scholarly journals The Cultural and Historical Elements in the Foreign Language Teaching and Learning: the Polish Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 335-362
Author(s):  
Mateusz Bogdanowicz

The article calls for a thorough revision of the cultural and historical content of English language curricula at all levels of the Polish educational system. The benefits of coordinated and well-managed language education based on cultural and historical content are outlined. The article is based on the author’s research into part-time university students who are English language teachers, as well as the cultural and historical background knowledge imparted during English classes. The study was conducted at the Department of English Studies of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn in 2010–2019. The article expounds the reasons behind students’ and teachers’ reluctance towards incorporating cultural and historical content into English language curricula. The benefits stemming from cultural and historical background knowledge for teachers, students and foreign language teaching in general are discusses. Based on these observations, the last part of the article explores the most effective methods for promoting, introducing, implementing and developing teaching modules that incorporate cultural and historical knowledge. Culture and history-related content would undoubtedly increase the attractiveness and efficacy of language programs, promote competence development (linguistic, extra-linguistic, and general) among students and teachers, increase motivation in the learning and teaching process, and deliver tangible benefits for schools.

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cem Alptekin ◽  
Sibel Tatar

This is an overview of research on applied linguistics and foreign language education in Turkey, surveying nearly 130 studies from the period 2005–2009. Following a brief presentation of the history and current sociopolitical situation of foreign language education in Turkey, the article focuses on research that characterizes the most common interests of academics and practitioners in the following areas: foreign language teaching and teachers, foreign language learning and learners, foreign language teacher education, the four language skills, measurement and evaluation, and the relationship between language and culture. Our discussion of each area is based on information extracted from local professional journals, conference proceedings and papers and Ph.D. dissertations. The studies examined reveal that, in general, practical concerns assume priority over theoretical issues, a substantial proportion of research being conducted on EFL learning and teaching.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Huyi Intan Sari ◽  
Choiril Anwar

Anxiety is a topic mostly investigated in the field of foreign language education. Unfortunately, the main focus of the studies on the aforementioned topic has primarily been provided in relation to anxiety suffered by students not teachers. Anxiety in speaking English while teaching has been proven to be a separate obstacle to the success of the language teaching and learning. This still happens to teachers who even have years of teaching experience. This study aims to investigate the English language teaching anxiety as experienced by the pre-service teacher at the department. The FLTA questionnaire consisting of 27 out of 45 items was adopted to collect data. Since this study was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, the questionnaire was distributed to the participants via email. The analysis was then made by implementing the qualitative descriptive approach and simple quantification to support the description. The results show that there were five factors of anxiety occur during the program. They were teaching inexperience, self-perception of language proficiency, fear of negative evaluation, lack of student�s interest, and difficulty with time management. These findings are expected to become a reference for the efforts of developing an internship preparation program.


Author(s):  
E. B. Yastrebova ◽  
D. A. Kryachkov

The article analyzes how professors and students of MGIMO-University’s School of International Relations perceive innovations in language teaching.As a synergy system, language teaching relies on selfdevelopment based to a great extent on innovations, which can be initiated either from the inside or from the outside. To identify the basic features of innovations in foreign language teaching, the authors conducted a survey of professors and students of the School of international Relations. The results suggest that for most respondents the main purpose of innovations in foreign language teaching and learning is to attain a significantly higher level of communicative competence, which is seen as feasible only if fundamentally new teaching materials and computer technologies are used. According to the survey, the success of innovations largely depends on their source (innovations ‘from the top’ and innovations ‘from the bottom’) and commitment on the part of professors and students to participate in them, the latter being often prompted by their discontent with the state of play. Innovations ‘from above’ tend to be more encompassing and affect the entire system of language education, whereas innovations ‘from the bottom concern the teaching process per se. Though the survey suggests that it is innovations ‘from the top’ that tend to be more successful, the authors conclude that language education as a synergy system adopts only non-shattering innovations that address its most vital needs, thus encouraging its sustainable development.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-57
Author(s):  
Kinga Bajorek ◽  
Sławomir Gawroński

Abstract The use of mass communication in the field of foreign language teaching is not a new phenomenon, because traditional media have been in use in this area for a few decades. Nowadays, however, several tendencies confirming the scale of this phenomenon can be observed. Mass media, and new media in particular, are used both in the process of self-education and as an important tool used by foreign language teachers. Technological progress, the communication revolution, the spread of the Internet, and the development of new media and mobile technologies offer modern and more effective methods of language education. This article reviews the conditions relating to the relationship between mass media and language learning, taking into account the possibility of using one of the key functions of mass communication, namely its educational function. The authors, using literature analysis, defined and analyzed the causes of specific symbiosis between media tools and technologies as well as the methodology used in the field of foreign language teaching.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Zuzana Straková

Abstract Teaching foreign languages has adopted various approaches over the history. The last decades of dominance of the Communicative language teaching brought the tendency to insist on the target language use in the classroom in order to allow the immersion into the language. The European Union, however, started to support linguistic diversity more than two decades ago and it has left an imprint on the way foreign language teaching is approached today. Inclusion of plurilingualism in traditional school context requires the readiness of language teachers to use other languages as well as encourage learners to use their prior language experience. The present study presents the results of a questionnaire survey among student teachers measuring their attitudes and readiness to implement more than one additional language in their practice. The participants of the study (n = 118) are all future teachers of English language at both undergraduate and graduate level. The results of the survey indicate a generally positive attitude towards plurilingualism and at the same time ability of the students to rely on more than one language while teaching. The results, however, raise quite a few questions and imperatives for the content of teacher training programmes as well as for the organisation of language education in general.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Vasconcelos Almeida

ABSTRACTThe goal of this work is to present the differences among the didactic-pedagogical behaviors from the English language pre-teachers when they had to create tasks using as artifact the technology. The need to use the technology as a resource to the foreign language teaching and learning processes is one of the reasons to investigate the appropriated way to use it in the educational field. Warschauer and Healy (1998) and Nardi (1996) postulated that the computers and internet in the foreign language teaching and learning processes are giving better ways of working as well as a better formation to the ones involved in the field of education. So, research about the insertion of the computer and internet as a didactic material resource having Activity Theory as the main theory (Engestrom, 1987) leads as to understand the changes in the activity system through the different artifacts. As the context of research we have the language course of a federal university, the data was collected by observation of methodology classes. The data analysis showed us that on trying to create pedagogical tasks using different teaching artifacts the pre-teachers developed different praxis.RESUMENO objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar as diferentes posturas didático-pedagógicas dos professores pré-serviço de língua inglesa, quando tiveram que criar tarefas utilizando diferentes artefatos de ensino (tecnologias). A necessidade de se usar a tecnologia como recurso para o processo de ensino-aprendizagem de língua estrangeira, vem proporcionando a realização de trabalhos invest-igativos concernentes a observação de formas apropriadas para utilizá-la na educação. Warschauer e Healey (1998) e Nardi (1996) defendem que a inserção dos computadores e da internet no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras está proporcionando melhor condição de trabalho, bem como, uma formação adequada aos sujeitos envolvidos com a educação. Desta forma, pesquisar sobre a inserção do computador e da internet, como recurso de material didático (apoio) tendo como base os preceitos da Teoria da Atividade (Engestrom, 1987), nos permite compreender as alterações no sistema de atividade a partir dos diferentes artefatos utilizados. Tendo como contexto de pesquisa o curso de letras de uma universidade federal, os dados foram coletados por meio de observações das aulas de metodologia. A análise dos dados mostrou que na tentativa de se criar tarefas pedagógicas, utilizando diferentes artefatos de ensino, o professor pré-serviço desenvolveu práticas diferentes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Syeda Naureen Mumtaz ◽  
◽  
Dr.Uzma Quraishi ◽  

The study was attempted to explore as to what extent English language teaching in Pakistan has been able to develop language skills among the target learners. The researcher intended to evaluate the limit to which the textbook helps in generating competence of all four integrated skills, especially as laid down in the standards of the National Curriculum (2006). The purpose of this study was to create pragmatic awareness among learners, teachers and educational professionals, working in the field of English as Foreign Language. By method , it was a qualitative study, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were the tools used to elicit the data. The participants of this research were selected from public sector schools and organizations including, teachers, policymakers, curriculum developers, subject specialists, and students to examine the effectiveness of grade VIII’s English language textbook on students’ performance . For data analysis themes were developed, coded and summarized in a descriptive mode. The findings of this study reflected that the relevant textbook does not cater to the target learners’ future academic and professional language needs. As a solution to the problems while teaching and learning English as foreign language in Pakistan; this study also offered a model to be followed by the policy makers and practitioners in order to make the existing English language textbook more effectives in terms of foreign language teaching and learning and language skill development.


PMLA ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-14
Author(s):  
Jack M. Stein

The improvement of foreign language teaching in America in the past ten years under the dynamic leadership of the Foreign Language Program of the MLA is a fact in which we can all rejoice. The added impetus, financial and otherwise, provided recently by the National Defense Education Act, has made it possible for the Program, instead of retrenching after the period of Foundation endowment was ended, to expand with unprecedented vigor and effectiveness. The FLP has been active over a broad spectrum of foreign language teaching and learning, but there are areas where its influence has not yet been felt. One of these is the preparation of college and university language teachers.


Author(s):  
Jennyfer Paola Casas Trujillo

AbstractMost Education systems propose policies in pro of the benefit of society. However, successful application of these is unknown in consequence considering teachers voices is needed to understand the situations in the classroom. This study analyzes some English language teachers’ stories that served the purpose to construct themselves as professionals of language education facing the dichotomy of inclusion and exclusion placed by the mandates of the Colombian education system. The theme of Language Teacher Subjectivities, in this article, is conceptualized and discussed as the alternative’s teachers have within their reach to use their own theories regarding language teaching and learning. Reflecting retrospectively and prospectively on meaningful school experiences related to the language teaching activity to tackle the dichotomy, the research question that guided this study was: What do language teachers’ narratives portray about their professional subjectivities in relation to inclusion? From a narrative perspective, narrative interviews and a professional life history timeline was analyzed using short story analysis focusing on when, when and who as meaningful in the data and finding that the participants comply with the multidimensional view of the subject. The narratives depicted that the corporal dimension, social-affective dimension, cognitive dimension, and ethic-moral dimension are part of the teachers’ professional subjectivities in the frame of Colombian inclusion policy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-306
Author(s):  
Ueverson Mendes Oliveira

This article deals with the reasons that may influence the English language teaching and learning failure in the public school context. This research aimed to understand the factors that can influence the malfunction in the interaction between teacher and student in the classroom. Theoretical contributions to the teaching of English as a foreign language were used to understand the ways that the teaching has been understood. The data presented were obtained through a search in the available academic material concerning English language teaching in public schools. Three factors were found and highlighted as meaningful and which are directly hooked to the English learning and teaching failure.


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