ESL Materials Research Articles

Annotated Bibliography of ESL Materials

Annotated Bibliography of ESL Materials

Annotated Bibliography of ESL Materials

Annotated Bibliography of ESL Materials

Applying Recent Research to ESL in the Bilingual Classroom

Abstract Bilingual education has moved from a position of documenting its successes to studying the reasons for its success. It is now up to teachers and administrators to apply that research in systemmatic ways. One model for implementing the latest research in second language education takes advantage of native language instruction, as described by Cummins (1981), while developing lessons along the lines of the notional/functional syllabus. In this model the teacher plans the ESL curriculum by taking into consideration program objectives, students’ language needs, the nature of the linguistic task, and prescribed textual and supplemental materials. Emphasis on grammatical accuracy, so prevalent in ESL materials, gives way to specific language use necessary in the school domain. The implementation of the model relies on the cognitively-based linguistic functions in Sampson’s (1972) language arts approach as well as the language-rich environment.

Computer-based education and the teaching of English for specific purposes: Report on a project in progress

South Africa is a multilingual country. Apart from two official languages, there are seven major languages. The latter group form part of the so-called Southeastern Bantu languages. When students with a Bantu language background start their university careers, they face a very serious communication problem because the medium of instruction is English. This means that they have to study in an ESL situation. In many cases English may even be a third language because they often speak more than one vernacular language. Students who enroll for courses in a faculty of Science are in the situation where they need English for Science and Technology (EST). In the beginning of 1979 Control Data Corporation (U.S.A.) introduced their PLATO Education System in South Africa. Their main interest was to offer people whose native language was not one of the official languages, viz. English and Afrikaans (the latter originated from Dutch), opportunities for educational upgrading. This area of interest led to a number of problems that called for immediate attention. Among these was the need for ESL course materials. The English materials available on PLATO were not ESL materials. Furthermore, the students' lack of proficiency in English made it difficult for them to benefit from excellent courses in many other subject areas.

Communication Skills for the Adult ESL Student: A Microcounseling Approach

The motivation to develop this article came from the influx of over 150,000 adult immigrants into Florida during the past year. Since that time Florida educators have been seeking the most effective ways to give these new arrivals large doses of ESL instruction, survival skills, and vocational training. Although the functional/notional syllabus seems to address the special needs of adult ESL students, few structured and systematic classroom techniques have been developed to teach it. Microcounseling is one of the most widely used and systematic methods of developing interpersonal communication skills. By modifying this approach to include lexical, syntactic, and cultural components, we too can use this method to teach ESL students to communicate effectively. ESL teachers are certainly aware of their students' need for communicative competence, yet most ESL methods and materials more traditionally emphasize manipulating phonemes, morphemes, and verb phrases. Although it is reasonable to include some discrete-point teaching in any ESL course, it is not reasonable to assume that students will somehow magically integrate these language components into meaningful and appropriate messages without our help. Consider, for a moment, the tens of thousands of recent adult immigrants from Indochina, Cuba, and Haiti to the U.S. These people enter here with little or no proficiency in English, virtually no knowledge of U.S. customs, and, worse, few job skills. Although English is extremely important to adult immigrants, the more basic needs for survival and an immediate job often take precedence. An ESL program for adults should include discrete-point grammar teaching, as well as opportunities for the students to integrate the discrete points into meaningful messages which will aid them in developing interpersonal communication skills. These skills will both enhance their employment prospects and enable them to develop satisfying relationships with Americans.

Functional Exercises: Improving Overall Coherence in ESL Writing

Teaching advanced writing in ESL classes presents several difficulties, ranging from methods for coping with large, heterogeneous classes to the scarcity of ESL materials concerned with the organization of writing above the paragraph level. In this article, we offer a versatile design for writing exercises initially developed for the University of Michigan EAP classes. The design has two purposes: 1) to provide more individualized instruction for advanced writing students, thereby helping them to write more effectively in the genres they will actually need to use, and 2) to acquaint students with some of the English thought patterns which underly the organization of longer units of discourse, from compositions to full-length academic papers. This design for advanced writing materials isolates one organizational function at a time for intensive practice, includes practice in the use of appropriate discourse signals, and stresses the need for integrating functional reading and writing activities. The rationale behind this approach is discussed, the design presented and then illustrated with samples of exercises on writing introductions to compositions, academic papers, and letters.

Contraction and Blending: The Use of Orthographic Clues in Teaching Pronunciation

This article is divided into two major sections: in Section I we outline certain problems that arise when ESL materials rely too exclusively on contractions (orthographic phenomena) as a means of presenting blendings (phonological phenomena); in Section II we provide basic information on contractions and blendings that can be used by teachers. We first present constraints on the contraction of BE, HAVE, the modals and not. Next, we present parallels between 1) blending patterns involving contractable words and those involving non-contractable words; 2) blending patterns involving contractable words and patterns of combining lexical roots with suffixes; and 3) blending patterns involving contractable words and single lexical items. These parallels will help teachers maintain a fundamental principle of pedagogy as they prepare ESL materials: namely, maximal exploitation of orthographic cues in teaching pronunciation. Working with this information, teachers can make efficient use of the limited number of contractions as they introduce the wide range of blendings which non-native learners need to master.

Linguistic Imput in Formal Second Language Learning: The Issues of Syntactic Gradation and Readability in ESL Materials

A recent trend in research in first and second language acquisition has been renewed interest in the nature of the linguistic input to which language learners are exposed. As regards formal second language learning by adults, a number of studies have examined the oral language which foreign language teachers use in the classroom to communicate with and teach their students. It now seems advisable to expand the scope of these inquiries, since many if not most formal language learning settings involve the use of written text materials which by themselves and through their influence on instructional activities define the nature of the language which learners hear, see and presumably use in forming hypotheses about the target language. The research reported on in this paper involved a syntactic analysis of a sample of ESL readers. The following questions about the nature of the linguistic input provided by these sources were examined: 1) Are these texts graded in syntactic complexity? 2) Do readers which are presumably written for learners at the same level of proficiency present material which is of equivalent syntactic complexity? 3) How can the readability of ESL materials be measured, and how might the relationship between syntactic complexity and readability be clarified?

Sexism and TESOL Materials

The paper explores the treatment of women in currently used ESL materials, starting with an analysis of the portrayal of the sexes in current textbooks. Some observations are that women are often less visible than men, are often the butt of many jokes and are often placed in stereotypical roles and assigned stereotypical emotional reactions. Illustrations in the books serve to reinforce the biased linguistic patterns previously noted. The paper then proceeds to discuss terms which have been labelled as prejudicial against women by writers who have been analyzing the question of sexism and the English language. Among the points discussed are the use of the word man as both an independent word and as a bound suffix, the generic he, the boy/girl distinction, and titles used to refer to men and women. All features were found to bias the portrayal of women in the texts. A general discussion follows of what the terms prescriptive and descriptive linguistics mean and whether or not professionals in TESOL should advocate linguistic change. The paper concludes with some suggested changes which can reduce the bias now present in the portrayal of women in ESL materials without sacrificing the overall educational goal of effective and realistic teaching of the English language to non-English speakers. Language learning is necessarily a culture-learning process. In fact, a traditional rationale for foreign language learning has been the expansion of the individual's cultural horizons, the development of tolerance for cultural diversity, and the acquisition of more data for deciding where one fits in the world. It is neither possible nor desirable to separate the linguistic aspects of a language from its surrounding culture; on the contrary, the presentation of culture in language classes is usually set forth as an explicit goal. For instance, the TESOL Guideline for the Certification and Preparation of Teachers