scholarly journals Managing disruptions in adult foreign language classes

2020 ◽  
Vol XXIII (1) ◽  
pp. 192-198
Author(s):  
Camelia Alibec

Classroom management for adult students is challenging and invites the teacher of foreign languages, and not only, to master the skills for establishing a favourable learning atmosphere. Effective classroom management is much more than simply administrate corrective measures when a student misbehaves; it is also about developing efficient ways to deter potential learning distracters. Disruptions, when they occur, call for mild management techniques. Classroom management is largely explored in the context of mainstream education, nevertheless there is little focus on the foreign language classroom management of either children or adults. The different types of adult student misbehaviour in foreign language classes involve various strategies preferred by teachers in order to prevent such disruptions. Analysing these under the umbrella term classroom management helps us to understand the foreign language classroom management.

Author(s):  
Ewa Półtorak

The article aims to take the issue of feedback into the context of teaching/learning foreign languages. In the first place, the source concept of feedback will be presented. Then, the feedback phenomenon will be defined in the context of teaching foreign languages. It will allow to discuss its significance and specific roles that it may play for individual participants in the process of teaching/learning foreign languages. In conclusion, based on criteria important from the educational point of view, examples of classifications of feedback, which may be accompanied byboth real and virtual foreign language classroom, will be presented.


Author(s):  
Katrin Herget ◽  
Noemí Pérez

Nowadays, teaching languages for specific purposes, in particular in the field of entrepreneurship, has to focus on pragmatic and intercultural aspects in response to a multicultural professional reality that comprises different areas of knowledge. Our study aims at analyzing the speech act of making a request in German and Spanish by Portuguese native speakers, i.e. BA students of Languages and Business Relations at University of Aveiro. For this study, two different types of tests were performed: the Discourse Completion Task (DCT) and the Rating Assessment Test. The data provided by the answers given to these two surveys will help the teacher to understand the pragmatic difficulties students have when making a request in these two foreign languages. The information obtained will help the teacher to focus on aspects that are really problematic from the pragmatic point of view, and at the same time, to find and implement strategies and activities that help students improve their pragmatic awareness and overcome difficulties that may arise in intercultural communication. Hence, the objective is to contribute to an adequate development of the students' pragmatic and intercultural communicative competence.


Author(s):  
William J. Switala

America is a country made up of people from all corners of the globe. Although this is the case, few Americans can communicate in a language other than English. The major reason for this is that Americans do not study foreign languages to any great extent in school, and those who do, have not developed a facility to speak the language they have studied. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages found, in its survey entitled “Foreign Language Enrollments in U.S. Public High Schools, 1890-2000,” that there was a steady decline in the numbers of students studying foreign languages from 1976 to 1994. From 1995 to 2000 this trend was reversed and the number of students learning new languages in the year 2000 almost matched that of the enrollment for 1974. However, this still only accounted for 42.5% of the total number of students attending American high schools (ACTFL, 2004). A possible explanation for this low number may rest in the methodology used to teach foreign languages in our schools. (Brecht, 2002).


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 906
Author(s):  
Mladen Marinac ◽  
Iva Barić

The role of translation in the foreign language classroom has been changing, but it still remains a contentious issue. The long-lasting debate whether students of foreign languages might benefit from the use of translation in class might have made practitioners insecure in relation to whether using translation is beneficial or not, what methods are best and when to use translation. The aim of this study is to investigate EFL practitioners’ perspective on translation in teaching foreign languages. Specifically, it explores language for specific purposes (LSP) teachers’ attitudes toward translation at tertiary-level institutions in Croatia. The data were collected by means of an online questionnaire using snowball sampling method in order to reach a greater number of teachers. The respondents were English, German and Italian LSP teachers from a variety of tertiary-level institutions. The study revealed that in the Croatian context the majority of LSP teachers use translation in language teaching, however, there seems to be a lack of certainty about its usefulness. In addition, LSP teachers' approach to translation appears to be rather traditional given there is no diversity in the methods mentioned.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Houda AYACHIA

With the advent of the monolingual principle entrenched by the Reform Movement of the late nineteenth century and exponents of the Direct Method, translation has been treated, for a long time, as a skeleton in the closet. Recently, however, many researchers (Witte, Harden & Ramos de Oliveira Harden, 2009; Cook, 2010; Leonardi, 2010; Malmkjaer, 2010) have questioned the outright dismissal of translation from the foreign language classroom and called for reassessing its role. Moreover, they welcomed it as a fifth skill alongside reading, writing, listening, and speaking that learners need in their learning and future careers. This paper argues for the rehabilitation of translation in the teaching and learning of foreign languages. It attempts to give a panorama of the revival of translation. So, it first reconsiders its dismissal in the method era and then it summarises the literature on its revival in the 21st century. The review of literature has revealed that the onslaught against translation was illegitimate and that the literature in favour of it is a reputable, a recent, and an abundant one.


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