Language Teaching Classroom Research Articles

A Case Study of Middle School English Learners' Experience of Communicative Language Teaching in Classrooms

A Case Study of Middle School English Learners' Experience of Communicative Language Teaching in Classrooms

Research “Fitting” Practice: Firth and Wagner, Classroom Language Teaching, and Language Teacher Education

This article argues that Firth and Wagner's 1997 contribution gained influence in second/foreign language teaching partly owing to a loose group of conceptual and ideological preconditions that drew on classroom methodologies, debates over educating second language teachers, and new views of how teachers could document and analyze their own practices. The article is organized around four issues drawn from Firth and Wagner: focus (How was classroom language teaching refocused by their critique?); meaning (What is the nature of meaning as the central driver in instructed learning?); locus (Given the preceding questions, how then does the locus of activity in the language classroom shift?); and identities (How are the notions of learner and teacher identities reshaped by this critique?). The discussion draws connections between the thinking articulated by Firth and Wagner and the practices of classroom language teaching, and includes suppositions that are susceptible to further investigation.

Research “Fitting” Practice: Firth and Wagner, Classroom Language Teaching, and Language Teacher Education

This article argues that Firth and Wagner's 1997 contribution gained influence in second/foreign language teaching partly owing to a loose group of conceptual and ideological preconditions that drew on classroom methodologies, debates over educating second language teachers, and new views of how teachers could document and analyze their own practices. The article is organized around four issues drawn from Firth and Wagner: focus (How was classroom language teaching refocused by their critique?); meaning (What is the nature of meaning as the central driver in instructed learning?); locus (Given the preceding questions, how then does the locus of activity in the language classroom shift?); and identities (How are the notions of learner and teacher identities reshaped by this critique?). The discussion draws connections between the thinking articulated by Firth and Wagner and the practices of classroom language teaching, and includes suppositions that are susceptible to further investigation.

Spanish Education and Chinese Immigrants in a New Multicultural Context: Cross-cultural and Interactive Perspectives in the Study of Language Teaching Methods

In this paper I analyse aspects of the new multicultural context which has been transforming Spanish society over the last few decades. Current demographic changes in Spain contrast with traditional ideologies and practices which are still prevalent in schools. As a consequence of these contradictions, students from other educational systems and cultures, with different languages and background knowledge that are not valued and legitimated, are having difficulties reaching minimum educational objectives. The present research focuses on Chinese students in the Spanish education system and describes, analyses and explains those difficulties, keeping in mind the different sociopolitical, economic and historical circumstances in both China and Spain, which have led to different relationships between (1) learning–teaching ideologies, (2) social practices in the implementation of language teaching methods and (3) classroom interactions. The nature of the ‘difficulties’ facing Chinese students is deconstructed, resulting perhaps from the devaluation of these differences in the current immigration context of Spain. I argue that if no culture-specific theoretical/methodological tools are used, the children of Chinese origin will suffer from the problem of cultural bias. Finally, some suggestions in terms of multiculturalist standards are offered for improving practice in second-language teaching.

Theory Meets Practice: A Case Study of Preservice World Language Teachers in U.S. Secondary Schools

This case study looked at the transition of preservice teachers from world language education methods courses at a major U.S. university to a 5‐week field experience in secondary school classrooms. Data included lesson plans and self‐critiques of two lessons implemented during the field experience, world language teaching philosophies the preservice teachers wrote, e‐mail correspondence between the preservice teachers and their supervisor reflecting on the field experience, a final reflection paper, and responses to an open‐ended survey after completion of the field experience. Analysis of the data served to identify three teacher profiles: the communicative (CLT) teacher, the grammar‐translation teacher, and the hybrid teacher (a mix of the two other profiles). The article concludes with discussion of the findings and their implications for university methods courses, field experiences, and professional development.

Developing an International Corpus of Creative English

This paper proposes an International Corpus of Creative English [ICCE] as a worldwide corpus particularly suitable for easy implementation in countries which have tertiary institutions with well-defined populations of students possessing similar cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds. The ICCE is contextualized as a World Englishes corpus with reference to the International Corpus of English (ICE) and the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). Centred round the Extremely Short Story Competition [ESSC], introduced at the 2nd Asia TEFL Conference in Korea (2004), the ICCE will provide potential in terms of intercultural/interlinguistic research and also practical exploitation in the wider community for both educational and commercial purposes. Specifics of the Extremely Short Story Competition [ESSC] are provided in order to introduce a tightly structured contest which has proved to be an extremely efficient instrument for the generation of texts both inside and outside the (language teaching) classroom. A progress report, is presented which outlines two pilot projects undertaken at Zayed University [ZU] in the United Arab Emirates [UAE] (2004) and at the British Council in Seoul, Republic of Korea [ROK] (2005). This is illustrated with the prize-winning ESSC stories in both locations. In addition, an account describes the compilation of the first component of the ICCE corpus which is currently being undertaken in the UAE (2005) using the ZU website specifically designed to operationalize the ESSC in twenty federal tertiary institutions throughout the country. Discussion is provided of the benefits of the ICCE for language learning and teaching, applied linguistics and the community. The paper calls for academics in other nations to contribute to the ICCE and offers the ZU ESSC website and support to other countries wishing to participate in the project.

Is teaching how to suggest a good suggestion? An empirical study based on EFL learners’ accuracy and appropriateness when making suggestions

This paper focuses on the role of foreign language classroom instruction and the effectiveness of an explicit teaching of pragmatic aspects, such as the speech act of 'suggesting', to improve learners' grammatical accuracy and pragmatic appropriateness. Two are the main objectives: (1) to analyse the amount and type of suggestions used by EFL learners, as well as the grammatical mistakes they make; and (2) to ascertain whether learners receiving some sort of formal instruction on appropriate speech act

Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do

This paper reviews a selection of research from the field of foreign and second language teaching into what is referred to here as teacher cognition – what teachers think, know, and believe and the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom. Within a framework suggested by more general mainstream educational research on teacher cognition, language teacher cognition is here discussed with reference to three main themes: (1) cognition and prior language learning experience, (2) cognition and teacher education, and (3) cognition and classroom practice. In addition, the findings of studies into two specific curricular areas in language teaching which have been examined by teacher cognition – grammar teaching and literacy – are discussed. This review indicates that, while the study of teacher cognition has established itself on the research agenda in the field of language teaching and provided valuable insight into the mental lives of language teachers, a clear sense of unity is lacking in the work and there are several major issues in language teaching which have yet to be explored from the perspective of teacher cognition.

“So Is it a Noun or a Verb?”: Examining Discourses of Classroom Language Teaching and Development

“So Is it a Noun or a Verb?”: Examining Discourses of Classroom Language Teaching and Development

Progress in Language Classroom Research: Evidence from The Modern Language Journal, 1916‐2000

This article reviews the topical and methodological trends in the past 85 years of research on language classrooms in The Modern Language Journal. The primary focus is on empirical investigations into oral classroom instruction in post‐secondary classes, which include comparisons of language teaching methodology, observational procedures in classrooms, examinations of teacher and learner talk, and some reports on the influence of specific factors such as tasks and learner attitudes on instructional interaction. Since the review is limited to studies published in the MLJ, a critical comparison of findings is not feasible, although some general trends are noted. The article documents a substantial broadening of scope and sophistication of the methodology adopted for research on instruction in language classrooms. Some critical improvements in methodology are suggested.

Assessing Listening Abilities

Over the last two decades, research has highlighted the important role that listening plays in language acquisition (Brown and Yule 1983, Ellis,et al. 1994, Faerch and Kasper 1986, Feyten 1991, Long 1985), and listening comprehension skills have begun to receive a lot more systematic attention in language teaching classrooms. A wide range of books, articles, and materials aimed at assisting teachers to develop learners’ listening skills are now available, and a variety of comprehension-based methodologies have been proposed (see, for example, Anderson and Lynch 1988, Courchene,et al. 1992, Rost 1990; 1994, Underwood 1989). However, although many of the tasks used for teaching listening are virtually identical to those which appear in tests, assessment of listening ability has received relatively limited coverage in the language testing literature.

The effects of multisensory structured language instruction on native language and foreign language aptitude skills of at-risk high school foreign language learners

Research findings suggest that most students who have foreign language learning problems have language-based difficulties and, in particular, phonological processing problems. Authors of the present study examined pre- and posttest scores on native language and foreign language aptitude tests of three groups of at-risk high school students enrolled in special, self-contained sections of first-year Spanish. Two groups were instructed using a multisensory structured language (MSL) approach. One of the groups was taught in both English and Spanish (MSL/ES), the other only in Spanish (MSL/S). The third group (NO-MSL) was instructed using more traditional second language teaching methodologies. Significant gains were made by the MSL-ES group on measures of native language phonology, vocabulary, and verbal memory and on a test of foreign language aptitude; the MSL/S group made significant gains on the test of foreign language aptitude. No significant gains on the native language or foreign language aptitude measures were made by the NO-MSL group. Implications for foreign language classroom instruction of at-risk students are discussed.

A lexical‐semantic and syntactic‐grammatical analysis of Zambian English: Towards a ‘meaning‐to‐grammar hypothesis’ of classroom second language instruction

Abstract This study is an attempt to compare the intuitions and reasoned judgments of second language learners of English on a number of semantic and syntactic phenomena in the language. Using the speech processing approach, subjects were tested on lexical‐semantic and syntactic‐grammatical linguistic performance tasks. Interest was motivated by the role of semantic space and formal space in language acquisition (cf. Slobin, 1985). In turn, interest was motivated by recent studies on the role of implicit‐ and explicit knowledge in language acquisition, on the one hand, and meaning‐focused and form‐focused second language classroom instruction, on the other. Basing our arguments on an authentic data base and related studies, we conclude that since learners’ scores on the semantic phenomena tasks appear, comparatively, significantly higher than on syntactic phenomena tasks, it is logical to assume that classroom instruction should attempt to follow the same route. Hence, the ‘Meaning‐to‐Grammar Hypothesis’.

Rethinking Communicative Language Teaching: Reflection and the EFL Classroom

The contention of this paper is that many activities in the communicative language teaching (CLT) classroom discourage reflection or contemplation. The first part of this paper analyzes the prominence in CLT of phenomenalistic and intuitive activities which, with their emphases on conspicuous action and spontaneous response, suggest a proclivity to a nonreflective view of language acquisition. The second part, making use of what philosophers and psychologists have concluded about reflection, examines when, how, and why a person reflects. The last part of the paper discusses three types of CLT activities which could encourage reflection: task-oriented, process-oriented, and synthesis-oriented. The conclusion is that more activities centered around reflective thinking should be incorporated in ESL/EFL classrooms to supplement the valuable phenomenally and intuitively oriented activities.

Concordancing, teaching and error analysis: Some applications and a case study

This article is concerned with the application of recent developments in the computerized exploitation of corpora, through software developed for microcomputers and wordprocessors, to classroom language teaching and elementary error analysis. In particular, it seeks to outline the uses of Microconcord (Tim Johns) for analyzing written texts produced by non-native speakers, and to suggest that the management of assembled corpora of the latter texts may be one way out of the blind alley down which some aspects of CALL seem to have led. It concludes by citing some evidence from a small and specialized corpus, and by suggesting that concordancing of errors from both multi and monolingual sources may provide a new way of analyzing errors and of helping language teachers to help students.

Utilizing Pakistani newspaper English to teach grammar

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the use of local English‐language newspapers as pedagogical aids in the English Language Teaching classroom. Various advantages and disadvantages of using newspapers in the classroom are discussed with focus on the often‐cited objection by teachers in Pakistan that local newspapers contain too many errors and should therefore not be used pedagogically. Data on adjective, verb and noun complementation are presented from Pakistani newspapers to show that many of the so‐called ‘errors’ found in local newspapers are in reality part of a nativized Pakistani linguistic system. This paper then discusses language‐focused classroom activities with newspapers which would serve to make students aware of differences between their own nativized varieties of English and native Englishes. Finally, this paper calls for more linguistic tolerance on the part of teachers in both the East and the West in the acceptance of local varieties of English.

Analysis of the components of oral comprehension for the foreign language teaching classroom situation

Analysis of the components of oral comprehension for the foreign language teaching classroom situation

Notes on the use of translation in language classes

Ever since the demise of the grammar-translation method, translation has been frowned upon, or even banned, as a language teaching method. This paper attempts to identify what, if any, virtues translation may have in the language teaching classroom. A brief analysis of the translation process is made; the reconstruction of meanings in a second linguistic system (or code) is seen to be the distinctive characteristic of translation. It thus becomes clear that the chief value of translation as an exercise lies in the insight it can afford into the different organization of meanings in different languages and cultures.

Language acquisition, language learning and the school curriculum

Progress in the language teaching classroom is usually at the pace of learning the most difficult skills, namely speaking and writing. This leads to a loss of motivation in brighter pupils, while the slow learners, especially in short courses, never achieve mastery in any skill. Evidence from first and second language acquisition studies suggests that the learner acquires language according to an inner structural pattern, and is best served by a rich language environment which allows him to speak when he is ready to do so. It is therefore suggested that in a school language curriculum, the initial emphasis should be on the receptive skills of listening and reading. In communication, the three principal factors are accuracy, appropriateness and fluency. These are discussed, and the need to train fluency, which is also a means to acquisition, is underlined. Different instructional modes should be used to train accuracy and fluency, which are seen as being to some extent mutually opposed.

The Dialog Game: A Prototypical Activity for Providing Proper Intake in Formal Instruction

In this paper, the authors state that Proper Intake (technical term) is an important-but frequently neglected-component of classroom language teaching when the goal is for the students to be able to communicate informally. One technique for providing students with Proper Intake is the Dialog Game, a form of communication game. The Dialog Game is presented here as a prototype which can be adapted for any content area and for students at any level. The authors identify and give examples of two kinds of variables which the writer of Dialog Games can manipulate to tailor the game to students' needs. Sample games of different types are included. In addition, the paper presents observations by the authors drawn from their experience in using games in the classroom.