English Communication Skills Research Articles

The Process of Distinction Through Bilinguals Attending International Schools in Korea

The main purpose of this study is to explore how bilingual students are going to demonstrate their distinction by attending international schools, and in order to distinguish themselves, what process they are going through. This study’s theoretical framework is Distinction, globalization, and neoliberalism. This study analyzes interview data to demonstrate the processes of distinction of participants, using I. C. Jang’s (2015) three terminology: opposition, shift, and addition. The participants’ discourses illustrate that through attending international schools they pursue English communicative skills which they view as opposition of English test scores, and their choice of international schools instead of Korean public education systems causes some participants to shift their language from Korean to English. In addition, the discourses reveal that some participants expect the additional values of attending international schools in the aspect of not only more developed linguistic skills but also more cultural-oriented extra-activities. Finally, this study discusses the phenomena found in the data and some social problems which may be caused by the distinction process, referring to language ideologies in Korea society.

English Communication Skill: Styles, Strategies and Empowerment of the Teacher

English Communication Skill: Styles, Strategies and Empowerment of the Teacher

Strategy Assessment as Learning for Developing Pedagogical Competence of lndonesian-Thailand Mathematics Student Teachers

The SEA-Teacher Project purposes is to help students in developing pedagogical, teaching, and English-communication skills as well as providing experiences of studying the cultures of other countries. Student teachers who participate in this project should be able to develop their competence during implementation of (1) class observation, (2) teaching assistant, (3) teaching in classroom, and (4) reflection and lesson learned. This research aims to analyze the implementation of Strategy Assessment as Learning for developing pedagogical competence. This research used qualitative design that conducted with subject of Batch-4 SEA-Teacher Project student teachers in mathematics education. Research data were collected by questionnaire, observation, and interview method. The result of the research showed that Strategy Assessment as Learning help student teachers to do self-assessment in conducting teaching in classroom. Problems occur during the teaching and learning process in the classroom must be immediately addressed by student teacher with help of mentors. Student teachers discussed their weakness with mentors get fast-constructive feedback. Therefore, they used it as learning to improved their teaching while they still in SEA-Teacher Project.

Revisiting the Writing Competencies Expected by Industries in an Exit Test

The writing component of the Test of English Communication Skills for Graduating Students (UTM-TECS) measures competencies of understanding of task and situation, critical creative thinking, analysis and evaluation of task, choice of lexis, accuracy and clarity of expressions and coherent flow of ideas. Five years into its implementation, a revisit of the requirements was made to reassess the validity of this measurement. The methodology comprises two stages. First, it involved test design, assessment of scripts and sampling of the different levels by the language practitioners as had previously been established. Second, interviews with the workplace professionals from diverse specialisations. The procedure involved showing selected scripts to workplace professionals for them to evaluate the adequacy of the test and to assess the quality of the writing as they deem satisfactory and acceptable in their work settings. Interviews were then conducted after the evaluation session to elicit the workplace professionals’ views and expectations of writing competencies in their respective organisation. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed adequacy of the test but recommendation were used to re-design the UTM-TECS Test of Writing to meet the new expectation of the workplace professionals.

Student and Teacher Views on English Language Speech Contests in Japan

English language speech contests are popular in Japanese junior and senior high schools, bringing prestige to winning students’ schools and aiding winners to gain admission to university (Nishikawa-Van Eester, 2009). As a result, students and teachers devote a great deal of effort practicing for these high-stakes contests. However, there has been very little research examining what motivates students, especially pre-university ones, to join speech contests or how students feel about their experience of participating. In this study, 25 high school and 73 junior high school speech contest participants completed anonymous surveys (including both Likert-type quantitative questions and qualitative open response questions) examining two areas. The first is the reasons students join speech contests (e.g., to win a prize), and the second is students’ overall experience of the contest itself (e.g., was it stressful?). In addition, 36 teachers of speech contest participants were asked why they felt their students joined the contests and their impressions of their students’ experiences in order to look for any differences between teacher impressions and the reported experiences of the students. The two surveys showed that both students and teachers felt the most important reason for students joining speech contests, in order of ranking, was a desire for personal growth, followed by self-expression, improving English communication skills, making social connections, and winning a prize. The fact that winning a prize was considered the least important reason to participate indicates that these students were primarily intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated to compete. Regarding the second question, the overall experience of participating in a speech contest was positive for students, with the majority enjoying the contest and wishing to repeat the experience. In addition, students reported feeling more confident in their public speaking as a result of participation, as well as having made improvements in their English communication abilities. The most surprising result is that students do not consider the experience to be stressful, although outside observers such as teachers may perceive that it was the opposite. Overall, we can conclude that speech contests are a generally positive experience with many benefits for students who participate, thus justifying the heavy time commitment involved for both students and teachers.

The Dilemma of Learning Phrasal Verbs among EFL learners

This study was designed to examine difficulties in interpreting English phrasal verbs (PVs) that individual college student of English face during their academic career. Interpretation is an apparent obstacle that Jordanian English students encounter as they learn language systematically. The learners being investigated were divided into two groups including regular students of English language and literature and non-majoring English students who study communication skills in English at Al Hussein Bin Talal University. Basically, the present study attempted to investigate students’ background level and performance to identify the source of weakness in interpreting PVs either orally or based on written texts. The findings would shed light on translating inability and more significantly on interpreting strategies while students work out the meaning of spoken or written PVs combinations. The overall score obtained by students in the designed test resulted in a plausible explanation for this learning problem and should help for a better course design and instruction as well as effective classroom teaching and curricula.

Does the Consecutive Interpreting Approach enhance medical English communication skills of Japanese-speaking students?

ObjectivesTo determine if the Consecutive Interpreting Approach enhances medical English communication skills of students in a Japanese medical university and to assess this method based on performance and student evaluations. Methods This is a three-phase study using a mixed-methods design, which starts with four language reproduction activities for 30 medical and 95 nursing students, followed by a quantitative analysis of perfect-match reproduction rates to assess changes over the duration of the study and qualitative error analysis of participants' language reproduction. The final stage included a scored course evaluation and free-form comments to evaluate this approach and to identify effective educational strategies to enhance medical English communication skills. ResultsMean perfect-match reproduction rates of all participants over four reproduction activities differed statistically significantly (repeated measures ANOVA, p<0.0005). The overall perfect-match reproduction rates improved from 75.3 % to 90.1 % for nursing and 89.5 % to 91.6% for medical students. The final achievement levels of nursing and medical students were equivalent (test of equivalence, p<0.05). Details of lexical- and syntactic-level errors were identified. The course evaluation scores were 3.74 (n=30, SD = 0.59) and 3.77 (n=90, SD=0.54) for medical and nursing students respectively. ConclusionsParticipants’ medical English communication skills are enhanced using this approach. Participants expressed positive feedback regarding this instruction method. This approach may be effective to enhance the language skills of non-native English-speaking students seeking to practice medicine in English speaking countries.

USE OF WEB-TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE SKILLS

The purpose of this study is to identify innovative ways of enhancing communication skills in English. The article gives an overview of available technologies for foreign language teaching. The authors emphasize the importance of using digital tools in the learning process and introduce some teachers’ experience of integrating web technologies into practice.

What do nurses say about their English language needs for patient care and their ESP coursework: The case of Taiwanese nurses

In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on the delivery of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses to improve the English proficiency of nursing professionals in Taiwan. To support this effort, the aims of this research paper are twofold: to develop an understanding of nurses' English needs and challenges related to clinical nursing practice and to explore nurses' perspectives on ESP courses provided to them, with a focus on whether the courses reflect their actual English needs and challenges. This research adopts a qualitative approach, using data from two groups of participants: a group of nine nurses who participated in interviews and a group of 10 nurses who were observed in the workplace. All of these nurses worked in a large-scale hospital with an international care center in Taiwan. The findings revealed that the participants needed effective communication skills in English to build trusting nurse–patient relationships and provide quality nursing care. However, they experienced English communication difficulties in the areas of vocabulary, pronunciation, and accent, and developed negative strategies to cope with these challenges. The nurses considered their ESP courses ineffective, although somewhat useful, because the content failed to meet their language needs and challenges.

EXAMINING EFL CLASSROOM INTERACTION BASED ON SINCLAIR AND COULTHARD MODEL

The aim of this study were (a) to identify classroom discourse patternings of EFL classroom interaction based on Sinclair and Coulthard Model, and (b) to describe how EFL classroom interaction affects the students’ learning process based on Sinclair and Coulthard Model. The subject of this study were an English Teacher, and 40 students of XI MIA 1, SMA Swasta Nurul Iman. The instrument for collecting data were observation and recording. The result of this research were the following, (a) it was found that in the classroom discourse, there were seven patterns initiated by the teacher and four patterns initiated by the student as the IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback) was used more often by the teacher, (b) the interaction affects the teaching learning process in a way how the lesson passed on to the student affects the goal of learning English itself to be able to use English both inside and outside the classroom. It can be concluded that the students were not getting used to interact with English, and the goal of communicative skill in English was not achieved. Thus, the teachers should reorganize the activities which can foster more interaction by using English in the classroom. Keywords: Classroom interaction, classroom discourse, Sinclair and Coulthard, IRF Pattern.

Proposing a Comprehensive Training Needs Approach for the Communication Skills Training of Security Guards

Good communication skills are necessary for security guards as they are the front liners of an organisation. In ensuring that the training of these security guards fits within the overall human capital development of the organisation, a robust training needs analysis is proposed. The Training Needs Analysis (TNA), which focuses on three lines of analysis, namely, Organisation, Task and Person (OTP), is recommended in this case. To this end, both qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted for data collection. The qualitative data were collected through interviews and document study while the quantitative data were gathered through survey questionnaires distributed to the academic staff, non-academic staff, students of a public university, and visitors. The qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using SPSS version 20 involving descriptive statistics. Results of the analyses were used to propose a framework for the training of the communication skills in English for the security guards. The study is significant since it considers an alternative approach to analysing the communication training needs of the security guards.

Turn Taking Patterns of Average Achievers in an Oral Interaction Test

This study aims to investigate the turn taking patterns of final year undergraduate students who are average achievers in an oral interaction test. The scope of this study focuses on profiling the students’ oral interactive ability in terms of their turn taking patterns in a small group discussion. In order to examine this, the oral test of 14 group discussion tasks in the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Test of English Communication Skills (UTMTECS) for graduating students were video recorded after consent was sought from the students before the recording took place. The recordings were then transcribed for analysis using an adapted version of Allwright (1988) model of turn taking patterns. From the transcribed files, it is observed that the average achievers mostly gave turns through ‘Neither’ turn giving pattern and gained turns through ‘Take’ turn getting pattern. From the findings, the average achievers in UTMTECS oral test are profiled as moderate speakers of English language. Nevertheless, they are still able to interact with other candidates in the group discussion with functional level of communication skills. This study also provides more insights into the setting of a benchmark to evaluate graduating students’ oral English communication competency and preparedness for the workplace.

DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILLS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COURSES USING ICT FOR THE ENGINEERING STUDENTS: AN INDIAN CONTEXT

The importance of developing engineering students’ competence in English professional communication skills to achieve their career goals in the 21st century needs to be acknowledged. In a multilingual and multicultural context of India where students come from diverse linguistic communities, it is a challenge for most of the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) practitioners to develop students’ English speaking skills (Presentation, public speaking, group discussions etc.). The English language course is a part of the curriculum of the first year engineering undergraduates, however, how much focus is given to the development of oral communication skills in that course is questionable. The present paper is an inquiry into the existing curriculum of professional communication being offered to the engineering undergraduates, and it also probes the weightage being given to the teaching and learning of speaking skills in it. In the era of information technology, where oral communication has a varied mode, it is of utmost importance to delve into the discussion of the pivotal role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in improving the oral communication skills of engineering students. Indian classrooms are turning into smart classrooms, hence, integrating the teaching and learning of speaking skills with ICT is a pre-requisite for the teaching of professional communication. The present study aims to reveal the significance of the combination of such an advanced teaching and learning method. This study has adopted a methodological approach, such as interactive methods and communicative method of teaching English language supplementing it with the application of ICT. The theoretical part of the paper is followed by a more practical approach of suggesting activity-based practising of speaking skills in a specific ESP class; to narrow down the gap existing in the curriculum and the need for the speaking skills of engineering students.

Enhancing English Communication Skills among Engineering Students using CA-AVR Methodology

Enhancing English Communication Skills among Engineering Students using CA-AVR Methodology

Enhancing English Communication Skills among Engineering Students using CA-AVR Methodology

Enhancing English Communication Skills among Engineering Students using CA-AVR Methodology

Application of Relevance Theory in College English Teaching

In coming society of new era English has become the communicative language of today’s international context. More and more people are using English to obtain and exchange information. First English reading, as an important part of English, is one of the ways to reflect the reader’s potential English communication skills. The reading process links authors and readers in two ways. On the one hand, the author expresses his intentions, thoughts and feelings in written form. On the other hand, the reader understands the information to be expressed by the author through the identification, connection and reasoning of these linguistic symbols. Over the years English teachers have been dedicated to improving students’ comprehensive reading skills. However there are quite a few English teachers who pay much attention to vocabulary, sentences, paragraphs and articles in various reading skills to train students, let alone from the perspective of relevance theory. Then the paper aims to discuss and analyze the cognitive nature of English reading, comprehensively discusses three reading patterns. Hence English reading comprehension requires a more comprehensive and effective reading mode to guide its teaching and learning. Relevance theory holds that reading is the process of explicit reasoning, the process of readers looking for the best association, and the process of choosing context. Therefore teachers will focus on cultivating students’ reasoning ability, focusing on dynamic context and finding relevance. At last the paper puts forwards several points of relevance theory and attempts to find effective solutions to apply them in the reading process.

The Effectiveness of Storytelling Module in Improving Daycare Educators’ Confidence and Proficiency in Storytelling in English

Reports show that poor English proficiency in oral and written communication is one of the factors hindering as many as 58.8% of local graduates from not getting employment despite being highly qualified. As a step to improve this situation, it is believed that English should be exposed to children as early as 0-3 years, and not introduced at the kindergarten ages of 4-6 which is the current practice in the Malaysian education curriculum. However, at daycare level, where children of working parents spend at least an average of 8 hours a day, many of the daycare providers are secondary school leavers with basic English language proficiency. In order for the children to acquire a new language, the daycare educators themselves have to first be fluent, proficient and confident in using the target language. Hence, a knowledge transfer programme with 30 daycare educators under Persatuan Pengasuh Negeri Pahang or Pahang Daycare Providers Association was kickstarted with the aim to develop and harness English communication skills through two modules: Communication English and Effective Storytelling Techniques. This paper focuses on the storytelling module, its approaches to enhance daycare educators' confidence and proficiency and discusses the effectiveness of this module based on the perceptions of the daycare educators who participated in the knowledge transfer programme.

Challenges to Computer Assisted Language Teaching at University Level

Challenges to Computer Assisted Language Teaching at University Level Farhana Yasmin, Naseer Ahmed, Arif Jawaid, Hina Javaid, Javeria Tariq Abstract The present case study explores the challenges to Computer Assisted Language Teaching at a private sector university to teach English as a communicative language in the perspective of incompetence of university students‟ in communication skills. The study is an effort to groom university students as global individuals in the perspective of the status of English as a lingua franca. The study fills the gap in ELT studies to incorporate modern technology into English language pedagogy to improve Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in Pakistani universities. The main research questions focus on the issues faced by English language teachers while teaching the module Communication skills in BS (Hons.) classes without modern technology. The research tools include observations of the BS (Hons) second semester classrooms and interviews of the English language teachers of a private sector university. The findings of the research suggest that English language needs to be taught as a living language instead of a bookish language by establishing state of the art English language classrooms or language labs to integrate four skills of English language for interactive teaching and learning process. It is recommended to Higher Education Commission (HEC) and stake holders in Pakistan to revise policies to assess students‟ written and oral communication skills for qualifying English Communication Skills as a core subject. It is imperative to improve university students‟ communication skills to face the contemporary challenges in the global village. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v6n2a23

Study on the Construction of Multimodal Interactive Oral English Teaching Model

There are many factors influencing the effect of college oral English teaching. The main problems in college English teaching are as follows: the current teachers’ teaching cannot meet the needs of students; students have low self-efficacy in oral English study; the foreign language teaching environment is not perfect enough. Based on multimodal discourse theory, teachers should integrate the current methods and strategies of college oral English teaching, construct the multimodal oral English teaching model, improve college oral English teaching and promote college students’ oral English communication skills.

English Language Needs of Industrial Trainees in Chemical Engineering Industry: A Case of UniKL MICET

Industrial training, or internship program, is always a must in any academic institutions, especially those offering engineering programs. Since industrial training is always structured at the end of the program, students going for internships are considered to be already well prepared with the content knowledge of their field of study. However, the job scope of an engineer does not entail content knowledge only. An engineer still has to carry out various other tasks like writing reports and letters as well as participating in meetings or discussions; thus the needs to ensure that these trainees are competent in the English language and effective as communicators. However, which English communication skills in particular do the industries in general require of these students? Venkatraman&amp;Prema (2007) claim that “In the globalized context, students of Engineering and Technology need a specific set of language skills for their success in education and career.” All academic institutions should balance their curricula between future professionals and workplace needs of their graduates (Kaneko, Rozycki&amp; Orr, 2008). In light of this, this paper will look at the English language needs of 18 organisations related to the chemical engineering industry where industrial trainees from Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Institute of Chemical &amp; Bioengineering Technology (UniKL MICET) were sent to. A survey conducted found that all but one of the organisations see that English language is important even though not all of them use the language at work. This paper discusses the tasks in which English language is most required and what language functions are most commonly used in the organisations. Trainees’ feedback on the actual usage of English language while they are on industrial training for three months will also be discussed.