TESOL - Science topic

The Swedish Language Council has just published a list of neologies from 2022. Unfortunately, most of them denote the opposite of democratization. Some of them are adapted loans from English, as accelerationism (accelerationism) and permakris (permacrisis). The neology autokratisering, possibly an adapted loan from English (autocratization), is interpreted as a reactivation of a 18th century Swedish word.

I can see that the question was asked since December 2017. I think the person who asked the question has become a professor by now

Dear Tashi Wangchuk, thank you for asking. You may try below link

Dear Author:

I am very glad to read your research about the vocabulary learning. Now I am doing a project about the vocabulary learning impact of reading. I would like to ask you that in a certain period, if teachers give more words to the kids, it can improve their reading?

thank

Juan Liu Mert Kurnaz

Hi Dr Samaher Saud . There are two types :

(1) smaller versions of studies, called feasibility studies, and

(2) “the pre-testing or 'trying out' of a particular research instrument”

See the link :

On another note, Alleen and Don Nilsen’s The Language of Humor (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is hot off the press. We have developed a PowerPoint to accompany each of the twenty-five chapters of the book as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction & Humor Theories Chapter 2: Humor in Anthropology & Ethnic Studies Chapter 3: Humor in Art Chapter 4: Humor in Business Chapter 5: Humor in Computer Science Chapter 6: Humor in Education Chapter 7: Humor in Gender Studies Chapter 8a: Humor in Geography I (International Humor: Books, Conferences and Organizations) Chapter 8b: Humor in Geography II (International Humor: Examples and Discussion) Chapter 9: Humor in Gerontology Chapter 10: Humor in History Chapter 11: Humor in Journalism Chapter 12: Humor in Law Chapter 13: Humor in Linguistics Chapter 14: Humor in Literature Chapter 15: Humor in Medicine and Health Chapter 16: Humor in Music Chapter 17: Humor in Names and Naming Chapter 18: Humor in the Performing Arts Chapter 19: Humor in Philosophy Chapter 20: Humor in Physical Education Chapter 21: Humor in Politics Chapter 22: Humor in Psychology Chapter 23: Humor in Religion Chapter 24: Humor in Rhetoric and Composition Chapter 25: Humor in Sociology We’re sending you a PowerPoint indicating how humor is important to your particular discipline. Please let us know if you would like to receive any of our other humor-related PowerPoints (see above). Thanks. Don and Alleen Nilsen don.nilsen@asu.edu alleen.nilsen@asu.edu .

It can be downloaded here: https://bit.ly/2TOJCs0

Hope this will help you. Stay safe and fine,

Nandan

Garcia or Cangarajah's concepts of translanguaging might help you.

Look out for vacancies on The Linguist List https://linguistlist.org/career/search/. If you know which researchers have projects on these topics that you are interested in, write to them to introduce yourself. It's also worth asking your PhD supervisor about this.

Both form and function are important in order to be a proficient user of the language. However, I would say that the first goal for learners is to communicate. For that purpose, teachers must put students in scenarios where they really need to communicate in the target language, this is, use the language with a clear purpose. Teachers must provide the necessary vocabulary and structures to achieve the communicative goal. So function comes first, then accuracy and form come afterwards.

DearReza Biria

Thank you very much foy your informative answer.

I would like to take part . Paraskevi Mentzelou (teaching undergraduate and post postgraduate courses) e-mai: pmentzelou1@gmail.com

Hello,I don't actually use telegram.I find Google classroom more effective.I teach poetry . Sometimes i send my students audio files and some other times i send PowerPoint with audio comments.My students find the PowerPoint presentation more effective especially when enriched with videos to illuminate it would render a profound effect.

I just found this discussion and I think it is quite interesting. I find trying to decide which way to move forward and which course of action to choose to be an issue even if you are quite aware of the CELTA/DELTA option.

I got my CELTA in 2014, have been teaching EFL before that in various settings and the last couple of years I teach EAP pre-sessional courses.

I was strongly considering taking a BALEAP suggested PgCert TEAP, as I thought that this would be very specific and it would enhance my CV, possibly helping me to get an in-sessional support job as well.

Upon asking a couple of academics, I was pretty much told that golden standard would be a DELTA and that this would be what universities are looking for.

Not having a DELTA, I cannot really comment on the ways in which it can make you a better teacher. However, for someone interested solely in EAP, who has 6years post CELTA teaching practice under their belt, shouldn't a PgCert / PgDip / MA in TESOL/ TEAP matter more? I understand that there is a specialisation module in DELTA where one could possible choose EAP, but I somehow feel a university course would be more in depth in any case.

I was also informed about an MA TESOL course with integrated DELTA. Even if this sounds like a great idea, I feel it would be too challenging.

Regarding being able to teach with an MA TESOL in China, it doesn't surprise me. I know people that managed to land a primary job in China with a random online 100hour TESOL certificate (not a CELTA). My Chinese students have told me that western people and especially BANNAS nationals get way more chances there. However I feel China cannot be an example, as for instance I would not be inclined to move there. I would be more concerned about what teaching opportunities a certain course gives me in my area, Europe.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

In order to correct the grammatical mistakes the EFLU has proposed a course where the people can learn and teach better way.

some scholars are doing research about this and they are in the progress.

Gladly! And I'll convey your questionnaire to my students as well.

Interesting questionnaire although quite long, but I hope your project will benefit from that.

I wish you good luck with your research!

A growing number of studies, including Mkhelif’s which is to come, have recently provided evidence indicative of an important role of frequency in the acquisition of EFL vocabulary items.

Sabri Thabit Saleh Ahmed Thanks for your participation in my discussion and your nice answer. In my opinion, the authors of the mentioned book intended to mention that teaching the knowledge of a language with the aim of reaching to the skill in the second step is not a successful path. Therefore, it seems that it might be better to change the initiation point to the skill side.

For literature on the socio-cultural perspective in metaphor research, I recommend that you read the work by e.g. Kövecses, Musolff and Charteris-Black. They have different takes on the relation between the socio-cultural, discourse and the cognitive, but provide relevant perspectives on the subject.

I think if like articles there would be a call for special projects, it may work. Moreover the needed projects should be supported financially. Supervisors also could direct their students to do the needed research topics for their theses. I hope it would be useful.

As I am primarily focused on developing, improving communication skills in my teaching practice, what I do is engaging students in conversations as much as possible by laying a question/ opening up a conversation about the past days, / welcoming them to our meeting as if it was a real-life situation and we are happy to meet again sharing our experience/ exposing them to general life topics with eliciting key words to ease their communication. For me, the most important factor is first to make students as comfortable as possible by me becoming their partner in crime, not a teacher who just focuses on mistakes (I tend to keep notes with mistakes they make to discuss them later on). Also, practicing functional language and fixed structures for expressing opinion, giving and asking for permission, giving and asking for directions, providing and asking for advice, prohibition, suggestions, would like to, to be supposed to do, memorizing and practicing prepositional phrases is a must. I definitely agree with Ramon above about letting students read aloud a book, which makes students more comfortable, especially those ones who are not so when speaking, since they can practice pronunciation, natural rhythm as well as training their mouth muscles which is also very important for upgrading their speaking skills.

hi. it depends . in my opinion, non-native speakers achieve some parts of pragmatic competence better than other parts. because they need using language in context. therefore, for non-native speakers , due to not less exposure to different structures in context, their judgment is not necessarily right in spite of a lot of exceptional cases. generally speaking, non-native and native speakers' views are different because of the diversity in the mount and type of exposure to structures enhancing pragmatic competence.

Yes, it is available here:

It sounds interesting, but it's too late for me.  I'll look for next year. :)

Hello Dani Shal,

Generally speaking, Dörnyei’s (2009) L2 Motivational Self System as a significant 

theoretical framework for emphasizing the role of  the ‘selves’ in motivating students and enhancing their language achievement is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Although the questionnaire has mostly been used for TESOL oriented research projects, it can also be used for targeted issues in other areas. However, a word of caution deems necessary here. Most logically, you should change some of  the items of the questionnaire for sensitizing it to your own specific purpose. By so doing, you should estimate the validity and reliability of the modified instrument anew.

Best of luck,

R. Biria

Changing the so-called "stem question" from asking about languages to asking about something else is known as using a measure "based on" the original format. At a minimum, would still want to assess the reliability of that new form, and it would be desirable to demonstrate its validity as well.

In contrast, changing the wording of the items themselves is a major modification of the original scale.

You are right, Jean. Due to crass commercialisation, there has been a mushrooming growth in schools English education schools all across the world, if one can generalize to an extent.  I have come across an article on net entitled The Rise and Role of English as an International Language. Some educational Consequences by Arthur van Essen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. I have attached it for reading.

There is one more link added for Minority Ethnic English which is an interesting perspective.

Michael:

I do not think the Hawthorne Effect is measured in research as we do not always have the time to do so. But, it is really important especially with using technology in a new way as students' engagement initially can be mistaken for increases in performance, which can lead to misleading conclusions in research. Great question!

Many thanks,

Debra

Hello dear,

Please check this website, you may find many free articles about your subject.

Suhair

Hi,

Pinkham, A. M., Kaefer, T. & Neuman S. B. (eds.) (2012). Knowledge Development in Early Childhood. Sources of learning and Classroom Implications. New York, London: The Guildford Press.

Nelson, K. (1996). Language in Cognitive Development. The Emergence of the Mediated Mind. New York et al.: Cambridge University Press.

Kind regards

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, assessment means appraisal. Then, according to the same dictionary, evaluation is estimation or determining the value of something.

When it comes to education, assessment means the same as the general meaning of the word, but we have to remember another fact. That fact is that assessment in education is done in order to improve the process. The assessment pays attention to learning, teaching, as well as the outcomes.

When it comes to the timing of an evaluation, it is rather a final process that is determined to understand the quality of the process. The quality of the process is mostly determined by grades. That is such an evaluation can come as a paper that is given grades. This type of paper will test the knowledge of each student. So, here with the grades, the officials come try to measure the quality of the programme.

While Barcroft's research may be 'solid', it does not mean that the result is replicable. Perhaps it would be a good idea to replicate the study to find out.

Thanks for your giving detail, hope she successfully complete her research. All the Best

9 sessions in 3 days does not look like enough to prepare you for any sort of TESOL/TEFL teaching. Even the worst (if that is the right word for very profit related courses) of the accredited  certifcates you mention like CELTA or Dip include many more hours than that of teaching practice and theory classes over a month full-time or part-time over a year. I do not know anything about TESOL Arabia and would not wish to denigrate their methods or certificates but you should always look for something that has international accreditation from Cambridge or Trinity or the like. The organisation looks more like a professional network for teachers who are already EFL/ESOL qualified and thus offers professional development rather than initial qualification.

Hi Anne, 

I think your video can be useful provided that it is also discussed with the participants (students), whose attitudes towards foreign accents can affect the way they assess the effectiveness of communication. I agree with the previous replies as regards the difficulties that accent can cause and the central role that intonation plays in oral communication. 

I would like to share some ideas we took from Levis 2005 in a lecture we gave for our language department. 

I hope it is useful

also  this paper could illustrate some relevant points:

Dear Mr. Al-Jardani,

As Mr. Marek explained above, what I was referring to, it is related to the abilities under graduates should have developed when finishing the program.

Talking about the institution I work, it is in Peru,what we are doing is implementing a new curriculum which responds to the new demands professional in ELT must assume or know. In Peru English is taught mostly as EFL, but there are some institutions to follow an ESL model.

Based on nearly thirty years of working with EFL students from numerous cultures across the globe, I do believe that the stronger the language/writing use in the first language, the more likely the language use in writing will be--if the target language shares some similarities whether in vocabulary, syntax, or rhetorical structures.  As Ramon points out, the same language family can help a great deal in gaining second language proficiency particularly in grammar and syntax. 

I am most interested in Michael's response because he makes an important--essential--point about the two languages.  I have taught quite a few Chinese and Arabic-speaking students; they are generally at Intermediate level 5 but their writing skills are seriously hampered by stylistics and pragmatics.  I had the opportunity to work with a Professor from China for one semester and we discussed the tendency of Chinese writers to "beat around the bush" (the American expression for the rhetorical style).  As she explained, Chinese rhetoric does not generally encourage student claims that may go against a professor's view or the view of the text, etc. Even when students develop a claim that to me seems rather innocuous, they still talk all around the subject in a very indirect way.  They may not even express the point clearly enough to satisfy an English composition instructor.  At the graduate level (where I teach), this type of writing will not satisfy the rigors of academic writing.  Arabic speakers have similar difficulties in academic writing or the writing for the graduate exams.  Their problem is not the indirect style but the excessively coordinate (in the view of most American composition instructors) used to present their claims and evidence.  These Arabic speakers are all graduates of Middle Eastern universities, most of them with degrees in the natural sciences; their abilities in Arabic are excellent on all levels.   On syntactic levels, Chinese and Arabic students often have similar problems with punctuation (Arabic has a variety of end punctuation available; English has two).  Usually my Arabic speakers can defend a view, persuade, even argue--but they earn low grades because American writers and readers want to see the subordination that signals (to us) the ranking of the ideas and our views on those ideas.  On Graduate exams, both Chinese and Arabic-speaking students have more reading problems, chiefly because their languages have NO similarities to any of the family of Indo-European languages that could help them develop vocabulary through a variety of affixes, root words, synonyms, etc. Luisa makes the point that I am talking about here--will the writing strategies transfer?  When they don't, the writing of the second language is extraordinarily difficult.

One point of interest I have noted and can't explain.  My Iranian students are usually much more fluent, both in speaking and in writing, than my Arabic speakers. I wonder whether some of that ease may be related to Farsi's being an Indo-European language.  Although Farsi is not written in Roman letters, its roots and a number of its vocabulary words are directly linked to Indo-European roots.

The other important point about writing in a target language has to do with how much practice students receive in their own countries regarding those speaking and writing skills. In countries that have little use for English on a daily basis, those student experiences are quite limited.  Even for students living in the US, it takes time for them to gain the "ear" for the language that can help them develop style in their writing and fluency in their speaking.  Much of that fluency depends on whether or not the target language is ever used at home.  In my experience, the first language dominates home, while the second language is on campus.  And for many of my Arab students, this situation remains a problem.  The girls do not hang out with other students in Starbucks or in the library; most often, the Arab/Muslim girls band together almost everywhere they go. When their classes end, they immediately leave campus. There are simply so many variables that go into writing in a target language--even academic writing for most native English speakers is difficult because it demands such different strategies than students use in more personal writing.  The cognitive activities taking place in writing are incredibly complex and fascinating--but difficult.  Adding a second language to those brain activities can only complicate the situation, especially for high school and college students.

Here are some major references where you (hopefully) find what you are looking for.

Carter, Ronald, 2012

Vocabulary: applied linguistic perspectives. Routledge

Vocabulary in a Second Language: Selection, acquisition, and testing

Edited by Paul Bogaards and Batia Laufer (2004), John Benjamins: Amsterdam_/_Philadelphia

Nation, Paul (2001)

Learning Vocabulary in another Language. CUP.

Ronald Carter and David Nunan (2001). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. CUP. (Chapter 6).

Good Luck,

najib

You can search for "asymmetric/asymmetrical switch/switching costs" and most studies will cite this one:

Meuter, R. F. I., & Allport, A. (1999). Bilingual Language Switching in Naming: Asymmetrical Costs of Language Selection. Journal of Memory and Language, 40(1), 25-40.

Note that the asymmetry is not always there. For instance, highly proficient L2 speakers may show no such asymmetry.

Note that most of the studies are about local switching. The case you mentioned is more similar to "global switching", which is relatively less studied.

Jafar, thanks for this important question, which is sometimes overlooked in the process of statistics and analysis of results. You need at least two approaches to validate a translated questionnaire.

(1) Linguistic validation, where you investigate the equivalence of concepts in the questionnaire (the 'language'), and

(2) the cultural validation, where you map the concepts to the target culture (e.g. for appropriateness of wording, potential misinterpretation due to different ways of thinking, etc.).

You may want to follow the link for more detailed information.

The basic principle is to test what you teach. Thus, if you are teaching paraphrasing, then that is what you test. Writing activities should cover as many different genres as possible and should reflect real life situations as closely as possible.

Mobin, I have met Persians in Oman, Kuwait, Germany, USA, and various parts of Europe--some attending college others working in businesses. This implies--that no different than any country of the world--numerous Iranians wish to work abroad, live abroad, study abroad, and communicate with others from abroad. (The reality of Iran today might be quite different in a decade, too.) Both Strategic competences and communicative competence (embedded in cultural competences must be evaluated in some way in order to have a beneficial backwash on L2 education at any level.)

L2, L3, L4 need to be fostered at primary, secondary, tertiary and a variety of work related settings. Goals, targets and evaluations should be set or created accordingly to fit the dynamics of the world--not just in 2014 but in 2024 and beyond.

You can read some of the articles by B.J. Zimmerman or Social-cognitive theory of Self Regulation by Bandura. Self-regulation in language classrooms and other contexts. Well self regulation is not constructed in my opinion. This is developed as a habit and you can measure different strategies used by these learners for Self Regulation. You can measure four different steps and these phases are task perception, goal setting and planning, enacting, and adaptation.

Hi - a little late and perhaps not directly relevant but may be useful nevertheless: Valerie Hobbs recently wrote a good article that mentions the limitations of the CELTA syllabus / approach in a world that is increasingly valuing the importance of nnests. Hope it helps - let me know!

Hobbs, V. (2013). "A basic starter pack’: the TESOL Certificate as a course in survival." ELT Journal 67(2): 163-174.

In addition to the very good explanations Madelena has provided here, I think teaching this learner formulaic expressions will help a lot. As you have mentioned, it's not easy to formally teach a learner who doesn't know about nouns, verbs, etc. In this case, I believe, drawing on Skinner's views regarding language learning can be beneficial. So, you can provide this learner with frames-and- slot patterns and with opportunities to use them in socializing with others.

Jose, you wrote: “older students in beginning levels tend to speak English using disconnected sentences”. This is no wonder, given that disconnected bits and pieces of their new language is what textbooks present beginner (and advanced!) learners with. In writing, to top it all. You cannot learn to speak from printed input.

Spoken languages rely on prosody, something which is not dealt with in most teaching materials – even in those courses where segmental pronunciation may be included, usually offered as descriptive attributes of *individual* vowels and consonants. You cannot learn to speak by joining together isolated sounds either: in real-life speech, features of “individual” sounds merge together.

One way to foster fluency is to start by exposing beginner learners to the “music” of their new languages. Prosody is the backbone of segmental pronunciation: in English, for example, it stands for its so-called “syllable-timing” and associated “vowel reductions”. Once you get the prosody right, fluency follows.

Have a look at these two posts of mine, at my blog _Being Multilingual_:

‘Unconnected speech?’, http://beingmultilingual.blogspot.com/2012/09/unconnected-speech.html

‘Learning to speak in tune’, http://beingmultilingual.blogspot.com/2011/05/learning-to-speak-in-tune.html

Madalena