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In this study, I would like to write the review of the book, entitled ‘Culture In Our Classrooms: Teaching Language Through Cultural Content’. The authors of this book are Gill Johsnon and Mario Rinvolucri. It was edited by Mike Burghall and designed by Christine Cox. It was printed by Halstan & Co. Ltd. and it was published by Delta Publishing Company in Surrey in England in 2010. The international standard book number of this book is 978-1-905085-21-7.

The study investigated the effect of using the writing workshop to improve reading in senior secondary school students. Most public schools in Nigeria do not explicitly teach reading or writing to students, hence most of these students have poor reading and writing competences. This study applied the writing workshop strategy (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001) to teach reading to a small group of secondary school students in a rural community in Ezinihitte, Mbaise, near Owerri, South East Nigeria. The study employed the qualitative method of participant observation. A comparison of students’ reading and writing performance before and after the study showed that the treatment had a positive effect on the reading and writing competences of the subjects. It was concluded that using the writing workshop to teach students who are being prepared for the senior secondary school certificate examinations to actively read and write in the English language will go a long way to improve their competence in both reading and writing the language. It is recommended that both the government and all stakeholders should adopt this strategy alongside other useful ones to improve the performance of students in internal and external examinations.

This paper examined the problems associated with teaching English Language using Literature texts in Makurdi Metropolis of Benue State, Nigeria. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Three research questions were asked and 2 hypotheses formulated. Population for the study comprised of all teachers of Literature and English Language in Secondary Schools in Makurdi metropolis. Findings of the study revealed that Literature has great impact on the study of English Language, but that there are problems that hinder the full realization of the study of language through literature (P = 0.10 < 1.66). The study concluded that the problems can be surmounted. It was recommended that language teachers should attend training, workshops, and seminars, in order to up-grade their knowledge of language teaching through the use of literary texts.

The negligence of teaching writing, reading, and spelling skills and grammar in schools has led teachers to focus on students' speaking skill. Recognition of these problems and the possible remedies are beneficial for teachers, which will equip them with insightful ideas about how to manage their teaching and learning activities for the successful implementation of this method. Through open-ended interviews and in line with the sampling procedures of Grounded Theory, this study theoretically sampled fifteen experienced EFL teachers' techniques to uncover the conditions that help teachers' adopt suitable techniques to cater for individual differences. The careful coding schemes of the grounded theory method yielded a set of categories – "Techniques of Teaching Conversation and Techniques of Teaching Speaking Skill" as the main categories, coupled with some sub-categories such as "The Use of Mother Tongue in Teaching Conversation", " Warm-up", and "Role-play" that are used for conversation skills; " Summarizing and Storytelling", "Picture Describing" and "Practicing Linguistic Patterns " for speaking skills. Further studies need to be undertaken to uncover other pertinent skills and strategies in other contexts. Only then can the field replace skills of CLT which are assumed to be applicable across numerous of conditions. It is hoped that these findings may be useful for students, teachers, syllabus designers and educational managers to give more attention to CLT.

Research has shown that context cue instruction can improve EFL learners’ ability to infer word meanings from context, improve their comprehension and enable them to read independently (Nash & Snowling, 2006; Yuen, 2009; Çetinavci, 2013; Dwaik et al., 2013; and Samiyan et al., 2014). However, this strategy has not been explicitly taught in the context of secondary schools in Vietnam, and language learners are assumed to learn the strategy on their own. Therefore, this study was conducted to find out the extent to which context cue instruction enhances learners’ ability to infer word meanings from context and to investigate learners’ perceptions towards this strategy. In this study, 26 English major eleventh graders in an upper-secondary school in Can Tho City, Vietnam, were instructed to guess meanings of unfamiliar words using the contextual guessing strategy in three three-hour sessions. Achievement tests and learners’ reflection done in class were employed as sources of quantitative and qualitative data. Data from the pre-tests and post-tests indicated a significant improvement in learners’ ability to guess meanings of unfamiliar words using the contextual guessing strategy. Results of twenty-six reflections also showed positive perceptions towards using this strategy. It could be implied that secondary school teachers should train and encourage learners to guess meanings of unknown words based on the contextual cues, and integrate context cue instruction into reading lesson plans to help strengthen learners’ ability to infer word meaning from context.

This paper intends to analyze the Grammar-Translation Method (GTM) on the basis of the perspectives of Complementary Law from Hexagram in Chinese I-Ching, and to answer the 3 questions regarding GTM: 1). Is the combination of Teacher and Student in GTM settings optimal? 2) Is the combination of Material and Methodology in GTM settings optimal? 3)  Is the combination of Objective and Assessment in GTM settings optimal? This paper starts with the analysis of the six variables (in three pairs) involved in GTM settings; namely, teacher-student, objective-assessment, and material-methodology. Each of these variables was specified as yin or yang, depending on its individual feature, and then was examined through the Complementary Law of Chinese I-Ching. The results indicate that the overall effect of GTM is less desirable than expected, as there are two imbalances that exist between Methodology-Material, and between Assessment and Objective. Suggested solutions include replacing behavioral mode of instruction with a constructivist one in Methodology, or to changing product-oriented assessment into process-oriented one in GTM settings. As I-Ching was originally developed as a qualitative interpretation, more empirical validation of its accuracy and application is needed.

Great importance has been attached to curriculum design and pedagogy in syllabi in Nigeria, particularly in language teaching and learning. The paper makes an evaluation of English studies curriculum designed for primary four in Nigeria under the Nine-Year Universal Basic Education Curriculum (middle basic). The 69-page curriculum was designed organized by the four language skills –listening, speaking, reading and writing. Three Principles for language teaching-learning have been identified in the curriculum. They are: Linguistic Principles, Socio-affective Principles and Cognitive Principles. The study found that the curriculum recommends the use of two teaching methodologies: Grammar Translation Method (GTM) and Audio-Lingual Method (ALM). However, the curriculum is dominated by the use of GTM which means written language has an upper hand over spoken language. The paper recommends for a paradigm shift from GTM and ALM which are traditional approaches to language teaching to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which promotes communicative competence for enhancing the quality of education.

This pre-test post-test quasi-experimental study was grounded in a mixed method embedded design to delve into the quality and efficiency of flipped classroom model in enhancing university prep students’ overall academic performance in EFL and that in its sub-skills in addition to the durability of that performance. The study has also pioneered to reveal the impact of gender on flipped classroom EFL learners’ post-test scores. Quantitative data was gathered through the administration of EFL Achievement Test to 41 EFL students enrolled at Foreign Language School, Gebze Technical University in two different classrooms randomly assigned as experimental (N= 21) and control group (N=20). The intervention lasted during the whole 2016-2017 fall term. On the other hand, qualitative data was collected through follow-up semi-controlled interviews with 9 experiment group students from different achievement groups. All the quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) 21 for Windows and ITEMAN4 while qualitative data was analyzed manually by employing content analysis procedures. The results of the study revealed flipped classroom model as a significant facilitator of EFL performance and long-term retention of this performance at universities in Turkey. More specifically, students in flipped classroom significantly outperformed those in the traditional lecture based classroom in all skill areas except for listening. Furthermore, qualitative results supported this impact of flipped classroom model on EFL performance. As a unique aspect of the study, EFL students’ performance in the flipped classroom was explored to be independent of their gender. To conclude, he present study has promised a bulk of valuable results that set flipping EFL classrooms as an efficient way of dealing with failure in EFL in Turkey.

This paper explored some communicative errors in the statements of former Nigeria First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan (2010-2015). The paper examined specific communicative errors that resulted in incidental humour. The study was based on a corpus of six statements on web-sites presenting humorous bits of information. Each expression was identified and contextualized using the framework of error analysis and incongruity theory of humour. The main results of the study were that the selected expression deviated from the proficient speaker’s usage of lexemes, tenses and concord of subject and verb. These deviation provoked dissonance or discrepancies which triggered accidental humour that helped to douse the initial tension associated with kidnap of the secondary school girls in Chibok, Nigeria. It concluded that humour is the trojan horse of communicative errors.

In this paper, we seek to explain why and how violence has been an instrument and method of choice in the political, social and economic spheres of the Zimbabwean society. The motivation is that the 21st century in Zimbabwe has been characterized by far-reaching forms of violence that have formed the backdrop of many literary narratives, particularly the short story whose genre characteristics have enabled the timely capturing of unfolding events from a fictional-historical viewpoint. In analyzing the manifestations and levels of violence, particular focus was placed on the short story writings from the year 2000. The selected short stories were: “Sewage Pipe” by John Appel; “The Sellout” by Huggins; “Torn Posters” by Gugu Ndlovu; and “The Chances and Challenges of Chiadzwa” by Edward Chinhanhu. Postcolonial theory and genre criticism are some of the theoretical approaches that were adopted in the analysis of the selected short stories. The arising conclusions were that the analysed short stories revealed that acts of violence, represented through the various characters, interrupt and even terminate social and political relations thereby increasing antipathy and acrimony in a Nation State such as Zimbabwe. It is, therefore, befitting that in the final analysis the discussion revealed and recommended that violence is avoidable for the ultimate mutual existence and socio-political development of 21st Century Zimbabwe.

The current use of podcasts, as a new channel to input knowledge, has effectively been promoting listening comprehension which consequently has increased the acquisition of target language. The objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of video-podcasts integration on listening comprehension. The twelve-week quantitative study employed a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design. Samples included in both the control and experimental groups were 120 English major male undergraduates from a University in Saudi Arabia. The Findings of ANCOVA analysis showed that the video-podcast group significantly outperformed the control group on the post-test. The findings imply that video-podcasts are useful resource for enhancing EFL learners’ listening comprehension.

Flipped instruction reinforces the idea that learning cannot be limited to classrooms. Flipped instruction is a new way of teaching for language pedagogy as other fields. Thus, the present research aimed to find out student teachers’ perspectives about flipped instruction and flipped instruction based syllabus which was designed specifically for speaking skills development. The current study was utilized qualitative method to collect the data. Structured written interview technique and student teachers’ response papers were used to collect student teachers’ perspectives about flipped instruction and flipped instruction based Oral Communication Skills I course. The participants were Pre-service English Language Teaching Department student teachers who were first graders of ELT department at Gazi University, Turkey. Participants consisted of 23 students who were 20 female and 3 male student teachers. Results showed that student teachers had positive attitudes towards flipped instruction, which was quite new for the student teachers. The results indicated that student teachers were satisfied with flipped instruction and flipped syllabus which was specifically designed for the course. Besides, student teachers thought that flipped instruction was effective to make them prepared for the lesson and speaking activities which are carried out in class times.

This study compared the effectiveness of negative evidence and enriched input on learning the verb-noun collocations. There were 52 English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in this research study and they were randomly assigned to the negative evidence or enriched input groups. While the negative evidence group (n=27) was provided with instruction about what was not acceptable for verb-noun collocation structure, the enriched input group (n=25) was exposed to the target verb-noun collocations many times without any instruction or feedback. In order to determine the effects of the implementation, pre- and post- form recognition tests and pre-and post-production tests were administered to the participants. Wilcoxon signed rank test for paired samples and Mann Whitney U tests were conducted since the data did not meet normality assumptions. The Wilcoxon test results indicated that the negative evidence group achieved significant improvement in both their recognition and production test results. As for the enriched input group, the students presented a considerable improvement in terms of the production test; however, their performance was not very significant on the recognition test results. To compare both groups, Mann Whitney U test was run and it was evident that both the negative evidence and enriched input groups had positive effects on the production of verb-noun collocations. On the other hand, the form recognition test results revealed that the negative evidence group outperformed the enriched input group.

Idioms are essential parts of any language learning that indicate second language proficiency of learners in their communication. However, there is no doubt that idioms are more difficult to learn and comprehend than usual words of phrases. The present study investigated the possible effects of providing different task types with involvement loads on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL students' learning of idiom. A total number of 60 EFL students were selected based on their performance on Quick Placement Test and idiom familiarity test. The participants were randomly divided into three groups each containing 20 students. The data gathered through conducting pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest of L2 idioms were analyzed through descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of one way ANOVA and paired samples t test. The findings revealed that tasks with higher involvement load led to better performance of students both in initial learning and the retention of idioms. The findings would hopefully encourage teachers and learners to use tasks and with deeper cognitive processing and higher involvement load to have more effective learning of English idioms.

Teaching and learning of English as a foreign language is not only challenging, but using English as medium of instruction is also crucial. When it comes to the places where English in not a lingua franca (a link language), the challenges simply double and both the teachers and learners face many problems due to the fact that the target subject (biology) is difficult and the medium of teaching (English) is also not easy. Teaching of English as a subject as well as a medium of instruction (teaching) in the Gulf region in general and Saudi Arabia in particular catches attention of many researchers and scholars especially when the issue is particularly related to poor achievement. Teaching of English at preparatory level (foundation year) at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah serves two purposes: first, it lays and strengthens the foundation of general English that they carried forward from schooling. Second, the learners are made proficient in English during the foundation year so that they can pursue their specialties later. Despite the fact that English in Saudi Arabia is generally taught at school levels also, the achievement is far below the expectations from the viewpoint of English teachers at Biological/medical/health related subjects. Moreover, ‘Englishes’ at these departments are known as specific, and teaching/learning is somewhat different from the context of general English. Therefore, the present article is intended to explore the teachers’ perception and factors contributing to the difficulties in learning general as well as specific English. In addition, it focuses on sort of remedial teaching required to prepare the students at biology department.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the English textbook at matriculation level in Multan Division in terms of content, vocabulary, grammar, exercises, activities and physical makeup of the textbook as well as context and information for teachers to guide the teachers. For this purpose, close ended questionnaire was used to collect data from one hundred and eight teachers. Data was analyzed to find out percentages of each items and graphs and it was found that overall quality of textbook is good. Content, vocabulary, exercises and grammar rules are organized logically. To guide the teachers, sufficient information is provided in the textbook. The textbook is per course goals and needs of the students. Textbook is good enough to promote critical thinking of the students and in the textbook images is not so high aesthetic quality. Though majority of teachers are satisfied with this textbook but minority of teachers who do not agree with this, cannot be neglected. There is still need to improve textbook. Finally, it can be said that the overall quality of textbook is good.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate ELT methods, techniques and to indicate classroom activities in the higher educations’ institutions in Punjab particularly with reference to CLT. This study also focuses to point out hurdles and major training needs for improvement in ELT situation. Teachers of college and university are selected as participants for this study. Data is collected from one hundred and eighteen participants by using a questionnaire combination of open ended and close ended items. Data collected have been analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively in the form of percentage, tables and graphs. The findings show that with other teaching techniques and activities, CLT techniques and activities are also being used in our higher education institutions to some extent and similarly facts and figures about ELT success areas manifest that English language teaching in Punjab, Pakistan is moderately successful with respect to different aspects like reading speed, exam success, oral fluency etc. Teachers identified that conversation with native speaker is not as successful as needed. Teachers face many difficulties but these are manageable with respect to CLT. Mostly teachers suggested teacher training programme, use of new technologies, support from administration, small class size and training with native teachers to improve overall ELT situation.

Teaching and learning to speak English has become increasingly important in Iran mainly due to the fact that English has been identified as one of the world’s most widely-spoken languages. Therefore, the present research attempted to probe whether extensively exposing Iranian very young EFL learners to English media has any significant effect on their learning process, operationalized as their learning growth. The study involved 60 non-native very young EFL learners at different private language institutes in Iran. Data collection revolved around several general areas of interest, such as the influence of intervention on their language growth. An ‘Individual Growth and Development Indicator’ was used as the Pre-and-Post-test. The findings seem to indicate that the students who were highly exposed to films as a result of their own entertainment and consumer choices and their EFL classroom instruction demonstrated statistically significant differences in their English learning acquisition and overall EFL achievements as compared to those students who were less exposed to these films inside and outside the classroom by personal choice and curricular demand. The obtained results are discussed in terms of their relationship with the extant literature and implications for TESOL, especially with regard to the role of exposing EFL children to English multimedia sources in order to promote their learning.

In Japan, English is a significant part of everyday life. We see English advertising signs all around us, we use English loan-words in Japanese written and spoken communication, and many Japanese songs incorporate English into their lyrics (Aspinall, 2003). On the other hand, it is known to scholars that many Japanese students are de-motivated to study English. Hasegawa (2004) reports that 71% of junior high school students and 77% of senior high school students are not motivated to study English. Among the reasons for de-motivation are the lack of perceived relevance of English learning and the lack of confidence in capabilities. Thus, this present study focuses on the following four areas as tools to help de-motivated students become re-motivated and to enable them to sustain that motivation to study English throughout the 2016 academic year: (1) the four sources of self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1977); (2) the establishment of concrete EFL study reasons for future careers; (3) the development of time management skills; and (4) the understanding of effective self-regulated learning. 210 Japanese college freshmen in four different proficiency groups participated in this study. It was found that when focus was placed on sources of self-efficacy, students in all the proficiency groups were able to significantly improve their English listening skills throughout the academic year, and that students in general were able to sustain relatively high self-efficacy beliefs about their English listening skills. However, a sharp decline was found in the number of students who were able to sustain that motivation during the two-month summer break. It is suggested that ample examples of concrete English study reasons that are associated with students' future careers as well as activities for visualization (Sampson, 2012) might need to be implemented into our pedagogic approach to help our freshmen put their acquired knowledge into action during the summer break.

Literature as a discipline has attracted varying dimensions of attention over the years. Scholars have conceptualized literature and have come up with postulations. As the literary genres develop, so also do the criticism on these genres. The critical approach to the study of literature has come to x-ray literary works to ascertain their content and worth. It is through this critical approach that certain preoccupations of writers and their depiction and portraiture of characters are beginning to raise eye brows and are being questioned. Thus, efforts are being made in many quarters to dismantle the ugly trend of imbalance character portrayal in works of literature. It is through this critical approach that the ideology of feminism sparked off from. Writers are now on a corrective mission to balance the equation for the writings of many men has been one sided, portraying the female as baseless. Writers have made revolution part of their tool for this onerous task. It is in view of the foregoing that this paper critically analyses the revolution spirit in women. Drawing from the experiences of characters in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Trafficked and Chinua Achebe’s Anthill of the Savannah, the paper posits that writers can, through their character portrayal, effect changes in the scheme of things in the society and chart a new path for the society to follow. It draws extensively from the feminist ideology making statements that revolution is an indispensible ingredient in the strife for self-empowerment and self-actualization. The paper then recommends that for the growth, progress of the society, there should be balanced character portrayal, and female writers should galvanize their fellow women into actions that will culminate in self-actualization.

This study explores the perceptions towards the use of the Vietnamese Common European Framework of Reference for Language Proficiency (CEFR-V) as criteria to evaluate graduate students’ English proficiency held by EFL teachers. The participants were 41 EFL teachers from one university in Mekong Delta. The instruments of data collection were questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaire was administered to identify the students’ beliefs about effective vocabulary learning strategies. Six participants were selected for the follow-up interviews. The interview questions were developed on the basis of the initial results of the analysis of the questionnaire responses. The purpose of the interview was to elicit more information that the questionnaire responses failed to provide. The obtained results revealed that the participants in general had positive perceptions towards the CEFR-V use. They also addressed possible benefits, possible problems and suggestions for optimizing the CEFR-V.

English hedges are common in native speakers’ communication, without hedges speakers may be perceived as unnatural or too direct. It has been thought that teacher talk is a means which can facilitate EFL learners’ awareness and use of English hedges. The questionnaire was used to investigate teachers’ perceptions of hedges and the significance of hedging in classroom instruction for developing learners’ pragmatic competence. The findings of the current study show that teachers have positive perceptions of the facilitative roles and pragmatic functions of English hedges. They believe  the significance of hedging in classroom instruction; however, they think that it is difficult to develop students’ pragmatic competence via teacher talk because there is a lack of context in classroom for hedging and whether or not teachers hedge in instructional language depends on teaching content and students’ proficiency level.

This paper reports a descriptive study which explored how teacher beliefs influence their decision-making in teaching critical reading strategies at three different institutions in the Mekong Delta. Using a descriptive mixed method, questionnaires and interviews were undertaken with English as foreign language (EFL) teachers. The findings of this study indicate that these participating teachers believed critical reading strategy instruction plays an important role in enhancing their students’ comprehension of reading texts. Findings also reveal that of the four factors influencing teachers’ decision-making of utilizing these skills, student-related factors were found to be highest. This propensity for involving students in critical reading strategies gives rise to some pedagogical implications for teachers while designing appropriate tasks and lesson plans.

The study sheds lights on the basic reasons and/or obstacles that hamper Kuwaiti students in the College of Arts/Kuwait University from advancing in English learning process in ESL classes. It, on the same level, tries to answer the question: “Why Do Kuwaiti Students in the College of Arts Think that Learning English is Both Difficult and Unnecessary?“ The study moves onto a parallel direction which focuses on the various factors that affect the full and smooth L2 acquisition. The survey was answered by about 500 students from the Arts College studying English modules (090, 141, and 142). Students answered the questions in either language; English or Arabic. They, in return, disclosed their views, suggestions, ideas and reflections about the curriculum. On the other hand, the survey results demonstrated the fact that students were discontent with the traditional methods of teaching grammar; they explained that they would want a more communicative method of integrating grammar within other L2 skills.

This study aimed to investigate common writing errors among Persian EFL Learners. The focus of the study was to identify Persian interfering and developmental errors based on the four rubrics of sentence styles, mechanics, grammar and punctuations. To achieve this, 80 students and 3 teachers from Iran Language Institute were asked to participate in this study. The instruments for data collection were a proficiency test to test the level of their homogeneity, as well as a written test in which students were asked to write a narrative passage. The content analysis approach was used to analyze students’ writing errors. Afterwards the most representative samples from the narrative texts were categorized based on their lexico-semantic and syntacto-morphological features. The results from this study indicated that English grammar and vocabulary were the linguistic areas that suffered the highest level of L1 language interference. The most common Persian interfering error was the word choice a subtype of grammar and the least common Persian errors were various subtypes of punctuations. The most common developmental error was spelling a subtype of mechanics of writing and the least one was the negation a subtype of sentence style and clarity. A list of common interfering and developmental errors from Iranian intermediate students was provided.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of watching English language animation movies on learning idioms by Iranian EFL intermediate learners. To conduct the study, 40 female learners were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group at English language Institutes in Sari. The experimental group in instruction period was exposed to idioms by using text-book plus English language animation movies which contained, the researchers’ intended idioms but control group just was exposed to text-book. The data were collected through two instruments: the pre-test and the post-test, which were both developed by the researcher. The data obtained from the administration of the pre-test and the post-test were analyzed using SPSS software. The findings were compared to examine the effect of watching English language animation movies on learning idioms by Iranian EFL intermediate learners. The result of this study showed that the implementation of English language animation movies used in the study had a significant effect on learning idioms by Iranian EFL intermediate learners.

This study is aimed to investigate the effects of using concept mapping on EFL learners’ reading comprehension and to examine their attitudes towards the implementation of concept mapping in reading lessons. The participants in this study were sixty-four first-year EFL students. These students were assigned into two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Both groups received the same number of sessions on reading lessons in the reading course but the intervention with concept mapping was only administered to the experimental group. The data were collected from the pre-test and post-test, and questionnaire. The findings indicated that there was a significant difference in the students’ reading comprehension: the students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group. The study also indicated the positive attitudes of the students towards the use of concept mapping in reading lessons. They enjoyed learning reading using concept mapping and perceived using concept mapping as beneficial in reading lessons.

The outcome of different vocabulary learning strategies might be different for different vocabulary forms, such phrases or single word items. Similarly, the depth of vocabulary knowledge (receptive vs. productive) is also another important factor that is neglected in many of researches dealing with vocabulary learning strategies. This study focused on learning vocabulary with the form of "phrase". The study aimed to evaluate the different functions of rote learning and repeated exposures on producing receptive vocabulary knowledge. 23 leaners of a Maritime English course were chosen as the participants of this study. They were instructed 14 vocabulary items, in two different lists of A and B, one list is instructed through traditional word list repetition and another one through multiple exposures. The learners were asked at the end of the course to translate the given phrases of the two lists in their first language. The number of correct answers of each list incited the effectiveness of related method of treatment. It was appeared that repeating the phrases from a list is more effective in growing receptive knowledge, although there was not a tremendous difference in the results.

The purpose of this present paper is to present a cognitive framework, coined as “Conservation Law,” which may shed new light on insightful understanding of the structures of sentences involving relative pronouns. Given that there are roughly four types of relative pronouns; namely, general, compound, relative adverbial, and quasi-relative, a conservation law in both structures and semantics exists. We start by combining two simple sentences into a resulting sentence with relative pronouns, and, through careful observation and calculation, we found the equivalence in word counts between original and resulting sentences. The conservation law mainly refers to the structure equivalence on either words or meanings among these four types of relative pronouns, or relative clauses. With the help of conservation law, the understanding of relative clauses can be much easier, because they are, among others, the most difficult and complex structures in English syntax, especially for EFL learners. Hopefully, this cognitive framework may be of great contribution to EFL English instruction.

Growing body of studies has stressed the role of research in teacher education since conducting research informs both teachers and students, and contributes to professional skills. Therefore, this study aimed to find out and compare the perspectives of pre-service and in-service English teachers in an EFL context with regard to finding sufficient resources to conduct research, whether they are involved in research-related activities and find research findings applicable. Qualitative research method was used to get detailed responses from the participants and form a theory upon emerging themes and categories. The qualitative findings were further supported with numbers in the form of frequency and percentage tables to include both qualitative and quantitative means, utilize complementary purposes of words and numbers, and get the outmost profit from numerical and non-numerical data. There were 340 participants and it took more than about one year to collect the data. 290 pre-service English teachers from four different state universities and 50 in-service English teachers from 15 different cities participated in the study. The participants reflected their perspectives upon the importance of research in teacher education by answering questions in a written interview protocol (WIP). Statistical procedures were applied to form the frequency and percentage tables whereas constant comparison of grounded theory was used to code and categorize interview items, and form a theory summarizing the macro-level and micro-level factors affecting participant responses. The findings showed that there exist similarities and differences between pre-service and in-service English teachers. More than half of the pre-service participants (N: 147) and high majority of the in-service participants (N: 43) reflected unfavorable perspectives upon finding sufficient opportunities, following publications and feasibility of research findings. Additionally, the emerging categories of pre-service answers are more varied compared to in-service teachers. In general, the in-service participants were found to be more pessimistic about educational research more than the pre-service participants. At the end of the analysis P.I.S. Theory emerged to cover the determinants of research in teacher education. According to P.I.S. Theory, there exist three macro-level determinants namely Personal, Institutional and Stakeholder-related issues which shape the route of research in teacher education and include micro-level determinants. The findings point out the gap between university classrooms and school classrooms in terms of promoting research among teachers. Participant quotations also draw attention on their changing flow of teacher identity relating research in the course of trainings they go through in years. In light of the findings, it can be said that promoting research skills among students should go beyond integrating a compulsory course at graduate level, be handled with an across-the-curriculum understanding and further expand to bridge pre-service and in-service teacher education with a systematic approach through university-school collaboration and teacher-researcher collaboration.

Given that EFL is playing an important role in the national education system of Vietnam for its development and global integration, this paper proposes a bilingual education program with both Vietnamese and English subjects for primary schools. Descriptions and justifications for the proposed program are presented in details. Also, teaching methods and assessments are analyzed. As a pilot, this program is hoped to be widely implemented.

The researchers pointed out that digital storytelling can be used as supporting materials for the e-learning portal in both departments, English and Indonesian department. It discussed more about the process of designing the material of a digital storytelling as teaching aid for literal listening subject. It has a significant contribution for the effective and fun English learning. Through the qualitative method used to analyze the data. The research also started by collecting sources for creating and designing the digital storytelling on stories entitled " Aunt Polly " and " Tom Fight " by Mark Twain. It started from inventorying the teaching and learning stuff such as syllabus, lesson plan, software, and the digital contents of the storytelling made. The researchers choose Audacity 3.5 Beta, and Windows Moviemaker 2.6, as the software for editing audio and creating video. The stories were made for enhancing the students listening skills either bottom-up or top down. The result of this research proves digital storytelling can be used in E-learning portal, such as Edmodo. The questionnaires result shows that digital storytelling is an interesting material, but need to be modified more in e-learning.

The pivotal undertaking of education today is to endow individuals with the capacity to be able to think flexibly, reason rationally, and have open minds to be able to evaluate and interpret situations. In line with the studies demonstrating the positive relationship between higher-order thinking skills and academic achievement, this study aimed to particularly examine the impact of the two subcomponents of critical thinking, i.e., inference-making and evaluation of arguments on academic IELTS candidates' reading achievements. To achieve the purpose of the study, one hundred and seven IELTS candidates (from different institutes in Mashhad, a city in north of Iran) were asked to complete two tests of the Persian version of the ‚Watson-Glaser's Critical Thinking Appraisal‛ after being administered an IELTS reading comprehension test. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between IETLS reading score and EFL learners' inference-making and evaluation of argument. Subsequent data analyses demonstrated that among the variables, inference making is the more powerful predictor of IELTS reading achievement. In addition, the results revealed that the two mentioned variables can predict about 10 percent of IELTS reading achievement. This study has some implications for educators and administrators to take full advantage of these associations by establishing guiding principles for enhancing IELTS candidates' inference-making and evaluation of arguments.

This investigates the participants' attitudes towards corrective feedback as well as the types of corrective feedback on learners' performance by questionnaires for both students and teachers. Fifty–eight 2 nd-year students and 5 teachers of English at a university in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam participated in the study. The results indicated that students had a positive attitude towards teachers' corrective feedback. Besides, with the analyzed data, correction with comments and teacher correction was considered as the most useful strategy when giving feedback in the learners' performance. The outcomes of the study suggest a widespread employment of corrective feedback in teaching writing at universities and colleges in the region.

This study seeks to investigate the impact of symmetrical (S) and Asymmetrical (AS) scaffolding, which are two types of scaffolding, on advance students' reading comprehension. Forty advance Iranian EFL learners participated in this study. The participants were both male and female students with an average age of 21 with almost the same educational facilities and physical conditions in the academic year 2015-2016. They were randomly divided into control and experimental groups. Each group had 20 students. Classes were taught by two different teachers. Each of the teachers has two classes (one symmetrical and one asymmetrical). After administering a Pre-test, they were divided into two experimental groups. The experimental group (A) received instruction according to S strategy whereas the experimental group (B) was instructed via the AS strategy. A Post-test was administered, and its results were analyzed through t-test. The results indicated that although S scaffolding has significant effect on learners' performance in reading comprehension, enhancing it but AS scaffolding is a more effective strategy in improving reading comprehension achievement.

There has been an ongoing revolution in the areas of Nigerian Pidgin (NP) and Nigerian Creole (NC).Researches are pivoting their searchlight on diverse topics ranging from identity and attitude, to grammaticality and acceptability, creative writing etc., all on the NP and NC. To attune to this quest, this article examined the diglossic situation that exist in the NP and NC which explicates the linguistic division of labour inherent when languages are created and recreated as they come in contact. To achieve this, Uriel Weinreich`s theoretical postulations of Prestige and Counter-Prestige were used as lens with which to anchor this intellectual reading. The finding revealed that diglossic situations exist in the NC lectal levels as well as the NP against its lexifier. However, it is of the view that this less valued variety status accorded the NP is a function of the social class/identity and not of contextual usage.

This paper attempts to analyse the Lexical Choices in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken poem from the perspectives of stylistics. Stylistics is the study of style of language in literature. It seeks to account for the interpretative effects of a text through close study of its linguistic detail, such as syntactic structuring, semantic deviation, deixis, modality, etc. A piece of work cannot be properly understood without a thorough knowledge of the language, which is its medium of expression. Each register has its own characteristics style with certain lexical and grammatical choices. Poets, particularly modern ones, have successfully freed themselves from constraints of what is so called ‚poetic language (Sharma, 2009: 31). In this write up, the value of the game considers the lexical choices in the poem " The Road Not Taken‛ by Robert Frost in the following categories: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, lexical categories such as synonymy, antagonymy, contradiction and their significance or effects in the poem.

Reading a story book is considered as an effective way to promote language skills because it has been shown to foster enjoyment and pleasure in reading among language learners, however, there is still insufficient evidence about the effect of the reading on students' motivation during the silent period to learn a foreign second language. The purpose of this study is to investigate second language learners' reading motivation, and their language growth among interactions as reading a book during the silent period. Furthermore, this study has an implication to understand how reading a book affects young students when learning a foreign second language as English.

The present study employed both quantitative and qualitative analyses to better understand the causes of unmotivated and distracted behaviors among students. Furthermore, the essential development of a cycle of self-regulated learning (Ambrose et al., 2010) was focused upon to promote better learning strategies and to maintain motivation to study English. Our participants were 200 Miyazaki Municipal University

This article, at the outset, lays focus on the theme of alienation, internal conflict and hostility experienced by Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger by examining how the character, Jimmy is furious with life, friends and his wife, alienating himself from the society, religion and women. It concludes, by stating that of all the modern dramatists, John Osborne has been gifted with the credit of dramatizing the insecurity and alienation felt by the younger generation by effectively picturing the loneliness of the central character Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger. What is generally held is that the drama, more than the other arts, is most directly influenced by the spirit of the age and the modern dramas are nothing but the cultural product of a new pattern of society that emerged in the wake of the World War – II, which reduced Britain from the position of a great imperial power to that of a second class power. This is evidently pointed out in the lines that follow: ‚In Hungary; the people rebelled against their Russian – imposed Government and Russia put down the revolt in a good old – fashioned imperialist way by sending in tanks, while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing. In the Mediterranean, the Egyptian Government announced that it was taking over the Suez Canal, up to then owned and

This study aims to investigate the effects of dynamic assessment on improving ELT learners of English as a foreign language at a large state university. The researchers followed the pre-test—treatment—post-test procedure in the study. The test type used in the assessment procedures was 'Retelling Story Test' type in which learners were provided with authentic news stories and expected to narrate the event in the story. The study involves both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The statistical data were analyzed by Mann Whitney U-Test and Wilcoxon Sign Test. As for the qualitative data, responses to a student evaluation form were analyzed at the end of the whole procedure. The researchers found significance in the performances of control and experiment groups after the treatment program implemented for the latter group. The students also in the experiment group were able to maintain their success in transfer tests applied after the post-tests. Students were observed to be less dependent on the teacher's mediation in transfer tests, which proved the power of interactions in the students' Zone of proximal development. Furthermore, the qualitative data obtained from the student evaluation form revealed that learners found the assessment procedure beneficial.

The development of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has received much attention of language researchers in the era of globalization and internationalization. Despite recognition of problems in implementation, EMI has been widely introduced and applied into higher education in non-native English-speaking (NNES) countries. The question of what challenges face content lecturers in teaching in EMI classrooms is our major focus in this study. The study collected data from 28 content lecturers in EMI programs in a public university in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The results from the questionnaire and interview reveal that content lecturers encounter a variation of challenges in EMI classrooms. Specifically, lecturers are challenged by students' language competence, preparation time for lectures, engaging the class discussion in English and their own language ability. The findings from the study are consistent with the findings of the previous research. Based on these findings, implications are made for enhancing the success of similar programs.

Since English has become an international language, more and more people learn English. The importance of English as a world language has made people to learn English as early as possible. Teaching English as a foreign language to young learner needs special approach since young learners have special characteristics, they have their own way of learning. The forms of fun activities for children are songs, chants and rhymes. The main objective of this article is to emphasize the importance of using rhymes and songs in the teaching of English as a foreign language to young learners. Their functions, criteria for election and the ways of presenting them to the class will also be analysed. Songs, chants and rhymes are amazing tool for teaching language, especially to children. Young learners pick up pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and rhythm of the language.

The aim of this paper is to gauge the scope of applying Teaching Portfolios to the English language teachers at the under graduate colleges in India. Teacher portfolios reflect the applicability of teachers beliefs in the practical classroom framework. Invariably teachers attitude and beliefs strongly affect studentss learning. Though many English teachers at the tertiary level are aware of the newer methodologies of imparting English language skills it is still at a superficial level of delivery in the ELT classes in India. The awareness of the need to reflect on the insights of an individual teacher' talents and beliefs about ELT could be beneficial for the ELT teaching fraternity. This paper prods on the productivity of Teaching Portfolios as an assessment endeavor to recognize the teachers parity on their reported beliefs of teaching, their approach and inclination towards pedagogical strategies and effective ELT approaches execution in the classroom. A window view of how teachers contrive their teaching, and their teaching practices and the classroom reality therein are shaped by their belief is deliberated with their portfolio interpretations. It can be clinched that aspects of reflective teaching that teachers reflect in depth consideration are those that are also the most visible in their teaching practices.

Even though Albanian students studying English as a foreign language attain a high proficiency in the language, they still end up using the referential 'it' and 'there " incorrectly. Most of these errors are inter-language errors and should be attributable to the L1 (first language) rather than the target language (L2). Given the above, almost all studies conducted in other languages have laid the blame so far on the language structure of their respective first languages (L1). Despite the large number of studies in other languages, there has not been any comprehensive studies to date in Albanian with regard to causes of errors with non-referential 'it' and 'there'. Almost all studies in Albanian have scratched the surface of such non-referential subjects 'it' and 'there' by providing only examples of correct usage by failing to resort to the comparative approach between the grammatical structures of both languages and stopping short of providing any teaching suggestions that would help English teachers in Kosovo and Albanian-speaking countries to cope with such inter-language errors. In order for us to grasp the nature of these errors and the real linguistic structures which are behind such errors, it would be wise in this study to examine closely the morphological structures in both languages, and by means of comparative analysis to pause briefly at each of the examples provided for both 'it' and 'there' to explain the nature of the errors associated with each one of these. Along with the explanations provided to this effect, we will be trying to provide the Albanian teachers with some teaching suggestions as how to go about teaching the non-referential 'it' and 'there', in order for the Albanian student using English as a foreign language not to fall into the trap of making the inter-language error of 'it' and 'there'.

Animals have been human's companions from ancient times until now. Humans have observed them, understood their characteristics and even domesticated some species to serve them. People have considered animals as friend, servant or as a source of comfort and encouragement. The relationship with animals and the observation of them provide us with images and ideas as we speak and write. However, in different cultures, the same animal can symbolically express the same concept, or a totally different one. In this research, we will study and analyse a number of animal words in English-Vietnamese proverbs and compare the similarities and differences in their usage, thereby to form an interpretation and translation into English and Vietnamese proverbs accordingly.

The demand for better results among school leavers in Botswana, like in many other places in the world, has been increasing in recent years, but what do the scores students get in examinations really mean? Do they mean such school leavers are adequately equipped to join the world of work and fully participate in the development process? Is classroom instruction geared towards achieving the goals of the syllabus or it is a mere examination preparedness exercise? To what extent can midyear and final examinations be taken as a valid measure of the syllabus? To find the answers to these questions and others, the study, which was survey inferential in nature, comparatively content analysed the subject matter content as well as cognitive skill content of the midyear as well as the final examinations, and the subject matter content as well as well as cognitive skill content of English language syllabi. The data was then analysed using SPSS by conducting Pearson correlation and Fisher's z-score transformations tests. Both literature review and findings for this study indicated a tendency among instructors to teach more to fulfil the requirements of the examinations than those of the syllabus. Correlation between the content of the midyear examinations and that of BGCSE was found to be significant in most cases. It was recommended that teachers be engaged in in-service courses that emphasize test development and that assessment of English should include oral exams.

The present research investigates the professional progress of English language teachers related to the language assessment and teaching methodologies and represents a theoretical planning of the field of curriculum and assessment in English Language Teaching and its effect in terms of professional and qualified development. Assessment is an essential section of the educational process, as it controls whether or not the goals of instruction are being achieved. Assessment influences decisions about ratings, assignment, improvement, instructional requirements, curriculum, etc… A qualitative connection between theory and implementation of well-developed practices in assessment contribute to positive achievements to in-service teachers. The major achievement of the study is that English teachers' professional progress is eloquent only if the assimilated information is applied in their environment.

Participatory techniques are tools, resources and procedures within a given activity, which allows re-investigate and reflect on the practice of all those involved, without losing sight of the new advances in science and technology. The aim of this this research was to offer the teachers of English language some tools to surpass the difficulties that are characteristic of non-participatory methods. Particular recommendations of useful procedures were given with applied instances of activities that can be used in the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. The students' learning difficulties and the potential education benefits were considered of primordial importance on suggesting methods and exercises

With this study, to have a general understanding of academic needs for the development of speaking skill, the needs of preparatory class university students at an English Language Teaching Department were assessed. Based upon a descriptive research design, an adapted questionnaire with open-ended questions was administered to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th class ELT students as well as ELT graduates to define their academic needs in speaking courses. The data were analysed by using SPSS, a Statistical Programme for Social Sciences. At the end of the study, it was found out that (1) there should be more aiding materials for speaking courses, and (2) more authentic and interesting activities should be put into practice.