scholarly journals Introducing the Target Language Culture to EFL Learners to Enhance Sociocultural Competence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
OUARDA KHOUNI ◽  
Looloo Mohammed Alraimi
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Target Language ◽  
School Students ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Teaching Culture ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Quasi Experimental

This research attempted to investigate the effect that teaching English language culture has on Algerian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' sociocultural competence. It also aimed at showing that having no exposure to English language culture alongside learning the English language itself will affect learners' understanding and production of the language. In this light, the study attempts to answer the following questions: to what extent is the culture of the English language present in the lessons of English language that are introduced to secondary school students? What cultural background do secondary school students have about the English language? And if they do have any cultural background, what is the source of that background and whether culture teaching enhances EFL learners' socio-cultural competence? We hypothesised that teaching culture to Algerian EFL learners will increase their sociocultural competence and improve their understanding of the language. This hypothesis was tested through conducting a quasi-experimental study with a group of eighteen students from Habba Abd El-Madjid Secondary School in El-Meghaier, El-Oued (Algeria) The final results revealed a remarkable improvement among the majority of students concerning their sociocultural competence and their perception and understanding of authentic English language. Therefore, it is recommended that the element of culture should be integrated into English language curricula of Algerian schools and that, if done, it will take students' level one step further towards a better acquisition of English language.

scholarly journals Investigation the attitudes of secondary school students towards the use of saying and words of wisdom in learning English at secondary level in Gaza

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-199
Author(s):  
Wafaa Ibrahim Alnajjar ◽  
◽  
Reem Yahya Mahmoud Shehadh
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
School Students ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Secondary Female ◽  
Learning English

This paper examined the attitudes of secondary school students towards the use of saying and words of wisdom in learning English as a foreign language in secondary schools in Gaza. Saying and words of wisdom play a significant role in language learning as a part of gaining cultural knowledge. In addition, this study attempted to find out whether they could motivate students to learn English then improve language acquiring through time. 40 secondary female EFL learners were assigned in questionnaires and interviews. Through observation, the researcher convinced that saying and words of wisdom is an important segment in the English Language, and it is a useful piece that has been used to spread wisdom and truths about life. The study reveals the effectiveness and higher rate of retaining of learning vocabulary through the strategy of sayings and words of wisdom compared to the traditional method.

scholarly journals The status of new English loanwords in the language of secondary school students

Bastina ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 111-123
Author(s):  
Valentina Gavranović ◽  
Marijana Prodanović
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Status ◽  
Global Language ◽  
Insight Into

Language change is an important characteristic of any language, and its manifestations are most obvious in the structure and content of the lexicon. The lexicon of the Serbian language has been changing not only as a result of various word formation processes, but also under the influence of the process of borrowing, particularly from the English language, nowadays a dominant global language which permeates all areas of human activity. English loanwords play a significant role in the change of the lexicon of the Serbian language, and are being adopted and used in everyday oral and written communication, particularly by younger people, who are more open to accept these changes. This paper investigates the status of some English loanwords among secondary school students, and how these words affect their lexicon. The research focuses on the analysis of students' answers to the questions containing a corpus of selected loanwords taken from the dictionary 'Rečnik novijih anglicizama' (Vasić et al., 2001), whose aim is to determine which English loanwords have already been assimilated and perceived as words of domestic origin, and which words are still felt as foreign by the students. This paper also investigates semantic characteristics of these loanwords, and how the students use them and understand their original meaning. The analysis of the answers casts a deeper insight into the way loanwords are used in the target language the longer they stay therein.

Zoltán Kodály gives a hand to secondary school students in recorder performance and attitudes toward music in Turkey

2021 ◽  
pp. 025576142110059
Author(s):  
Alican Gülle ◽  
Cenk Akay ◽  
Nezaket Bilge Uzun
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Attitude Scale ◽  
Control Group ◽  
School Students ◽  
Service Training ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Attitudes Toward Music ◽  
Experimental Group

Kodály-inspired pedagogy enables students to participate effectively in a music course by engaging in active musical interactions with folk songs and melodies. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of Kodály-inspired pedagogy on recorder performance and attitudes toward music of secondary school students. A quasi-experimental design was used in the study. The experimental group was taught using Kodály-inspired pedagogy and the control group using the general music teaching methods for 9 weeks. A two-way mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA) and content analysis were used to analyze the data. A Recorder Performance Grading Key, music course attitude scale, and open-ended questions were used to collect the data. Consequently, the findings indicated that Kodály-inspired pedagogy had a significant effect on the students’ recorder performance but the researchers could not find a significant effect on students’ attitudes toward the music course. Moreover, students in the experimental group reported improvement in their recorder performance and attitudes toward music education. The researchers recommended including information about the implementation of Kodály-inspired pedagogy in music teacher textbooks, providing in-service training for teachers to enable them to use Kodály-inspired pedagogy.

scholarly journals Request Strategies: A Contrastive Study Between Yemeni EFL and Malay ESL Secondary School Students in Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Amr Abdullatif Yassin ◽  
Norizan Abdul Razak
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Target Language ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Social ◽  
Request Strategies

The aim of this study was to investigate the types of request strategies employed by Yemeni and Malay secondary school students in English language. It also aimed at investigating the influence of social power and social distance on the students’ choice of request strategies. The data was collected through a discourse completion test (DCT) and the analysis used both Blum-Kulk’s et al. (1989) Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP), and Scollon and Scollon’s (1995) politeness system. The findings of the study showed that both groups often use non-conventionally indirect request strategies by means of query preparatory. The analysis revealed that both groups do not take into consideration the social power and the social distance between the interlocutors because they always use the same strategies with any person. The students have this sociopragmatic knowledge in their mother tongue; however, both groups are not sensitive to the social power and social distance existing between the interlocutors as they lack the sociopragmatic knowledge in the target language. Moreover, the students almost use the same strategies even though they have different cultural backgrounds, and this might be attributed to their assimilation in the school learning environment which is a positive indicator for conductive learning environment.

scholarly journals Reflection on exam grades to improve calibration of secondary school students: a longitudinal study

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-317
Author(s):  
Marloes L. Nederhand ◽  
Huib K. Tabbers ◽  
Joran Jongerling ◽  
Remy M. J. P. Rikers
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Third ◽  
School Year ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Actual Grade ◽  
Calibration Accuracy ◽  
The Difference

Abstract Grades provide students with information about their level of performance. However, grades may also make students more aware of how well they have estimated their performance, their so-called calibration accuracy. This longitudinal quasi-experimental study, set in secondary education, examined how to increase students’ awareness of the accuracy of their grade estimates in order to improve their calibration accuracy. During an entire school year, students from year 1, 2, and 3 provided grade estimates after each of their French exams. Subsequently, when students received their grades, the level of reflection support on their earlier estimates was manipulated. The first group of students just received their grade, the second group had to calculate the difference between their estimate and the actual grade, and the third group also had to reflect on reasons for a possible mismatch. We expected that more reflection support would lead to more improvement in calibration accuracy. Results showed that providing grade estimates already improved calibration accuracy over the school year, regardless of level of reflection support. This finding shows that asking for grade estimates is an easy-to-implement way to improve calibration accuracy of students in secondary education.

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