ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
A Longitudinal Study of Progress in Vocabulary Size of Japanese EFL Senior High School Learners: A Comparison of the General and Commercial Courses
Author: Akase, Masaki
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Longitudinal Studies,Scores,Vocabulary Development,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Statistical Analysis,High School Seniors,Comparative Analysis,Receptive Language,Language Tests,Second Language Instruction,Foreign Countries,Teaching Methods,Course Descriptions,Outcomes of Education,Learning Motivation,Curriculum,Careers

The purposes of this study are (1) to longitudinally measure the receptive vocabulary size (VS) of Japanese EFL senior high school learners; (2) to investigate how the learners develop their VS; and (3) to describe the longitudinal developmental patterns of VS of each learner during their three years of high school. Kasahara's (2005) VS tests, a modified version of Mochizuki's (1998) test were administered to 196 learners three times while they were in high school. Descriptive statistics were calculated and longitudinal comparisons were made, using the data of the identical subjects. One-way ANOVAs and post hoc Bonferroni tests confirmed that the general course learners made progress throughout their time at school. As for the commercial course learners, they made progress during their first and second years. However, there was no statistically significant difference in average scores between the second and third years. The statistics and the line graphs of longitudinally-measured VS revealed that in the commercial course, 14.7% and 42.7% of the learners made little and or negative progress between their first and second testing and their second and third testing respectively. The study results suggest the three main factors explaining this stagnation of the commercial course learners: school curriculum; motivation; and future career path. Further research should be conducted with learners whose academic levels vary widely to investigate this learning plateau.
Student's Perceptions of Online Academic English Tutoring
Author: Cheng, Hsiao-fang
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Student Attitudes,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,College Students,Academic Discourse,Management Systems,Reading Comprehension,Surveys,Reading Strategies,Sentence Structure,Pronunciation,Tutoring,Teaching Methods,Finance Occupations,Course Content,Physics,Electronics,Computer Assisted Instruction,Engineering Education,English for Academic Purposes

English textbooks are widely used in every discipline in the majority of colleges and universities in Taiwan. To prepare college students for their future careers, it is necessary they be given systematic training and practice in reading these books. However, due to time constraints, most content teachers focus on the delivery of content rather than the language in the texts. To compensate for the lack of time available for academic English instruction, this study attempts to investigate an alternative online approach to improving student's academic English reading comprehension. Using a Course Management System, students were given Internet access to detailed explanations by their teachers of both the content and the language of their texts. A survey was conducted at the end of the semester to investigate the students' reading needs as well as what they thought of the online support. The survey results revealed that students needed training in reading strategies, the analysis of complex sentence structure and the accurate pronunciation of terminology. In addition, more than eighty percent of the participants thought online support was a viable alternative to in-class language instruction, but less than ten percent had used the facilities provided. Drawing on the results of this study, some pedagogical implications are proposed.
Persian Native Speakers Reading Persian and English Texts: Their Strategic Behavior to Overcome Syntactic and Semantic Problems
Author: Alimorad, Zahra
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Native Speakers,Indo European Languages,Semantics,Syntax,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,English Literature,Foreign Countries,College Students,Teaching Methods,Reading Instruction,Questionnaires,Reading Strategies,Cloze Procedure,Student Attitudes

This study aimed to discover semantic and syntactic problems Persian native speakers might have while reading English and Persian texts and different strategies they use to overcome those problems. To this end, a convenient sample of 40 intermediate students studying English Literature at Shiraz University was selected. Twenty of them were asked to do a cloze test in Persian (L1) and the rest to do the English version of the same text (L2). Then, a questionnaire was administered to find out the strategies they used while doing the cloze tests. Results showed that Persian native speakers mostly used syntactic strategies while reading an English text and semantic ones while reading the Persian version of the same text. This finding highlights the need for a stronger emphasis on different syntactic features of languages in the teaching of reading English to Persian native speakers.
Developing Graduate Students' Self-Efficacy with Learner-Centred Lecturing
Author: Troop, Meagan
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Graduate Students,Self Efficacy,Student Centered Learning,Student Centered Curriculum,Curriculum Development,Lecture Method,Mixed Methods Research,Case Studies,Surveys,Semi Structured Interviews,Microteaching,Student Teaching,Likert Scales,Scores,Feedback (Response),Peer Evaluation,Grounded Theory

This paper presents the findings of a mixed-method case study conducted at the University of Guelph on the relationship between practice lecturing and graduate student self-efficacy. Building on the work of Boman (2013), and using surveys and individual interviews, we measured and characterized the perceived changes in graduate students' self-efficacy in learner-centred lecturing. Our research question was: In what ways, if any, does microteaching contribute to participants' perceived self-efficacy in learner-centred lecturing? Our results and discussion reveal that practice increases self-efficacy with respect to the design, facilitation, and assessment of learner-centred lectures, and is a vital component to graduate student teaching development programming.
Focus Intonation in Bengali
Author: Hasan, Md. Kamrul
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Intonation,Indo European Languages,Role,Suprasegmentals,Syntax,Language Research,Pronunciation,Phonology,Questionnaires,Discourse Analysis

This work attempts to investigate the role of prosody in the syntax of focus in Bangla. The aim of this study is to show the intonation pattern of Bangla in emphasis and focus. In order to do that, the author has looked at the pattern of focus without-i/o as well as with the same. Do they really pose any different focus intonation pattern from Lahiri and Cole (1999) and others or not--that is also examined in the course of discussion. The current study reports the finding that the focus intonation in Bangla is H*L1 rather than L*Hp as reported by Hayes and Lahiri. The intonation can be accompanied by shades of meaning. Once a particular intonation contour has been isolated, its meaning can be determined by the emotional situations within which that contour occurs. According to the speaker's momentary feeling about the subject matter, most sentences or parts of sentences can be pronounced with several different intonation contours. These attitudes can vary from surprise, to deliberation, to sharp isolation of some part of a sentence for attention, to mild intellectual detachment. Intonation in Bangla can have emotive function. This is shown by the examples and figures of (18), (24) and (25) cited in the discussion. The same kind of study of Bangla can be traced in other studies as well; such as the study of Isamu Abe (1955) and Kenneth Pike (1945) would be greater importance in this regard. The focus intonation pattern with clitics and without clitics of Bangla also can be added to form our argument. The examples of (11), (19), (20), (23), and (26) with clitics and other examples without clitics and relative figures prove this point. They follow uniform phonological shape of H*L1 of Bangla.
The Effectiveness of Teaching Number Relationships in Preschool
Author: Jung, Myoungwhon
Date: 2013-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preschool Education,Preschool Children,Mathematics Instruction,Number Concepts,Instructional Effectiveness,Intervention,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Comparative Analysis,Mathematics Tests,Pretests Posttests,Scores,Mathematics Achievement,Sample Size,Standardized Tests,Statistical Analysis

Number relationships, which go far beyond counting skills, refer to the ability to represent a quantity in multiple, flexible ways. It is arguably among the most important mathematics concepts in number and quantity. The current study examined the effectiveness of number relationships instruction in preschool classrooms. Participants included 73 children and 4 teachers from a half-day preschool program in a local school district. For the intervention group, two teachers provided number relationships instruction to 37 of the children in their classrooms (four sections total). No treatment occurred for the control group consisting of the remaining 36 children taught by two teachers. Before and after the 12-week treatment period, the TEMA-3 (Test of Early Mathematics Ability-3rd Edition) was administered both as a pretest and a posttest to assess children's understanding of number and quantity. Results indicated that children in the intervention group who received mathematics instruction with the emphasis on teaching number relationships scored significantly higher on the posttest than their counterparts in the control group. However, results of the current study did not reveal any advantages by age group for number relationships instruction. Small sample size may have limited this analysis.
Reaction Time in Semantic Priming Experiments with Persian (L1) vs. English (L2) Primes
Author: Ansarin, Ali Akbar
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Reaction Time,Semantics,Priming,Bilingualism,Indo European Languages,Language Research,Computer Software,Second Language Learning,Native Language,English (Second Language),Language Proficiency,Second Language Instruction,Memory,Psycholinguistics,Undergraduate Students,English Literature,Statistical Analysis,Foreign Countries

Representation of languages in a bilingual mind in general and the way bilinguals restore words from their mental lexicon, and the way they retrieve words have been explored by many researchers resulting in varied findings. The more information regarding bilingual memory is obtained, the better image would be constructed about this knowledge representation. The present study is an attempt to investigate if bilinguals share semantic features of their L1 and L2 using semantic priming paradigm. In two experiments, semantically related target-prime pairs were examined. In both of the experiments target words were in English, but the primes were in Persian in the first experiment and in English in the second. Reaction time of sixty Persian-English bilinguals for these prompts was measured by DMDX software. Results showed that semantic priming effect was not there in any of the experiments. The findings suggest that bilinguals have shared semantic representation for two languages with different scripts only for the cognate words. Results also suggest that using semantically related words, for non-cognate words, in the process of language teaching is not useful in intermediate proficiency levels.
Enhancing Foreign Language Learning through Listening Strategies Delivered in L1: An Experimental Study
Author: Bozorgian, Hossein
Date: 2013-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Second Language Instruction,English (Second Language),Indo European Languages,Listening,Role,Control Groups,Listening Skills,Learning Strategies,Influences,Units of Study,Identification,Repetition,Notetaking,Listening Comprehension Tests,Class Activities,Learning Activities,Teaching Methods,Speech

Listening used in language teaching refers to a complex process that allows us to understand spoken language. The current study, conducted in Iran with an experimental design, investigated the effectiveness of teaching listening strategies delivered in L1 (Persian) and its effect on listening comprehension in L2. Five listening strategies: Guessing, making inferences, identifying topics, repetition, and note-taking were taught over 14 weeks during a semester. Sixty lower intermediate female participants came from two EFL classrooms in an English language institute. The experimental class (n = 30) who listened to their classroom activities performed better (t value = 10.083) than the control class using a methodology that led learners through five listening strategies in Persian. The same teacher taught the students in the control class (n = 30), who listened to the same classroom listening activities without any of the above listening strategies. A pre- and post-listening test made by a group of experts in the language institute assessed the effect of teaching listening strategies delivered in L1. Results gathered on the post intervention listening test revealed that listening strategies delivered in L1 led to a statistically significant improvement in their discrete listening scores compared with the control group.
Self-Selection Effects in Service-Learning
Author: Holz, Kenna Bolton
Date: 2015-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Service Learning,Undergraduate Students,Preferences,Course Selection (Students),Student Attitudes,Psychology,Questionnaires,Student Surveys,Self Concept Measures,Likert Scales,Self Efficacy

This study models the registration process in order to directly examine the possibility of pre-existing differences between undergraduate students who choose to take service-learning classes compared to those who do not. Foremost among the findings, on most measures there was no significant effect of self-selection. However, students who chose a hypothetical course with a service-learning component reported higher civic responsibility and civic action scores, and reported lower socioeconomic status and greater enjoyment of past service learning than those who chose the hypothetical course without the service-learning component. Challenges and opportunities related to random assignment within service-learning research are discussed.
Attitudes towards ICT Integration into Curriculum and Usage among University Lecturers in Vietnam
Author: Hue, Ly Thanh
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Information Technology,Correlation,Computer Use,College Faculty,Technology Integration,Teacher Attitudes,Teacher Surveys,College Curriculum

Although the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into the curriculum was a crucial process in ensuring the quality of education, it has still not been given greater concern by the administrators and lecturers in some universities in Vietnam. The purpose of this descriptive-survey research is to determine lecturers' attitudes towards ICT integration into the curriculum and its use in the classroom. The research questions sought to measure the frequency of ICT use in teaching and learning among lecturers and their attitudes towards ICT integration into the curriculum to improve teaching; and to determine if a correlation existed between lecturers' attitudes towards ICT integration into the curriculum and their ICT use in the classroom. A population of 109 lecturers at a public university in Vietnam participated in this survey. The results of the correlation analysis identified a slightly moderate positive relationship between lecturers' attitudes towards ICT integration into the curriculum and their ICT use in the classroom. Although ICT was not highly used, lecturers recognized the benefits of ICT that they had chosen to incorporate into their teaching. These findings could be used for future research to promote positive educational changes through the integration of ICT into the curriculum in universities.
An Investigation into the Prevalence of Voice Strain in Chinese University Teachers
Author: Zhou, Gang
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Self Concept,Voice Disorders,Questionnaires,Incidence,Asians,College Faculty,Correlation,Work Environment,Foreign Countries,Health Services,English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Language Teachers,Second Language Learning,Statistical Analysis,Multivariate Analysis,Factor Analysis,Multiple Regression Analysis

Vocal disorders are a very common occupation-related disease in teachers, though it has never been given enough attention in China. As a result, the occupational health care of professional voice users is surprisingly, undeveloped compared to the attention given to occupational hearing disorders or many other occupational symptoms. The aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence of voice problems in the general population of Chinese university teachers, and explore whether their voice problems affected their daily life, their social life and their work. A voice strain and voice handicap index questionnaire was administered to university instructors of English (N = 156) in six Chinese universities. Results indicated that voice strain is prevalent among Chinese university instructors. The respondents' self-perceptions revealed that voice strain was significantly correlated with their job and their daily activities.
A Study of Students' Assessment in Writing Skills of the English Language
Author: Javed, Muhammad
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Secondary Schools,Secondary School Students,Writing Skills,Writing Achievement,Syntax,Competence,Achievement Tests,Communication Skills,Rural Schools,Urban Schools,Achievement Gap,English (Second Language),Grade 10

This paper addresses to evaluate and assess the students' competency in writing skills at Secondary school level in the English Language focusing five major content areas: word completion, sentence making/syntax, comprehension, tenses/grammar and handwriting. The target population was the male and female students of grade 10 of urban and rural Secondary schools from public and private sector. Forty (40) Secondary schools of District Bahawalnagar, Pakistan were taken using stratified sampling. A sample consisting of 440 students (11 students from each school) was randomly selected using a table of random numbers. An achievement test consisting of different items was developed to assess the students' competency and capability in sub-skills of writing such as word completion, sentence making/syntax, comprehension, tenses/grammar and handwriting. Mean score and standard deviation were used to analyze the students' proficiency in each sub-skill. The t-test was applied to make the comparison on the bases of gender, density and public and private sector. The overall performance of all the students was better in comprehension as compared to other sub-skills namely word completion, sentence making/syntax, tenses/grammar and handwriting. The analysis, based on t-value, revealed no significant difference between the performance of male and female students and the students of public and private schools, whereas there was a significant difference between the performance of urban and rural students.
Effect of Teaching of Algebra through Social Constructivist Approach on 7th Graders' Learning Outcomes in Sindh (Pakistan)
Author: Ilyas, Bhutto Muhammad
Date: 2013-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Algebra,Public Schools,Foreign Countries,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Constructivism (Learning),Grade 7,Outcomes of Education,Instructional Effectiveness,Mathematical Concepts,Quasiexperimental Design,Pretests Posttests,Statistical Significance,Comparative Analysis,Comparative Testing,Achievement Gains,Scaffolding (Teaching Technique),Cohort Analysis,Test Theory,Intermode Differences,Statistical Analysis

It is a bitter reality that the curricula and traditional pedagogy prevailing in public schools of Pakistan in general and Sindh in particular do not incorporate the algebraic concepts properly. Both the content and the presentation therein cannot be considered up to the mark, thereby making &quot;Algebra&quot; a tough and dry subject. This quasi-experimental study focused to find out the effect of teaching algebra through social constructivism on the students learning outcomes of 7th graders in public schools of District Jamshoro Sindh. For this purpose two existing intact sections of grade 7 (7th A, and 7th B) of a government high school of district Jamshoro were selected as quasi control and treatment groups. The pre- and post-test analyses were carried out. The first pattern t-test analysis revealed that both groups were parallel, however, the latter post-test analysis revealed that treatment group that was taught through social constructivist approach excelled in achieving statistically significant learning outcomes than that of control group that was taught through traditional one-way teaching.
Initiating the Development of EFL Students' Writing Beliefs through Sharing Metaphors
Author: Chen, Cheryl Wei-yu
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Figurative Language,Writing (Composition),Peer Relationship,Dialogs (Language),Writing Attitudes,Teaching Methods,Writing Instruction,Peer Mediation,College Students,Foreign Countries

The current study was designed to unveil a group of EFL students' metaphors for English writing and determine whether engaging in peer dialogues helped students to modify their beliefs and practices. It was found that about one third of the elicited metaphors carried a negative tone towards English writing. The metaphor-sharing dialogues among peers were found to help students (1) find unexpected and interesting metaphors; (2) find common ground and support; (3) face and examine one's feelings about writing; and (4) devise plans and/or make changes to writing beliefs. Pedagogical issues as well as future research directions are discussed to conclude the paper.