ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Binding Task-Based Language Teaching and Task-Based Language Testing: A Survey into EFL Teachers and Learners' Views of Task-Based Approach
Author: Panahi, Ali
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,English (Second Language),Testing Problems,Task Analysis,Teaching Methods,Language Tests,Student Attitudes,Questionnaires,Statistical Analysis,Teacher Attitudes,Foreign Countries,Listening Skills,Instructional Materials

In most settings, task-based language teaching and testing have been dissociated from each other. That is why this study came to rethink of the learners' views towards awareness and implementation of task-based language teaching through IELTS listening tasks. To these objectives, after sketching instrumentation, the learners were divided into IELTS-Instructed group and TOEFL-Instructed group, the former was treated through IELTS listening task with the related strategies and tips, and the latter was instructed through TOEFL listening materials. Prior to treatment, statistically viewed, a significant difference was observed between the questionnaires of teachers and learners, but after undertaking an instruction, a significant difference was observed just between the views of the teachers and IELTS-instructed group. As such, a significant difference between the performances of the two groups was revealed. The results displayed that the performance and views of the task-associated group were, respectively, increased and changed, affected by the wash-back effect of the task-oriented IELTS activities. It is hoped that this paper will be of pedagogical use for the teachers and learners enchanted to bridge the gap between task-based language teaching and task-based language testing.
Non-Native Student's Communication Is Affected Due to the Lack of Pragmatic Competence
Author: Latha, V. G.
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Pragmatics,Language Skills,Second Language Learning,College Students,English (Second Language),Majors (Students),Communication Skills,Language Proficiency,Foreign Countries,Communicative Competence (Languages),Syntax,Phonetics,Vocabulary,Knowledge Level,Cues

This paper aims at focusing how the lack of pragmatic competence affects student's communication in L2 (Second language) at tertiary level. The city based Indian students learn English which is their second language from 3 years onwards whereas the rural based students learn English only from 6 years onwards. This exposure of the L2 shows the greatest disparity among technical students who opt for Engineering Studies here in the Medium of English. They join the Engineering courses with a hope of getting placement in good companies but some of them end up in jobs that are not worth their expectations. This leads to severe frustrations. The students at tertiary level lack in communication skills because they learn English but don't acquire it. Most of the times, students aren't able to produce utterances to communicate their &quot;specific intentions&quot; in a second language neither read between the lines. It's because in the pedagogical practice of second language teachers don't focus on this ability. Competence, whether linguistic or pragmatic, is not teachable. Competence is a type of knowledge that learners possess, develop, acquire, use or lose. The challenge for foreign or second language teaching is whether the teacher can arrange learning opportunities in such a way that it benefits the development of pragmatic competence in them. This paper focuses on how the lack of competence in pragmatics deprives the students of good placement for bright future and how this may be trounced.
A Study of the Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners' Level of Spatial Intelligence and Their Performance on Analytical and Perceptual Cloze Tests
Author: Ahmadian, Moussa
Date: 2012-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Spatial Ability,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Foreign Countries,Cloze Procedure,Multiple Intelligences,Correlation,Males,Young Adults,Late Adolescents,Language Tests,Language Proficiency,Intelligence Tests,Delphi Technique,Statistical Analysis

During the last two decades, Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences with its emphasis on learner variables has been appreciated in language learning. Spatial intelligence, as one domain of the multiple structures of intelligence, which is thought to play a great role in reading, writing, and literacy, particularly in L2 learning, has not received sufficient attention as it deserves. The aim of this study was twofold: (1) to examine the relationship between EFL learners' spatial intelligence and their performance on cloze tests in general; (2) to determine which variety of cloze tests, analytic or perceptual (based on deletion method), may correlate more strongly with learners' spatial intelligence. Accordingly, a correlational study was conducted with 41 male Iranian EFL learners at Jihad Daneshgahi Language Center of Tehran University (Iran). Participants' scores on the spatial intelligence test were first compared with their scores on two cloze tests. Next, the obtained correlations were examined to see the effect of deletion method for cloze tests on the strength of the relationship between the spatial intelligence scores and scores on the cloze tests. Significant correlations (0.61 and 0.56) were found between the variables. The findings emphasize making reconsiderations in using cloze tests in EFL contexts. Further research is also suggested to explore spatial intelligence and its role in language classrooms.
Difficulties in Academic Writing: From the Perspective of King Saud University Postgraduate Students
Author: Al Fadda, Hind
Date: 2012-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Graduate Students,Academic Discourse,Writing (Composition),English for Academic Purposes,Student Needs,Student Educational Objectives,English (Second Language),Oral Language,Written Language,Writing Processes,Writing Skills,Writing Difficulties

The purpose of this study was to determine what difficulties King Saud University students encounter when learning to write academic English and to differentiate between students' learning needs and objectives. The sample consisted of 50 postgraduate students enrolled in King Saud University during the academic year 2009-2010. Analysis of the data showed that English as a second language (ESL) students face many difficulties and stresses in their academic writing, such as difficulty distinguishing between spoken and written English, making an outline before writing a draft, identifying the skills needed for successful writing, and avoiding plague words and phrases.
Feedback on the Feedback: Sociocultural Interpretation of Saudi ESL Learners' Opinions about Writing Feedback
Author: Mustafa, Rami F.
Date: 2012-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Feedback (Response),Qualitative Research,Sociocultural Patterns,Foreign Countries,Semi Structured Interviews,Student Attitudes,Best Practices,Writing (Composition),Teaching Methods,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Writing Instruction,Foreign Students,Native Speakers

This qualitative study employed informal conversational interviews and semi-structured individual interviews to capture the Saudi students' opinions about the feedback they receive, and about their perceptions on what constitutes helpful feedback. Sociocultural theory was used as the framework of this study. The findings suggest that the Saudi students do not think highly of the feedback, and that the feedback they desire is markedly different from what they receive. The students mentioned several impediments to feedback. From a sociocultural perspective, the feedback practices do not adhere to the best practices of the theory, resulting in major hindrances to the students' learning/writing development.
An Exploration of Private Language Institute Teachers' Perceptions of Written Grammar Feedback in EFL Classes
Author: Jodaie, Mina
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Language Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Grammar,Feedback (Response),Questionnaires,Written Language,Foreign Countries,Private Schools,Likert Scales,Statistical Analysis,Qualitative Research

This study set out to explore private language institute EFL teachers' perceptions of written grammar feedback and also to specify their reasons for choosing comprehensive or selective feedback and some feedback strategies over some others. Data were collected from 30 EFL teachers by means of a questionnaire. The results indicated that the teachers have positive perceptions of written grammar feedback. Most of them also prefer direct feedback to indirect feedback strategies and tend to mark grammatical errors comprehensively. The study concludes by providing some implications for the field of EFL writing instruction.
The Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners' Creativity and Their Lexical Reception and Production Knowledge
Author: Hajilou, Y.
Date: 2012-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Creativity,English (Second Language),Lexicology,Receptive Language,Language Acquisition,Language Tests,Vocabulary,Undergraduate Students,Translation,English Literature,Correlation,Vocabulary Skills,Word Frequency,Knowledge Level,Creative Thinking,Performance Based Assessment,Academic Achievement

This study aimed to determine the relationship between creativity on one hand and lexical reception and production knowledge of Iranian EFL students on the other hand. The data were collected using three tests: a creativity test (Torrance, 1990), the Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt, Schmitt, &amp; Clapham, 2001), and the Productive Version of the Vocabulary Levels Test (Laufer &amp; Nation, 1995) which were administered to a group of 141 Iranian undergraduate students majoring in English Translation and Literature at Arak and Qom universities. The results demonstrated that there was not a high correlation between creativity on one hand and lexical reception and production on the other hand. The learners' passive and active vocabulary knowledge in the tests as a whole and at different word-frequency level were highly correlated. Passive vocabulary was always larger than active vocabulary at all levels; however, the gap between the two increased at lower word-frequency levels.
A Survey on the Iranian ELT Community's Attitudes to Critical Pedagogy
Author: Davari, Hossein
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Critical Theory,Community Attitudes,Mixed Methods Research,Interviews,English Instruction,English (Second Language),Applied Linguistics,Likert Scales,Questionnaires,Semi Structured Interviews,Qualitative Research,Statistical Analysis,Teacher Attitudes,Primary Sources,Culturally Relevant Education,Problem Based Learning,Instructional Materials,College Faculty

Critical pedagogy (CP) as one of the most radical changes in English language teaching (ELT) has turned into a common theme of research and discussion in recent years. Despite its practical implications, however, most of the research on this issue has been limited to its theoretical and conceptual dimensions. Conceiving the importance of this approach as well as considering the practical and applied dimensions of this newly emergent shift in ELT, this study is an attempt to study the Iranian ELT community's attitudes to some practical implications of CP in ELT. To acquire the Iranian ELT community's attitudes, a mixed-method approach was conducted. In the first phase, an interview survey was conducted with 8 applied linguists. Enjoying the content analysis of the data as well as the available literature on the topic, especially Akbari's (2008b) suggestions, a 10 item Likert-scale was prepared. To check the Iranian ELT community in the second phase, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 86 participants. Findings of this phase, as the main source of study, reveals that critical pedagogy is going to find a position in Iranian ELT community.
Countering the Dominant Narrative: In Defense of Critical Coursework
Author: Lynskey, Angela Cartwright
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preservice Teacher Education,Multicultural Education,Foundations of Education,Social Justice,Christianity,Religious Factors,Criticism,Discourse Analysis,Books,Anti Intellectualism

Demographics of public schools, in which minority students now make up the majority of the student body while the teaching force continues to be mostly White, indicate that many pre-service teachers will need significant training if they are to be prepared for the challenging task of filling knowledge gaps, interrogating dominant assumptions, and creating space for voices of difference. Before pre-service teachers, especially those whose privilege remains unacknowledged, can lead their classes in transformational learning, described as that which occurs when a new awareness changes the way people perceive themselves, others, and the world around them, pre-service teachers must first experience it themselves. Thus, the decreasing emphasis on, or even acknowledgement of, multicultural education in teacher education is cause for concern. Teacher preparation programs increasingly focus on preparing candidates for the standardized classroom while failing to engage them in the ongoing dialogue about the role of the classroom in society. The trend away from critical educational foundations is illustrated by the 2006 NCATE controversy over social justice. Ultimately, NCATE opted to abandon social justice in order to maintain its accreditation authority without mounting a defense of social justice, declining to even provide a counter definition to balance the ideological bias of the social justice opponents. Even the more palatable field of multicultural education is rarely required coursework, and when it is, it is rarely presented in ways that encourage pre-service teachers to move outside of their comfort zones. Without these crucial components in their undergraduate education, it is unlikely that classroom teachers will see among their goals the &quot;responsibility for building classroom communities that confront controversy and take responsibility for creating a better community, one that values diversity and human integrity and fights inhumanity&quot;. Social justice education, itself an acknowledgement of the larger need for individual and societal transformation through interrogations of dominant assumptions,is frequently met with resistance by pre-service teachers. The data from the study presented in this article suggests that one explanation for this phenomenon is that the concept of social justice is increasingly counter to dominant cultural narratives, as an analysis of texts popular among Christian communities in the Midwest suggests.
Empirical Study of Formative Evaluation in Adult ESL Teaching
Author: Yi, Qin
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Formative Evaluation,English (Second Language),English Language Learners,English Instruction,Adult Students,Questionnaires,Interviews,Case Studies,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Teaching Methods,Intermode Differences,Instructional Effectiveness,College Students,Educational Practices,Foreign Countries

Formative Evaluation is a method of evaluating a program while the program activities are forming or happening. Formative evaluation focuses on the &quot;process&quot; during which problems are timely spotted, corrected and adjustments made so that an intended goal can be accomplished. Through a four-month empirical research work with students of Grade 2010 of Continuous Education College of Dalian University of Technology as the subjects, the author in this article compares the teaching process and result of the experimental and the controlled groups, discusses the positive effects that formative evaluation gives to learning ESL by adult students while points out some of the problems that exist in this connection. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of effectiveness of formative evaluation as applied in teaching adult students to learn English. The result of the author's research works reveals that the formative evaluation is effective in teaching adult students of English.
The Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners' Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Author: Heidari, Farrokhlagha
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Beliefs,Self Efficacy,Learning Strategies,Vocabulary Skills,English (Second Language),English Language Learners,Translation,College Students,Student Surveys,Student Attitudes,Questionnaires,Memory,Majors (Students),Use Studies,Correlation

This study explores the relationship between Iranian EFL juniors' self-efficacy beliefs and their employed vocabulary learning strategies. The participants were 50 juniors studying English Translation at University of Sistan &amp; Baluchestan. The self-efficacy and vocabulary learning strategies questionnaires were administered to identify the students' self-efficacy beliefs and their vocabulary learning strategies. The obtained results revealed that students had rather high level of self-efficacy and that self-efficacy was significantly positively related to their use of the four subcategories of vocabulary learning strategies in general and the use of memory strategies in particular. Highly self-efficacious students reported significantly more use of vocabulary strategies than those with low self-efficacy. The results point out the importance of nurturing learners' self-efficacy beliefs and its impact on successful learning experiences and achievement.
&quot;On Cloud Nine&quot; and &quot;On All Fours&quot;: Which Is More Transparent? Elements in EFL Learners' Transparency Assumptions
Author: Lin, Crystal Jia-yi
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Figurative Language,Comparative Analysis,Native Language,Translation,Semantics,Correlation,Teaching Methods,Student Attitudes,Chinese,Dictionaries,Statistical Analysis,Asians,College Students,Grammar,Pretests Posttests,Foreign Countries

Idiom transparency refers to how speakers think the meaning of the individual words contributes to the figurative meaning of an idiom as a whole (Gibbs, Nayak, &amp; Cutting, 1989). However, it is not clear how speakers or language learners form their assumptions about an idiom's transparency level. This study set out to discover whether there are factors that can affect EFL learners' transparency judgement. It compared four groups of students' transparency ratings of 18 number idioms. A total of 191 students participated in the study. For the first two groups, the students were asked to make transparency judgements with the meanings of the idioms provided in L2 and L1 respectively. For the third and fourth groups, the students were asked to engage in different activities before they made transparency judgements. For the third group, the students were asked to choose a number to complete the number idioms; while for the fourth group, the students had to choose a number idiom to complete the sentences. Results showed that translation did not help the students to relate the literal meanings of the idioms to their figurative meanings. However, asking students to choose an appropriate idiom to complete the sentences could significantly raise students' transparency ratings. A closer examination found that students' ratings could be related to the internal and external semantic compatibility of the idioms. The implication of the study is that translation is not always necessary in the instruction of idioms; however, guiding students to think about the relationships between words and concepts can help them connect the literal and figurative meanings of the idioms.
The Index of Pragmatic Uses and Functions of &quot;Well&quot; in University EFL Classroom Discourse: A Case Study in Iran
Author: Mohammadi, Ali Mohammad
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Case Studies,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Gender Differences,Pragmatics,Language Usage,Linguistic Input,Second Language Instruction,Language Teachers,College Faculty,Teaching Methods,Computational Linguistics,Teacher Education,Qualitative Research,Statistical Analysis

Discourse markers (DMs) assist and persuade EFL classroom interlocutors to monitor their discourse production and comprehension process. This exploratory research investigated the index of pragmatic use (IPU), rate of use, frequency, and the pragmatic functions of &quot;well&quot; in Iranian university EFL teachers' and learners' classroom interactions. The researchers applied Jucker's (1997) inventory to explore the pragmatic functions of &quot;well.&quot; The data was collected from four university EFL classes. The results revealed that the IPU was 72%, rate of use was 9.7%, and frequency of distribution was 0.98%. Compared with the London Lund corpus, the IPU and the rate of use were very low, but the frequency of occurrence was very high. The findings indicate the improper and unnatural pragmatic input offered in this EFL context. Also, the instances of &quot;well&quot; applied by the interactants in the monitoring of discourse comply with Jucker's index of functions in 90% of the cases by the teachers and in 65% by the students. They overused &quot;well&quot; as a face-threat mitigator, underused it as a frame, and the teachers' gender played no significant part. The insufficiency in IPU, rate of use, extra and excessive frequency, and imbalanced approach in pragmatic functions of &quot;well&quot; provide the evidence for reformulation in EFL education. Classroom discourse variables, i.e. teacher training, material production procedures, and classroom strategies and teaching methodology need to be directed in a way to provide chances for the teachers and the students to observe how native speakers apply &quot;well&quot; in authentic situations, underline its instances of use, and discuss its pragmatic functions in texts.