Beyond Words (Journal)
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169 research outputs found
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A Study on the Ideal Amount of Extensive Reading for High Schools in Japan
Full text linkAbstract When introducing extensive reading, I always had a difficult time in getting everyone to be contented. Starting with the Oxford Bookworms, I prepared over 500 books in the school library in both fiction and non-fiction books. Vocabulary level tests were also conducted to make sure that the books were at the I+1 level, and the author talked to each student to see which genre they may like. While this is a difficult task, I tried to find the ideal amount of weekly reading for science course students in a senior high school in Japan. A quantitative questionnaire was created using the price sensitivity meter method to measure the learners’ ideal weekly reading amount. Results showed that the ideal amount of weekly extensive reading was 1200 words per week at the 500-word level. When asked directly about the amount of ideal reading according to their level, 44% of the students said that reading 2000 words per week was “little or no problem”
A Book Review “Becoming Community-Engaged Educators: Engaging Students Within and Beyond the Classroom Walls”
No full textThe book under review is a compilation of reflective writings from seven great educators. This book is really worth reading since each educator has included some reflection questions to complement the life narrative they joyfully share. It not only tells stories, but it also prompts my own contemplation. My own reflection has brought about a three-sentence plea: “When teachers teach and students learn, it is just a classroom. When teachers teach and both teachers and students learn, the classroom becomes alive. Yet, when teachers teach and communities are engaged, the classroom is truly revived”. Anita Lie focuses on poverty lessening while Joel Jablon tells how he becomes a ‘radically open’ person. Yoshi Grote highlights the quality of being an admiring teacher. The necessity for religion tolerance is highlighted in Lisa Liss’ story. Linda Ruas shares her love to a wider community of untrained volunteer teachers while Kip Cates provides a gentle reminder for environmental education. George Jacobs introduces quite a current issue on how he implements intersectionality as a life understanding method. If you are seeking for models of life to investigate professional ways to engage communities in order to renew the life you live, this book is not to be missed
Exploring EFL Business-Major College Students’ Imagined Communities, Perceptions of English, and Their Agency
Full text linkHighlighting technology as a site for learners’ agency, this study attempts to contribute new knowledge in EFL learning in out-of-classroom contexts, which is the little-explored area in the TESOL field. This study employs qualitative case studies to explore EFL business college students’ perspectives on English and their imagined communities. It examines how their imagined communities shaped their current language practices and investment in language learning. It also offers an analysis of the interconnectedness of the students’ perspective on English as capital and their agency. The findings demonstrate that for EFL business-major college students, English embodies more than its linguistic power; it is often associated with symbolic and economic value. Taking the students’ personal histories and aspiration into account, the study points that imagined communities played a vital role in shaping the participants’ learning trajectories, as well as inspiring and directing them into who they wanted to be or become. It also shows that the students were highly aware of the resources associated with their target language(s), and they strived to gain those resources. Furthermore, the study reveals that the students exercised their agency using myriad forms of technology to engage in their imagined communities. Implications for language classrooms will also be discussed
Developing English Rubric for Describing the Student’s Basic Language Skill Competence in Student’s Report Card
No full textAs a subject of learning, English also needs to be considered for its aspects. One of them is the assessment. Assessment of English should cover all language skills. The content to be taught involves this implicitly. A more detailed and uniqueness of the scores given to each student should reflect the student’s achievement in a certain cycle of learning. However, the way of reporting a student’s achievement doesn’t really imply all of the aspects. It is only reported as a single score with a very limited description verbally. This research, through its methodology, gathers some data related to the lack of student’s score description, starting from the parents’ questions about it until some experts’ comments on it. The answer is about reporting student’s achievement in the form that involves the aspects of teaching learning English in the classroom using a certain tool. This tool is made using some parameters including the basic competence, indicator of it, score range and the rubric. The final result is a complete description of student’s score for each cycle of language skill and description about the scores. This way, it is expected stake holder and the student can have a complete explanation of their assessment distinctively
A Cross-disciplinary Study of Hedging Expressions in English Articles of Iranian Writers
Full text linkResearch on the use of hedging strategies as one of the key issues of rhetorical organization of academic texts has gained growing attention during the past few decades. The present study aimed to explore the frequency and form of hedging expressions in the abstracts of Iranian writers’ English research articles where findings and claims were more explicitly projected. To this end, a random sample of 200 abstracts (50 each) was drawn equally from the four subfields of chemistry and mathematics, and philosophy and English randomly selected from the two academic fields of Soft Sciences and Hard Sciences respectively as suggested in Biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines. The tally and analysis of the tokens of the hedge expressions indicated that the abstracts from the soft sciences differed from those from the hard sciences in terms of both frequency and form. The results revealed that the writers from the soft sciences tended to employ more hedge expressions than hard sciences writers. More specifically, whereas soft sciences writers utilized more modals, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, their counterparts opted for more conditional expressions. Moreover, epistemic and cognition verbs were found to be the most frequently used hedging expressions in both sciences. This study discusses the research and pedagogical implications of the findings in the context of Iranian academia
Two Approaches for Promoting Student Centered Language Learning: Cooperative Learning and Positive Psychology
Full text linkThis article links two approaches to promoting less competitive, more positive, and more student centered learning environments for language learners: cooperative learning and positive psychology. The article begins by explaining each of these two approaches. First, the article provides background, including research support, for cooperative learning and explains eight cooperative learning principles: maximum peer interactions, equal opportunities to participate, individual accountability, positive interdependence, group autonomy, heterogeneous grouping, teaching collaborative skills, and cooperation as a value. Second, the article supplies similar background, including research support, for positive psychology, including seven principles: relationships with others, responsibility, gratitude, positivity, strengths, kindness, and meaning. The article’s next section explores links between cooperative learning and positive psychology in language education and explains that the use of positive psychology in education frequently uses the name positive education. Then, the article presents an extensive reading activity and explains how the design of the activity draws on the eight cooperative learning principles and the seven positive psychology principles. Finally, the article explains how both cooperative learning and positive psychology support student centered language learning, and presents a student centered intensive reading activity that draws on the same eight cooperative learning principles and seven positive psychology principles
Teaching English Vocabulary to Young Learners via Augmented Reality Learning Media
Full text linkThis research aims to investigate the effect of teaching English vocabulary to young learners via Augmented Reality learning media. The subject of this research was 12 students of grade 1 elementary school. Due to strict health protocols during COVID-19 outbreak, the testing phase was done in students' respective homes accompanied by their parents using cell phones. Vocabulary illustrated in 30 three-dimensional objects and their written form were generated through cell phone’s scanning. A quiz consisted of 54 multiple choice questions was provided after the interactive learning experience. Both the vocabulary and quiz were refer to Thematic English Exploration for Grade 1 book. The results showed that learning vocabulary using AR application was able to increase the mean evaluation score by 0.77%. This application is effective in helping students improve their English language skills as approved by 76% of parents. The AR application was also approved by 59% of parents that it was easy to use. The AR application is proven to be convenience for students to learn English vocabulary interactively and feasible to be used as learning media
Cooperative Learning: A Foundation for Project Work
Full text linkThis article has one theme and two parts. The theme is that we humans can do more and do it more enjoyably when we cooperate. The first part of the article explains eight principles from cooperative learning, a methodology that facilitates students learning in groups of two-four members, along with the learning they do with teachers and by studying on their own. The second part describes four cooperative learning techniques, as a way to bring to life the eight principles from the first part, and also to provide readers of the article with ready-made ideas for using cooperative learning in their own teaching. This article suggests that shorter cooperative learning activities can prepare students for doing projects, and that students can do shorter cooperative learning activities as part of the work they do on projects
Applying the R2l Pedagogy To Improve Entrepreneurship Students’ Exposition Texts
No full textThis article discusses a classroom action research (CAR) which applied Reading to Learn (R2L) to teach EFL reading and writing with Indonesian-speaking entrepreneurial management students at Universitas Katolik Widya Mandala Surabaya. R2L is a genre based literacy pedagogy based on Systemic Functional Linguistics. This CAR was designed based on an R2L pilot study conducted a few months earlier, and it consisted of three cycles, each one of which involved Detailed Reading, Joint Rewriting, and Joint Construction. The objective was to help the participants independently write an exposition text. Through observation and reflection, the class meetings of the second and third cycles were fine-tuned. Observation involved journal entries written by the teacher-researcher and the students. The effects of R2L on the exposition writing skills of the students were measured by comparing a pre-test and a post-test written by the participants. The criteria used to compare both texts were based on Rose and Martin (2012), and Martin and White (2005). It was found that the participants improved in terms of (1) Purpose; (2) Staging and Phases; and (3) Attitude. Thus, this study serves as further evidence of the effectiveness of the R2L Pedagogy to teach English writing in EFL contexts like Indonesia
