PROFESSIONAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMPETENCE FOR SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION INTO THE LABOUR MARKET

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 594
Author(s):  
Anna Vintere ◽  
Inese Ozola ◽  
Santa Krumina
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Training Environment ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Business Sectors

Good knowledge of a foreign language is an important factor contributing to the professional recognition and career prospects. In order to improve professional foreign language competence, the study of the situation in professional foreign language teaching and learning was carried out in three business sectors: logistics, transport, service industry. The survey was carried among three target groups: employers, foreign language teachers and students. Employers were asked to name language skills which employees need most to perform work, to express an opinion on the role of employers in the English language learning process as well as to identify topics, most common words, phrases, or specific professional terms which would be important for their employees to know. Students were asked about motivation and foreign language needs, training environment and teaching methods as well as about their learning styles. Foreign language teachers' questionnaires contained the evaluation of teaching process and methods used, lessons preparation and evaluation of learning. The study results show that foreign language competences are considered by employers as one of the most important for the employees. However, the level of language competences varies according to the position and role within the company. Based on the findings, suggestions and recommendations were developed for acquiring a professional foreign language in the three business sectors. 

scholarly journals English language pre-service and in-service teachers’ self-efficacy and attitudes towards integration of students with learning difficulties

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Cimermanová
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
General Education ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
Regular Education ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Special Educational Needs ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers

Abstract The study of foreign languages is obligatory for all pupils in Slovakia, where the first foreign language is English. Conforming to integration legislation, pupils with special educational needs (SEN) are taught in mainstream classes. Foreign language teachers, however, lack training and where not prepared how to apply teaching methods and techniques for pupils with SEN in the regular language learning class. In the study presented, 187 elementary school teachers filled out questionnaires dealing with integration of pupils with SEN and possible inclusion of learners with disabilities in Slovakia and a group of 56 university FLT students - teachers-to-be. Teachers are not forced and/or encouraged to take part in in-service courses or other education on how to teach these pupils. The pre-service teachers are offered courses on SEN teaching, however, these are not compulsory and mostly general education oriented. The majority of in-service and pre-service teachers felt that pupils with SEN should be taught in regular education class. The article also describes the current situation concerning integration of students with SEN using the official statistical data.

scholarly journals Fostering Learner’s Critical Thinking Skills in EFL: Some Practical Activities

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (29) ◽  
pp. 126
Author(s):  
Marsela Harizaj ◽  
Veneranda Hajrulla
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Learning And Teaching

Developing student’s critical skills is one of the major concerns of foreign language teachers. Professional teachers and novice ones try to find ways to motivate their students. Developing communicative competence requires students to develop learning strategies and focus on language function and context. In every course assignments, learners understand and realize better that communication is not an easy thing. Developing accuracy and fluency in foreign language classes enhance students critical thinking too. However, What is critical thinking? What is the perception of learners about it? What communicative activities can foreign language teachers use in the classroom to enhance student’s critical thinking? These are some research questions that this paper brings in focus, from theory to practice. The study is based on observations in EFL classes. From observations, it was found that developing critical thinking skills help learners to enhance their communication, enlarge their vocabulary, and help them to learn how to use language for different purposes in a variety of contexts. Foreign language teachers can help learners develop critical thinking skills. In this paper, some suggestions for foreign language teachers to use practical activities to foster critical thinking will be presented. Thus, in English language learning and teaching contexts, critical thinking becomes more dynamic.

scholarly journals EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of the 2014 Curriculum in Cameroon French-medium Secondary Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 41-57
Author(s):  
Yepdia Leundjeu Walter
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
English Language ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Instructional Materials ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Teachers Perceptions

This paper explores English foreign language teachers’ perceptions of the 2014 English language learning programme in Cameroon French-medium secondary education. It considers aspects such as the quality of the programme of study, the teaching of skills and competencies in the instructional materials selected, the teaching and testing approaches, the challenges encountered, and teachers’ personal and professional growth. Hall and Hord (1987, 2001) theoretical paradigm was chosen to conduct this research and the method of data collection was quantitative in nature. A total number of 80 English foreign language teachers were surveyed and administered a 38-item questionnaire. It came out of the findings that the vast majority of teachers deemed the new curriculum innovative and a developmental tool for bilingualism. Also, the majority of the respondents appreciated the skills and the competencies taught in the textbooks selected as they met with real-life situations. Further, these teachers in their great number claimed that they had a good knowledge of the Competence-Based Approach (CBA) and had grown cognitively and pedagogically while implementing the reforms of the new learning programme. Finally, they wish the implementation of the curriculum continued. Among the pitfalls of the curriculum, the testing approach and the exposure of learners to other learning sources revealed themselves limited. The overcrowded nature of classrooms impeded the unfolding of lessons and personalised pedagogy and above all obstructed the effective and efficient implementation of the Competence-Based Approach. Ultimately, teachers frowned at the filling of pedagogic documents which in their perspective was too bureaucratic. Some recommendations were made at the end of the investigation in order to improve the curriculum.

scholarly journals Assistant Foreign Language Teachers in Japanese High Schools: Focus on the Hosting of Japanese Teachers

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greta Gorsuch
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Team Teaching ◽  
English Language ◽  
National Level ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
English Speaking

For both political and social reasons, the learning of English as a Foreign Language in Japanese secondary schools has become the focus of a variety of new educational policies applied at a national level. The backdrop of this article is the JET program, which in 1998 employed 5,361 assistant language teachers (ALTs) from various countries for the purpose of team teaching in Japanese junior and senior high school foreign language classrooms. The article focuses on Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) and their responses to team teaching with ALTs, particularly in terms of JTEs' perceptions of their own English speaking skills and English language learning experiences. Drawing from the questionnaire responses of 884 JTEs in high schools in nine randomly selected prefectures, the author also outlines patterns in assignment of ALTs in both academic and vocational high schools, providing a more complete picture of the JET program.

Pre-Service English-as-a-Foreign-Language Teachers’ Views on Their Experiences of Project Preparation for Young Learners: “I Felt Like a Real Teacher”

2021 ◽  
pp. 105678792110159
Author(s):  
Gülten Koşar
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
Qualitative Survey ◽  
Semistructured Interviews

This study targets unveiling junior pre-service English-as-a-foreign-language teachers’ ( N = 80) perceptions of the process they went through as preparing projects for young learners and their views about the effect of project-based learning on teaching English to young learners. The data gathered from a qualitative survey and semistructured interviews were analyzed using an inductive content analysis. The results indicated that while the participants encountered a number of difficulties in the preparation process, they believed the use of project-based learning could promote young learners’ English language learning, and preparing projects for young learners made them feel like a real teacher.

scholarly journals Communication in Training Future EFL Teachers: Simulation and Roleplay in the English Classroom

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Karina Muratovna Amirkhanova ◽  
Natalia Nikolaevna Bobyreva
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Communication Patterns ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Parent Communication ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Pedagogical Competence ◽  
Study Process ◽  
English Classroom

The issue under investigation is topical and significant. Being a communicative language acquisition method, simulation and roleplays develop future teachers' language competencies and pedagogical competence, playing a unique role in forming teacher-student, teacher-parent communication patterns. The article aims at studying the place simulation/roleplay have in this process and its specific features. The authors describe how roleplays and simulations are introduced into the English classroom, examples of supplying study books with roleplay tasks. The methods applied to explore the problem were observation and questionnaire administered to the students at the end of the course. Their analysis has permitted the authors to arrive at several conclusions. The most remarkable conclusion is that introducing simulation/roleplay into the study process significantly influences students' communication skills and academic performance, forming their pedagogic competences and communication patterns. Furthermore, the findings revealed that simulation/roleplay in training foreign language teachers should be well-planned and organized; the author gives some advice concerning it. The study results could be highly substantial for teachers of universities preparing future foreign language teachers.

Online Informal Language Learning Among Foreign Language Teachers

2020 ◽  
pp. 315-332
Author(s):  
Violeta Jurkovič ◽  
Vita Kilar ◽  
Nives Lenassi ◽  
Darja Mertelj
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Online Behaviour ◽  
Insight Into

Today's online world provides foreign language users and learners with a multitude of opportunities to engage in a variety of language activities. A social group that can derive major benefits from the availability of online resources in different languages is foreign language teachers. Based on an ‘emic' approach, this study involves case studies of three experienced foreign language teachers that used diaries over a period of eight weeks to report on every instance of online use of their predominant foreign language and English. Semi-structured interviews were used to obtain insight into online behaviour that was not specifically related to the eight-week period of diary-keeping. The results indicate that the online uses of the three participants, although they belong to the same social and age groups, display great variety in terms of online activities and the predominant language used to perform these activities.

The FI Program in 1963

PMLA ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald D. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Language Program ◽  
Activity Increase ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Long Range Planning ◽  
Telephone Calls

Describing a year's activity in a half-hour report is an annual challenge that grows more difficult as the pace and scope of the activity increase. The Foreign Language Program is in some ways the victim of its success. One of our early goals was to become an information center and we have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Requests for materials, information, opinions, and assistance threaten to overwhelm us daily. Three members of the staff do nothing but answer these requests. The ones that are unanswerable are put in my in-basket. Telephone calls and visitors multiply. All this activity we are tempted to think of as interruptions to our real job, long-range planning, deep thinking, foreign languages in the next century. But in a very real sense the magnitude of the interruptions to our job is the sign that we are succeeding, that more and more foreign-language teachers and students and more and more people in general want to know the answers to questions and the solutions to problems of which they were hardly conscious a few years ago. There has been a revolution in language learning in this country and among recent visitors to our office have been language teachers and administrators from all over the world (France, England, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Africa, Australia), who have come to find out what we are doing.

scholarly journals Teachers’ Attitudes towards Online Writing Assessment during Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
pp. 65-70
Author(s):  
Khadija Anasse ◽  
Rajaa Rhandy
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Writing Assessment ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
English Language ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Online Assessment ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Online Writing

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed an abrupt change in our teaching practices. Particularly the online assessment of students’ writing has been an unprecedented, novel situation for many English foreign language teachers. What is novel about this issue is the constraint of adopting it in a critical situation in which it has been an alternative way to assess students in the absence of the physical presence of students. The shift from face to face assessment to online assessment has been a novel experience for many Moroccan English foreign language teachers who have never implemented it before nor have any background knowledge about its mechanisms and methods albeit there are some teachers who are familiar with online teaching and online assessment. The issue has generated important points for English language teaching practitioners and stakeholders about the strategies and challenges of this compulsory mode of assessment during COVID-19 lockdown. From this perspective, the purpose of this paper was to reflect on writing assessment in the era of COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of teachers. The paper aimed to explore the perceptions of Moroccan English foreign language teachers about online writing assessment and the challenges that encountered them.  For this purpose, data were collected from 100 English language teachers in the region of Casablanca through the use of questionnaires. The findings of this study substantiated that most participants considered online assessment of students’ writing a real challenge and hence hold a negative attitude towards it. Based on the results of this study, it was recommended to teach digital writing skills to English foreign language learners and design teaching training programs about online writing assessment. 

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