ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Modular EFL Educational Program (Audio-Visual Materials Translation &amp; Translation of Deeds &amp; Documents)
Author: Imani, Sahar Sadat Afshar
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Program Evaluation,Qualitative Research,Statistical Analysis,Likert Scales,Translation,Audiovisual Aids,Second Language Instruction,Admission Criteria,Program Content,Evaluation Methods,Employment Qualifications,Graduation Requirements,Standards,Questionnaires,Language Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Foreign Countries

Modular EFL Educational Program has managed to offer specialized language education in two specific fields: Audio-visual Materials Translation and Translation of Deeds and Documents. However, no explicit empirical studies can be traced on both internal and external validity measures as well as the extent of compatibility of both courses with the standards and criteria of scientific educational program. In a bid to address these issues, this study was conducted to evaluate the program from five fundamental criteria including: Admission Requirements, Program Content, Program Resources, Program Instruction/Evaluation Methods, and Graduation/Employment Requirements. Methodologically, the study is based on the requirements of both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. To this end, a sample of teachers enjoying at least five years of offering both courses attempted a 22-item Likert-scaled questionnaire accommodating subcategories of the five macro criteria followed by open-ended written protocol commenting spaces for qualitative data. The findings revealed controversies over the all the macro criteria and compatibility of the program with these well-established standards; suggesting exercise of comprehensive revisits and modifications in all aspects of the program as a whole.
The Significance of the Hand for the Elementary Years
Author: Baker, Kay
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Elementary School Students,Human Body,Handedness,Physiology,Montessori Method,Expressive Language,Self Expression,Educational Theories,Social Development,Child Development,Intelligence,Learning Activities,Creative Development

The use of the hand is a physiological sequence. The prehensile nature of the human hand is an evolutionary feature as is the freeing of the hands due to bipedalism. Kay Baker outlines of the human hand's significance to the mind as found in chapter 14 of the &quot;Absorbent Mind.&quot; In this article, she has created lists that break down the implication of the hand as an expression of the mind, the hand as a companion to the mind, the hand that creates the handiwork of civilization, the hand as a way to social life through manual division of labor. The article also discusses how Montessori pedagogy utilizes the hand and its related capacities to allow the student to understand the nature of human work through the ages, and to see how the hand is the basis of Cosmic Education.
An Empirical Study on the Acquisition of English Rising Tone by Chinese EFL Learners
Author: Chen, Wenkai
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Intonation,Second Language Learning,Phonology,Oral Language,English (Second Language),Asians,Chinese,Native Language,Language Research,Vowels,Second Language Instruction,Auditory Perception,Pronunciation,Questionnaires,Majors (Students),Student Attitudes,Foreign Countries,Statistical Analysis,Teaching Methods,College Students

Intonation is the melody and soul of speech, and plays an important role in oral communication. Nevertheless, the acquisition of English intonation by Chinese EFL learners is far from being satisfactory. It is found by empirical study that the main problems existing in acquiring English rising tone are improper placement of nucleus stress, failure to control the contour of pitch of nucleus, replacement of rising tone by falling one, epenthesis of extra central vowel after the consonant with which the nucleus or tail ends. The acquisition of rising tone is influenced by lack of intonation knowledge, poor acquisition of stress, differences between English and Chinese tone patterns, etc. One key solution is to imbue the learners with knowledge of intonation by utilizing modern phonological technologies to make possible the multimodal phonological acquisition of intonation so as to improve the learners' ability of perceiving and producing rising tone.
Factors Influencing the Trilingual Education in Leshan Ebian Yi Autonomous County
Author: Jian, Huang
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Multilingualism,Minority Group Students,Bilingual Education,Questionnaires,High Schools,Interviews,Chinese,English (Second Language),Native Language,Student Surveys,High School Students,Influences,Observation

Language is symbolic of nationality culture (Claire, 2000). Trilingual education to the minority students is necessity for inheriting and developing their national culture. This survey studies the trilingual education in practice, analyses the existing trilingual education problems in Sichuan Leshan minority areas and indicates the prospect of the future studies, so as to offer valuable references for the trilingual education practice and language policy making.
Encouraging Sudanese Schoolboys to Learn English Effectively--A Case Study of Learning EFL in Eddueim Locality's Schools
Author: Gawi, Elsadig Mohamed Khalifa
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Males,Case Studies,Questionnaires,English Teachers,Elementary School Students,Second Language Instruction,Instructional Effectiveness

This study is aiming at investigating the impact of encouragement on Sudanese learners when learning EFL. The main question of the present study is asking about the influence of encouragement on learning EFL in Sudanese setting. Population of this study are English teachers and students in Eddueim Locality's schools in Sudan. Questionnaire was used as a main tool for this study. A brief review of literature on the previous research on the effect of encouragement on a foreign language learning was made. The researcher uses SPSS to analyze the collected data. The data is analyzed and recommendations made. According to the findings of the study, encouragement has great influence on language learning.
An Empirical Study on the Application of Theme Theory in the Field of Writing Pedagogy
Author: Jingxia, Liu
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Writing Instruction,Writing Skills,Writing (Composition),Teaching Methods,Rhetoric,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Comparative Analysis,College Students,Pretests Posttests,Statistical Analysis

English writing instruction is an important part in college English pedagogy. Traditional way of teaching English writing lays much emphasis on word, grammar and sentence rather than the level of discourse. Under the traditional way, the students have difficulties to yield well-organized and coherent compositions. Theme Theory provides a theoretical foundation for a new method of teaching English writing. Thematic structure of the text is closely with the textual organization and the application of Theme Theory in teaching English writing helps improving students' writing coherence and overall writing proficiency. This paper gives an experiment on the application of Theme Theory in teaching English writing and attempts to verify the validity of the application of Theme Theory in the writing pedagogy of our college English.
Towards Quality Assessment in an EFL Programme
Author: Ali, Holi Ibrahim Holi
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Evaluation Methods,Program Evaluation,Alternative Assessment,Test Items,Teacher Attitudes,Language Teachers,College Faculty,Foreign Countries,Language Tests,Student Evaluation,Statistical Analysis,Questionnaires,Models,Summative Evaluation,Formative Evaluation,Teacher Education

Assessment is central in education and the teaching-learning process. This study attempts to explore the perspectives and views about quality assessment among teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and to find ways of promoting quality assessment. Quantitative methodology was used to collect data. To answer the study questions, a questionnaire was distributed to 37 EFL teachers at a public college in Oman. The findings show that the majority of teachers are not satisfied with the current assessment practices and they believe that much effort is needed to promote quality assessment. Furthermore, the vast majority of teachers assume that using alternative assessment tools such as moderation, building an item bank, having tight exam policies and procedures, providing clear exam instructions, training teachers on quality assessment, and aligning assessment with teaching would help in fostering quality assessment. Based on teachers' views and findings from the literature, the study proposes a multidimensional model for quality assessment which may help in achieving and promoting quality assessment.
Is Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Feasible to EFL Learning?
Author: Luo, Jian-ping
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Incidental Learning,Vocabulary Development,Computational Linguistics,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Foreign Countries,Reading Processes,Word Frequency,Second Language Instruction,Teaching Methods,Contrastive Linguistics,Language Tests,College Students,Instructional Effectiveness

For learning English as a foreign language, the efficiency of the approach of incidental vocabulary acquisition depends on the word frequency and text coverage. However, the statistics of English corpus reveals that English is a language that has a large vocabulary size but a low word frequency as well as text coverage, which is obviously not in favor of the approach. Also, the statistics reveals that, by learning English words from reading incidentally as the approach claims, the learners will have to add up their reading out of class to a large quantity as ten times as that in class. Accordingly, it will be too much for them to do and clearly it is unfeasible to these non-English major learners, who could not probably have time to spend in reading so much just for picking up new words incidentally. This paper aims to prove that the approach is not feasible at all to EFL learning in China.
English in Eastern Ethiopia Is Learnt; Not Mastered
Author: Jha, Sanjay Kumar
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Teaching Methods,Barriers,Remedial Instruction,Observation,Interviews,Educational Quality,Learning Activities,College Students,Language of Instruction,Native Language,English Teachers,Teacher Salaries,Immigrants,Ethnography,Phenomenology,Participant Observation

English Language Teaching (ELT) has undergone immense changes over the years in terms of using different methods, but none of the methods till this date have proved what they had proclaimed. The paper believes in the hypothesis that learning is &quot;understanding&quot; the linguistic components of a language, whereas mastering is the part of using them in a well structured way with perfection and ease. Viewing this dichotomy between learning and mastering, the paper examines a problematic discourse: &quot;English in Eastern Ethiopia is often learnt; but not mastered&quot;. The broad concern of the paper is to draw the attention of the local and global ELT practitioners towards the dismal state of English in Eastern Ethiopia. In this pursuit, the paper set three prime objectives: (i) exploring global and local uses of ELT methods, (ii) exploring major linguistic and non-linguistic impediments in mastering English, and (iii) proposing an empirical approach to overcome the impediments from remedial perspective. Participant observation, unstructured Interview, and document analysis were employed to gather the data, whereas analytic induction was used to analyze the data. Under findings, seventeen linguistic and non-linguistic impediments were found as serious deterrents in mastering English. From remedial perspective, the paper proposes an empirical &quot;Integrated Iconic Approach&quot; to overcome the linguistic impediments followed by seventeen apposite recommendations to pave the path of quality English education in Eastern Ethiopia.
On Discrimination in Chinese and English Indirect Addressings
Author: Yao, Lianbing
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English,Chinese,Pragmatics,Interpersonal Communication,Social Bias

One of the fundamental usages of language is to address each other. As a socialized product, language is bound to transfer its users' intention, the examination of which will have to be based on the absence of either the addressor or the addressee, or even the both. In the process of social development, there exists discrimination between different nations, job-takers, and genders. This essay tries to look into the discrimination in the indirect addressings in people's communication. The findings bring home some implications for foreign language teaching and learning.
Effects of Hierarchy Vocabulary Exercises on English Vocabulary Acquisition
Author: Lin, Ching-Ying
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Vocabulary Development,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Reading Comprehension,Grade 5,Elementary School Students,Comparative Analysis,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Memory,Correlation,Teaching Methods,Pretests Posttests,Scores,Foreign Countries

The purpose of the study was to compare the effectiveness of hierarchy vocabulary exercises and copying vocabulary exercises on EFL students' vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. Two specific factors were probed: (a) vocabulary gains and retention from different exercises; (b) reading comprehension performance through different exercises. Fifty-six Grade 5 students in Yanpu Elementary School in Taiwan were engaged in either hierarchy vocabulary exercises or copying vocabulary exercises, with sixteen target words. The results revealed that the experimental group receiving hierarchy vocabulary exercises significantly outperformed the control group receiving copying vocabulary exercises on students' performance of vocabulary gains, reading comprehension, as well as short-term and long-term word memory retention. A positive correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension was also inspected. It was, therefore, concluded that hierarchy vocabulary exercise was a more effective exercise type for vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension.
Quilt-Making in the Elementary Class
Author: Nixon, Monica
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Handicrafts,Elementary School Students,Teaching Methods,Learner Engagement,Attention Span,Montessori Schools

As our world becomes more and more technological, it is essential that we remember that one of the main ways the child's brain develops is through meaningful work of the hand. Monica Nixon, the founder and director of Mountain Laurel Montessori School in Front Royal, VA, as well as a quilter and knitter, describes her experience of teaching her class of six- through twelve-year-old students how to quilt and what has become a ritual quilt-making event that begins in early November and finishes before winter break in mid-December. During the quilt-making process, the students share personal stories through natural conversations with both their teacher and fellow students. The more experienced students help younger students, and the students enjoy sharing their quilts with the recipient of their choice. Students have remarked that they are more focused throughout the quilt-making process than they have ever been. The sewing process seems to be especially helpful to students who have difficulty sustaining their attention during most learning activities. This could be due to the repetitive actions with each stitch and that there is no way to speed through any part of the process. Often their newly acquired ability to sustain their focus carries over into their other work.
Effect of Network-Assisted Language Teaching Model on Undergraduate English Skills
Author: He, Chunyan
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Technology Uses in Education,Undergraduate Students,Computer Assisted Instruction,Conventional Instruction,Comparative Analysis,Scores,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Pretests Posttests,Language Tests,Statistical Analysis,Models,College Students,Student Characteristics,Measures (Individuals),Statistical Distributions

With the coming of the information age, computer-based teaching model has had an important impact on English teaching. Since 2004, the trial instruction on Network-assisted Language Teaching (NALT) Model integrating the English instruction and computer technology has been launched at some universities in China, including China university of Geosciences (Beijing) (CUGB). The purpose of this paper is to provide experimental evidence about whether NALT Model can enhance undergraduate English skills more effectively than the traditional teaching model. In this study, an experimental study is conducted to get the data (students' exam scores from experimental group and control group). Then a comparison method is utilized to analyze the experiment data that is the final examinations of every semester from the fall semester of 2005 to the fall semester of 2006 at CUGB. The results of a separate independent t-test demonstrate significant differences between experimental and control groups in mid-test and post-test with SPSS 11.5. Then a graphical model X-bar-S Plane Analysis Model (Li &amp; Xie, 1994) is used to analyze the statistical characteristics of both groups' scores. The results show that the whole distribution of the experimental group's scores in the post-test is totally in the best state. Above study results indicate NALT model is indeed more effective than the traditional classroom teaching model in improving undergraduate English skills. This study contributes to the better realization of the effect of NALT model, and urges researchers to deepen the study of this field in future.
Foreign Language Reading Anxiety in a Jordanian EFL Context: A Qualitative Study
Author: Al-Shboul, Murad M.
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Reading,Anxiety,Qualitative Research,College Students,Observation,Semi Structured Interviews,Diaries,Influences

In the last two decades, investigating the sources of foreign language anxiety in general has increasingly attracted the attention of many researchers in the field of foreign language teaching. However, the sources of anxiety that influence the acquisition of certain specific language skills such as reading in particular have rarely been investigated. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore and understand the underlying problems and factors that contribute to reading anxiety faced by EFL students at Yarmouk University, Jordan. It was a qualitative exploration of the sources of English language reading anxiety for which observation, semi-structured interviews and diaries were collected from six informants with different levels of English language proficiency. The findings of the study revealed that there were two aspects of foreign language reading anxiety: personal factor and text feature. Under the concept of personal factor there were also two main sources of foreign language reading anxiety, which are: afraid of making errors and worry about reading effects. On the other hand, there were three main sources of foreign language reading anxiety under the concept of text feature, which are: unknown vocabulary, unfamiliar topic, and unfamiliar culture. The five main sources of foreign language reading anxiety were arranged according to their occurrences and percentages in the study. Moreover, recommendations were proposed.
A Corpus-Based Study of Malaysian ESL Learners' Use of Modals in Argumentative Compositions
Author: Kader, Mohamed Ismail bin Abdul
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,College Students,Persuasive Discourse,Writing (Composition),Instructional Improvement,Teaching Methods,Computational Linguistics,Discourse Analysis,Statistical Analysis,Grammar,Morphemes,Verbs,Language Usage,Computer Software,Second Language Instruction

This study attempts to examine the use of English modals in terms of their frequency and functions. For this purpose, Form 4 and College students' argumentative compositions were extracted from the Malaysian Corpus of Students' Argumentative Writing (MCSAW). In order to analyze the data, this study employed discourse analysis and some descriptive statistics by using the WordSmith Tools Version 4.0. The findings of the study showed that Form 4 and College students used &quot;can&quot; and &quot;will&quot; more frequently in argumentative compositions compared to other modals. Moreover, the result illustrated the exploitation of present tense form of modal than the past tense form. Finally, it was also revealed that the modals of ability were the most frequent modals found in Form 4 and College students' compositions in terms of their appropriate function. In order to improve the teaching, learning and effective usage of modal auxiliaries among ESL learners, all the central modals must be emphasized repetitively to enhance students' understanding of modals and their functions.
The Contributing Factors of Pragmatic Failure in China's ELT Classrooms
Author: Shen, Qi-yuan
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Pragmatics,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Linguistic Input,Cultural Differences,Foreign Countries,Intercultural Communication,Teaching Methods,Cultural Awareness,Linguistic Competence,Task Analysis,Instructional Materials

Pragmatic failure is the inability to understand what is meant by what is said, which can often lead to misunderstanding or confusion in cross-cultural communication. For this reason, the present article explores the contributing factors of pragmatic failure in China's ELT Classrooms. According to the exploration, the following factors are found out: teacher-centered teaching; lack of authentic input; teaching English without considering the cultural differences; linguistic competence oriented evaluation system. Some effective measures are also put forward to deal with these deficiencies, such as, task-based teaching; authentic English teaching materials and pragmatic competence oriented evaluation system.