ESL Pedagogy Research Articles

ESL teaching methods and approaches: Essential strategies for encouraging effective language acquisition.

The present study contributes to the field of English as a Second Language education by examining the effectiveness of different teaching methods, including interactive techniques, technology integration, and culturally responsive teaching strategies. By relying on a mixed-methods research methodology that relied on a triangulation of classroom observations, literature review, and ESL teacher surveys, this study identified several strategies that may have a positive impact on language learning. In particular, the results suggested that interactive activities improve student engagement and promote hands-on practical language application, technology use in classrooms ensures inclusivity and supports the diverse needs of learners via multimedia supports, and culturally responsive teaching that integrates students’ social and cultural backgrounds into the learning process increases relevance and motivation. The current paper also addresses the implications of these findings for ESL practitioners and lists potential avenues for further studies that could help advance ESL pedagogy in the future. The results of the study serve as a call to ESL teachers to employ these methods in their classrooms and modify them to fit their specific teaching and learning context to promote the effectiveness of this type of language instruction and inclusivity within classrooms.

Toward an Understanding of Social Media Use in English Teaching and Learning: English Language beyond Traditional Classrooms

The attention on using social media for educational purposes has increased as research shows that these platforms are effective teaching and learning tools. The present study examined language teachers’ experiences in using social media in the teaching and learning of English. Data were collected through a survey and in-depth interviews with 50 second and foreign language teachers. Data were analyzed using multiple cycles of coding and ongoing dialogic engagement. Analysis of the data revealed that the participants used social media to support their classroom instruction and to teach English culture. They also perceived social media platforms as tools that can be used to assess student learning and language development and differentiate classroom instruction. In terms of benefits, the participants indicated that social media increase student motivation and engagement, enhance teaching practices, and help to build a learning community among students. The study also identified some challenges associated with social media integration, such as a lack of support and training, low self-efficacy among teachers, and misgivings about the use of social media in the classroom. The study provides a clear picture of the current use of social media for educational purposes. It bridges the gap between policymakers’ expectations and teachers’ current technology use and reinforces the effort to institute more fruitful education reform Keywords: English teaching and learning, ESL Pedagogy, educational technology DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-35-05 Publication date: December 31 st 2021

Tellers, Makers, and Holders of Stories: A Micro-Analytic Understanding of Students’ Identity Work in Drama-based Adult ESL Classrooms

Despite a wide-spread pedagogical interest and scholarly conviction in the possibilities of educational drama for creating more contextually-situated, engaging, and multi-modal L2 learning experiences (Piazzoli, 2018; Stinson & Winston, 2011), there is scarce empirical evidence concerning what is actually taking place interactionally in L2 classrooms for adults. This article presents a bottom-up microanalysis of classroom interaction in an ESL class in Canada with over 16 adult learners designed to explore the potential and actual impact of educational drama on classroom discourse and students’ L2 learning experiences. Using a discourse analytic approach (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Goffman, 1981), I analyze the dynamic identity work of the class participants. The article presents empirically-grounded research findings that illustrate instances of interaction in and through which drama-based ESL pedagogy contributes to the development of dialogic and democratic classroom discourse and fosters a transformative empowering interpersonal space (Cummins, 2011).

Beyond Disciplinary Drama: Federal Dollars, ESL Instruction for African Americans, and Public Memory

A 1969 English 101 class at the University of Wisconsin, where linguists used ESL pedagogy to teach Black American students, has dense connections to the Dartmouth Conference. This work recovers a matrix of related linguists who did not disclose their interest in defining who qualifies as a native English speaker.

A Study on APSACS Karachi Zone ESL Teachers’ Notion About Assessment and Its Numerous Employment in English Pedagogy

Research work regarding to teacher’s cognition, basically, bring into light teachers’ perception, what they know and how they believe. To comprehend teachers’ perceptional structure, it is indispensible as it interlinks to their directional practices in ESL teaching domain. With regards to assessment, teachers’ cognition constitutes a vital and integral research field in two perspectives: understandability of ESL teachers’ belief and practices and their needs in assessments region. This study delves the aim of assessment in ESL classes under four main regimes: (1) summative assessment, (2) formative assessment, (3) students’ self-assessment, and (4) assessment to meliorate teachers’ direction. It also delves to probe ESL teachers’ notions about the assessments’ employment in ESL pedagogy. It also demonstrates that how teachers’ notions interconnect to their KG to HSSC level in teaching English. 35 Pakistani ESL teachers who work at APSACS Junior, Senior and College wings in Karachi Zone. To collect the data, 18-Likert scale questionnaire is employed. Outcomes of study bring out that the participants’ belief on assessment is impregnable on assessments’ employment regarding to formative purposes. On the secondary level, self-assessment procedures and techniques are given significance. From KG to HSSC level, participant teachers have no influence on participants’ assessment predilections. Data collection tool is also a significant contribution to the literature; besides the vital findings it has produced.

Revisiting the notion of ESL: A corpus-based analysis of English textbook instructional language

Learning English as a second language in the inner circle (ESL) is usually contrasted with learning it as a foreign language in the expanding circle (EFL). The notional landscape of ESL conjures up many positive images about ‘inner-circle pedagogy’, whereas, in fact, our knowledge about ESL activities and tasks is often unspoken, unanalysed and limited. In this paper, the researchers revisit this age-old problem by conducting bottom-up searches of a 154,681-word textbook corpus consisting solely of textbook instructional language. These sections declare task purposes and actions to be done, and are suitable for understanding ESL teaching practices. The study was conducted from an etic perspective of two researchers from the expanding circle. We retrace how we encountered a major impasse during this process, which then prompted a revision of our view of ESL. The Results section presents our corpus findings: There was an imbalance between the four skills, a strong emphasis on grammar, a large number of group/pair work requests and a narrowly-defined approach to literacy training. These findings add details to existing qualitatively-based ESL textbook studies. From expectation to realisation, this research calls for a preparedness in regard to enlarging our current understanding of what counts as ESL pedagogy.

A Responsive Pedagogical Initiative for Multimodal Oral Presentation Skills: An Action Research Study

Poor oral presentation skills amongst ESL speakers are frequently linked to weakness in general English proficiency. However, the literature has also identified the lack of a systematic and effective pedagogical method to develop students' multimodal oral presentation skills to meet 21 st century communication realities. This paper elucidates the application of a pedagogical initiative for multimodal oral presentations skills, informed by the Sociocultural Theory of Learning created by Vygotsky (1978), and the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies introduced by the New London Group (1996) and further developed by Cope and Kalantzis (2009). This initiative was experienced by 20 students through the action-reflection cycle methodology and was implemented for 13 weeks in a tertiary ESL classroom. Preliminary findings based on focus group interviews indicated that the initiative left a clear positive impact on student abilities in various multimodal components of oral presentation skills. Furthermore, the initiative positively affected students’ learning experience and raised their self-awareness of themselves as presenters. The findings also suggested that techniques employed in the initiative such as videos, feedback, collaborative learning and Web 2.0 could scaffold the students’ development of multimodal oral presentation skills. Based on these findings, significant implications for teaching oral presentation skills systematically are offered to be referred by ESL practitioners and researchers; in particular, the proposed multimodal oral presentations skills model as a multiliteracies pedagogy and the potential use of web 2.0 tools in promoting collaborative learning and creation of creative content by the learners. Keywords: ESL pedagogy; oral presentation skills; collaborative learning; multimodal literacy; action research

English

Examining language teacher beliefs and practices has been the subject of inquiry for the past 20 years. While some studies confirmed the consistency between teachers’ beliefs and practices, others also confirmed that beliefs are not always reflected in their classroom practices. It has also been found that teachers’ beliefs and practices do not always integrate the recent and established principles in second language teaching. To this end, this study sought to explore the teaching beliefs and practices of experienced ESL teachers and to determine whether these beliefs and practices run consistent with the current principles in ESL pedagogy from a sociocognitive-transformative perspective. For the stated purpose, five experienced ESL teachers were interviewed. The findings revealed that while there are consistencies between their beliefs and practices, some divergence were also observed. These results were attributed to several factors such as the abstractness of principles and attitude toward students. Implications for teacher education and future studies are discussed. Keywords: second language teaching; sociocognitive-transformative approach; teacher beliefs; teacher cognition; teacher practices DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2201-12

Communicative Language Teaching in Indonesia: Issues of Theoretical Assumptions and Challenges in the Classroom Practice

Trying to keep abreast to recent development in ESL pedagogy, Indonesian Government in this case Ministry of National Education has for the past two decades been trying to reform English instruction at the junior and senior high schools across the country. This article describes the issues surrounding the reform initiative and the response the system has made to address the issues. The existing, problematic conditions are delineated and possible ways for improvement are then put forth.

ESL Pedagogy and Certification: Teacher Perceptions and Efficacy

Increasing numbers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in U.S. classrooms have prioritized to building quality teacher education programs so that all teachers have the tools necessary to support their students. National, state, and local mandates have also enacted certain requirements to ensure that ELLs are receiving quality instruction with new language proficiency and content standards. Pressure has pervaded into teacher education programs working to immerse teacher candidates with good pedagogical practices for working with ELLs. This mixed method study on 144 PK-12 teachers with five or less years of experience highlighted the importance of teachers’ perceptions and efficacy beliefs in working with ELLs. Findings revealed a statistical significance in efficacy beliefs for teachers with an ESL certification as opposed to teachers without the credentials. Five in-depth cases augmented the finding to support how individual classroom practices exemplified specific ESL pedagogy learned from pre-service contexts to promote more efficacious behaviors.

The Literary Essay and the ESL Student: A Case Study

This case study describes the achievement of a South Korean graduate student at a mid-sized midwestern university in a senior/graduate-level course on the essay. While a place for imaginative literature in ESL pedagogy has long been established, with the genre commonly utilized being the short story, this study by contrast focuses on the use of the essay (that is, the literary essay, the personal essay, creative nonfiction) and the writing of a mature (nontraditional) student. The study illustrates the beneficial effects of the student’s reading literary essays on her motivation and level of performance as a writer, specifically her command of English syntax. This case study argues for a special affinity between the quintessential essayist and the ESL writer as “ethnographer” vis-a-vis a culture whose foreignness spurs observation and expression. Most generally, it supports an argument for the value to ESL students of “aesthetic” reading, even when the end of instruction is basic competence.

Research and Reflective Practice in the ESL Classroom: Voices from Sri Lanka

Modern language education favours the model of a reflective teacher-researcher who is engaged in both individual and collaborative curriculum revision and teaching-learning environment improvement. The present paper addresses the issue of classroom research and reflective practice in current ESL pedagogy and teacher professional development. The theoretical introduction is followed by research findings recently gathered from Sri Lankan ESL teachers. The study aimed at ascertaining the extent to which Sri Lankan ESL teachers are involved in classroom research and discussing various reasons why they assume or do not assume the role of a teacher-researcher. The study reports interesting findings, calling for a wide-ranging discussion on reflective inquiry in the language classroom as theory and practice seem to be marching to a different tune.

Research Findings on Teaching Grammar for Academic Writing

In recent years, in ESL pedagogy, the research on identifying simple and complex grammatical structures and vocabulary has been motivated by the goal...

A Comparative Description of Affixation Processes in English and Yoruba for ESL Pedagogy

This study describes the affixation processes involved in English and Yoruba word formation systems with the aim of identifying areas of differences and similarities for pedagogic implications. All languages have their systems of arranging words (morphology) to form sentences which are ultimately used to express and communicate information. The study is premised on the contrastive analysis hypothesis which postulates that similarities between the two languages will cause no difficulties (‘positive transfer’), but differences will, due to ‘negative transfer’ (or ‘interference’). Analyses of English and Yoruba derivational and inflectional processes of affixation reveal that the English language offers itself to both prefixation and suffixation morphological processes but the Yoruba language lends itself to morphemic prefixation only in its word formation. This is significant in second language learning as it implies that ESL teachers could use these areas of contrasts and similarities as effective teaching devices to teach and correct interference errors among learners.

Assessing the Use of English Language Learning Strategies among Secondary School Students in Malaysia

This study was conducted to assess the learning strategies employed by secondary ESL learners in Johor, Malaysia. 180 respondents were selected to respond to the SILL Questionnaire. Data was analysed using the SPSS version 7.0. Results showed high frequencies in using all the six categories of learning strategies, with the affective strategy ranked 1st and the compensation strategy the least popular. In addition, female students exhibited higher frequencies in using learning strategi es than their male counterparts. This is good for ESL pedagogy as it reveals the interest of the learners towards learning English language.

University students' perception of cooperative learning in ESL pedagogy

University students' perception of cooperative learning in ESL pedagogy

LEARNING TO BE LITERATE: ISSUES OF PEDAGOGY FOR RECENTLY ARRIVED REFUGEE YOUTH IN AUSTRALIA

This paper focuses on issues of access to productive literacy learning as part of socially just schooling for recently arrived refugee youth within Australia. It argues that a sole reliance on traditional ESL pedagogy is failing this vulnerable group of students, who differ significantly from past refugees who have settled in Australia. Many have been ‘placeless’ for some time, are likely to have received at best an interrupted education before arriving in Australia, and may have experienced significant trauma (Christie & Sidhu, 2006; Cottone, 2004; Miller, Mitchell, & Brown, 2005). Australian Government policy has resulted in spacialized settlement, leaving particular schools dealing with a large influx of refugee students who may be attending school for the first time (Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues, 2004; Sidhu & Christie, 2002). While this has implications generally, it has particular consequences for secondary school students attempting to learn English literacy in short periods of time, without basic foundations in either English or print-based literacy in any first language (Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues, 2006). Many of these students leave schools without the most basic early literacy practices, having endured several years of pedagogy pitched well beyond their needs. This paper suggests that schools must take up three key roles: to educate, to provide a site for the development of civic responsibility, and to act as a site for welfare with responsibility.

Using notions of scaffolding and intertextuality to understand the bilingual teaching of English in Thailand

Mainstream ESL pedagogy has been dominated by monolingual methods for the past century, but the default teaching mode in many EFL contexts is in fact bilingual. A challenge we currently face is to find fresh ways of describing such bilingual teaching. This paper attempts to begin to do so by taking the notions of scaffolding and intertextuality – both deriving from monolingual, monocultural contexts – and applying these to Thai university English classes. Episodes of teacher talk from four classes are examined. It is found that the scaffolding metaphor can readily be applied to bilingual episodes; and that an intertextual analysis across two languages/cultures provides a rich picture of the semiotic restructuring which is enabled by second language development.

Sociolinguistics

05–350Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun (American U; sblucas@american.edu), Communication topics and strategies in e-mail consultation: comparison between American and international university students. Language Learning & Technology (Hawaii, Manoa, USA) 9.2 (2005), 24–46.05–351Giles, Howard & Dorjee Dorjee (U of California, USA), Cultural identity in Tibetan diasporas. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK) 26.2 (2005), 138–157.05–352Kheimets, Nina G. & Alek D. Epstein (Bar-Ilan U, Israel), Languages of science in the era of nation-state formation: the Israeli universities and their (non)participation in the revival of Hebrew. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK) 26.1 (2005), 12–36.05–353Kitzinger, Celia. & Elizabeth Peel (U of York; celia_kitzinger@yahoo.com), The de-gaying and re-gaying of AIDS: contested homophobias in lesbian and gay awareness training. Discourse & Society (London, UK) 16.2 (2005), 173–197.05–354Lee, Seung-Hee (U of California, USA; shlee@humnet.ucla.edu), The scales of justice: balancing neutrality and efficiency in plea-bargaining encounters. Discourse & Society (London, UK) 16.1 (2005), 33–54.05–355Morales-López, Esperanza, Gabriela Prego-Vázquez & Luzia Domínguez-Seco (U of Coruña, Spain; lxmlopez@udc.es), Interviews between employees and customers during a company restructuring process. Discourse & Society (London, UK) 16.2 (2005), 225–268.05–356Nero, Shondel J. (St. John's U, USA; neros@stjohns.edu), Language, identities, and ESL pedagogy. Language and Education (Clevedon, UK) 19.3 (2005), 194–211.05–357Ryoo, Hye-Kyung (Seoul Women's U; hryoo2002@yahoo.com), Achieving friendly interactions: a study of service encounters between Korean shopkeepers and African-American customers. Discourse & Society (London, UK) 16.1 (2005), 79–105.05–358Schoonen, Rob & René Appel (U of Amsterdam, the Netherlands), The street language: a multilingual youth register in the Netherlands. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK) 26.2 (2005), 85–117.05–359Vari-Bogiri, Harrah (U of the South Pacific, Port Vila, Vanuatu), A sociolinguistic survey of Araki: a dying language of Vanuatu. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK) 26.1 (2005), 52–66.

Language, Identities, and ESL Pedagogy

The multifaceted ways in which English Language Learners (ELLs) engage in ‘acts of identity’ (Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, 1985) through their language use have created new challenges for ESL pedagogy. Heterogeneous identities have called into question the native speaker construct and the assumed links between ethnicity and language expertise. Drawing on the research of identity theorists along with samples of completed student questionnaires, I argue in this paper that new paradigms are needed in second-language acquisition (SLA) theory, linguistic categorisation of students, and teacher preparation for ESL pedagogy. A pedagogical framework based on Language Identity, Awareness, and Development (LIAD) is proposed as one way of expanding on current language acquisition models.