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Comprehensible Input through Extensive Reading: Problems in English Language Teaching in China
Target language input at the right structural level and in adequate amount is believed to be a primary condition for successful second/foreign language learning. This study was designed to investigate the issue of English language input that younger learners were likely to be exposed to through extensive reading in China.
Assessing Pragmatic Ability of Thai Hotel Management and Tourism Students in the Context of Hotel Front Office Department
Effective and appropriate communication in the hotel business needs more than linguistic knowledge. Pragmatic competence plays a very crucial role. This study aimed to (1) assess students’ pragmatic ability in the context of the hotel Front Office department;…
Learning English as an International Lingua Franca in a Semi-English-Speaking Country: The Philippines
Some people try to improve their English in a country such as the Philippines, where English is used both as an official language and as a medium of school instruction. This paper discusses whether teachers should encourage students to learn English in such an environment. Both the advantages and disadvantages were discussed based on both a review of related literature and the author’s experience of learning English in the Philippines.
EFL Teachers’ Attitudes toward Communicative Language Teaching in Taiwanese College
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) advocates teaching practices that develop learners’ abilities to communicate in a second language. It represents a change of focus in language teaching from linguistic structure to learners’ need for developing communication skills. In recent decades, many English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms have adopted CLT into their curricula.
Effects of Hyper-Pronunciation Training Method on Japanese University Students’ Pronunciation
Mutual intelligibility or overall comprehensibility of L2 speech has been regarded as a crucial goal in recent ESL pronunciation pedagogy. In other words, native-like accuracy has received less pedagogical attention. It is not necessarily reasonable, however, to underestimate native-like accuracy in pronunciation teaching targeting student-teachers in ESL/EFL teacher-education settings.
Teaching Spelling Skills with a Mind-mapping Software
Although the language program at the College of Languages and Translation offers several English language courses in the first four semesters of college, the spelling skill is completely ignored. Since many EFL freshman students are poor spellers, mind-mapping software can be used to help them connect spoken phonemes with their written forms.
Innovating Writing Centers and Online Writing Labs outside North America
This study highlights the writing difficulty of tertiary students in ESL or EFL contexts. It describes two successful innovations, writing center and online writing lab, initiated by North American institutions of higher learning to intervene in the writing crisis. Enquiries on initiative efforts by a few Asian and European universities in innovating writing centers and online writing labs…
Second Language and Cognition: Conceptual Categorization of Count/Mass Nouns in English with Japanese University Students
This paper reports on a study designed to explore the conceptual basis of count/mass noun distinction with Japanese students. It focuses on the perceptual cues used to match pictures with count or mass noun phrases, when there is the effect of distance, size, and clarity between pairs of pictures.
Teachers’ Intention vs. Learners’ Attention: Do Learners Attend to What Teachers Want Them to Attend to in an EFL Vocabulary Class?
The main thrust of this study was to investigate whether there is compatibility between teachers’ intention and learner’s attention in a vocabulary class. The focus is on pronunciation, spelling and meaning. Two possible explanatory variables were further considered: frequency and order of occurrenceof lexical items in classroom discourse.
Learners’ Beliefs and the Use of Metacognitive Language-learning Strategies of Chinese-speaking ESL Learners
This paper reports the findings of a study on the relationships between beliefs about language learning and the use of the metacognitive language-learning strategies (MCLLSs) of Chinese-speaking ESL learners undertaking vocational education in Hong Kong. A survey questionnaire containing items measuring these two areas was administered to 243 Chinese-speaking ESL learners at a vocational institute.
