Improve Language Proficiency Research Articles

COUNTERVAILING INSTITUTIONAL FORCES THAT SHAPE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF SCIENCE: AN ANALYSIS OF BRAZIL’S SCIENCE WITHOUT BORDERS PROGRAM

This paper theorizes on how globalization and localization affect internationalization of science and analyzes the institutional trajectory of Brazil’s large scale program, now suspended, Science without Borders (SwB). Counter to the main goal of SwB, our analysis of the historical genesis of Brazilian science institutions reveals a systemic pull towards localization that dampens internationalization. In addition, our analysis of geographic diversification of grants highlights a missing link in the study abroad value chain, which is a lack of training for global skills. The primary area of concern has been to improve language proficiency. What receives less attention is the development of additional skills, such as a student’s ability to adapt to the foreign academic environment, that are critical to cultivation and maintenance of long-term professional and institutional relationships. The missing link of service ought to include improved language proficiency, but go beyond that by working with students to provide the cultural, communication, learning, social, and academic skills that are often assumed in the new foreign environment but are not so evident in the country of origin, such as Brazil.

Countervailing institutional forces that shape internationalization of science: an analysis of Brazil's Science without Borders program

This paper theorizes on how globalization and localization affect internationalization of science and analyzes the institutional trajectory of Brazil's large scale program, now suspended, Science without Borders (SwB). Counter to the main goal of SwB, our analysis of the historical genesis of Brazilian science institutions reveals a systemic pull toward localization that dampens internationalization. In addition, our analysis of geographic diversification of grants highlights a missing link in the study abroad value chain, which is a lack of training for global skills. The primary area of concern has been to improve language proficiency. What receives less attention is the development of additional skills, such as a student's ability to adapt to the foreign academic environment, that are critical to cultivation and maintenance of long-term professional and institutional relationships. The missing link of service ought to include improved language proficiency, but go beyond that by working with students to provide the cultural, communication, learning, social, and academic skills that are often assumed in the new foreign environment but are not so evident in the country of origin, such as Brazil.

Challenges in Academic Publishing: Editors’ Views

The study sought to establish editors' views on why articles are normally not accepted for publication. A survey design was used. Three (3) editors participated in the study. The data were content analysed. The study revealed that inability to adhere to journal style, poorly organised content and structure of the paper, lack of language editing, poorly structured arguments, inattention to reviewers' comments are some of the keys factors contributing to lack of acceptance of journal articles for publishing. The editors suggested improved language proficiency and writing style, reading to write, adherence to journal requirements and themes, and mentoring by established researchers as ways to improve acceptance of written articles.

Combining isolated and integrated form-focused instruction: effects on productive skills

Previous studies revealed that isolated and integrated form-focused instruction (FFI) are two effective means of improving language proficiency of students, separately. However, few empirical studies have explored their complementarity in the context of English as a second language. This study, therefore, investigates the effects of combining isolated and integrated FFI on the speaking and writing skills of second language (L2) learners at the tertiary level in the Philippines. Forty-one college students were divided into two groups: Group A received both the isolated and integrated FFI, while Group B received the standard English programme for college freshmen. Findings suggest that students who received the combined isolated and integrated FFI have significantly improved in their productive skills and have outperformed the students from the control group.

Foreign Culture Awareness Needs of Saudi English Language Majors at Buraydah Community College

Although many EFL learners have a command of internalized foreign language knowledge, they may have difficulty using this knowledge in different contexts. This is due to many interacting factors affecting their performance, mainly lack of target culture awareness. This study intended to identify the cultural aspects suitable to be integrated into the Saudi EFL classrooms, search for the sources upon which students get their knowledge of the target culture and examine their attitudes towards it. The study was administered to three main categories of subjects: students, teachers, and experts in the field of teaching EFL. The required data were collected using a Culture-awareness Diagnostic Test and a Culture-Awareness Needs Assessment Questionnaire. The results revealed the students’ need to learn about different aspects of foreign culture to develop their culture-awareness and that they depend mostly on audio-/visual media to learn about the target culture. The findings also showed that students possess positive attitudes toward the target culture and its people. Introducing authentic materials such as DVDs, video tapes, newspapers in the foreign language classroom was highly recommended for enhancing culture awareness and improving language proficiency. Therefore, the current research suggested modifying the entire EFL education programs to introduce culture in the foreign language classroom.

Community Engagement and Improved Language Proficiency: The Case of Service-Learning in Higher Education in Oman

<p><em>It can be argued that as an effective teaching approach, service learning can contribute significantly to improvement of the proficiency of learners of English as a foreign Language. This paper reports on the findings of a quasi- experimental study on the effect of service learning on EFL student-teachers English language proficiency in pre-service teacher education program at Sultan Qaboos University. The findings of the study reveal that the student teachers in the experimental group outperformed those in the contrast group in all language components tested by the TOEFL and the Oral test. These findings clearly indicate an overall improvement in the language performance of the student teachers as a result of the service-learning intervention. Comparison of the experimental group results in both tests between pre and post intervention reveals a significant improvement which can be attributed to the service learning experience.</em><em></em></p>

English and operacy for teachers

The close relationship between the Stellenbosch Institute for Language Teaching (INTUS) and the Interuniversity Committee for Language Teaching has brought into being several projects aimed at upgrading the quality of language communication in Southern Africa. As well as controlled experiments with innovative approaches in language teaching, needs analyses have been co11ducted with a view to improving language proficiency in industry and in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Readers of this journal are also well aware of the fact that both the Institute and the Interuniversity Committee are strongly represented on the Editorial Committee of PER LINGUAM. It is therefore appropriate for PER LINGUAM to announce an important pilot project which is another significant milestone on the road of cooperation between the Institute and the Interuniversity Committee.

Language Teaching and Dictionary Use: An Overview

The main objective of language teaching is to improve language proficiency with regard to reading, writing, speaking and listening. The dictionary is one of the aids that can be used to attain this goal. There are however a number of stumbling blocks in the way of optimal utilization of dictionaries. Poor reference skills and a lack of knowledge with regard to dictionary typology seem to be the most prominent among these. It is argued that reference skills could be developed by the teaching of reference strategies, preferably by integrating dictionary-using exercises with other language learning activities, and by structuring these exercises according to the stages of the actual reference process. Dictionary pedagogy should ideally be introduced in the L1 class during primary education, but students will definitely still benefit if dictionary skills are taught during the intermediary stages of second or foreign language learning. It is anticipated that students who have become convinced of the problem-solving potential dictionaries through personal experience will become independent learners who will continue using dictionaries even after the years of formal education.

Data-driven Learning: A Student-centered Technique for Language Learning

The use of student-centered methods in language teaching can be an alternative to be exerted by teachers in language classrooms. Such methods can create an atmosphere of excitement for the students because they themselves are supposed to discover word meanings, grammatical patterns, parts of speech and other aspects of language through receiving small tips from the teacher. In the present paper, data-driven learning (DDL) has been introduced as a student-centered technique in which samples of authentic language are taken from linguistic corpora to be presented to language learners for improving language proficiency and then different aspects of this technique have been elaborated on in order to make language teachers and students aware of its features and usefulness.

Applied Literacy in Second Language Education: (Re) Framing Discourse in Literature‐Based Classrooms

The present investigation explores and presents a theoretical model of instruction—applied literacy in second language education (ALL2E)—and suggests a contemporary view of the roles of grammar and formal evaluation within literature‐based second language (L2) classrooms. Essentially, this article addresses the question “How can instruction and discourse in this setting he framed in order to provide opportunities for language learning and cognitive development for its participants?” Research in the area of literature‐based L2 classrooms is reviewed before explaining and clarifying the elements involved during traditional text‐based talk. ALL2E is clearly defined and differentiated from current approaches within literature‐based L2 classrooms.

Developing the multicultural school library: Vahl Primary School, Oslo

Norway is becoming increasingly multicultural, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the capital Oslo. While immigrants only make up 7 per cent of the population at the national level, the figure is 20 per cent in Oslo, where in addition, 35 per cent of all pupils in primary and secondary schools belong to a linguistic minority. In Norway, and especially in the capital Oslo, multiculturalism is rapidly becoming the rule rather than the exception. At the same time reading tests show that immigrant and minority children have special problems. Successful integration of “new Norwegians” starts in the kindergartens and schools, including the school library. In this situation traditional librarianship training is inadequate. Improved pedagogical and communicational skills are required of the librarian in multicultural school libraries, and drama is a promising technique to improve language proficiency among pupils. The article presents some insights from Vahl Primary School in Oslo which has the highest concentration of multicultural pupils in the country – 95 per cent.

Small Corpus Studies and ELT: Theory and Practice (review)

Reviewed by: Small corpus studies and ELT: Theory and practice ed. by Mohsen Ghadessy, Alex Henry, Robert L. Roseberry Niladri Sekhar Dash Small corpus studies and ELT: Theory and practice. Ed. by Mohsen Ghadessy, Alex Henry, and Robert L. Roseberry. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001. Pp. xxiv, 420. ISBN 1588110354. $125 (Hb). The preface of this volume defines issues related to the size of the corpus while the introduction justifies its publication in the present context of corpus research and application. In Section 1, Ch. 1 refers to the use of language in some real situations and shows how analysis of corpora can reveal some important linguistic issues that can alter understanding of language and discourse. In Section 2, Ch. 2 demonstrates how using language processing tools on small corpora can generate new output to be used in second-language classroom teaching as well as for evaluating learner’s vocabulary. Ch. 3 argues that using text analysis software on small corpora can extract a great deal of new information required to enhance the comprehensibility of a literary text. In Section 3, Ch. 4 shows that applying concordances to specialized text corpora can bring out examples of linguistic patterns useful for designing course books and learning materials. Ch. 5 argues that linguistic information obtained from a corpus belonging to a single genre can be effective for preparing useful language-teaching materials. Ch. 6 argues that information about the use of various functional units in specific lexico-grammatical patterns in certain small corpora can help in examining language variation across genres within a given discourse area. Ch. 7 demonstrates how analysis of the textual genre of personal advertisements can provide important clues for making comparisons between the languages preferred by men and women as well as for identifying cultural backgrounds that may help in shaping their preferred linguistic choices. In Section 4, Ch. 8 shows how classroom investigation of small corpora annotated with features of discourse and wording have been useful in improving language proficiency as well as in promoting language awareness among ESL students. Ch. 9 examines a corpus of definition sentences, points out the limitations of functional grammar, and advocates local grammars devised from specialized corpora. In Section 5, Ch. 10 describes the theoretical background and practical experience of creating a multilingual corpus as well as its application in translation and discourse analysis. Ch. 11 proposes a crosslinguistic comparative analysis on some parallel corpora that might help learners explore the ways language is used for achieving particular communicative goals. Ch. 12 uses parallel corpora to compare thematic organization in source and target languages to find the degree of correlation between the two, which may help in teaching, translating, and identifying text-types across languages. In Section 6, Ch. 13 shows how findings of collocational patterns, pragmatic appropriateness, and discourse features from learner corpora can be coupled with expert corpora to design teaching methodology and materials. Ch. 14 argues that both teacher and learner require knowledge of content, writing process, context, and language system for writing a text and advocates comparative analysis of corpus methodologies as a strategy for developing such capacity. In sum, the volume highlights the relevance of small corpora in both language learning and teaching. In addition to the description of basic corpus analysis tools, it covers various issues (compilation and use of learner corpus, comparison of genres, crosslinguistic comparison, teaching-materials design, description of local and functional grammars) important for language education and research. [End Page 346] Niladri Sekhar Dash Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata Copyright © 2004 Linguistic Society of America

Vertalen In Het Talenonderwijs

The question was addressed whether it is useful to pay attention in modern language teaching to translation on a higher level than that of simple disconnected sentences. The author concludes that translation of complete texts to and from the foreign language can improve language proficiency.

Mathematics Education: The People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China has attempted to use education as the main avenue for ideological, sociological, and technological advancement. In the educational campaigns that have taken place on mainland China since 1949, two disciplines have always received primary attention: the Chinese language and mathematics. Improved language proficiency was necessary for the processes of indoctrination, while mathematics provided a base for the scientific studies so vital to an industrial competency.