Perspective Of Language Teaching Research Articles

The teaching of additional languages to students with specific learning difficulties: challenges and possibilities of engagement

This essay discusses the right of students with disabilities to modify their school syllabus and teaching methods according to their specific needs, as outlined in Brazilian Law No. 9394/96 and No. 13.146/2015. It presents challenges and possibilities of adapting lesson plans and materials for students with visual impairments, autism spectrum disorder, and dyslexia, using a socio-discursive interactionist (SDI) theoretical-methodological perspective in language teaching. For visually-impaired students, the use of tactile materials, audio resources, verbal descriptions, and assistive technology are suggested when working with genres, but this paper also highlights the difficulty of interpreting graphics, tables and other visual representations. For students with autism, studies have shown that using a didactic sequence can be effective for teaching different genres to students with autism while promoting integration in the classroom. For dyslexic students, it is paramount to focus on guiding students to communicate in practical and meaningful ways from a socio-discursive perspective. Overall, the essay suggests that teachers should tailor their lesson plans to the specific needs of each student with impairments, using a genre-based teaching perspective.

‘Are we really back to normal?’: A qualitative study on language teachers’ teaching practices during the post-COVID-19 era

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted language teaching and learning environments. The current study explored how language teachers have adapted to post-COVID-19 classrooms. It also examined the ways in which their experiences during the pandemic influenced their teaching. Drawing on an ecological perspective toward language teacher agency (LTA), this study interviewed 10 less commonly taught language (LCTL) teachers to explore their expectations, preparations, and teaching strategies for post-COVID-19 classrooms. In addition, it aimed to discern the challenges encountered by teachers, their approaches to overcoming them, and the consequential influence of these experiences on their overall perspective of language teaching. The findings revealed mixed feelings among the teachers regarding returning to in-person instruction, unexpected challenges, and adjustment techniques. With pedagogical uncertainties, language teachers exercised agency by integrating technology into teaching, employing new teaching strategies, extending their roles to caregivers and community builders, and reflecting on future teaching practices. The teachers viewed these experiences as learning opportunities that would ultimately help them to grow.

Exploring Music to Learn Languages from an Intercultural Perspective

The interconnected and changing social, political and economic reality of the postmodern era pushes for a perspective of language teaching that addresses the intercultural dimension of communication in the EFL classroom. This need added to the persistence of ethnocentrism, hate discourses, and discrimination demand an active role of teachers and students as intercultural mediators. This goal can be achieved with the integration of the intercultural dimension in language teaching. Therefore, this study aimed to integrate the intercultural approach of language teaching through the exploration of the cultural meanings in Rhythm and Blues (r&b) music. In this way, data collection included a survey, focus group sessions, students’ artifacts and observations. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis and some themes explored were the cultural dimension of R&B, the affordances of music to discover other cultures, the students’ conception of culture, and the relevance of culture in EFL. Finally, findings showed that the students identified some cultural manifestations in r&b music and its potential to examine other cultures. Similarly, the participants discovered the importance of culture in language learning and its role to enhance their pedagogic experiences.

A Study of the Activities/Tasks in English Textbooks for Intermediate Classes from Communicative Language Teaching Perspective

Textbooks of English are filled with numerous activities for developing different competencies. This study analyzes intermediate English textbooks for Grade 11 & 12 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board, Peshawar for determining the extent of incorporation of Communicative Language Teaching principles (CLT) in the textbooks. The English textbooks for grades 11 & 12 are analyzed to obtain data for the research. For evaluating the textbooks’ activities, a CLT based qualitative framework was adopted. The findings indicated that the textbooks do not incorporate all the principles of CLT. There is no balance among the four skills of language. Listening skill has been completely ignored. The textbooks lack focus on the functional aspects of the use of language in context. Based on the results, recommendations for further research are provided. The study has important implications in terms of modifications and revisions of activities for achieving greater congruency with the tenets of CLT.

Research on the discourse construction ability of overseas students in Chinese universities based on Chinese language as a second language teaching

Vocabulary plays an important role in Chinese teaching. From the perspective of language teaching, vocabulary is not only an important carrier of language functions, but also bears the unique culture of a nation. From the characteristics of Chinese, function words, the way of word formation of Chinese words and the uniqueness of Chinese characters determine the importance of Chinese vocabulary learning. The level of vocabulary acquisition is directly related to the overall acquisition level of learners. The tolerance of vocabulary bias in the communicative process is lower than that of grammar bias. Meanwhile, the size of vocabulary mastered by second language learners is often one of the important criteria to measure their language ability. The integrated vocabulary teaching model is a conceptual innovation for the teaching of Chinese as a second language vocabulary. It defines the concept, purpose, principle and framework of the model for the first time, which is instructive to the classroom teaching of Chinese as a second language vocabulary and the compilation of textbooks, and also provides a reference for the follow-up research of integrated vocabulary teaching.

Chinese Students’ Beliefs about English Language and Their L2 Motivation

Introduction. This study adopts a Global Englishes perspective to examine dimensions within beliefs about English language held by Mainland Chinese university students. It also assesses whether and how these beliefs impact the students’ motivation to learn English (L2 motivation). Materials and Methods. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 460 students learning English as a Foreign Language at a large public university in Mainland China. The questionnaire contained 28 items to assess the students’ language beliefs and their L2 motivation. One section of the questionnaire gathered demographic information about the respondents. The research instrument was approved by the University’s Research Ethics Committee. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were performed to analyze the data. Results. The Exploratory factor analysis identified four distinct dimensions within the language learners’ beliefs, namely, Beliefs about Standard English, Beliefs about Global Englishes, Beliefs about English language education and Beliefs about China English. Three dimensions were identified within the students’ L2 motivation, namely, International posture, Integrative orientation and Instrumental orientation. The ensuing regression analysis detected positive and statistically significant relationships between some dimensions in the language beliefs and L2 motivation. Particularly, Beliefs about English language education were found to have the strongest impact on L2 motivation. Discussion and Conclusion. The findings from the exploratory factor analysis support the views that languagerelated beliefs have distinct dimensions. They also give empirical evidence to the validity of the Global Englishes notion. From a language teaching perspective, the findings highlight the need to adopt GE-oriented pedagogies.

An Overview of Dominant Approaches for Teacher Learning in Second Language Teaching

The current review offers an analysis of the prevailing literature on teacher learning in language teaching from an international perspective. We initially revisit several contributions from a general education perspective. Then, we focus on three dominant approaches, identified through the literature, to understand teacher learning from a language teaching perspective. Finally, we provide implications for teacher educators to consider in the preparation of prospective language teachers. These include acknowledging future teachers’ prior cognitions and learning experiences, highlighting the benefits of collaborative work and communities of practice, and adapting and innovating within the social constraints of their teaching context.

Task anxiety, cognition and performance on oral tasks in L2 Spanish

ABSTRACT This article investigates the three-way interface between foreign language anxiety (FLA), cognition and performance in Spanish L2 oral tasks, and examines qualitatively the construct of task anxiety (TA) in relation to its three interconnected facets: affective, cognitive and behavioral. 51 low-proficiency university learners of L2 Spanish performed two narrative tasks manipulated in their cognitive demands. Results revealed TA negatively affected certain functions of learners’ L2 cognition, especially at the attentional level and in word retrieval, highlighting the important role of L2 self-esteem in oral production tasks. This study advocates for a pedagogical approach that implements both curricular and individual aspects from a task-based language teaching perspective. It further emphasizes the importance of raising awareness of the interrelated emotional, cognitive and performance dimensions of the L2 learner, and how these may manifest in TA during oral task performance.

Meaningfully Designing and Implementing SCOBAs in Socioculturally-based L2 Teacher Education Programs

In recent years, the adoption of a socioculturally based perspective on teacher development has led to significant advances in L2 teacher education (Esteve, 2018a; Lantolf and Esteve, 2019; Johnson, 2009; Johnson and Golombek, 2016; Negueruela, 2011). The authors’ practice-based research over the past ten years on the impact of socioculturally based formative interventions on teacher professional development has shown that conceptual mediation through SCOBAs enables (student) teachers to gain new ways of thinking and acting in the classroom (Esteve, 2018a; Esteve, Fernández and Bes, 2018; Lantolf and Esteve, 2019). Conceptual mediation consists of promoting a dialectic relationship between everyday concepts and scientific concepts, and more specifically between everyday concepts and core concepts. Core concepts are the scientific concepts informing the socioculturally based perspective of language teaching and learning that are to be appropriated by the (student) teachers throughout the formative interventions. After being introduced to core concepts, (student) teachers progressively appropriate them throughout a structured mediational process, a process that enables them to informedly design and carry out, from their own agency, purposeful, pedagogically valid classroom practices.
  
 The article specifically seeks to answer the following questions that are often posed by teacher educators willing to adopt a sociocultural perspective in their formative interventions: 1) how to select the scientific concepts for SCOBA-driven formative interventions; 2) how to design SCOBAs and 3) how to facilitate the appropriation of the selected concepts so that they become psychological tools. To this end, the article focuses on the criteria guiding the selection of core concepts, as well as on the tools that help (student) teachers to apprehend them and, by that means, to develop new ways of thinking and acting.
  

A Literature Review of Foreign Studies on the Impact of CALL on Second Language Acquisition from 2015

With the rapid development of economy and technology, more and more fields are combined with electronic intelligence and artificial intelligence, and language teaching is no exception. As a research hot issue, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has attracted more and more people's attention. Based on computer-aided technology, teachers can not only provide students with rich language input, but also improve classroom efficiency. However, there are still some problems in this technology. This paper reviews some empirical studies on the impact of computer-assisted language teaching from 2015 and reveals the relevant progress and shortcomings of foreign researches in terms of six aspects from the perspective of language teaching, in order to provide some enlightenment for future research.

Four decades of ELT development in Hong Kong: Impact of global theories on the changing curricula and textbooks

The past 40 years have witnessed significant developments in ELT research, reflecting the changes in learners’ language needs and the extensive development of various language learning/teaching methods in different times and places. The aim of this study is to provide a systematic and comprehensive account of changing ELT methods (oral-structural approach, communicative language teaching and task-based language teaching) in Hong Kong’s secondary education between 1975 and the present. By adopting Richards and Rodgers’s (2014) framework (approach, design and procedure), it examined how ELT theories have been transformed into local curricula (1975, 1983, 1999 and 2002/07) and commercial textbooks (Longman, Oxford University Press) via detailed content analysis. The findings suggest that research into ELT methods in Hong Kong over the past decades has generally directed the designs of the language curricula. Changes in the textbooks, however, have been relatively limited, although considerable attempts have been made to align textbook design with ELT trends. By considering various constraints in the theory-to-practice process, this study offers suggestions for future research and language teaching, particularly regarding the recent debate over the choice between the ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ versions of task-based language teaching in EFL contexts, and the post-methods perspective in language teaching.

Letramento crítico e ensino de espanhol como língua estrangeira: questões teórico-metodológicas no contexto dos Institutos Federais (IFs)

O letramento crítico tem sido apontado nos documentos que orientam a educação brasileira de nível médio como uma perspectiva de ensino de língua estrangeira. A formação do leitor crítico também tem sido um critério de seleção das obras aprovadas pelo Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD). Nesse contexto, são nossos objetivos problematizar o conceito de letramento e leitor crítico que emerge dos documentos e dos livros didáticos, assim como a concepção de leitor crítico e letramento crítico dos professores de espanhol dos IFs. Para isso, aplicamos um questionário com vistas a obter dados sobre a concepção de leitor crítico e letramento críticos dos docentes, a fim de analisar se eles se apropriam das concepções expostas nos documentos e nos livros didáticos em suas práticas de ensino. Os resultados alcançados com as análises apontam a necessidade de maior esclarecimento quanto ao conceito de letramento crítico entre os docentes.

The Wisdom of Teachers’ Personal Theories: Creative ELT Practices From Colombian Rural Schools

Stemming from a study of what it is like to teach English in rural Colombia considering both English language teaching policy and social challenges of these contexts, this paper explores different locally grounded English language teaching practices. Through the analysis of teachers’ narratives and field observations, four examples of such practices are discussed. These examples highlight how teachers intuitively tend to make the most of their expertise, the limited resources available, and the local lingua-cultural repertoires in an attempt to help students make sense of English. From the perspective of language teaching as a socially sensitive practice, findings suggest that teachers’ own experiential and situational knowledge constitutes a powerful platform from which valuable bottom-up practices are and can further be devised.

Análisis del e-PEL (Portfolio Europeo de las Lenguas Electrónico): opinión de los alumnos sobre Descriptores, Aprender a aprender y Autoevaluación

This paper analyzes the eELP (Electronic European Language Portfolio) as a practical application of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). The aim has been to study its three main aspects: Descriptors, Learning to learn and Self-Assessment. The research has been conducted for six months from October 2015 to March 2016 in four groups of German students (Levels: A2.1, B1.1 and B1.2) at the Official School of Languages in Alicante, on the whole, 100 pupils. The methodology used is quantitative and qualitative: after the application of the eELP, students filled in a questionnaire with fourteen items to find out their opinion on the three areas under study. The data were analyzed globally and broken down by sex and age groups. The results show that students value the eELP positively as a tool for development of the three variables analyzed. Nevertheless, they think more favourably about Self-Assessment, while a bit lower percentages were obtained by Descriptors, what could lie in the change of perspective in language teaching and learning with the student as the centre of the process and the lack of descriptors’ development in the eELP. Study data show that an implementation of the eELP through the Web 3.0 would be needed to adapt it to the new plurimodaltic society, based on continuous and personalized learning, as well as a more comprehensive description of competence levels and more time to adapt

News from the pragmatics classroom: Contrasting the inductive and the deductive approach in the teaching of pragmatic competence

Abstract While the role of pragmatic skills in a foreign or second language has been receiving increased attention both from a research and a language teaching perspective, there is still a lamentable scarcity of systematic empirical studies into the effectiveness of instructional methods in the teaching of pragmatics. Addressing this research gap, this article reports about a quasi-experimental study into possible differences between an explicit-inductive and an explicit-deductive instructional approach in the teaching of pragmatic skills in English as a Foreign Language (EFL), more specifically the teaching of offer refusals to 49 advanced adult EFL learners in Germany. The instruction consisted of three 90-minute lessons, which were spread out over the duration of a 15-week academic semester and designed according to the deductive principle and the inductive principle, respectively. While the deductive group was provided with metapragmatic rules directly at the beginning of the instruction, the inductive group only encountered such rules after engaging in language use and guided discovery. Production data was elicited by means of DCTs and role play in a pretest-posttest format. Effectiveness of instruction was operationalized by means of two indicators: Indicator 1 measured the increased usage of the strategies taught in class, while indicator 2 measured the approximation to a native speaker target. The results indicate that the gains in the inductive group surpassed those in the deductive group, suggesting that when situated within the explicit framework, inductive instruction is more effective in the teaching of pragmatic skills.

Implicações das noções de canção como constelação de gêneros e de letramento literomusical para o ensino de português como língua adicional

Resumo: Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir as implicações pedagógicas das noções de canção como constelação de gêneros (COELHO DE SOUZA, 2010, 2014) e de letramento literomusical (COELHO DE SOUZA, 2015) para o ensino de Português como Língua Adicional através de uma proposta de objetivos e orientações pedagógicas para a abordagem do gênero canção em aulas de línguas. Afiliada à perspectiva do ensino de línguas que toma os textos de diferentes gêneros discursivos e as práticas sociais por eles mediadas como objeto de ensino (BRASIL, 1998; RIO GRANDE DO SUL, 2009) a fim de fomentar a educação linguística dos educandos (BAGNO; RANGEL, 2005), a proposta pedagógica interdisciplinar aqui apresentada busca fornecer recursos para que possam participar de modo mais efetivo, crítico, qualificado e autoral nas práticas sociais e nos discursos nos quais suas inter(ações) são mediadas por canções.

An Examination of Online Grammar Teaching Materials Available for Young Learners

The Internet is widely used in foreign language education both inside and outside language classrooms. The most important reason that makes the Internet a popular tool used in foreign language education is its great number of materials that are easy to access. Currently, theory of foreign language education supports the use of the Internet both as a tool as well as a resource bank. However, this paper posits that the Internet should not be seen as an accurate tool and resource bank especially when the place of grammar learning is taken into account. In this particular study, I critically examine grammar materials found online to understand their value from a communicative language teaching perspective. Results of this study show that although there are accurate and appropriate online materials that are prepared for the teaching of the grammar, many of these materials are traditional in nature without much communicative value. Hence, teachers and learners are invited to understand this fallacy characterized by relying on the Internet as a powerful, accurate, and appropriate tool and resource bank that can be used in foreign language education.

Situación actual del programa de enseñanza de lenguas indígenas del Ministerio de Educación Pública

All of the Costa Rican indigenous languages are in danger of being lost because their spheres of use continue to shrink over time and the intergenerational transmission is diminishing. For this reason, the Costa Rican government has initiated a program to teach indigenous languages as a way to prevent their disappearance. As an effort to obtain a panoramic overview of the current status of indigenous languages education, this article presents a bibliographical review of what has been said about this program, its origins, obstacles and educational achievements. It is concluded that indigenous languages education has not been approached from a second language teaching perspective, there is shortage of educational material and a need for more training and follow-up for teachers, and finally, the non-indigenous population needs to be involved to create a better environment for language revitalization. Aside from providing a formal educational space, little has been done to incorporate indigenous languages in the social life of communities. These languages continue to be anchored in the past and language teachers have been left with a responsibility that should have been shared with the families.

Conceptualisations across English–Greek parallel press data: a foreign language teaching perspective

Translation studies can lend valuable insights to foreign language (FL) teaching, in that contrastive analyses of parallel data can enhance intercultural competence in the FL classroom. The paper focuses on variation in metaphorical conceptualisation to raise intercultural awareness between the English and Greek languages. The data comprise a sample set of eight press article pairs from a wider 2011–2012 parallel press corpus (English>Greek). Findings suggest that translation practice may reveal a rich set of varied conceptualisations across versions which may improve learners’ intercultural competence, including illocutionary and strategic competences. This is because collocational shifts traced in parallel data can indeed be sites where intercultural conceptual variation is effectively manifested, while the collocational shifts identified in a parallel corpus can be creatively exploited by FL instructors and material designers to raise learners’ metaphorical and collocational intercultural awareness. The approach also fosters critical thinking in that the varied conceptualisations focused upon across versions may convey more than language/culture-specific awareness, allowing access to the public and political spheres as well as the ethical dimensions of experience.

A Perspective-Based Reading of Culture in English Language Teaching: From the Conventional Perspective to the Intercultural Language Teaching Perspective

This paper reviews culture as perceived in a number of language teaching perspectives. The term “culture” and its relation with language has been a center of interest in different fields of studies. Because the term “culture” is borrowed between disciplines, it is understood differently and altered in the process by the goals and traditions of the borrowers. As such culture remains an elusive concept for the language teacher. Here, I attempt to understand how culture has been understood in different English language teaching perspectives in the last fifty years. This reading helps understand how change in the teaching approach affects how culture is dealt with in class and in teaching materials.