National English Research Articles

AMEP and the Burden of Compliance

This article explores the ‘burden of compliance’ experienced by providers and teachers in the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP), a large national English as an Additional Language (EAL) program in Australia. It shows how compliance requirements have been shaped by the relationship between two groups, those who make and operationalise relevant policies (mainly politicians and public servants) and those engaged in the practice of developing and teaching English courses (mainly teachers, program providers, and academics). These two groups are engaged in a struggle for the control of a metaphoric ‘pedagogic device’ (Bernstein, 2000) which shapes curriculum documents such as the frameworks, scales and teaching resources used in the AMEP. The article examines three key teaching and assessment documents and shows how the compliance requirements attached to each have been shaped by the relationship between these two groups over time. A crucial dynamic governing this relationship is the level of trust between and within them. The article argues that changes in levels and types of trust account for many of the tensions within the AMEP. It begins by describing how compliance was raised as an issue and introduces the key concepts that inform the discussion. The second part of the article tracks changes in approaches to compliance as manifested in three AMEP curriculum documents over 75 years. The third part identifies three policy trends that contributed to compliance becoming the burden currently experienced by providers and teachers. The article concludes that there are signs that trust between stakeholders may be changing, with a potential reduction in the burden of compliance.

Standards, Instruction and Assessment of EFL Writing in Schools: Lessons From China's Basic Education

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the current situation of English as a foreign language (EFL) writing in basic education in mainland China with a focus on the English curriculum standards, instruction and assessment. The National English Curriculum Standards launched by China's Ministry of Education ratified a general framework for EFL writing instruction and assessment in schools while the municipal curriculum guides, such as the one of Shanghai, include more specific writing performance descriptors. Comparisons of EFL curricula with other countries and regions suggest diverse examples and updated resources be added to China's current curriculum standards to improve feasibility and modernity. Moreover, there are discrepancies between the Curriculum Standards and the implementation in the classroom. Sociocultural factors, such as teachers' beliefs, instructional materials and the exam culture, have led to the tension between new pedagogies advocated in the Curriculum Standards and conventional instructional practices. This study further explores the writing section in the large‐scale high‐stake exams, that is, Zhongkao and Gaokao, which have long exerted strong influence on teachers' instruction and assessment practices. Regularising professional training in writing instruction and improving teachers' assessment literacy are thus suggested. Local practitioners' attempts to integrate the process approach into traditional teaching methods and scholars' efforts to develop the writing scales for assessment are discussed to offer policy and pedagogical implications for other education contexts that are faced with similar challenges.

과업 유형이 고등학교 영어 학습자의 동사 하위범주화 자질 학습에 미치는 영향

Purpose: This study investigated the influence of task involvement levels on Korean high school students' learning of verb subcategorization knowledge. Based on the Task-induced involvement load hypothesis in vocabulary acquisition, we analyzed whether different tasks with varying levels of involvement affect the learning of sentence structures inevitably derived from verbs. Methods: Sixty homogeneous Korean second-year high school students were selected and were divided into three groups, for applying different types of tasks. We used nine verbs belonging to the “putting verb” category, and different levels of task involvement were presented to each group. Pre- and post-tests were conducted to assess the students' knowledge of verb subcategorization. Results: The results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between task involvement levels and learning of verb subcategorization. Furthermore, a discrepancy was observed between the proficiency levels determined by the national English test and the knowledge of verb subcategorization. Conclusion: The distinction in task involvement did not significantly affect the learning of the subcategorization features of verbs. However, given the disparity between knowledge of verb subcategorization features and nationwide English proficiency assessment results, it is proposed that there is a need for English education to develop proficiency in verbal communication skills.

Strategies for Implementing "Integrated Teaching-Learning-Assessment" in the Context of English Core Literacy

The emergence of the National English Curriculum Standards (2017 Edition, Revised in 2020) has sparked widespread attention and resonance in the field of secondary school English teaching. Delving into the study and application of the new curriculum standards has become a crucial entry point and lever for secondary school English teachers to renew their teaching philosophies, enhance teaching effectiveness, and advance the depth of education. The new curriculum standards provide important guidance on how secondary school English teachers should teach, how students should learn, and how to effectively integrate teaching, learning, and assessment, thereby delineating the direction of English teaching in the current era of emphasizing subject core literacy in quality education. The 2022 Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards explicitly mention the curriculum design concept of "integrating teaching and assessment," further deepening the intrinsic connections among teaching, learning, and assessment. Therefore, based on the guiding principles of "integrating teaching and assessment," this paper relies on the 2017 edition of the new curriculum standards and combines the practical situation of secondary school English teaching to analyze how to comprehensively understand the connotation of "integrating teaching and assessment" and how to implement effective teaching and assessment practices.

A Survey on Cultural Awareness Cultivation in Senior High School

The National English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School (2017 edition 2020 revised) points out the cultural awareness, as one of the key competence, can help students form international vision and cross-cultural communication ability, and foster a sense of human community with a shared future. But in the actual teaching process, English teachers often ignore the cultivation of student's cultural awareness and the level of students’ cultural awareness is not qualified. This essay aims to find out the current situation of high school students’ cultural awareness. The research question is what is the current situation of students’ cultural awareness in senior high school. In order to answer this question, the researcher did a survey in a senior high school in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in China. Based on the discussion of the survey result, the researcher gives some suggestions to English teachers.

CROSS-CULTURAL AWARENESS IN DEVELOPING COMMUNICATIVE FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMPETENCE OF MAJORS IN AVIATION

Professionally oriented training implies involvement of professional knowledge and job-related skills. Therefore, the National English for Specific Purposes Curriculum focuses on integrated approach to the formation of linguistic and specialism-related competence. Communication factors (media, terminology and language) are of primary importance in Aviation English as communication failures pose serious threats to flight safety.

Cultural Education in Transition: Re-envisaging National English Curricula of China from a Global Citizenship Perspective

Cultural Education in Transition: Re-envisaging National English Curricula of China from a Global Citizenship Perspective

Study of College English Teachers’ Instructional Design Competence— Case Study of Teaching Methods

Teaching competence is very important for a teacher, and it is a basic skill of every teacher. However, there are few researches on Chinese University Teachers' instructional design competence, especially from the perspective of teaching methods. In order to investigate the teaching design competence of College English teachers, this study adopts the method of case analysis. The winning works of "Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press Cup" National English teaching competition were selected as the cases. Data analysis was made by using tables to list related evaluations. Data analysis shows that most participants can choose the appropriate teaching methods according to the teaching objectives, but only a few participants can choose innovative teaching methods. It is necessary to design teaching method according to teaching content. Some teachers cannot design teaching methods reasonably, which shows that teachers' ability to match teaching content and teaching methods needs to be improved. Teaching methods should be able to promote the realization of teaching objectives. However, the research shows that the teaching methods selected by some participants cannot help promote the realization of teaching objectives. The research shows that the overall teaching design literacy of university teachers needs to be improved. If we want to get a more accurate survey of the status quo, we should also have a deeper understanding about the instructional competence of teachers.

Long-Term Exposure to Low Concentrations of Ambient Benzene and Mortality in a National English Cohort.

Background: Benzene affects human health through environmental exposure in addition to occupational contact. However, few studies have examined the associations between long-term exposure to low concentrations of ambient benzene and mortality risks in nonoccupational settings.Methods: This prospective cohort study consists of 393,042 participants without stroke, myocardial infarction, or cancer at baseline from the UK Biobank. Annual average concentrations of benzene for each year during follow-up were measured using air dispersion models. The main outcomes were all-cause mortality and mortality from specific causes. Cox proportional-hazards models with time-varying exposure measurements were used to estimate the hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for mortality risks. Restricted cubic spline models were used to estimate exposure-response relationships.Measurements and Main Results: With each interquartile range increase in the average annual concentration of benzene, the adjusted hazard ratios of mortality risk from all causes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory disease were 1.26 (95% CI, 1.24-1.27), 1.24 (95% CI, 1.21-1.28), 1.27 (95% CI, 1.25-1.29), and 1.25 (95% CI, 1.20-1.30), respectively. The monotonically increasing exposure-response curves showed no threshold and plateau within the observed concentration range. Furthermore, the effect of benzene exposure on mortality persisted across different subgroups and was somewhat stronger in younger and White people (P for interaction < 0.05).Conclusions: Long-term exposure to low concentrations of ambient benzene significantly increases mortality risk in the general population. Ambient benzene represents a potential threat to public health, and further investigations are needed to support timely pollution regulation and health protection.

The Changes in Text Cohesion of Senior High School Students Measured by Coh‐Metrix as a Function of Grade Level

National English Curriculum Standards for General High School sets requirements for text cohesion and text cohesion is an essential component of English writing and English writing evaluation. However, previous studies explored text cohesion mainly from perspectives of college students, horizontal comparison and traditional tools. In this study, a corpus of 300 essays by grade level (senior one and senior three) are analyzed computationally by Coh‐Metrix to examine whether text cohesion improves as grade level rises. During the specific process, this paper aims to identify characteristics and discriminate differences between the text cohesion created by the two grades. The main instrument is Coh‐Metrix—a type of computational tool that offers over 200 measurements to quantify texts. This study mainly employs the measures under the category of referential cohesion, LSA and connectives of it to assess text cohesion. The results demonstrate that as the grade level increases, text cohesion gets better. Specifically, these students produce more noun overlap of adjacent sentences, argument overlap of adjacent sentences, noun overlap of all sentences, argument overlap of all sentences, stem overlap of all sentences, LSA overlap of adjacent sentences, LSA overlap of adjacent paragraphs, LSA overlap of given/new sentences all connectives and additive connectives.

Global Englishes Awareness and Pedagogical Practices: A Study of Chinese English Teacher Educators

Previous studies on Global Englishes (GE) awareness tend to focus on pre- and in-service English teachers, with little attention paid to English teacher educators. Given the potential transfer of English teacher educators’ perceptions on diverse Englishes and associated teaching practices to English teacher trainees, this study adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate the GE awareness and pedagogical practice of Chinese English teacher educators who are engaged in preparing English teachers for junior middle schools in rural China. The analysis of the data collected via a questionnaire survey with 49 English teacher educators and interviews with seven of them indicates that most participants had a pseudo GE awareness, holding a positive attitude toward non-native English but deeming it as less standard than its native counterpart, and almost all participants followed the native-speakerist paradigm in classroom teaching, and did not actively introduce GE to their students. Revealed simultaneously is that even the participants with long stays overseas also bought into native speakerism. In reference to China’s socio-cultural and historical-political contexts, this study proposes that China adjust its national English syllabi and reconstruct the professional development programs for English teacher educators to facilitate the implementation of Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT).

A critical discourse analysis of social and structural inequalities that exist between NET and NNETs in South Korea's English Hiring Market

English has become a crucial aspect of South Koreans' lives, and there exists a transnational linguistic market where English is a highly prized commodity. Private and public academic institutions, as well as national English programs, make significant financial investments to find Native-speaking English Teachers (NETs) to work in South Korea. Previous studies have revealed employment decisions for EFL teachers in Asia are frequently influenced by a candidate's “nativeness” as opposed to their professional accomplishments, such as their teaching experience and academic credentials. The NETNNET dichotomy in the EFL area is very problematic as it fosters discriminatory practices, yet little is known is known how these tensions play out in the South Korean context. By employing Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional CDA framework, this paper seeks to critically examine the discourses surrounding the native and non-native English language teachers are constructed in the Korean English market. This paper identifies how relations of inequalities, power, and domination are reproduced or produced in discourse. Data include analysis of the texts in hiring advertisements for English language teachers in South Korea. Through CDA, I sought to reveal and confront dominant ideologies and discourses reflected in the texts. This paper concludes with suggestions on how to challenge the inequitable practices and policies widely present in the South Korean English market.

Efficacy of Inquiry-Based Learning and Teaching Approach in EFL Inferential Reading Comprehension among Chinese High School Students

Chinese EFL high school teaching often overlooks critical inferential reasoning in reading comprehension. This study proposes a shift from teacher-centric methods to an Inquiry-Based Learning and Teaching (IBLT) framework, expected to enhance EFL inferential reading abilities among Chinese high school students. This aligns with China's National English Curriculum Standards, emphasizing the importance of such proficiency. The study gauges current EFL reading comprehension in Chinese high schools and assesses IBLT's efficacy through a controlled, nine-week experiment, with data analysis revealing a positive impact. The findings aim to inform pedagogical tactics, promoting a more interactive, student-focused teaching model.

Exploring Mutual Learning of Four Chinese Senior High School EFL Teachers in a Collaborative Action Research Community

Abstract English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ professional development has been attached much importance with the advent of the National English Curriculum Standards (NECS in short) for Senior High Schools as it initiates the shift from knowledge-skill-oriented education to competence-oriented education. As an effective way for teachers’ professional development, collaborative action research community is introduced in this study to provide teachers with opportunities for mutual engagement, meaning negotiation, and a shared repertoire. Four senior high school EFL teachers from four different schools were studied in a collaborative action research community to explore how teachers from diversified backgrounds achieve mutual learning for their professional development. With data collected from observation, interviews, and journals, the study reveals that diversity and partiality help maintain mutual engagement in the community of practice. Meaning negotiation and mutual accountability in a joint enterprise contribute to the coherence of the community. Moreover, the participative activity of online and offline group discussion and the common topic of thinking visualization were treated as sources of a shared repertoire, an essential indication of a harmonious community. In this case, this study extrapolates how the collaborative action research community achieves harmony to support teachers’ professional development in action research.

Formative Assessment in English Learning and Teaching: An Instrumental Tool for Students and Teachers

The National English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools (2017 Edition, 2020 Revised) emphasizes that teaching assessment should be carried out throughout the teaching process and be reflected in all aspects of teaching practice, including the process of collecting information through multiple channels, as well as various types of assessment on teaching practice. Assessment plays a crucial role as the last part of the teaching and learning process. Starting from the characteristics and role of formative assessment, this paper excavates the shortcomings of formative assessment in practice and put forward some feasible suggestions.

Analysis and Evaluation of PEP Senior High School Textbooks New Senior English from the Perspective of Key Competencies

The status of textbooks is significant in English learning.Textbooks not only provide students with learning resources, but also help teachers design teaching activities. A variety of textbooks are published in the market. For this reason, textbooks evaluation becomes more crucial. This paper is about the analysis and evaluation of senior high school textbooks New Senior English published by People’s Education Press from the Perspective of key competencies. The evaluation of New Senior English is conducted according to the requirements of National English Curriculum Standards. After analyzing the New Senior English, it finds that the textbook has both advantages and disadvantages, so teachers should make adjustments based on the actual classroom situation, instead of repeating what the textbook says.

Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English Suggested Curriculum for High School

This case study reports how three high-school teachers from two state schools in Colombia enacted the National English Suggested Curriculum by the Ministry of Education. The teachers’ trajectories of action were analyzed through semi-structured interviews, teachers’ narratives, and lesson observations. Using the ecological model of agency as a framework, we situated teachers’ steps within projective, iterational, and practical evaluative dimensions of agency. In this paper, we provide additional dimensions of teacher agency, which can help to expand theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field. Findings show that teachers cope with the changes derived from policy differently. The analysis presented in this paper can inform the creation and promotion of future curriculum policies in similar contexts.

An Analysis of Teacher’s Strategies in Teaching Speaking Skills Through Cartoon Movie

Speaking is a language skill that must be mastered. Students' English speaking skills at the National English Centre have not been seen to be active. Researchers applied cartoon movies “Omar &amp; Hana” as a medium in speaking activities to improve students' speaking skills. This study aims to find out whether the teacher's strategy of teaching speaking skills with cartoon movies can improve students' speaking skills, especially in the aspects of self-confidence and fluency at the lower level. The research method used in this research is descriptive qualitative by using observation, interviews, and documentation as research instruments. The population of this study was lower level at the National English Centre Jakarta which amounted to 28 students. Data collection by conducting direct observations in class and interviews. The results showed that students lacked confidence in speaking English. The environment greatly affects students' English language skills. The way the teacher teaches speaking skills is also very influential. Thus, the researcher concluded that the use of cartoon movies in teaching English was able to improve students' speaking skills, especially in aspects of self- confidence and fluency.

Fostering crosslinguistic knowledge about language in young learners: effects of explicit L2 Spanish grammar learning on L1 English grammar

This study explored the effects of learning activities which encouraged positive crosslinguistic influence from L2 Spanish to L1 English grammar in young learners. The learners (N = 82) were studying Spanish as their compulsory foreign language at an English state primary school in the UK. As part of ten timetabled Spanish classes over a period of six months, 40 pupils, aged 10–11, engaged in self-study activities involving aspects of Spanish grammar. The activities incorporated thematic content and metalanguage based on the grammar, punctuation and spelling exam (GPS), a national English grammar test taken at the end of primary education. A control group of 42 children engaged in self-study activities with no focus on grammar. L1 English grammar knowledge pre- and post-intervention was assessed using GPS scores. At post-test, a small, non-significant positive effect on attainment in L1 English grammar was observed. Although preliminary and involving only a small effect, the results are promising, showing that engagement with Spanish grammar activities might lead to better performance on English grammar. These findings are consistent with recent research which has established that the cognitive maturity required to develop and deploy metalinguistic awareness is present in children at a younger age than previously assumed.

Critical discursive approaches to evaluating policy-driven testing: Social impact as a target for validation

This paper addresses the intersection of testing and policy, situating test-driven impact and validation within the context of policy-led educational reform in Korea. I will briefly review the existing validation models. Then, arguing for an expansion of the conventional conceptualization of consequential validity research, I use Fairclough’s dialectic–relational approach in critical discourse analysis (CDA), positioned in critical and poststructuralist research tradition, to evaluate social realities, such as intended and actual impact of policy-led testing, I take, as an example, the context of the development of the National English Ability Test (NEAT) in Korea, which had been used as a means of implementing government policies. Combining Messick’s validity framework for consequential evidence, Bachman and Palmer’s argument-based approach to validation (assessment use argument, AUA), and Fairclough’s dialectic–relational approach, I will illustrate how the impact of policy-led testing is performed and interpreted as a sociopolitical and discursive phenomenon, constituted and enacted in and through “discourse.” By revisiting the previous Faircloughian research works on NEAT’s impact, I postulate that the discourses arguing for and against social impact acquire their meanings from dialectical standpoints.