Monthly Editions
The Internal Structure of Language Learning Motivation and Its Relationship with Learners’ Belief and Self-Perceived Performance
The complexity and multi-facets nature of L2 motivation leads to conflicting findings in the past, especially during the cognitive-situated period in 1990s, i.e., Gardner’s classic concept of the socio-educational model (Gardner, 1985). However, it has been attacked by Dörnyei’s (2005) L2 motivational self system.
Big Brother and Big Sister: But Whose Power Is Bigger?
“Big Brother†(BB), apart from being a very popular reality TV show broadcast in over 65 countries, is significant to linguistics in terms of gender differences and power relations in the house. Referring to a male figure as a name, Big Brother (UK) instructing housemates on various matters and interacting with them on a daily basis is, in fact, both a male and a female figure changing randomly in housemates’ visits to the diary room.
A Contrastive Study of Oral Communication Discourse Makers Used by Iranian EFL Learners vs. English Native Speakers
Discourse Markers (DM) as important cues in speakers’ pragmatic competence signal a sequential relationship between utterances. Present research has demonstrated that they differ in type and frequency across speaking and writing modes. The use of DMs may also index the differences between native speakers and non-native ones.
Teaching English Through Sports: A Case Study
Teaching English as a Second Language through sports activities gives immense benefits to learners. It promotes active learning of the language in any environment, whether urban or rural. It not only enhances learning of the English Language but also the intellectual, physical and social development of the learners.
Dynamic Assessment: A Call for Change in Assessment
While the results of static testing -assessing current performance levels- indicate the already existent abilities of the students, dynamic assessment is believed to evaluate the ability of the students to learn from the interaction with a teacher. This learning ability, as Poehner and Lantolf (2003) suggest, may serve as a better predictor of the students’ educational needs than the static scores if it can be evaluated properly.
Initiation of World Englishes into EFL Writing Classrooms in Japanese Secondary School
This paper reports a biographic enquiry of two tertiary English learners from mainland China and attempts to capture the developmental processes of their language learning approaches. Through sharing their past language learning experiences, two Chinese learners verbalized their struggles in language learning and revealed the deep impact that their learning settings had on their perceptions of self and language learning.
Motivation and Attitudes toward Learning English in an Internet-Based Informal Context: Perceptions of Iranian University Students
The present study examines how Iranian university students are motivated to learn L2 in informal contexts and whether they have integrativeness and attitudes toward the Internet-based informal context as necessary attitudinal foundations to sustain motivation.
Initiation of World Englishes into EFL Writing Classrooms in Japanese Secondary School
This paper focuses primarily on the potential for the teaching of writing which incorporates the concept of varieties of English into writing classes in Japanese secondary school. The purpose of this paper is to identify the issue of teaching writing in Japanese junior and senior high school and to discuss the possibility of initiating the concept of World Englishes (WEs) in this context.
Reading Literature in English: Challenges Facing Omani College Students
Reading is a complex process. It involves interaction between reader and text characteristics, which work on each other to form meaning. Given such diverse factors as linguistic ability, cultural knowledge, attitude and motivation, reading in a second or foreign language is markedly more challenging than L1 reading. For learners in a society known for its orality and lack of a reading culture, reading in a foreign language might be a truly formidable task.
Ethnographic Conversations: A Pedagogical Strategy to Promote Language, Content, and Intercultural Learning among Japanese and American University Students
Two sociologists and an Applied English professor developed an educational activity, coined ethnographic conversations, as a collaborative pedagogical strategy to enhance language, content, and intercultural leaning. Japanese and American undergraduate students, matched as partners, scheduled four out-of-class meetings during which they discussed topics under study in their respective sociology courses.
