the reason they did not read in English was the difficulty of English texts. Those who read more did better on a test of English spelling and vocabulary
Gender representation in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
Get PDFThis study was conducted to describe the representation of gender in Forms 1, 2, 3, and 4 English language textbooks in Malaysian secondary schools. Gender-biased materials have been reported to affect the motivation of students who go through the textbooks (Treichler and Frank, 1989). Computer analysis tools and manual analysis were used to perform content and linguistic analyses. These methods in addition to discourse analysis of the text books aided the researchers to disclose the predictable patterns of sexism in the textbooks in order to identify the existence and extent of stereotypes. The results clearly indicate there is an absolute gender bias with males outnumbering females. Further, certain nouns referring to males precede those referring to females; however, males almost exclusively turn out to represent negative characters