scholarly journals A Wild Animal Inside My House: An Analysis of the Children’s Picturebook Svenn the Otter and the Magic Rock by Espen Villseth and Anita Sletten

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-342
Author(s):  
Nahúm M. Tórrez ◽  
Marjorie N. Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Wild Animal ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Verbal Language ◽  
Multimodal Text ◽  
The Relationship

Svenn, a wild otter, has become an Instagram celebrity with over 140,000 followers around the world. Svenn has his own YouTube channel and Facebook page. Moreover, in December 2020, NRK, an influential Norwegian TV channel, released a series entitled “Oteren Svenn” (Svenn, the Otter), consisting of ten episodes. In addition to all of this, Svenn has his own picturebook for children, which is entitled Svenn the Otter and the Magic Rock (Villseth & Sletten, 2020). This article presents the picturebook and analyzes three of its significant spreads. The aim is to uncover aspects of the sociocultural context in which Svenn – along with other characters – is portrayed by images and verbal language in the book, and to provide a short discussion of how the book may be used in English Language Teaching (ELT). Our analysis builds on tools from multimodal text analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2005; van Leeuwen, 2005) and Narrative Intelligence (Mateas & Senger, 2003). The analysis focuses on the significance of the picturebook to represent participants in actions, the relationship between the book’s participants and the reader, and the value of presenting images and verbal text together. Our analysis also touches on some implications for ELT, on the potential that visual literacy can have in language teaching.

Teaching oral requests

Pragmatics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Petraki ◽  
Sarah Bayes
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Cultural Appropriateness ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Everyday Communication

Research in English language teaching has highlighted the importance of teaching communication skills in the language classroom. Against the backdrop of extensive research in everyday communication, the goal of this research was to explore whether current discourse analytic research is reflected in the lessons and communication examples of five English language teaching textbooks, by using spoken requests as the subject of investigation. The textbooks were evaluated on five criteria deriving from research on politeness, speech act theory and conversation analysis. These included whether and the extent to which the textbooks discussed the cultural appropriateness of requests, discussed the relationship of requests and other contextual factors, explained pre-sequences and re-requests and provided adequate practice activities. This study found that none of the coursebooks covered all of the criteria and that some coursebooks actually had very inadequate lessons. The results of the textbook analysis demonstrate that teachers using these five coursebooks and designers of future coursebooks must improve their lessons on requests by using pragmatics research and authentic examples as a guide.

English Language Teaching and Intercultural Communication Competence

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 55-59
Author(s):  
Xiaochi Zhang ◽  
Jinjing ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Communication Competence ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Intercultural Communication Competence ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses about the relationship between linguistic competence and intercultural communication competence, and then about the functions of English language teaching in improving students’ intercultural communication competence. Finally, it explores how to develop English language learners’ intercultural communication competence in English language teaching and gives some useful suggestions, so as to really realize the final objective of English language teaching.

scholarly journals Deconstruction of Method-postmethod Dialectics in English Language Teaching

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 539
Author(s):  
A B M Shafiqul Islam ◽  
Israt Jahan Shuchi
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Methods ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Established Method ◽  
To Come ◽  
Language Teaching Methods ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Traditional Roles

After a widespread dissatisfaction with the prescriptive nature of language teaching methods and approaches, the notion of postmethod emerged with an aim to providing possible solutions to the problems that both language teachers and learners face while using methods. But the transition from a long established method-based pedagogy to an emerging postmethod pedagogy could not altogether meet the expectations rather gave birth to new confusions and challenges. Therefore, this article describes the concept of method briefly and then outlines the shift from method to postmethod. This paper brings new insights into method- postmethod dichotomy particularly by discussing the areas where the relationship between them becomes dialectical on some occasions. It also addresses the limitations of postmethod by identifying the factors where postmethod pedagogy gets entangled in a newer type of method though it emerged with the promise to come out of the stranglehold of method. Finally, it shows how postmethod redefines the traditional roles of teachers where they not only act as practitioners but also as theorizers, evaluators, observers, facilitators, innovators, and planners.

scholarly journals A Showcase Study on ELF-oriented Classroom Practices in a General English Course

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. p61
Author(s):  
Shahinaz Abdullah Bukhari
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
English Language ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Global Dimension ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
The Relationship

The lingua franca status of English in transcultural settings questions the orthodox pedagogical principles and mainstream approaches of English language teaching. To mirror the relationship between English as a subject matter and English as a globalised sociolinguistic phenomenon, some scholars call for revisiting the conventional approaches of pedagogy. Still, the response to the call for a transition from the monocentric methods of English language teaching is slow. Teachers have multiple concerns about how to incorporate a global dimension into a general English language course for undergraduates. The present study aims to address this gap by offering a practical example of how to address English as a lingua franca phenomenon in a general English language course. The study showcases classroom practices for raising awareness of today’s complexity of English use as a worldwide lingua franca. Ten Saudi undergraduates at a Saudi university participated in the study. The study shares the participants’ critical reflections on what they have learned from the course. Analysis of the participants’ reflections reveal that approaches based on complexity theory increased their familiarity with English linguistic diversities, developed their transcultural awareness and improved their ability to cope with English functional and contextual diversities. It is hoped that this showcase study can provide some guidance for the further implementation of a global dimension in other contexts.

scholarly journals Poetry Appreciation and Paraphrasing Skills of Grade 9 Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-80
Author(s):  
Jane Catherine A. Tobis ◽  
Chona G. Mascuñana
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Teaching Poetry ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Relationship

Among all the literary pieces used in English language teaching, poetry has always been regarded as an interesting and challenging literature genre used in English language teaching. Researchers that explored the appreciation of poetry and the factors that affect its approach had different points of view; however, they certainly agreed on the universal concern of research on the difficulty and lack of enthusiasm in dealing with poetry. Accordingly, recent neuroscientific research commenced using poetry in paraphrasing since both complement one another in language teaching. As a literary product, poetry requires a high analysis skill for adequate comprehension, while paraphrasing involves extensively analyzing ideas and forming new borrowed personal interpretation. Hence, this study aimed to see the relationship between students' degree of poetry appreciation and paraphrasing skills.

The Effects of Two EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Teaching Approaches Studied by the Cotwin Control Method: A Comparative Study of the Communicative and the Grammatical Approaches

1992 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ando
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Major Effect ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Teaching Approaches ◽  
Interactional Pattern ◽  
Genotype Environment Interaction ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe present study compared two different types of English-language teaching approaches, the grammatical approach (GA) and the communicative approach (CA), by the cotwin control method. This study has two purposes: to study the effects of teaching approaches and to estimate genetic influences upon learning aptitudes. Seven pairs of identical twins (MZ) and 4 pairs of fraternal twins (DZ) participated in the experiment along with 68 other nontwin fifth graders. Each cotwin was assigned to the GA and CA respectively and received 20 hours of lessons over a 10-day period. The behavioral similarities between MZ cotwins were statistically and descriptively depicted. No major effect of either teaching approach was noted, but the genetic influence upon individual differences of learning achievement was obvious. Furthermore, an interesting interaction between the teaching approaches and intelligence was found, that is, that the GA capitalises on and CA compensates for intelligence. This interactional pattern could be interpreted as an example of genotype-environment interaction. The relationship between genetic factors and learning aptitudes is discussed.

scholarly journals An Anthropocentric Approach to Evaluate English Language Teaching Course Books

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Ahmet Erdost Yastibas
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
The World ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
The Relationship

The new geological epoch Anthropocene poses a significant problem to people because it shows how human activities have started to change and shape the world negatively to a big extent. One way to deal with this problem is education, including English language teaching. In English language teaching, course books can be used to deal with the Anthropocene. When the literature was reviewed, it was seen that English language course books were evaluated according to English language teachers’ and students’ perspectives, but not with an Anthropocentric perspective. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate an English language course book used in Turkey with an Anthropocentric approach. It was designed as a qualitative study. The data collected were documented analyzed. Qualifications of the researcher and thick description were used for the trustworthiness of the research. The findings have indicated that the course book has units and parts of units related to nature. They have also shown that students can understand the relationship between people and nature by studying this course book. The results were discussed, and suggestions for further research were made.

scholarly journals A framework for characterizing communication-oriented ELT textbooks

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-88
Author(s):  
Nahúm Misael Tórrez
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Communicative Language Teaching ◽  
Textbook Analysis ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Common

Textbooks hold a fundamental position in English Language Teaching (ELT). Today, their main aim is to contribute to the development of the learner’s communicative competence. This paper sets out to set the basis for constructing a framework for characterizing ELT textbooks, in terms of their opportunities to promote communicative competence. In order to provide a theoretical foundation for the framework, it first introduces the notions of input (Krashen, 1989) and output (Swain & Lapkin, 1995). Then, it presents two influential models of communicative competence, i.e., those of Canale and Swain (1980), and the Common European Framework for Reference of Languages (Council of Europe, 2001, 2018). Following that, it presents two significantly quoted sets of principles for the study of learning materials in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), i.e., the principles of Richards and Rodgers (2014) and Nation (2007). Building on the models and principles, the paper suggests eleven criteria for characterizing communication-oriented ELT textbooks, covering input in the form of topics and texts, and output in the form of activities. A short discussion of the main affordances of the suggested framework is provided at the end of the article.   Keywords: Communicative Competence, ELT Textbooks, Textbook Analysis, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).  

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