ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Cultural Integration on the Development of Listening Comprehension among Iranian Upper-Intermediate EFL Learners
Author: Fatemi, Mohammad Ali
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Social Integration,Acculturation,Listening Comprehension,Advanced Students,Second Language Learning,English (Second Language),Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Comparative Analysis,Statistical Analysis,Hypothesis Testing,Females,Language Tests,Multiple Choice Tests,Institutes (Training Programs),Listening Comprehension Tests,Data Analysis,Familiarity,Prior Learning,Religious Factors,Recall (Psychology)

Cultural integration can be used as an effective learning practice in contexts of English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. The present study aimed at investigating the effect of cultural integration on the development of Iranian EFL upper-intermediate learners' listening comprehension. To this end, fifty-two upper-intermediate EFL learners were selected based on the Quick Placement Test, developed by Oxford University Press and University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (2012). These participants were randomly assigned into experimental (N = 26) and control (N = 26) groups. T-test analysis indicated significant effects of cultural integration on the development of listening comprehension on upper-intermediate EFL learners. The findings offer pedagogical implications for integrating First Language (L1) culture in EFL listening comprehension classrooms.
Role of Colonial Subjects in Making Themselves Inferior in Chinua Achebe's &quot;Things Fall Apart&quot;
Author: Sadeghi, Zahra
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,African Culture,Sociolinguistics,Foreign Policy,Social Change,Culture Conflict,Christianity,Political Influences,Traditionalism,Social Values,Literary Devices,Literary Styles,Literature Appreciation,Novels,Didacticism,Community Relations,Social Experience,Identification (Psychology)

Chinua Achebe in his novel &quot;Things Fall Apart&quot; gives us a unique picture of life in Africa before the arrival of Christianity and colonization and the era afterwards. He shows how African people lost their traditional culture and values, replacing them with foreign beliefs. In this article, the way black people lived before the arrival of white people, how they encountered and reacted to white colonizers, in addition to how they converted to Christianity and subsequently to White culture, as portrayed in this novel, will be analyzed. The purpose of this study is to trace the roots of this rapid pace of colonialism back to when colonial subjects lost their original culture to the new-coming people and to what extent those colonized people were affectively actualizing their inferiority and subordination to the white society. Frantz Fanon's theories on the relation between language and culture or language and civilization, as well as his discussion of White notion of Blacks and Blacks' conception of themselves are discussed and analyzed in Achebe's masterpiece &quot;Things Fall Apart&quot; to prove that black people attempted to make up for their deep feeling of incompleteness by imitating white people and forming a white personality in a black statue as a result of their own conscious volition.
Relationship between Prior Knowledge and Reading Comprehension
Author: Abdelaal, Noureldin Mohamed
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Reading Comprehension,Prior Learning,Graduate Students,English (Second Language),College Second Language Programs,Questionnaires,Language Tests,Correlation,Reading Achievement,Reading Tests,Statistical Analysis,Foreign Countries

This study investigates the relationship between prior knowledge and reading comprehension in second language among postgraduate students in UPM. Participants in the study were 20 students who have the same level in English as a second language from several faculties. On the basis of a prior-knowledge questionnaire and test, students were selected; they were asked to sit a two-passage reading comprehension exam. According to the questionnaire and the short prior quiz, students had high prior knowledge in one of the two passages, and low prior knowledge in the other. The result showed significantly high relationship between the high prior knowledge and reading comprehension. However, the results showed significantly low relationship between low prior knowledge and reading comprehension. Yet the performance of students in a reading comprehension with high prior knowledge was significantly better than reading comprehension with low prior knowledge.
Pygmalion Effect on Junior English Teaching
Author: Wang, Yurong
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Role Models,Psychological Patterns,English (Second Language),College Second Language Programs,Instructional Improvement,Teacher Student Relationship,Learning Motivation,Self Efficacy,Teacher Expectations of Students,Intimacy,Emotional Experience,Second Language Instruction,Foreign Countries

Pygmalion Effect, or Robert Rosenthal Effect, was proved by the famous American psychologist Robert Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1968. Pygmalion Effect, as a matter of fact, is a psychological suggestion, which believes that people can accept the influence and suggestion given by the people whom very much they admire, like, believe, and respect. This effect was first applied in the field of management and medication. What's more, remarkable achievements have been accomplished on human resource management. Robert Rosenthal put it into education through an experiment called &quot;Pygmalion in the Classroom,&quot; which aroused widely attention in the education sector. This thesis mainly focuses on the application of Pygmalion effect in English teaching, especially junior English teaching in China. If we can make good use of the Pygmalion Effect to conduct teaching and have positive expectations to students, it will improve teaching greatly.
Pragmatic Difficulties in the Production of the Speech Act of Apology by Iraqi EFL Learners
Author: Al-Ghazalli, Mehdi Falih
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Second Language Learning,English (Second Language),Speech Acts,Interpersonal Communication,College Students,Difficulty Level,Comprehension,Recognition (Psychology),Hypothesis Testing,Cultural Differences,Interpretive Skills,Sociolinguistics,Language Tests,Failure

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pragmatic difficulties encountered by Iraqi EFL university students in producing the speech act of apology. Although the act of apology is easy to recognize or use by native speakers of English, non-native speakers generally encounter difficulties in discriminating one speech act from another. The problem can be attributed to two factors: pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge. The aim of this study is (1)to evaluate the socio-pragmatic level of interpreting apologies as understood and used by Iraqi EFL university learners, (2) find out the level of difficulty they experience in producing apologies and (3) detect the reasons behind such misinterpretations and misuses. It is hypothesized that the socio-pragmatic interpretation of apology tends to play a crucial role in comprehending what is intended by the speaker. However, cultural gaps can be the main reason behind the EFL learners' inaccurate production of the act of apology. To verify the aforementioned hypotheses, a test has been constructed and administered to a sample of 70 fourth-year Iraqi EFL university learners, morning classes. The subjects' responses have been collected and linguistically analyzed in the light of an eclectic model based on Deutschmann (2003) and Lazare (2004). It has been concluded that the misinterpretation or difficulty Iraqi EFL students have faced is mainly attributed to their lack of socio-pragmatic knowledge. The interference of the learners' first language culture has led to non-native productions of speech act of apology.
Hermeneutic and Cultural Codes of S/Z: A Semiological Reading of James Joyce's &quot;The Boarding House&quot;
Author: Booryazadeh, Seyed Ali
Date: 2014-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Hermeneutics,Semiotics,Literary Genres,Twentieth Century Literature,Coding,Culture

Roland Barthes as a fervent proponent of semiology believes that semiology is a branch of a comprehensive linguistics: it is the study of how language articulates the world. Semiotic codes, the paths of this articulation, accordingly underlie his attention. Barthes in a structural analysis of Balzac's &quot;Sarrasine&quot; in S/Z expounds five types and functions of these codes. &quot;The Boarding House,&quot; one of the most widely read of James Joyce's short stories, despite its straightforwardness is correspondingly saturated with these codes such as cultural and proairetic ones. This research according to Barthes' semiology makes an attempt to elucidate the proairetic codes and structural components that carry a nonverbal cultural message of James Joyce's &quot;The Boarding House.&quot; The present study furthermore tries to show how with resort to a series of signs and special codes a literary text can thematically be substantialized. Moreover, it demonstrates that not only can the text of &quot;The Boarding House&quot; be encoded by the same criteria Barthes encoded &quot;Sarrasine&quot; but also Joyce himself presents particular names for these codes.
Literature as Tool for Sustainable Development: A Comparative Literary Analysis of Achebe's &quot;Arrow of God&quot; and Tahir's &quot;The Last Imam&quot;
Author: Sani, Abubakar Mohammed
Date: 2014-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Sustainable Development,Literature,Literature Appreciation,Comparative Analysis,Role Playing,Conflict,Political Influences,Religious Conflict,Novels,African Culture,Literary Criticism,Literary Devices,Literary Styles

This paper aims at a theoretical comparative textual analysis of two novels; Chinua Achebe's &quot;Arrow of God&quot; (1964) and Ibrahim Tahir's &quot;The Last Imam&quot; (1984). The focus is on their similarities generally and roles played by the heroes in their different societies as political and religious leaders of the different societies and how their actions and in-actions affect their communities and the polity generally. The paper relates the portrayal these as synonymous to the current political leadership crisis in Nigeria and other African nations. The study demonstrates how this crisis hinders sustainable development in the country and other African countries. They way out of this as possible solutions the turmoil is proffer at the end.
BALL (Blogs Assisted Language Learning): Are Malaysian Secondary School Students Prepared to Use Blogs in ESL Learning?
Author: Ariffin, Zurainee
Date: 2014-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Student Journals,Electronic Journals,Secondary School Students,Second Language Learning,English (Second Language),Student Attitudes,Suburban Schools,Student Surveys,Instructional Effectiveness,Technology Uses in Education,Sex,Personality Traits,Student Characteristics,Preferences,Language Proficiency,Interviews

This study aimed to find out second language learners' perceptions on the use of blogs in their learning process. Participants were 20 secondary school students from a suburban school in Kelantan, Malaysia. The students read articles, discussed in their respective groups and posted their comments in their group blogs in two kinds of learning environment; being supervised face-to-face and virtually. A survey and also oral interview were administered to elicit participants' perceptions on the use of blogs. The results showed that although the incorporation of blogs in ESL learning were perceived positively among the learners, teachers need to be aware of several factors affect the effectiveness of using this technology in their teaching such as students' gender, personality and learning preferences. This paper also provides some pedagogical implications in the use of blogs for ESL learning.
Female Teachers' Perception of Reflective Teaching as a Teacher Development Tool in the Saudi Context
Author: Shukri, Nadia
Date: 2014-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Females,Teacher Attitudes,Reflective Teaching,Faculty Development,Higher Education,English (Second Language),College Second Language Programs,Questionnaires,Mixed Methods Research,Professionalism,Learning Activities,Educational Practices,Likert Scales,Foreign Countries

Teacher development in the EFL context has been well-established in Western educational institutions. However, although there are some limited studies in the Middle East, it is still under-researched in Saudi Arabia. This study investigates the EFL teachers' perceptions of reflective teaching as a tool for teacher development and its challenges in higher education in Saudi Arabia. It also aims to raise teachers' awareness of the importance of teacher development and its empowering impact in meeting their students' needs. Based on a review of previous studies, the present study hypothesized a significant relevance between reflective teaching practice and the promotion of professional development. A structured questionnaire is used as a quantitative methodology followed by qualitative analysis of the findings. The findings support the hypothesis in which the participants' views revealed a strong relationship between reflective teaching and professionalism in teaching. Finally, further recommendations that suggest methods of reflective teaching are proposed
The Effect of Overt Prepositional Input on Students' Written Accuracy
Author: Morgan, Gareth
Date: 2014-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Linguistic Input,Form Classes (Languages),Writing Instruction,Writing Improvement,Writing Strategies,Error Analysis (Language),Accuracy,Undergraduate Students,Questionnaires,Student Attitudes,Student Surveys,Pretests Posttests,English (Second Language),College Second Language Programs,Foreign Countries

I believe that there should be a focus on problematic language issues such as prepositions in the language classroom in order to provide continuous exposure to such features. Consequently I provided my students with supplementary activities on prepositions, and also promoted learner autonomy by highlighting urls which deal with collocation. Analysis of the students written output shows the input to have been successful in focussing students' attention on this problematic language aspect. While a pre-input writing task generated 83 prepositional errors, at the rate of 1 in every 48 words, longer post-input tasks only generated 76 prepositional errors at the rate of 1 in every 215 words. Consequently, I plan to continue providing students with input on this often neglected language feature, in order to increase students' written accuracy.
The Voice Within
Author: Brown, Angela
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Intimacy,Poetry,Self Expression,Death,Relationship

Love and loss is facing the truth behind the facts that bears deep in our hearts. A child is not born a racist. Racism is something taught through words and actions. The fight against hate begins by demonstrating love and acts of kindness. The difference between love and hate is within the context of the idea of inherent expression conducted through actions.
Dylan Thomas's &quot;25 Poems&quot;: Paradox as Structure
Author: Bharadwaj, S.
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Poetry,Twentieth Century Literature,Figurative Language,Philosophy,Logical Thinking,Literary Devices,Self Evaluation (Individuals),Intimacy

Irony, inclusiveness, and complexity are the chief criteria of value in the twentieth century intellectual poetry. These criteria, however, do not merely indicate qualities of craftsmanship; they reflect a sensibility, a particular way of experiencing reality. What really distinguishes Dylan Thomas is a capacity for self-analysis, a capacity for objectifying, and subjecting to analytical scrutiny, one's own experiences and feelings. The searching self-exploration that links Thomas with W.H. Auden is more evident in &quot;25 Poems&quot; than in his &quot;18 Poems,&quot; and in &quot;25 Poems&quot; the readers are privileged to watch his own mental processes. What happens in &quot;18 Poems&quot; is that the poet's mind operates simultaneously at two levels, and the readers can witness a co-operation and coalescence of emotion and ratiocination. In &quot;25 Poems,&quot; the heart is involved in experience and suffers, while an alert intelligence, conscious of itself, analyses and weighs the experience. The result is inclusiveness arising out of a recognition of the complexity of experience, of the pressure of the total context upon a particular situation or mental state. Thomas's &quot;18 Poems&quot; has this quality of paradox in varying degrees, and it shows the juxtaposition and integration of opposed attitudes enriching the poetic texture. The most equal emphases on erotic love and creative quest in &quot;18 Poems&quot; present one kind of inclusiveness. In &quot;25 Poems,&quot; the apparently disorganized flow of thought resembles the stream-of-consciousness technique, but the presence of an alert mind weighing different approaches and directing the journey of life is obvious. His interest in Day Lewis, Spender, and MacNeice is equally indicative of his love of contrasts, of chiaroscuro effects, and is not to be confused with Auden's interest in characterization. Thomas's early poetry is an imago of paradox, &quot;a home&quot; of &quot;comfort&quot; and faith &quot;the neighbour's strongest wish, to serve and love…&quot; in which &quot;no one but myself is loved&quot;.
An Angle of Seeing: Pornography and Profanity as &quot;Pharmakon&quot; in Darko's &quot;Beyond the Horizon&quot; and &quot;The Housemaid&quot;
Author: Abeka, Philomena
Date: 2014-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Pornography,Language Usage,African Culture,Novels,Females,Authors,Twentieth Century Literature,Emotional Experience,Social Change,Moral Issues

What strategies does a female writer develop to overcome her anxiety of correcting the moral decadence in her society? Inappropriate as the use of pornography and profanity must have always seemed, Amma Darko has managed to put some positive and meritorious spins on them and seriously use them. In this paper, we examine how in two books, &quot;Beyond the Horizon&quot; and &quot;The housemaid&quot;, Amma Darko strategizes to use pornography and profanity as remedies; that moral cleansing can be achieved by the strategic use of immoral pictures and language. This strategy traces back to Aristotle's age-old prescription that &quot;catharsis&quot; must be the final achievement of curtailing tragedy. In this paper, therefore, we observe how the use of pornography and profanity can contribute to the cleansing of a society whose moral fibre is engulfed in decadence. Furthermore, a near-laser analysis of the relationships between (&quot;catharsis&quot;-based) &quot;pharmakon&quot;, pornography and profanity as given in the books in discussion is done.
Civil Disobedience
Author: Brown, Angela Khristin
Date: 2014-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Poetry,African American Literature,Latin American Literature,Language Usage,Literary Devices

There is a good child, of any race, who is bullied. And as he grows older, He joins a hate group or a gang too, was bullied by every race, who bullied me. And as I grew older fought for equality for everyone. This is why I became an activist. Thesis why I am a poet. God asks are unwilling to die, fighting for what you believe. This is where I stand.
Diagnostic Tests in Czech for Pupils with a First Language Different from the Language of Schooling
Author: Vodicková, Katerina
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Diagnostic Tests,Slavic Languages,High Stakes Tests,Foreign Countries,Second Language Learning,Test Validity,Test Reliability,Elementary School Students,Guidelines,Test Construction,Immigrants,Test Format,Statistical Analysis

Mastering a second language, in this case Czech, is crucial for pupils whose first language differs from the language of schooling, so that they can engage more successfully in the educational process. In order to adjust language teaching to pupils' needs, it is necessary to identify which language skills or individual competences set out within the framework of communicative competence should be developed. For this purpose, a new diagnostic test for lower and upper graders of primary schools was designed. Although it is not a high-stakes test, it is essential that its validity, reliability and practicality are ensured, as well as its positive impact on the teaching process, pupils, teachers, schools and society. The present paper introduces the position of pupils with a first language other than Czech in the Czech Republic. It presents a recently developed diagnostic tool and documents the characteristics of the test, such as validity, reliability, impact and practicality.
An Analysis of Critical Issues in Korean Teacher Evaluation Systems
Author: Choi, Hee Jun
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Teacher Evaluation,Evaluation Methods,Methods Research,Teacher Promotion,Job Performance,Merit Rating,Faculty Development,Comparative Analysis,Evaluation Problems,Change Strategies,Systems Analysis,Educational Practices,Evaluation Criteria

Korea has used three different teacher evaluation systems since the 1960s: teacher performance rating, teacher performance-based pay and teacher evaluation for professional development. A number of studies have focused on an analysis of each evaluation system in terms of its advent, development, advantages and disadvantages, but these studies have been critically limited in that they have focused only on the partial integration of the three current teacher evaluation systems, without addressing the problems embedded in each of them. The present study provides a systematic analysis of the three current Korean teacher evaluation systems based on a sound analytical framework and proposes appropriate directions for designing an effective and efficient system. It is found that the three systems share commonalities in terms of stakeholders, evaluators, scope, criteria and methods, further supporting the rationale for developing a single comprehensive teacher evaluation system in Korea. Finally, several steps to establish a comprehensive teacher evaluation system based on the analysis results are suggested.
Syntactic Deviations in the Novel &quot;The Sound and the Fury&quot;
Author: Alirezazadeh, Pooria
Date: 2014-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Novels,United States Literature,Twentieth Century Literature,Syntax,Language Usage,Philosophy,Literary Devices

This article looks at William Faulkner's work &quot;The Sound and the Fury.&quot; The goals are to investigate different types of syntactic deviations in the novel, and how these deviations helped the writer to create a literary work in the field of modernist literature and stream of consciousness. To this end, the theoretical framework for linguistic deviations proposed by Leech (1969) has been chosen. Most prior researches on linguistic deviations especially syntactic deviations focused on poetic text and classic prose. The present study was designed to address syntactic deviations in modern prose, and it highlights the role of syntactic deviations in modernist literature and psychological novel.