scholarly journals THE BASIC SPECIFICITY OF THE ABILITY OF VARIED ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUMS TO ENHANCE ENGLISH LEARNERS’ CAPACITY TO DEVELOP NECESSARY SKILLS TO COMMUNICATE USING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Michael Wayne Hendershot ◽  
Nutprapha K. Dennis ◽  
Suchada Chaiwiwattrakul ◽  
Ratirot Phiphitphakdee
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Effective Use

Inasmuch as the goal of teaching English to non-native English speakers should be focused on enhancing English learners’ ability to develop skills necessary for efficient and effective use of the English language in communication within their daily lives as well as within the context of educational, employment, governmental, and business related issues, the materials and resources used by the teacher to provide said English learners with enhanced ability to develop necessary skills for the use of the English language for efficient and effective communication are of paramount importance. This study was designed as a comparison of English language curriculums between select schools in an effort to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum to enhance students’ abilities to develop skills to be able to effectively and efficiently communicate using the English language. Participants in the study were presented with questions relating to activities of daily life, and conversation thereof, using the English language. The resultant responses to the questions were assessed as to an indication of the participants’ ability to effectively and efficiently communicate using the English language. The comparison involved six grade levels of students from two primary schools and one secondary school. The tabulated results indicated a significant difference in the abilities of the participants to effectively and efficiently communicate using the English language related to curriculums used in schools in which the participants were enrolled at the time of the study.

scholarly journals The effects of using American idioms in the development of the speaking skill in L2 students

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (16) ◽  
pp. 432-438
Author(s):  
Johanna Isabel Barriga Fray ◽  
Michael John McCandless
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Speaking Skill ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

There are thousands of non-native English speakers around the world. The use of a wide variety of dialects, registers, and other characteristics of language such as idiomatic expressions can cause lots of misunderstandings in people when they interact among one another. For that reason, American Idioms have to be taken into account as a crucial part in the development of English Language competence. It is a necessity that non-native speakers of English become aware and proficient in using English idiomatic expressions. However, many English learners, especially most of Ecuadorians, lack the competence to use them properly. This paper aims to show the effects of using American idioms in the development of speaking skills by L2 learners. Thereby, this research was carried out in a university in Ecuador with a population of 30 students. Quasi-experimental research was applied where one group was exposed to the language that native English speakers usually use. In addition, field research was carried out through instruments such as an observation checklist. Finally, the data analysis showed that those L2 students exposed to American idioms had subsequently increased their speaking skill.

scholarly journals Is the Understanding Dementia Massive Open Online Course Accessible and Effective for Everyone? Native Versus Non-Native English Speakers

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Sarang Kim ◽  
Aidan Bindoff ◽  
Maree Farrow ◽  
Fran McInerney ◽  
Jay Borchard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Massive Open Online ◽  
Massive Open Online Course ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Before And After ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Age Range

Most massive open online courses (MOOCs) are offered in English, including those offered by non-English speaking universities. The study investigated an identified English language dementia MOOC’s accessibility and effectiveness in improving the dementia knowledge of non-native English speaker participants. A total of 6,389 enrolees (age range 18–82 years; 88.4% female) from 67 countries was included in analyses. Dementia knowledge was measured by the Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale (DKAS) before and after the MOOC completion. Rates of completion were also compared. Native English speakers (n = 5,320) were older, more likely to be female, less likely to be employed, and had lower educational attainment than non-native English speakers (n = 1025). Native English speakers were also more likely to care for or have cared for a family member or friend living with dementia than were non-native English speakers. Native English speakers had a significantly higher DKAS score both pre- (M = 33.0, SD = 9.3) and post-MOOC (M = 44.2, SD = 5.5) than did non-native English speakers (M = 31.7, SD = 9.1; and M = 40.7, SD = 7.7 for pre- and post-MOOC, respectively). Non-native English speakers with low pre-MOOC dementia knowledge scores gained significantly less dementia knowledge following course completion than did native English speakers (p <.001, adjusted for age and education). There was no significant difference between the two groups in their likelihood of completing the MOOC. Our findings suggest that non-native English speakers are motivated and able to complete the MOOC at similar rates to native English speakers, but the MOOC is a more effective educational intervention for native English speakers with low dementia knowledge.

scholarly journals “I start learning English through speaking”: Social agency demand and inter-school readiness for Indonesian young English learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-225
Author(s):  
Sri Setyarini ◽  
Bachrudin Musthafa ◽  
Ahmad Bukhori Muslim
Keyword(s):  
School Readiness ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
English Language ◽  
National Curriculum ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
School Level ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Young Learners

Preserving Indonesian as a national identity and institutional readiness to perform the national curriculum 2013 instruction has become a critical factor in the exclusion of English as a compulsory subject at the elementary school level. This leaves rooms for teachers’ confusion and creativity, leading to various practices at different school clusters, depending on parental demands and school readiness. This study thus tries to cast light on the social agency demand and inter-school readiness for young learners in the Indonesian EFL pedagogical contexts. This instrumental case study portrays the practices of English language teaching at three clusters of Indonesian primary schools; local, national, and independent, as well as responses of parents and students to these practices. Involving 4-6 grade students and English teachers of six primary schools, the data were garnered through classroom observation, interviews, and document analysis. The findings revealed that although teaching English to young learners is somehow communicative and fun, it more emphasises  literacy skills (reading, writing, and grammar), particularly at local schools as the majority cluster across the country. Since English is a non-phonetic language, this literacy-focused practice is rather contradictory to what parents as social agencies expect, that is, to develop their children’s English oral proficiency. The study also offers ways by which teachers and schools can accommodate this social agency’s needs for speaking skills by focusing more on student-centred and oral English proficiency activities and assessment.

scholarly journals Resilience and Gender as Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intentions among Secondary School Students in Kwara State, Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-160
Author(s):  
Umar Talatu Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Entrepreneurial Intentions ◽  
School Students ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Ex Post Facto ◽  
And Gender

The purpose of this study was to investigate resilience and gender as determinants of entrepreneurial intentions among secondary school students in Kwara State, Nigeria. Descriptive research design of ex-post-facto type was used in the study. Five hundred respondents were selected randomly from 5 Local Government Area in Kwara State, Nigeria. The respondents were measured with validated scale and the data obtained was analyzed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) statistical analysis. Two research hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05level of significance. The result showed that there was significant relationship between the resilience and entrepreneurial intentions among secondary school students (r = 0.817; p < 0.05) and there no significant difference in the entrepreneurial intentions of male and female secondary school students (t = 0.71; p > 0.05). In view of these findings, the study recommended that the entrepreneurship training should be made compulsory at all levels of learning from primary schools to the tertiary institutions and curriculum should be tailored towards learning the skills for starting businesses after graduation from school, thus changing the orientation of the students at an early stage towards entrepreneurship.

Material and presentation condition effects on sentence interpretation task performance: methodological examinations of the competition experiment

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshinori Sasaki
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Competition Experiment ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Presentation Condition ◽  
Japanese Word ◽  
The Subject

Ten native English learners of Japanese, ten intermediate native English learners of Japanese and ten native Japanese speakers of English each were requested to report what they thought was the subject or actor of a series of English NVN word strings, in which case marking and lexical-semantics cues were systematically manipulated. These NVN strings were aurally presented first alone, and subsequently the same strings were presented for the second time together with noncanonical NNV and VNN strings. Similarly, their counterpart Japanese NNV strings were first presented alone, and secondly with noncanonical VNN and NVN strings. The results revealed that 1) a greater animacy effect (‘animacy noun as a subject’ bias) was detected when the sentence verb was see rather than eat(or each of their Japanese counterparts); 2) English accusative pronouns generally created greater case biases than nominative ones; and 3) native English speakers interpreting Japanese word strings responded differently under the two presentation conditions.

The Production of New and Similar Vowels by Adult German Learners of English

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ocke-Schwen Bohn ◽  
James Emil Flege
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L1 English ◽  
Positive Effect

The study reported in this paper examined the effect of second language (L2) experience on the production of L2 vowels for which acoustic counterparts are either present or absent in the first language (L1). The hypothesis being tested was that amount of L2 experience would not affect L1 German speakers' production of the “similar” English vowels /i, l, ∈/, whereas English language experience would enable L1 Germans to produce an English-like /æ/, which has no counterpart in German. The predictions were tested in two experiments that compared the production of English /i, l, ∈, æ/ by two groups of L1 German speakers differing in English language experience and an L1 English control group. An acoustic experiment compared the three groups for spectral and temporal characteristics of the English vowels produced in /bVt/ words. The same tokens were assessed for intelligibility in a labeling experiment. The results of both experiments were largely consistent with the hypothesis. The experienced L2 speakers did not produce the similar English vowels /i, l, ∈/ more intelligibly than the inexperienced L2 speakers, not did experience have a positive effect on approximating the English acoustic norms for these similar vowels. The intelligibility results for the new vowel /æ/ did not clearly support the model. However, the acoustic comparisons showed that the experienced but not the inexperienced L2 speakers produced the new vowel /æ/ in much the same way as the native English speakers.

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