Literature In Language Teaching Research Articles

A qualitative inquiry of minimalistic mindset outcomes on Iranian English language teachers’ well-being

Language teaching is a tense occupation wherein countless negative stressors such as students’ misbehaviors, low income, assessment issues, and personal conflicts might threaten the well-being and happiness of teachers. Thus, cultivating a flexible mindset responsive enough to tackle various stressors has become a promising research scope. In this vein, minimalism, as a worldview that helps people reduce unwanted and excessive distractors, might be a possible solution that would possibly reduce the teachers’ life and occupation stressors and cultivate their well-being-related strengths. However, the concept has been ignored in educational domains. Therefore, the present exploratory study sheds light on the minimalistic mindset of 34 Iranian English language teachers, recruited through purposeful sampling method and partook in an interview. Their answers were analyzed through thematic analysis to see whether minimalistic mindsets of teachers contribute to their welfare or not. The analyses of the qualitative data signaled that the findings would contribute to the educational psychology and language education literature by suggesting that teachers with minimalistic worldviews towards life are less stressed and concerned about distractors and are more prone to value inner peace, tolerance, and rapport in their personal and professional life.

Intercultural Communicative Competence in Language Education: A Bibliometric Analysis (1995–2022)

This study conducted a bibliometric analysis for intercultural communicative competence in language education by using 401 research articles in this field spanning from 1995 to 2022 in Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection—SSCI database. CiteSpace visualized knowledge maps of this field of research. The research findings show that in the field of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in language education, The Modern Language Journal is found to be the most highly cited journal within the past twenty-seven years; the top three highly cited authors are Michael Byram, Claire Kramsch, and Robert O’Dowd; Ethical Issues in Teaching for Intercultural Citizenship in World/Foreign Language Education is the most highly cited article; transcultural skill, intercultural communicative competence, technology-assisted L2 research, and pragmatics instruction are found to be top four leading research streams. These findings provide considerable insights into the highly cited journals, authors, articles and leading streams concerning ICC in language education from the diachronic perspective. The visualization of ICC in language education literature by formulating a bibliometric approach might be beneficial for researchers and scholars to track the development of this field.

The presence and absence of race in world language education literature

AbstractWorld language (WL) education has the potential to shift perspectives toward equity. To accomplish this, the field must consider how it is situated within societal systems that perpetuate racial inequity. This systematic historical analysis of literature examined how the term race and related terms appeared historically in a set of primary journals in WL education. Drawing on literature from race and critical whiteness studies, the article presents a conceptual framework used to analyze articles that referenced race‐related terms in the publication histories of 11 WL journals. Using textual content and thematic analysis, the articles illuminated ways in which systemic whiteness operates in WL education. Findings suggest that individual actions and coordinated efforts to shift policies and practice may help the field move toward greater racial equity.

Topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in systematic reviews in language education. Lessons from the international database of education systematic reviews (IDESR)

Abstract The International Database of Education Systematic Reviews (IDESR.org) contains summary records of published systematic reviews in education and protocols for unpublished reviews and reviews in preparation. During its pilot phase, IDESR is concentrating exclusively on curating systematic reviews in language education. IDESR makes ready access to extant evidence syntheses for researchers, who can use this information to assess the strength of the warrant for any proposed new primary research and/or additional evidence syntheses. By using IDESR to publish review protocols prospectively, review authors commit to high standards of transparency and rigour in producing their research. We have used the data held in IDESR to assess the topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in the language education literature. We found (i) that language education has seen exponential growth in systematic reviews of research; (ii) that a variety of topics have been addressed, but those related to educational technology have dominated; (iii) that reviews are published in a wide range of outlets, going beyond language education journals; and (iv) that there is room for improvement in the quality of reporting evidence syntheses in language education.

Literature in language education: exploring teachers’ beliefs, practices, creativity, and literary competence

ABSTRACT Given the growing movement in support of blurring the divisions between language and literature teaching, it has become increasingly vital to understand what language teachers think of literature as a language resource, the approaches they employ when teaching with it, the extent to which they can appreciate, understand, analyse, and interpret literary texts, that is, their literary competence, and whether certain traits predict such competence. Yet, research into the use of literature in language education has been primarily concerned with learners rather than teachers. This article reports on an online questionnaire-based study that explored the creativity, orientations towards literature, teaching approaches, and beliefs regarding literature of 170 language teachers in Central Asia and how these elements predicted their literary competence. Participants worked at universities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan and were teaching Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish as foreign languages. The findings revealed that their reading habits and creativity statistically significantly predicted their literary competence while their selection of texts was partly at odds with their professed orientations towards literature.

The Use of Literature in Language Teaching: An Effective Way to Improve Language Skills

The Use of Literature in Language Teaching: An Effective Way to Improve Language Skills

Broadening horizons: An interview with Geoff Hall

Geoff Hall took degrees separately in English literature and in applied linguistics at the universities of Sussex and Birmingham, respectively. A career in English teaching of all kinds has taken him around the world with posts notably in Singapore, Poland, Spain, UK and China. In every place he always made the effort to learn something of the local languages and literatures which has enriched his life immensely. His most widely cited publication is the book Literature in Language Education (2015a). He was Editor of Language and Literature from 2010-2016. Geoff is currently Visiting Professor of Stylistics, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, and Professor II, English Language Education, Nord University, Norway. He is trying to retire but remains an incorrigible lifelong learner and travelled widely before Covid 19 hit us all. In this interview, he discusses the importance of pedagogy to the practice of stylistics and explains the important links to be made between pedagogical stylistics and second language acquisition. He argues for a greater level of integration between stylistics and non-linguistically oriented literary studies, aimed at ensuring that stylistic analyses are grounded in an informed appreciation of historical and textual context.

Tertiary EFL Learners' Attitudes towards Graded Readers

The use of different literary texts in language learning and teaching was undertaken in many research articles, reviews, and dissertations. Several studies have indicated the effectiveness of literature in language teaching and learning. One of the literary texts used to teach a foreign or second language is graded readers which are simplified versions of original texts. This qualitative case study intends to investigate tertiary EFL learners’ attitudes towards the use of graded readers in language learning. Participants of the study were 11 English preparatory class students at a Turkish state university. Data for the study were gathered through semi-structured individual interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings suggest that students have positive attitudes towards the use of graded readers, and they feel that those texts help them to improve their language skills; reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary knowledge, and grammar. Interview data also revealed that in the process of graded reader activity, learners used reading strategies and higher-order thinking skills such as critical thinking, collaboration and communication although they were not taught or instructed to use them.

The effects of second language literacy instruction on first language literacy: a comparison between Hindi–English and Urdu–English Canadian bilinguals

The effects of second language literacy instruction on first language literacy: a comparison between Hindi–English and Urdu–English Canadian bilinguals

SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR THE SYLLABUS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE COURSE IN ELT DEPARTMENTS

Using literature in language teaching as authentic material has many advantages such as developing learners’ intercultural competence, personal involvement, proficiency in the target language, creativity, critical, and analytical thinking, interpreting, speaking and communication skills. Correspondingly, the purposes of this study are to explore how many state universities have the syllabus for English Literature courses on their official websites and to find out the most preferred topics of English Literature courses in ELT programs. As a part of the qualitative data collection, online curriculums of 59 state universities were explored to find the most preferred topics of these courses. Based on the findings of the study, out of 59 universities, only 37 universities’ online syllabi of “English Literature Course I and II” were available. Also, common topics in English Literature courses’ syllabi of 37 universities were listed. Medieval English Literature - The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer, Old English Period - Beowulf, and Elizabethan Era - Shakespeare were among the most preferred topics, while Middle Age period: historic, social, literary events, Contemporary English Literature, 20th-century literature were the least preferred ones. In the conclusion part of the study, some suggestions were presented for syllabi of English Literature courses in ELT departments of universities.

The Use of Literature in Language Teaching: A Pedagogical Approach from the Nepali Perspective

The use of literature in language teaching is still contentious though literature occupies limited space in the language syllabi. The language teachers assume that literature has less contribution to language teaching, believing that literary materials are challenging to handle in the classroom. However, I believe that literary materials are rich in content and have the creative language use to contribute to language teaching. In this juncture, this study analyzes the use of literature in English language teaching in general and the pedagogical approaches to be practiced in particular by using qualitative and analytical research design. For this purpose, the three texts of literature: Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” (story), Kamala Das’s “An Introduction” (poem), and Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (drama) have been used as the primary texts to design the activities under three levels of interaction. These literary texts are analyzed to show the use and pedagogy of literature in language teaching. The study concludes that literature in language teaching contributes to the language development and aesthetic purpose. Exploring the literary texts involves students in (preliminary) interaction to draw the information of the text for conceptualization. Likewise, the activities under reading between the lines inculcate different skills in students such as discussing, analyzing, exploring and characterizing; and literary texts in beyond the text section involve students in aesthetic purpose-based activities in which students apply the critical lenses and create their own texts. This study provides many language teachers with insights to handle literary texts more effectively to sharpen students’ language, inferential and intellectual skills.

CURRENT TRENDS IN TPACK RESEARCH IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF LITERATURE FROM 2017 TO 2021

In this 21st century, traditional ways of teaching and learning have been changed with the evolution of technology. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is one of the conceptual models developed by researchers to facilitate teachers’ professional development. It is believed that TPACK should be developed and mastered by teachers to achieve effective implementation of technology in teaching and learning. This systematic literature review aims to investigate current trends in TPACK research in English language education literature published between 2017 to 2021. The keywords “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge”, “TPACK”, “English language”, “ESL”, “EFL” and “English teachers” with some modifications using “AND” and “OR” were used to obtain relevant articles from Scopus and ProQuest databases. The study inclusion process was done following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020’s framework. There were 14 articles yielded and included in this systematic literature review. The results show that TPACK studies in English language education were carried out worldwide. Moreover, half of the reviewed studies used pre-service English language teachers as the participants while others used in-service or both of them. Meanwhile, some studies used English language learners as the participants. In addition, there are a variety of methods including quantitative, qualitative and mixed method employed by the researchers of reviewed studies. We also identified 5 key emerging themes of the reviewed studies including measurement of TPACK level (64%), the relationship between TPACK and other variables (29%), strategy to develop TPACK (29%), implementation of TPACK (14%) and development of TPACK instrument (21%). This paper implies researchers in the English language education field, especially in Malaysia. Further studies on TPACK need to be conducted due to the limited current research in Malaysia.

Literature in the Algerian EFL Bachelor of Arts degree: Reading Literature

Given the acknowledged and undeniable advantages of literature in language education, it has been integrated into EFL curricula for undergraduate students as an essential subject. In the Algerian English departments before the reform introduced in the last two decades (the Licence, Master, doctorate system), literature used to have a privileged status in terms of the number of courses and number of classes or tutorials. However, after the reform, the importance of literature and the lion’s share that it used to have in the EFL Bachelor of Arts course regressed in favor of more specialized subjects. Such a reform has only worsened the state of the art of EFL literature teaching, which was already in a deplored state according to the will be cited studies. This article aims at pointing at the primary defects or malfunctioning of the first-year literature course by answering the question: what are the main flaws of the first-year EFL literature course? In order to answer this question, the article starts with a review of the whole literature course package, i.e., objective, content, methodology, and assessment. More importantly, to go beyond mere evaluation and criticism, the article ends by suggesting an alternative course that adopts task-based language teaching as a methodology. The proposed task-based literature course attempts to overcome the observed weaknesses or the inefficiencies of the actual course by matching the course objective, content, methodology, and assessment to students’ needs and aptitudes.

Meanings attributed to literature in language education

ABSTRACT This study examines the meanings attributed to literature in language education by Finnish General Upper Secondary teachers of English as a Foreign Language. The study employs a phenomenological research design structured around the concepts of language education, literature and values in education. The phenomenological analysis examines five semi-structured interviews from teachers who have experience in including literature in their language education practice. The interviews were conducted both in person and over the phone and audio-recorded, transcribed and processed using qualitative data management software. The analysis showed that literature in language education was experienced as challenged, challenging, framed, a cultural phenomenon, a cultural practice, a path for cross-curricular collaboration, tool for learning and an opportunity for personal growth. The values transmitted through these meanings reflected a balancing act between acknowledging the value of literature for individuals’ holistic growth and the value literature holds for language learning. The results suggest that literature in language education as a phenomenon is more than select texts and practices in a pedagogical setting. Furthermore, employing literature within the language education paradigm can narrow the gap between foreign language teaching and teaching literature, because both language education and teaching literature value the personal growth of the individual.

Geoff Hall, Literature in Language Education (2nd ed.) Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xi + 340 pp.

本書評は，科研費助成事業の学術研究助成基金助成金（2018年度基盤研究（C））課題番号18K00374「文学の原作とそのリトールド版との比較に基づいた英語学習法及び教材の開発」（研究代表者：小野 章）の補助を受けて執筆された。

Teaching Techniques Implemented by Preschool Teachers in English Early Literacy Instructional Practices: A Case Study

This multiple case study aims to address preschool teachers’ practices implemented in early literacy instruction specifically in terms of the teaching techniques used by teachers during English early literacy classroom instruction. Four in-service teachers from three types of preschool which are private, government and non-government organizations located in a suburban area, were selected as the study’s participants. Data collectionsinvolved throughout the study were field notes, checklist, video recording and classroom observations. A teaching technique checklist is used as an instrument to analyze types of teaching techniques implemented by teachers. Results show that the preschool teachers only implement general teaching techniques and often do not implement specialist teaching techniques during English literacy instruction. The most common teaching techniques implemented by the teachers during English literacy instruction are: 1) demonstrating, 2) describing, 3) encouraging, praising, and helping, 4) facilitating, 5) listening, 6) positioning people, 7) questioning, 8) recalling, 9) singing and 10) telling and instructing. Generalization may not be fair at this stage, but the findings may reflect the need to provide appropriate training for preschool teachers. Larger samples are crucial to understand the scale of the teaching practice being appropriate or not for effective English language literacy instruction.

Teacher Professional Development in Language-Driven CLIL: A Case Study

The professional development of and language integrated learning (CLIL) continues to be a niche in the language education literature, particularly in Latin America. The aim of this study is to explore the effects of a continuing professional development course delivered in 2018 to support language-driven CLIL implementation in state secondary schools in Argentina. Built as a case study, the investigation draws on data from one teacher collected through multiple sources for triangulation purposes. Two research questions guided the study: 1) What beliefs does a teacher have of language-driven CLIL? and 2) What are the effects of a continuing professional development course on language-driven CLIL targeted at EFL secondary school teachers? Findings show that authenticity, rather than language-content integration, is a salient feature of language-driven CLIL in this teacher’s practice. Findings also reveal that CLIL success depends on learners’ English language proficiency. Drawing on its teacher’s beliefs of CLIL, the course had an impact on the teacher’s identity as a materials developer and autonomous and critical practitioner who could theorize by reflecting on her practices and the readings provided by the course tutor.

The Untapped Potential of Preschool Classroom Volunteers in Language–Literacy Instruction: A Feasibility Study

Purpose This pretest–posttest study examined the effects of a professional development training on five volunteer instructors' (VIs) utilization of language and literacy facilitation strategies within interactive shared book readings with low-income preschool children. The training specifically targeted the VIs' use of wh -questions, expansions, and references to story grammar elements (SGEs) with use of a corresponding visual aid. Method VIs participated in a 3-hr training composed of lecture, video models, role playing, four opportunities to explicitly practice the target strategies, and four opportunities to receive immediate feedback from the investigators. The VIs led storybook readings that were video-recorded for comparison prior to and after the training sessions (two pretraining, two posttraining). The investigators analyzed the VIs' language and literacy strategy usage in the readings. The investigators compared the raw number of wh -questions asked, expansions of child responses or comments, the number of references (out of 20) to SGEs, and use of the visual aid pre- and posttraining. Results After the training, four of the five VIs increased the number of wh -questions asked during readings, and one VI maintained a large number of questions asked, compared to pretraining readings. All VIs provided an increased number of references to SGEs (character, setting, problem, fixing problem, solution) in a variety of capacities (name, definition, book-specific element, visual aid use) to reinforce narrative concepts. VIs had inconsistent increases in expansions of child responses or comments posttraining. Conclusion Results revealed the VIs generally increased their facilitation of language and literacy strategies after participating in a professional development training, suggesting utilization of volunteers as instructors may be a valuable area to explore, especially in low-income environments where children may be at risk for language and literacy delays. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12070824

A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness of Descubriendo la Lectura

We present findings from a randomized controlled trial of Descubriendo la Lectura (DLL), an intervention designed to improve the literacy skills of Spanish-speaking first graders, who are struggling with reading. DLL offers one-on-one native language literacy instruction for 12 to 20 weeks to each school’s lowest performing first-graders. Examining literacy outcomes for 187 students, hierarchical linear model analyses revealed statistically significant effects of student-level assignment to DLL on all 9 outcomes evaluated. Impacts were as large as 1.24 standard deviations, or a learning advantage relative to controls exceeding a full school year of achievement growth. The mean effect size of d = 0.66 across the nine literacy measures is equal to approximately two thirds of the overall literacy growth that occurs across the first-grade year.

Morphological Awareness Strategies to Promote Academic Success at Tier 1 Through Interprofessional Collaboration

Purpose Many school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are interested in interprofessional collaborations with teachers to provide classroom-based services but are often unsure how to design and implement these services in a way that will meet teachers' curricular standards and serve the specific language needs of students. The purpose of this article is to provide SLPs an interprofessional model for providing quality classroom-based language–literacy instruction that facilitates language success for children with and without language–literacy deficits using a morphological awareness strategy approach. Conclusion The 8-week teacher–SLP collaborative classroom model focused on morphological awareness to improve 3rd-grade vocabulary, reading, and writing presented in this article provides a framework for implementing classroom-based services relevant to the curriculum.