EFL Materials Research Articles

Looking outwards: using learning materials to help learners harness out-of-class learning opportunities

ABSTRACTWith the growth of English as an International Language [McKay, S. 2002. Teaching English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press], there is a wealth of it now accessible to learners in their out-of-class environments; be these real, virtual, or a mixture of the two. Tomlinson (2008. “EFL Materials in the UK.” In English Language Learning Materials: A Critical Review, edited by Brian Tomlinson, 159–178. London: Continuum), however, complains that the majority of learning materials surveyed fail to tap into this rich resource, while Hann [2013. “Mining the L2 Environment.” In Developing Materials for Language Teaching, edited by B. Tomlinson, 2nd ed. 6456–6966. London: Bloomsbury] reminds us that learners may not be able to make effective use of the English in their environment unsupported, putting forward a case for helping learners develop the learning strategies needed for this, rather than focusing solely on language, in the second language classroom. This article will make the contentious claim that the global course books commonly used in the language classroom are not essential to language learning, and argue that, instead of simply serving language in bite-sized chunks, we should be helping learners become better able to exploit other resources of language autonomously. It will put forward a case for achieving use of and exposure to the target language, key to second language acquisition (Hann 2013), via engagement with the many learning opportunities that exist outside the classroom, where the majority of such learners’ time is spent. It then proposes and examines two types of learning materials that could address Tomlinson's complaints, above, by scaffolding this engagement process, and explores alternative uses of existent materials towards similar ends. Some evaluative results gathered in a pilot of some of these materials and ideas in a private language school in Sicily will also be provided. Finally possible future directions for such materials will be explored.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family and Friends Textbooks: Representation of Genderism

The present study employed a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach to investigate the linguistic representation of male and female social actors in Family and Friends 4, 5 and 6 . To this end, van Leeuwen’s (1996) representational framework and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) Transitivity Theory Model were adopted to reveal the ideology behind the constructions. The findings indicated a “sexist attitude” in favor of male social actors in which males were portrayed more than females and also had high activity. In addition, it was revealed that there was attempt to avoid traditional stereotypes of females in most parts of textbooks and women were not portrayed at home as housewives engaged in child care, however, it can be claimed that they suffered most obviously from low visibility. The findings may help EFL teachers, material developers and policy makers to be aware of equality/inequality issues in textbooks in order to make an equality perspective to learners.

The Effect of Iranian Advanced EFL Learners’ Knowledge of Collocation on Their Writing Ability

It is widely acknowledged that collocations are one of the most important concerns in EFL classes and materials. The significance of second language learners possessing some knowledge of collocations is now widely recognized. Also, collocations play significant role in second language learning, especially at the intermediate and advanced levels. The present study intended to investigate Ike influence of knowledge of collocation on writing ability of advanced EFL learners. Eighty Iranian advanced students participated in this study and their writings ability was analyzed to determine the collocations they produced. The participants' productive collocational knowledge was measured by free-writing tests: three topics were given to them to choose one of topics and write a composition. Their receptive collocational knowledge was measured by a multiple-choice test. Results of the study indicated that knowledge of collocation have not positive effect on production of collocation in free writing by EFL learners but it has positive effect on comprehension of collocation by EFL learners and there is a significant relationship between the receptive knowledge and productive knowledge of collocations.

The Effect of Visual and Etymological Treatments on Learning Decomposable Idioms among EFL Learners

The present study endeavors to investigate the impact of visual and etymological treatments on learning idioms among English language learners. Seventy-nine intermediate students at Rooz Academy Language School in Babol were selected from among a total number of 116 learners based on their performances on the Longman complete course for the TOEFL test to fulfill the purpose of the study. The students were then assigned into three experimental groups. Initially, a pre-test of idiomatic expressions including 48 idiomatic items was administered to the participants in all groups. During the instructional period, the groups were taught a group of abnormally decomposable idioms through different treatments, namely, visual, etymological, and a combination of visual-etymological elaboration. At the end of the instructional period, the participants in all groups were given a posttest which was the same as the pretest. The design of this study is quasi-experimental. The data obtained was analyzed using one-way ANOVA analysis. The results of data analysis revealed that the etymological treatment was more effective than visual aids on learning idioms among intermediate English language learners. However, the visual-etymological treatment was the most effective one. The findings of this study have implications for EFL teachers, students, and materials developers.

Test-taking strategies and item specifications: Focusing on a high-stake test

The present study was conducted to investigate the test-taking strategies that respondents used when completing two different item specifications (Factual Information and Inference questions) of a high-stake reading comprehension test. 130 randomly chosen undergraduate EFL learners preparing themselves for graduate studies were divided into three groups based on the results of a proficiency test. Based on their scores from the proficiency test, each ability group had 40 participants. All groups completed two reading passages of Iranian National University Entrance Exam for MA (INUEMA) and two Test-taking Strategy questionnaires which contained four types of strategies. A series of Kruskal-Wallis tests was conducted to investigate whether the three ability group's measures of performance on four types of test-taking strategies revealed significant difference after completing Inference and Factual Information questions. In cases the difference among ability groups was significant; Mann-Whitney U test was conducted as a follow-up significance test in order to indicate where the significant difference occurred. The results revealed that the high-ability and the intermediate groups, compared with the low-ability group, employed more evaluation strategies when completing Inference items of INUEMA. Moreover, low-ability test takers used test-wiseness strategies for Inference items more than the high-ability and the intermediate groups. With respect to the Factual Information items, the intermediate group used more monitoring strategies than the high-ability test takers. Focusing on the validity of the above high-stake test, the findings of the present study are likely to be of great interest to EFL material designers, instructors and high-stake test developers.

An investigation into the test-taking strategies employed for a high-stake test: Implications for test validation

Many L2 testing researchers considered test-taking strategies as a possible source of insight concerning test validity. In this regard, the present study was conducted to investigate the test-taking strategies that test takers employed to answer the Iranian National University Entrance Exam for MA in TEFL (INUEMA). 260 randomly chosen undergraduate EFL learners preparing themselves for INUEMA were divided into three groups based on the results of a proficiency test. 80 students were grouped as high-ability group, 78 participants as low-ability and 88 students as the intermediate group. All groups completed the reading section of INUEMA and the Test-taking Strategy Questionnaire which contained four types of strategies. The three groups were compared with respect to the four types of test-taking strategies they employed. The findings revealed that from among all participants, intermediate group used test-taking strategies more than others. The results also showed that monitoring and evaluation were used significantly more than other strategies, which means that takers relied on their academic reading skills for both specific and general comprehension of the texts using neither their background knowledge nor test-wiseness strategies. Signaling the validity of the above high-stake test, the findings of the present study are likely to be of great interest to EFL material developers, instructors and testing organizations.

Examining the Effectiveness of Pre-reading Strategies on Saudi EFL College Students’ Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is a key issue in learning English as a foreign language, and it is critical that teachers utilize pre-reading strategies in reading classes in order to help students enhance their comprehension. The present study investigates the effectiveness of two pre-reading strategies on EFL students’ performance in reading comprehension. A group of 46 students from King Saud University, Preparatory Year, participated in this study. A quasi-experimental design was used, with 23 students being assigned to the first experimental group that received one pre-reading strategy (vocabulary pre-teaching) while the remaining 23 students received another pre-reading strategy (pre-questioning). Students in both groups were asked first to perform the pre-reading strategy, read a passage, and then answer comprehension questions. Results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups. Some implications have been drawn for EFL teachers and material designers.

Teachers’ Awareness, Opportunities and Challenges of Adapting EFL Materials in Bangladeshi Universities

Choosing a coursebook for a particular group of students involves adapting the material against the context in which it is going to be used because it is easy to understand that most text books are produced for large-scale, commercial use, and therefore are not always suitable for the needs of one’s local, particular group. The teacher then, according to Hutchinson and Tones, “becomes little more than a cipher for a prepared text” (Hutchinson and Tones, 1994 in Tomlinson, 2003, p347). This statement very well refers to Bangladeshi university teachers as most of them have become familiar with using Western textbooks like New Headway, Cutting Age, English for Life, etc. Be that as it may, we should remember that ii this case the teachers might not feel comfortable about using these texts because of the mismatch of the global material and local needs of the learners. Therefore, the situation implies that, as teachers, it is important for us to evaluate teaching materials and then adapt them as toils to help our teachers. But the question is how far our teachers are aware of the need for adaptation of these EFL materials in order to make it context specific and student friendly. This paper presents EFL teachers’ awareness of adapting ELT coursebooks at the tertiary level in Bangladesh. In addition, it focuses on teachers’ opportunities and challenges of adapting ELT coursebooks. It is based on a criterion driven questionnaire.

Cohesive Devices Frequency in English Textbooks: Do They Help or Hinder EFL Reading Comprehension?

This study is an endeavor to demonstrate the presence of various kinds of cohesive devices through English Textbook and their possible impacts on Iranian High school students’ reading comprehension. . To homogenize the subjects and divide them into two intact groups of experimental and control, Nelson Battery Test of English was administered as the pre-test. In the 12-session treatment, the experimental group read through eight selected short passages from Learning to Read English (Birjandi, AnaniSarab & Samimi 2000) for 20 minutes per session, while the control group practiced the questions in English final exams back to previous academic years as a placebo. Both groups partook in a piloted and validated post-test. Four passages, extracted from the University Entrance Examinations in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011 in Iran, were read and followed by 20 multiple-choice items. The post-test was piloted and revised for an acceptable reliability estimate (Cronbach α=.761). The collected data were analyzed for normality with Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test. Statistics from pre- and post-tests supported the benefits Iranian high school EFL learners would gain from a high frequency of cohesive devices in their reading texts. Moreover, the EFL learners' moderately improved proficiency level accounted for the benefits they would gain from English texts flourished with frequent cohesive devices. Findings could have some important pedagogical implications in favor of explicit teaching of cohesive devices by EFL teachers and material developers.

Implementing the teaching/learning of oral skills in secondary education in Aragón: Gauging teachers’ attitudes, beliefs and expectations

Current national curricula, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and EFL materials highlight the importance of the studentsdevelopment of oral skills. This study stems from a cross -sectional survey of the teaching of oral skills in S econdary Education in a Spanish local context (AragUn) carried out in 2012 on both teachers and students of English. The present paper focuses on the answers obtained from the group of teachers in order to provide a snapshot of their attitudes, beliefs and expectations regarding the teaching, learning and assessment of oral skills, as well as the implementation of some measures aimed at increasing the required level of oral competence in the foreign language. Teachersanswers reveal that in spite of what i s indicated in language policies, oral skills are not sufficiently practiced and/or assessed; thatstudents are still reluctant to engage in oral activities and do not, therefore, reach the required level in these skills.

The Evaluation of Iranian EFL Textbooks from Post Method Principles Pedagogy

EFL materials and textbooks are important factors in many language programs and making judgments about their needs meticulous book evaluation. In Iran, different textbooks are used for teaching general and technical English to undergraduate students at universities. Despite the great use of these textbooks and dominance of post method in EFL classrooms, it is not yet known to what extent the principles of particularity, possibility, and practicality are observed in the currently practiced EFL textbooks at Iranian universities. The main objectives of the presents study were to investigate whether the principles of post method have been applied in these textbooks or not. The data of the present were collected through a researcher developed instrument. This instrument, book evaluation consists of ten items measured on a five point Liker scale. The participants were selected from two different groups: EFL teachers and EFL learners at all universities in Sistan and Baluchistan province. The data were analyzed using T-Test. The results of the study indicated that both learners and teachers believed that the current textbooks are not against the learners’ ethnicity, gender, and cultural values. However, they argued that the other principles were not given appropriate attention.

Investigating the Implementation of Interjections in Three Current EFL Course Books

The purpose of this study is to investigate interjections’ frequency of use in three different EFL course books. To this aim, the Student's Book and Teacher's Edition of Interchange 3, Top Notch 3A and 3B, and Touchstone Intermediate were examined. All the above books were studied carefully and the applied interjections were identified. Then the frequency of use of interjections in different units of each book and different parts of each unit was computed. The findings of this study revealed that Touchstone course book had the maximum number of interjections (607). The Interchange and Top Notch course books, each with 427 and 330 interjections, took the next places in frequency. It was also found out that interjections were not evenly distributed among different units of each book. Furthermore, most of interjections were concentrated in the Listening and Conversation Sections in the units. ‘Well’, ‘oh’, and ‘yes’ were among the most frequently used interjections and ‘good grief’, ‘yuck’ and some others were among the least frequently used ones. This study has some implications for EFL material developers, teachers and students.

EFL Teacher's and Learners' Perspectives Towards ATODJ

This study investigated EFL teachers' and students' perspectives towards Audiotaped Oral Dialogue Journals (ATODJs), as a computer-mediated communication (CMC) and a Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) task. The data came from 202 entries of ATODJs, gathered from15 female Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Teachers and students' evaluations of the whole program comprised of the qualitative part of the research. The results revealed that the majority of the participants found ATDOJs helpful. The strengths, weaknesses, and the challenges of ATODJs from the teacher's and the participants' viewpoints were discussed. Based on the results of the present study, it is highly recommended that EFL teachers and materials developers incorporate ATODJ tasks in the curriculum.

A Sociocognitive-Transformative Instructional Materials Design Model for Second Language (L2) Pedagogy in the Asia Pacific: Development and Validation

The current developments in second language (L2) pedagogy and the introduction of twenty-first century education compel scholars, educators, and leading education agencies in the Asia Pacific region to revisit their respective curriculum and framework for designing and preparing their English language teaching materials. However, after surveying available literature and studies in L2 pedagogy, it could be posited that there is paucity of a materials design model that would address these developments. Hence, this paper offers a sociocognitive-transformative materials design model to guide ESL and EFL teachers, material developers, and publishers in the Asia Pacific region in preparing instructional materials based on sound theories, principles, and practices. The process of model development was anchored on the grounded theory which allows a theory or model to emerge from the data. In the context of this study, the data (i.e., scholarly literature) was obtained from the top journals in applied linguistics and second language pedagogy. It is from these data that the preliminary model was developed. Using a three-pronged validation approach, findings confirmed the robustness of the model from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The findings further confirm the possibility of integrating current and relevant pedagogical concepts without contradicting one another and without contradicting other established L2 pedagogical frameworks.

Some Remarks Regarding English Transcription Practices in Taiwan

The EFL and linguistic materials available in Taiwan exhibit a large number of transcription systems, all differing from each other in certain respects. While some of these differences are of linguistic nature, and stem from the authors' own perception of the English phonetic/phonological system, others are purely graphic, frequently having arisen through misinterpretation of the traditional transcription symbols as established by the International Phonetics Association (IPA). The multitude of transcription systems and the differences in graphics for the same phonetic symbols can be said to present a confusing picture of English sounds and their transcription to the students of English in Taiwan. In the present article, the background of the issues discussed above is investigated, and, wherever appropriate, ways to correct some of these non-standard practices are presented. The author also provides some suggestions regarding the reduction of the current multitude of transcription styles by means of standardization.

An Exploration of Interpersonal Functions in Iranian Advanced EFL Classrooms

The research explores an aspect of teacher-learner and learner-learner interaction in Iranian EFL classroom discourse. Based on the assumption that classroom interaction is inherently a dialogue among teacher and learners, this study looks in detail at key aspects of the ways in which Iranian EFL teachers and learners interact with each other, bring their interactants into the context, and involve them in the construction of the discourse and the arguments in order to contribute to the interactiveness and persuasiveness of the oral discussion in the classroom. To do so, Interpersonal Metadiscourse Resources – Stance and Engagement– are looked at in a corpus totally 14,249 words produced orally by Iranian EFL teachers and female learners at advanced proficiency level in 15 sessions. The oral discussions were transcribed and analyzed using frequency frameworks and formulas. The results reveal that the teachers and learners use stance and engagement markers one about every four words and that both use the devices for fairly similar purposes. The findings, however, show noticeable quantitative differences: the teacher use Interpersonal Metadiscourse Resources more frequently than the learners. The teachers, also, use engagement markers considerably more frequently than stance markers; whereas EFL learners use both use stance markers and engagement markers almost equally. The quantitative differences seem to be related to the teachers’ expertise in English language as well as the teachers’ awareness of metadiscourse. The pedagogical implications of the study for novice EFL teachers, learners and material developers are outlined.

Estimating the Difficulty Level of EFL Texts: Applying Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

The purpose of the present study was to explore the impact of difficulty level of texts on EFL learners’ reading comprehension through the application of Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. The researchers’ primary assumption was that reading EFL texts would become more difficult as the learners’ performance proceeds from a text targeting their Knowledge abilities through the texts tapping on their Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis to Evaluation abilities. To fulfil the ultimate purpose of the research, 32 undergraduate students majoring in English translation at Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, Iran took part in this investigation in 2011. In addition to Comprehensive English Language Test (CELT), the participants were given a teacher–made reading comprehension test, included six short reading passages from 154 to 166 ranges of words and 30 multiple- choice items which compiled and constructed based on the six levels in the hierarchy of Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) proved that except for the fifth level, the Synthesis text, the EFL learners’ performance was graded properly based on the difficulty levels expected and explored in Bloom’s levels of Cognitive Domain. The findings in this study are considerably practical in developing EFL materials and teaching reading skills and strategies.

A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON MULTI-WORD VERBS BASED ON THE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS RECOMMENDED BY THE BRAZILIAN TEXTBOOK NATIONAL PROGRAM - PNLD 20121

This paper focuses on the analysis of textbooks used in regular schools and language institutes in order to contribute to an overview of the current situation of the EFL material provided to language students in Brazil. It presents the results of a language aspect, that is, the multi-word verbs. This research aimed at an analysis of how multi-word verbs are presented and discussed in English textbooks from the Brazilian Textbook National Program (PNLD 2012), and at an investigation, by means of a short questionnaire, of the way English teachers, mainly, but not only, from public schools, help their students master this linguistic aspect of the target language. The purpose was, first, to check whether a distinction between the adverb/ preposition particles is made in relation to such verbs, as well as to check the use of terminology for an appropriate syntactic discussion. The results from the textbook analysis and from the questionnaires were compared to help visualize the current situation of the multi- word verbs teaching.

Assessing Learners’ Comprehension of Logical Connectives in L2 Texts

To successfully comprehend a text, readers must be able to establish coherent representation of its meaning. Construction of coherent text representation presupposes an ability to identify coherence relations that bind discourse segments together. These relations can be implicit or marked by a variety of linguistic devices such as logical connectives and signaling phrases. While there has been a growing awareness among the teachers and EFL material writers about the important role that knowledge of marker words plays in comprehension of L2 discourse, there is only a limited number of suitable test designs that allow assessment of learners’ understanding of these words. The current paper summarizes the major findings of the research on the role of discourse markers in text processing and presents two test formats that could be used to measure students’ understanding of conjunctions as text structure markers: a ‘paraphrase’ judgment task and text diagrams. The advantages and potential limitations of each test format are examined from both the teacher and the student perspectives.

The Awareness of the English Word-formation Mechanisms is a Necessity to Make an Autonomous L2 Learner in EFL Context

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the issue of word-formation mechanisms in the area of foreign language learning / teaching, and to provide a critical view on the selected English language coursebooks series named Action Pack from the viewpoint of vocabulary selection and teaching techniques they employ. Vocabulary, as compared, for instance, with language functions and other grammatical structures, is still assigned to parts of speech (noun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc.) by a method which goes back for two millennia (Matthews,1974). The new communicative trends disregard the role of word-formation mechanisms; they focus on syntax and/or vocabulary without analyzing the mechanisms involved in the creation of new lexical items. As is pointed out by Lessard-Clouston (1996), EFL materials are often organized along the lines of the four major skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, vocabulary, on the other hand, is seldom explicitly mentioned, although it is always present. In other words, learning of English word-formation mechanisms is seen as a by-product of other linguistic learning. No wonder, then, that vocabulary is less systematically taught and learnt than other aspects of the FL. Since words play an important role in expressing our feelings, and ideas to others during the act of communication, FL teachers should attribute importance to teaching word-formation in their classes. Textbooks play a pivotal role in the realm of language teaching and learning and they are looked upon as an indispensable vehicle for FL learning. The paper has two main objectives: first, the morphological system including word-formation mechanisms will be reviewed, second, to clarify and discuss the necessity for word-formation teaching to learners of EFL context.