Professional English Teaching Research Articles

Global English capital and the domestic economy: the case of Japan from the 1970s to early 2012

The present study explores how scholars working in the field of applied linguistics, language policy and language education might best contest and negotiate the increasingly economics-driven language polices enacted at the institutional levels of schools and workplaces. The study focuses on Japan as an interesting case of incongruence between world-class economic success and sub-standard English education from the 1970s to the early 2000s, followed by the current disjunction between the media discourse on Japan's search for global talent and the reality of many entities still favouring home-educated monolingual male elites. The study, based on primary data resources (e.g. economic statistics, industrialists' narratives, national ‘globalisation’ policies, corporate English language policies), shows that Japanese society has been belying English teaching professionals' unverified expectation that global English capital would lead to personally and nationally rewarding outcomes. By addressing the overlooked relationship between language education and national growth, the study hopes to provide insight into the taken-for-granted discourse on global English capital and language professionals' future direction in the new era of the non-West.

Mobile phones for professional development and English teaching in Bangladesh

Using mobile phones for large-scale teacher professional development in developing economies like Bangladesh is rare. We present a case study of English in Action (EIA) and its use of mobile technologies, audiovisual materials and portable rechargeable speakers that moves beyond documenting their functionality as ubiquitous handheld hardware to enhance and extend the reach of teaching and learning. It presents compelling evidence of an effective and innovative professional development intervention that simultaneously improves students’ communicative English language acquisition. We argue this large-scale intervention is significant in enhancing teachers’ professional knowledge and presents important implications for using mobile phones for international development.

Using GRA and GSM Methods to Identify the Learning Strategies of Good Language Learners

 Abstract—While learning a language, there are some learners who can learn it quickly, but come learners can't. If we know more about the learning strategies of the successful language learners, we could use this information to enhance the poor language learner's learning. The paper proposes to use the soft-computing methods: grey relational analysis (GRA) and grey structural modeling (GSM) to explore the learning strategy path of the good language learner. The purpose is to find the importance order of the learning strategies. Then both learners and teachers can adjust their learning and teaching styles in language acquisition. In order to quantify the data, 10 professional English teachers are interviewed, and their attitudes towards the learning strategies are calculated through the soft-computing methods. The results show that the planning strategy is the basic strategy of being a good language learner while communication strategy ranks the top. Overall, the results not only provide objective perceptions of good language learner's learning strategy path, but the proposed soft-computing methods can be applied to the future decision-making fields.

Bridging the Gap between Policy and Practice in Teaching English to Young Learners: the Turkish Context

*Asst. Prof. Dr. Pamukkale University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language Teaching, Denizli. e-posta: receparslan@hotmail.com Acquisition of a foreign language, particularly English, has received great interest not only worldwide but also in the Turkish context since the late nineties with the widespread influence of the English language as a lingua franca (Ersoz et al., 2006; Kirkgoz, 2009). The Turkish nation has therefore given special emphasis to learning English since acquisition of sound knowledge of English is deemed essential for Turkish citizens to secure a good status in their careers and also to cater to the emerging demand for citizens who know English for the nation’s social, economic and political reasons (Ersoz et al., 2006). However, successful outcomes to this end may be stressful or the whole process may result in loss of time, energy and money (Moon, 2005) unless such a task is taken seriously (Cameron, 2003) and also if such factors as sufficient time, relevant materials, appropriate syllabus and professional English language teachers who know how to teach English to young learners fail to be satisfactorily provided. This article therefore aims to discuss the major factors that affect the quality of foreign language education in Turkish state schools and also attempts to offer some possible solutions to its improvement with specific reference to teaching English to young learners.

Empirical analysis of professional English teaching for medical students

To analyze and research the transformation of teaching thoughts,adjustment of professional teachers,renewal of teaching contents and so on,and establish the foundation for the revolution of professional English teaching in medical university under the new situation. Key words: Medicine; Professional English; Teaching

What functions do intertextuality and interdiscursivity serve in request e-mail discourse?

This paper aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of professional communication by focusing on the intertextuality and interdiscursivity of the request e-mails exchanged among a group of professional English language teachers of a public education institution in Hong Kong. The types of intertextual and interdiscursive elements incorporated in the request e-mail discourse produced by the teachers, and the possible reasons for such incorporation, are discussed in the paper. It is found that the intertextual and interdiscursive elements drawn upon by the teachers in constructing the request e-mail discourse serve four pragmatic functions: (1) distancing themselves from the discourse and thus diverting the possible forthcoming resentment to others; (2) convincing others to comply with the requests they made; (3) emphasizing selectively and strategically the various roles they were playing; and (4) managing rapport with the e-mail recipients.

Globalisation, English for everyone and English teacher capacity: language policy discourses and realities in Bangladesh

The effects of globalisation and the global spread of English have created a phenomenal demand for English all over the world. The demand is illustrated by the introduction of ‘English for Everyone’ and early English instruction in many developing countries. These policy initiatives and their implementation are believed to contribute to these nations' human capital development and their participation in the global economy for national development. However, these ‘more and earlier’ English policies have not necessarily taken the capacity of English teaching professionals into account in delivering desired outcomes. Taking Bangladesh as a case, this paper discusses some of the consequences of developing nations' endorsement of the discourses of globalisation and national development followed by their adoption of enhanced English policies, paying insufficient attention to resources and policy implementation issues. Specifically, it examines English teacher education and training at the primary and secondary levels and demonstrates how Bangladesh's inadequate infrastructure and limited institutional capacity for English teacher education have directed it to donor-funded teacher training programs which, despite short-term benefits, cannot fully address the quantity and quality issues of English teacher education. It is concluded that, if teachers' professional capacity is essential for developing learners' English competence, the more and earlier English policies themselves will not deliver desirable English Language Teaching outcomes to Bangladesh and other developing countries and, consequently, their policy goals of developing human capital through English for national development will remain unrealised. The paper suggests implications for English-in-education policies in Bangladesh and other developing nations and draws out a set of recommendations.

Investigating the Accuracy of Teachers' Word Frequency Intuitions

Previous research has found that native English speakers can judge, with a relatively high degree of accuracy, the frequency of words in the English language. However, there has been little investigation of the ability to judge the frequency of high and middle frequency words. Similarly, the accuracy of EFL teachers' frequency judgements remains largely unstudied. This study required two groups of native English speakers (English teaching professionals and undergraduate university students) to judge the frequency of words by ranking two lists of 24 words in order of frequency. The first list covered a wide range of frequency levels and the second list covered words in the middle frequency range. The results from this study indicate that the English teaching professionals' accuracy judgments do not seem to be signifi-cantly better than university undergraduates. Furthermore, both groups of native English speakers had difficulty judging the frequency of words in the middle frequency range. These results indicate the need for teachers to consult frequency lists rather than rely solely on their intuitions.

Going Global: Rethinking Culture Teaching in ELT Contexts

This paper argues that the manner in which culture is taught to English learners needs to be rethought in light of the globalisation of the English language. It is maintained that change is needed in at least three areas. First, English teaching professionals should discard the notion that the US and Great Britain represent the sole ‘target cultures’ of the English language. Second, they should rethink the goals of culture and language education to better meet their students' diverse needs. And third, ELT professionals should do more to design and/or select teaching materials that are international and inclusive in scope. The paper concludes that EFL/ESL instructors should better educate themselves and their students on world cultures to promote genuine linguistic/cultural awareness and international understanding.

Linguistic Acceptability in Hong Kong English

This paper reports the findings of a study of 28 debatable English usages — items whose acceptability is the subject of community debate — which figure prominently in usage guides in Hong Kong. Data were collected from Hong Kong informants via several elicitation methods: a judgment test, a slot-filling test and a proofreading test. Respondents’ acceptability judgments were noted to be sensitive to a number of sociolinguistic variables. Informants who were older (in this case, members of the English teaching profession) were more tolerant of traditional debatable usages than younger informants (students), as were students with higher levels of English proficiencncy (as indicated by students’ results in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination) compared to those with lower levels. Finally, prescribed debatable usages were found to be more readily embraced in formal than informal styles.

Beyond externalizing and finalizing definitions: Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia (STELLA)

This article explores issues relating to the development of the Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia (STELLA). STELLA is the product of work by members of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) and the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association (ALEA), the two key professional bodies in Australia representing secondary English teachers and primary school literacy teachers respectively. However, the question remains as to the extent to which English literacy teachers around Australia can meaningfully identify with these standards. This article asks whether professional standards can provide a framework for practitioner inquiry and the renewal of the English teaching profession in contradistinction to managerial pressures to impose standards for regulatory purposes.

The Corpus of English as Lingua Franca in Academic Settings

political power of the United States, but the origins have ceased to be the prime motivation for the continued spread of the language. Most of its use today is by nonnative speakers (NNSs), and the number of people speaking it as a foreign or second language has surpassed the number of its native speakers (NSs) (about 80% of speakers of English are estimated to be bilingual users; see Crystal, 1997). As a consequence, voices in the English teaching profession and among scholars in the field (see, e.g., Kachru, 1996; Knapp, 2002; McArthur, 2001; Rampton, 1990; Seidlhofer, 2000; Widdowson, 1994) have questioned the NS's status as the most relevant model for teaching English and have called for the development of models for international speakers that are more appropriate to the changed role of English. In view of the growing recognition of the widespread use of English, it is surprising that English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been little described as a language form. Native or established world varieties of English (corresponding to the inner and outer circles of Kachru, 1985, but excluding the expanding circle) have attracted scholarly attention

Reading the "Singlish Debate": Construction of a Crisis of Language Standards and Language Teaching in Singapore

The issue of grammar and its explicit teaching has recently reemerged in Singapore as a topic both within the English teaching profession and in public discourse about education. As studies in other educational contexts have shown, debates about the role of grammar in political discussions and in the popular media typically proceed in terms of a discourse of crisis and falling standards. As such, they recycle certain claims and images characterized by "myth, caricature and limited forms of binary or oppositional thinking" (Green & Beavis, 1996, p. 1). My particular interest is in the ways in which this discourse of crisis constructs Standard English and the local vernacular, as well as English-language teachers and the role of grammar teaching. This article undertakes a critical reading of the media texts around the debate and examines them in terms of their overall generic staging as well as Silverstein's (1996; reviewed in Collins, 1999) semiotic framework that he proposed for the analysis of contemporary preoccupations about standard language in the United States.

The Cox Models Revisited: English Teachers’ Views of their Subject and the National Curriculum

This article examines the views of the English Teaching Profession about the current National Curriculum for English, the Cox Models of English and the rationale for their subject. It compares the results of a survey in 1997 with an earlier study in 1991, revealing that English teachers are increasingly opposed to the dogmatic and prescriptive nationalistic Cultural Heritage model enshrined in the current Orders for English. The curriculum is perceived as irrelevant and impersonal. Teachers are holding on to their faith in Personal Growth and the value of literature in developing personal responses. However, they are also increasingly adopting a more Cultural Analysis stance to their teaching, chiefly through their advocacy of the importance of media education. This change is embroiled with tensions and uncertainties and English remains an arena of conflict in which debate and controversy are rife.

Some social psychological influences on the linguistic performance of black teenagers∗

Black teenagers viewed a series of drawings depicting verbal encounters between two figures. These drawings were administered by either a black or a white experimenter and were accompanied by dialogue and instructions presented in either standard English or black dialect. Transcriptions of subjects’ responses were rated on a set of evaluative dimensions by both experienced nonprofessional (probation officers) and inexperienced professional (English teachers) judges. Subjects’ responses to black dialect were substantially longer and were given more favorable ratings than their responses to standard English. In general, experienced nonprofessionals gave more favorable ratings to subjects’ responses than did inexperienced professionals. These latter judges in turn gave more favorable ratings to responses to drawings accompanied by standard English when these drawings portrayed situations in which English dialogue was appropriate than when they did not. Results provide evidence for a “difference” hypothesis a...

After the Guidelines, What?

Never before in its history has the English-teaching profession been confronted with such a challenge as that offered by the reality of the Guidelines for Preparing Teachers of English. Never before has such a widelyand deeply-based curriculum statement become available. To construct the Guidelines thousands of dollars were spent in holding the two-year series of regional and national conferences. In them thousands of man-hours were given by several hundred leaders in education, English, and speech from all ranks from the elementary grades through the graduate school.