Language Use In Classroom Research Articles

A year in words: The dynamics and consequences of language experiences in an intervention classroom.

Children from low SES backgrounds hear, on average, fewer words at home than those from high SES backgrounds. This word gap is associated with widening achievement differences in children’s language abilities and school readiness. However relatively little is known about adult and child speech in childcare settings, in which approximately 30% of American children are enrolled. We examined the influence of teacher and peer language input on children’s in-class language use and language development in an intervention classroom for low-SES, high-risk 2- to 3-year-olds. Over the course of a year, day-long recordings of the classroom were collected weekly with LENA recorders. Using LENA software algorithms, we found that language input from peers was positively related to children’s in-class language use, both in-the-moment and over the course of each day, as were the number of conversational turns in which children and teachers engaged Both peer input and conversational turns with teachers were also positively related to children’s language development rates, as indexed by increases in vocabulary size. Together these results indicate the importance of child-specific rates of classroom language input in the language development of high-risk, preschoolers.

Utilizing of Code-Switching by Teacher in Teaching English at Grade XI MIA 1 SMAN 1 Sungai Penuh

This research studied about how code-switching used by the teacher in classroom as alternative language in English subject. The subject of this research is one of teacher in SMAN 1 Sungai Penuh. The aim of this study were to analyze teacher’s language use in classroom by looking what kind of code that is chosen and what functions teacher do code-switching. The data was gained from videotape which recorded during English class. Based on data analysis of teacher’s script indicated that there are three kinds of language use in sentences: Pure English, Pure Indonesian and Mixing English-Indonesian. It was also obtained there are some functions of code-switching in teaching, namely, organizing the classroom inserting humor, clarifying information, increasing students' comprehension, and presenting the content of the material.

Senior High School EFL Teacher and Students’ Use of Classroom Language

This research was about the analysis of EFL teacher and students in using classroom language. The aim of this study was to find the errors in using classroom language. A descriptive research was used in this research. The samples of this research were an English teacher and science class students of a state senior high school. The researchers collected the data by using field note and voice recording. Then, the data findings were analyzed in using four steps. They are: identifying error, describing error, explaining error, and error evaluation. While data collection techniques were coding, revision, final coding, and result. From the result of the research, the researchers concluded that the errors found from respondents could be classified as local errors. It implies that those errors only affect a single element of sentence, but do not prevent a message from being hard.

How Prepared are the Preservice ESL Teachers to Teach : Insights from University Supervisor Feedback

A central component in pre-service teacher training is teaching practice and feedback (Copland, 2010). The study reported in this paper examined the experience of ESL trainee teachers in Hong Kong during the practicum. In total, 74 field experience feedback forms and 74 classroom language use evaluation sheets were collected and analyzed. Data analysis showed that the dominant challenge this group of ESL trainee teachers encountered was an apparent lack of adequate pedagogical knowledge needed to translate their subject-matter knowledge into effective instruction. The study also revealed that a closer relationship between the university language education program and schools is needed to create the conditions that permit ESL student teachers to better contextualise their theoretical knowledge learnt in the university teacher preparation course in practice. Results of this study contribute to the current debate on how university second language teacher education programs can best equip trainee teachers with the knowledge and skills that will best enable them to participate in the actual experience of teaching.

Exploring relationships between second language learners’ attitudes towards classroom language and variables that motivate their learning

ABSTRACTDespite the increasing volume of studies on classroom language use research, scant attention has been paid to the relationship between learners’ attitudes towards classroom language choice and classroom variables that they perceive to motivate their target language learning. This study examines this issue with Korean undergraduate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners enrolled in a conversation course based on a communicative approach. A participant questionnaire was administered to 233 EFL learners. Results revealed that the participants were generally in agreement with using their L1 in learning English, and critical of the English-only approach. The participants as a group revealed a division regarding their preference for native speaking teachers of English, and did not necessarily adhere to the notion that native speaking teachers of English are more effective than their non-native counterparts in teaching conversation. More importantly, participants with a strong preference for teachers’ L1 use were found to prefer a ‘safer’ learning environment, whereas those who appreciated English-only were more receptive to challenging environments and native speaking teachers of English.

The Effectiveness of Andragogically Oriented Teaching Method to Improve the Male Students’ Achievement of Teaching Practice

Students at universities are still frequently found to have low independency in learning. Besides, lecturers also still have tendency to treat students as if they were young learners, or in other words, the lecturers still use pedagogically oriented teaching methods (POTM); although they claimed themselves to have applied methods of teaching orienting to the characteristics of adult learners or andragogically oriented teaching methods (AOTM). This also happens to the students at English Education Department of Muria Kudus University (EED MKU), and affects their achievement of language leaning, in particular theirs of teaching practice. Some schools in which the students conduct teaching internship consider that the students’ achievement of teaching is still less satisfactory, and they tend to be less creative and less independent in preparing the teaching, particularly related to the use of instructional skills of teachnig, such the use of classroom language and the use of things neeeded in teaching as media of teaching. This is a quantitative study involving 87 students joining Speaking for Instructional Purposes (SIP) classes at EED MKU. The instruments used are pre and post tests of teaching practice in SIP classes.This study aims to compare the effectiveness of implementing AOTM and POTM to improve the female and the male students’ achievement of teaching practice. The results reveal that AOTM is more effectively implemented to improve the male students than the female ones.

Negotiating political positions: subject-specific oral language use in CLIL classrooms

ABSTRACTWhile research on CLIL suggests positive impacts on lexical proficiency and on spoken language, the crucial question of the effect of CLIL on advanced learners, both in terms of subject-specific language (SSL) proficiency and content knowledge, has received less attention. We argue that the ability to negotiate a factual position appropriately is a key element of SSL, relating to both content and to foreign language ability. As a theoretical framework for understanding these negotiations of generally opposing standpoints, we use argumentation theory. The study was conducted in upper-secondary CLIL classes on European economics and politics in Austria. From the data set of 16 hours of video-recording, comprising teacher-whole class interactions, group work, and role plays, episodes of argumentation were extracted and analysed. Two types of argumentation patterns emerge, with one focused on the joint construction and learning of new SSL and content knowledge, and the other on the enactment of such knowledge in interaction. Students’ engagement in these argumentations gives clear evidence of their SSL proficiency in prepared and unprepared oral production. As the type of classroom event has an effect on the specific argumentation patterns, the need for exposing students to a diversity of educational practice is underlined.

On the Relationship between Persian EFL Teacher’s Discourse and Language Learning Anxiety

The present study was an attempt to investigate Persian EFL teacher’s discourse and its relation to learners’ language learning anxiety. It was carried out in a bilingual elementary school and a language institute. The participants included students between the ages of 9 to 15 who studied English at least for three years in Shiraz, Iran. Data was gathered through a forty-minute audio-recording lesson during regularly scheduled class time and semi-structured interviews. The result indicated that there is a significant relationship between teacher’s discourse and learners’ anxiety. Moreover, the teachers’ discourse in immersion education was found to be more significant than the ones in non-immersion programs. The obtained result of this study is to familiarize teachers with the importance of appropriate language use in EFL classroom and how such language use in the classroom can be improved through video and audio recording of their lessons.

Contingent Needs Analysis for Task Implementation: An Activity Systems Analysis of Group Writing Conferences

Needs analysis (NA) plays a significant role in developing tasks that create opportunities for natural language use in classrooms. Preemptive NA, however, does not necessarily predict the contingently emerging interpersonal and social variables which influence learners and teachers’ behaviours. These unpredictable variables often lead to a gap between what has been planned for a task to achieve and what learners actually get from a task in classrooms. To narrow this gap, this study proposes an analysis of needs at the task implementation stage adopting activity systems analysis (Engeström, ). The study investigates needs in group writing conferences for PhD students, where a task, giving and receiving oral feedback on one another's writing, is implemented. The participants were seven PhD students in two groups of writing conferences led by different facilitators in a thesis writing support program at an Australian university. Data were collected through observation and audiorecordings of writing conference sessions, interviews with the students and the facilitators, and students’ written drafts. The collected data were analysed for the relationships between students’ motives, participation patterns, and rules/division of labour in the groups. The identified aspects of this activity that require pedagogical innovation concern discursive practice during the sessions, students’ motives and interests in engaging the task, the rules of writing manifested through discussion, and ascribed and self‐ascribed roles of the students. The study highlights the potential of activity systems analysis for NA in classroom task implementation and proposes a new path to investigating tasks in classroom realities.

Examining Peer Language Use and Investment in a Distinct North American Immersion Context

ABSTRACTPrevious studies have shown that immersion students tend to speak the majority language during peer interactions, regardless of the language of instruction or their dominant language. Researchers have argued that the societal status of the majority language presents an obstacle to providing equitable support for both languages of instruction. To examine the effects of societal language status on students’ language use and identity investment, this study quantified students’ English and French language use in Quebec French immersion classrooms, a context where both languages of instruction hold equitable societal status. A microanalysis of their divergences from the languages of instruction was also undertaken using Norton’s model of investment. This study sheds light on how language status works at the societal, classroom, and individual level to impact learners’ classroom language use. Findings emphasize the importance of using both languages of instruction outside of school for development of learners’ bilingual proficiency and bilingual identity.

The Little Words That Matter: Discourse Markers in Teacher Talk

<em>The aim of this paper is to discuss one specific aspect of classroom interaction and language use in language classroom, namely discourse markers (DMs). This research uses case study method. Using data obtained from two English teachers teaching six EFL classrooms in a high school in Surakarta, this study describes the occurrence and textual functions of DMs used by the teachers. The data analysis reveals that there are 19 types of DMs, either in English, Indonesian, or Javanese language, used by both teachers in their classroom talk. This paper also provides an account of a number of textual functions fulfilled by those DMs which may contribute greatly to the coherent and smooth flow of the discourse organization generated in classroom interaction. The fact that DMs are valuable resources to facilitate the structuring of classroom discourse suggests that there should be an increasing awareness of English teachers about the use of DMs in teacher talk. </em>

Context-appropriate crosslinguistic pedagogy

In the field of second language education, researchers increasingly call for crosslinguistic pedagogical practices meant to encourage bilingual learners to draw on all of their linguistic resources regardless of the focus of instruction or the status of the target language. These recommendations include a relaxation of the strict language separation common in many bilingual education programs. Specifically, some Canadian French immersion researchers suggest that it may be beneficial to allow immersion students to use English for peer interaction during instructional time allotted to French. In this position paper, we argue that researchers should proceed with caution in calling for increased majority language use in the minority language classroom. We use Canadian French immersion as a case in point to contend that until empirical evidence supports increased use of English in immersion, crosslinguistic approaches that maintain a separate space for the majority language may represent ideal pedagogical practices in these contexts.

Teachers’ English Proficiency and Classroom Language Use: A Conversation Analysis Study

How does teachers’ target language proficiency correlate with their ability to use the target language effectively in order to provide optimal learning opportunities in the language classroom? Adopting a conversation analysis approach, this study examines the extent to which teachers’ use of the target language in the classroom creates learning opportunities for L2 learners. The article also explores the relationship between teachers’ target language proficiency and the ways in which they use the target language in the classroom to engage learners in the learning process. Analyses of the lesson extracts show a complex relationship between teachers’ general language proficiency and their ability to make use of their proficiency to support student learning in the L2 classroom. The article concludes that while teachers’ general proficiency significantly affects the way they use language in the classroom to promote learning, their classroom proficiency is at least as important as their general proficiency. This has implications both for teachers and teacher educators.

What Students Do with Words: Language Use and Communicative Function in Full and Partial Immersion Classrooms

Over the past 35 years, language immersion programs have been steadily increasing in number throughout the U.S. The popularity of these diverse, linguistically complex educational programs has led to a rather extensive body of research on language immersion and dual language contexts. Research, however, has thus far focused primarily on the quantification of language use (the amount of target language versus first language use) in different settings and with different interlocutors. Very few studies have probed the interesting and significant sociolinguistic question of what students ‘do’ with languages in the classroom. The present study fills this research gap by investigating the communicative functions of student language use in full and partial Spanish immersion classrooms among kindergarten, first and second graders. Twelve hours of recorded spontaneous classroom speech were analyzed for communicative functions. The results show that contrary to the existing research, students in this classroom use Spanish for a wide variety of communicative functions. These findings suggest that previous depictions of the diglossic classroom speech community may be influenced by the concept of figured worlds (Holland et. al., 1998), whereby our imagined typical immersion classroom differs from the actual reality of student language use.

The Case for Teachers’ Classroom English Proficiency

New conceptualizations of English are challenging traditional norms of what the language is, as well as how it is taught and by whom. These changes, coupled with the expansion of teaching English across the educational spectrum from younger grades to tertiary levels, present challenges to many national education systems. The role of teachers’ English competence, particularly in public-sector teaching, is central to how these educational changes play out in countries around the world. How classroom English language ability is described connects to many dimensions of teaching. This article argues that conventional definitions that connect general English proficiency, often based on generic statements about language use, do not address the type of classroom language teachers need in order to teach. Further, language training focused on general language fluency often does not directly address teachers’ particular professional needs. Policies and practices based on these definitions disadvantage most English language teachers by defining problems of teaching quality in terms of deficits in general English proficiency. English-for-Teaching, a conceptualization of the English teachers’ use in classroom language teaching, is based on a languages for specific purposes (LSP) methodology. The construct defines three functional areas of classroom language use – managing the classroom, understanding and communicating lesson content, and assessing and giving students feedback. The article outlines the construct and a professional development programme based on it. Analyses from implementing these programmes provided by ministries of education to pre- and in-service teachers in Japan and in Vietnam are discussed.

YOUTUBE WITHIN ESL CLASSROOM: EXPLORING AN INSTRUCTOR’S AND HER LEARNERS’ EXPERIENCES CONCERNING THE AUTHENTICITY OF LANGUAGE AND TECHNOLOGY USE

Purpose – This study was aimed to explore the experiences of an instructor and her learners concerning the authenticity of language and technology use in YouTube-aided ESL classroom. Methodology – A qualitative case study was employed involving an ESL instructor and seven learners from a higher learning institution in Malaysia. To achieve the objective, the experiences were uncovered through in-depth interviews and a series of journal entries. Findings – The findings demonstrate that the content of YouTube could be exploited to expose the learners to authentic English. In addition to that, the web 2.0 features of YouTube can familiarise the learners with the current technology application. Significance – This study is significant as it shares with the readers the experiences of an ESL instructor and the learners concerning the potential of YouTube in offering authentic materials and use of technology. By adopting an online video platform and not relying solely on textbook and other printed materials, ESL practitioners are anticipated to be more creative in delivering the subject. This is especially true in teaching today’s generation who is the digital native. Accordingly, it helps ESL instructors to be able to keep pace with the trendy technology in order to enhance teaching and learning as well as fulfilling current learners’ technological demand.

Teacher legitimisation through language(s) use: towards a framework for language teacher education

ABSTRACTLanguage teachers are positioned differently depending on whether they are L1 or L2 speakers of the target language. In this article I suggest that, in language teacher education, it can be useful to think explicitly about this positioning as it pertains to both languages rather than just one. I propose a relational two-language continuum based on the constructs of authenticity and legitimacy. The objective of the continuum is to help pre-service foreign language teachers gain legitimacy through two languages in Australian language classrooms. Given the prevalence of monolingual educational structures in Australia, the continuum is primarily viewed as a tool to help a diverse cohort of pre-service teachers think about how to increase communicative target language use in mainstream language classrooms.

Student and Teacher Perceptions of First Language Use in Secondary French Immersion Mathematics Classrooms

This phenomenological study (Creswell, 2003, 2007; van Manen, 1997) explores student and teacher perceptions of first language use in French immersion mathematics classrooms at a large, urban high school in Canada. During individual interviews, participants discussed their perceptions and experiences of French immersion mathematics, language use, and, in particular, first language use. Interview data are analysed through a sociocultural theory lens (e.g., Lantolf, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 2000), drawing on key notions such as language interdependence and the use of language as a cognitive tool. While first language use in second language classrooms remains controversial, this article contributes to an open discussion on the potential role students’ first language can play in determining effective language and content learning.

Student and Teacher Perceptions of First Language Use in Secondary French Immersion Mathematics Classrooms.

This phenomenological study (Creswell, 2003, 2007; van Manen, 1997) explores student and teacher perceptions of first language use in French immersion mathematics classrooms at a large, urban high school in Canada. During individual interviews, participants discussed their perceptions and experiences of French immersion mathematics, language use, and, in particular, first language use. Interview data are analysed through a sociocultural theory lens (e.g., Lantolf, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 2000), drawing on key notions such as language interdependence and the use of language as a cognitive tool. While first language use in second language classrooms remains controversial, this article contributes to an open discussion on the potential role students’ first language can play in determining effective language and content learning. Cette etude phenomenologique (Creswell, 2003, 2007; van Manen, 1997) porte sur les perceptions des eleves et des enseignants sur l’emploi de la langue premiere pendant les cours de mathematiques dans un contexte d’immersion francaise d’une grande ecole secondaire en milieu urbain au Canada. Pendant les entrevues individuelles, les participants ont discute de leurs perceptions et leurs experiences relatives aux cours de mathematiques en immersion et a l’emploi de langue, notamment la langue premiere. Les donnees d’entrevues ont ete analysees dans l’optique de la theorie socioculturelle (p.ex., Lantolf, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 2000), puisant dans des notions cles telles l’interdependance des langues et l’emploi de langue comme outil cognitif. Alors que l’emploi de la premiere langue dans les classes d’immersion est controverse, cet article contribue a une discussion ouverte sur le role potentiel que peut jouer la langue premiere des eleves dans la determination de l’apprentissage efficace de la langue et du contenu.

English language teaching research in South Korea: A review of recent studies (2009–2014)

This article reviews recent studies on English language teaching (ELT) in South Korea, where a great deal of research has been produced in recent years in local journals. In this article we review 95 studies from a pool of some 1,200 published between 2009 and 2014 on English language teaching and learning, focusing on research within the public school context. Using themes from the national curriculum as an organizing principle, the review covers selected studies in the following areas: (1) second language teacher education, (2) communicative language teaching, (3) language use and interaction in classrooms, (4) co-teaching with native-speaking English teachers, (5) curriculum and materials analysis, (6) treatments of teaching methods, and (7) assessment, testing and washback. We include commentary on the research undertaken in each area and conclude by discussing the limitations of the review and summarizing ideas for future research directions, perhaps the most important of which is questioning whether or not there is enough research of reasonable quality being produced to sustain roughly 60 journals publishing articles on English education in South Korea.