scholarly journals The Development of Sustainable Assessment during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of the English Language Program in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4499
Author(s):  
Sun-Joo Chung ◽  
Lee-Jin Choi

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to educational systems around the world. In particular, language learning environments being impacted by the pandemic has resulted in a shift from traditional in-person to online language teaching. This paper examines the case of an English language program in South Korea to investigate how the sudden transition to online language teaching has influenced language instructors’ teaching and assessment practice. The current study also examines the level of satisfaction of instructors and students with the changing form of English language teaching and assessment practices. Results showed that a professional learning community was formed by instructors to engage in regular communication as an attempt to develop new forms of assessment practices that were process-oriented and formative. Instructors also assigned multimodal projects to promote sustainable assessments where students could actively utilize target language forms and structures. Students were highly satisfied with new forms of language assessment practices, whereas instructors’ level of satisfaction towards their language assessment practices were somewhat low. Findings provided educators with language assessment suggestions that can offer language instructors ideas to deliver more creative and sustainable language assessment strategies that can promote self-regulated learning and sustainable development.

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kraemer ◽  
Allison Coltisor ◽  
Meesha Kalra ◽  
Megan Martinez ◽  
Bailey Savage ◽  
...  

English language learning (ELL) children suspected of having specific-language impairment (SLI) should be assessed using the same methods as monolingual English-speaking children born and raised in the United States. In an effort to reduce over- and under-identification of ELL children as SLI, speech-language pathologists (SLP) must employ nonbiased assessment practices. This article presents several evidence-based, nonstandarized assessment practices SLPs can implement in place of standardized tools. As the number of ELL children SLPs come in contact with increases, the need for well-trained and knowledgeable SLPs grows. The goal of the authors is to present several well-establish, evidence-based assessment methods for assessing ELL children suspected of SLI.


English for Academic Purposes course focusing on the academic language needs of students is a subfield of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It is a type of specialized course to integrate specific subject matter, language content, and material based on learners’ needs. The study aims to evaluate the British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) coursebook in terms of content, sequencing, learners’ autonomy, motivation, feedback and focus on language skills. Furthermore, the study tries to provide a general perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of the coursebook for undergraduate students. The EAP Students’ Manual coursebook is used as a primary source for the data collection. The researcher has chosen Nation & Macalister (2010) model of language teaching principles to analyze and discuss the data. The study found the coursebook a useful, effective and an appropriate source of English language learning in terms of the investigated aspects of the book. The findings report that the coursebook provides practice and practical usage in all domains of the academically required English language skills. It helps the students to build language competency and to be more independent learners. In addition, it provides an opportunity to the learners to think in the target language, use the language more practically and learn it in a natural type of environment. The study concludes and suggests that the content needs to be supplemented with English language audios and videos presenting the students relevant documentaries and helping material in order to make the coursebook and the learning process more useful, effective, interesting and motivating. Furthermore, the study recommends that while choosing /designing a coursebook for a certain course, it needs to be evaluated following the various criteria and language-teaching-principles suggested by different language researchers.


English for Academic Purposes course focusing on the academic language needs of students is a subfield of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It is a type of specialized course to integrate specific subject matter, language content, and material based on learners’ needs. The study aims to evaluate the British Council’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP) coursebook in terms of content, sequencing, learners’ autonomy, motivation, feedback and focus on language skills. Furthermore, the study tries to provide a general perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of the coursebook for undergraduate students. The EAP Students’ Manual coursebook is used as a primary source for the data collection. The researcher has chosen Nation & Macalister (2010) model of language teaching principles to analyze and discuss the data. The study found the coursebook a useful, effective and an appropriate source of English language learning in terms of the investigated aspects of the book. The findings report that the coursebook provides practice and practical usage in all domains of the academically required English language skills. It helps the students to build language competency and to be more independent learners. In addition, it provides an opportunity to the learners to think in the target language, use the language more practically and learn it in a natural type of environment. The study concludes and suggests that the content needs to be supplemented with English language audios and videos presenting the students relevant documentaries and helping material in order to make the coursebook and the learning process more useful, effective, interesting and motivating. Furthermore, the study recommends that while choosing /designing a coursebook for a certain course, it needs to be evaluated following the various criteria and language-teaching-principles suggested by different language researchers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bremner

This study examined the educational life histories of 13 students at a Mexican university in order to gather their perspectives of effective language teaching. Most previous studies on students’ perspectives of language teaching have used quantitative and deductive methods, whereas this study employed qualitative and inductive methods. The main methodological approach was the ‘life history’ approach, and the specific methods were two extended interviews and an innovative ‘timeline’ activity. In total, 77 examples of effective (and ineffective) teachers emerged from the 13 students’ life histories. The study revealed three major findings. Firstly, teachers’ language knowledge and proficiency were not mentioned as important characteristics of effective language teaching, although several students did make reference to teachers’ command of language when it was perceived to be missing. Secondly, students generally favoured more ‘modern’ approaches (engaging, active, real-life skills, immersion in the target language), as opposed to more ‘conservative’ approaches (unappealing, passive, overly theoretical, lack of immersion in the target language). Thirdly, students emphasised the importance of a positive student-teacher relationship, and greatly appreciated the teacher being there to provide them with personalised attention. Notably, the students tended not to value autonomous learning, preferring teachers to be close to them to help them with their problems in class. Two main implications for practice were suggested. Firstly, a general consensus has been reached regarding several key characteristics of effective language teaching, strengthening the argument that these characteristics should be listened to, and acted upon, by teachers and educational decision-makers. Secondly, the study makes a strong case for future research to utilise more qualitative, inductive methods when investigating students’ perspectives.


2020 ◽  
pp. 136216882093881
Author(s):  
Ian Moodie

Despite its attention in the field of education, occupational commitment has received little attention in language teaching research. To address this gap, the study generates an occupational commitment profile of expatriate English language teachers and investigates how commitment relates to their age, sex, teaching experience, and qualifications. Eighty-two native English-speaking teachers at a private university in South Korea participated in the study by completing a survey measuring their affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the profession of English language teaching (ELT) and to their workplace. The descriptive results indicated that the sample had high affective commitment to the profession of ELT but low overall commitment to their organization. Results from MANCOVA, which controlled for the covariates of age and sex, indicated that respondents with teacher qualifications from their home countries tended to have higher levels of affective and normative commitment to the profession of ELT and to their workplace than respondents without teacher qualifications. However, no differences in commitment were found between respondents with ELT qualifications and respondents without ELT qualifications, nor were any differences found in commitment associated with ELT experience. Because affective-normative dominant profiles are associated with better workplace outcomes, such as effort given to an organization and lower turnover intentions, further consideration of this finding should be of high priority in language teacher commitment research.


Author(s):  
Nimfa G. Dimaculangan ◽  
Marie Ann Gonzales

A number of studies on the Filipinos’ attitude towards the Philippine official languages and on code-switching have been done; nonetheless, very few studies on attitude towards the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) language program after its implementation in 2013 have been conducted. This paper presents selected stakeholder participants’ attitude towards the language program in relation to English language teaching (ELT) and learning after about seven years of its implementation, and now that it may be suspended through House Bill No. 6125 or the Act Suspending the Implementation of the Use of Mother Tongue as the Medium of Instruction for Kindergarten to Grade 3 as suggested by a prestigious national linguistic organization[13]. The writer’s self-designed attitude questions which were patterned after the language attitude questions [21] were used to gather data through interview. Analysis revealed that four out of six participants had a positive attitude towards MTB-MLE; two were undecided about their perception and attitude; however, three among the six did not fully understand the program. The participants supported ELT and acknowledged the role of English as the global language; nonetheless, they were uncertain as to whether or not MTB-MLE would have a positive impact on ELT and on global competitiveness. KEYWORDS: Attitude, Bilingualism, English proficiency, English Language Teaching (ELT), Language of Instruction (LOI), Mother Tongue Based-Multilingual Education MTB-MLE), Multilingualism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shijun Chen ◽  
Jing Wang

Task-based language teaching on the purpose of enhancing students’ communicative skills and involving them actively in the authentic context has long been highlighted in recent years in tertiary English language teaching. This paper proposes a framework of task-based teaching approach and language assessment in intensive reading class based on the researcher’s own teaching practice to explore positive impacts on students’ competences. This is done in the context of both oral presentation and written reports of first undergraduate English major students. The research method consists of semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire with 18 questions pointing to different aspects in the learning and teaching processes, aiming to explore what impacts it has on students’ competence in both second language acquisition and at cognitive level. In this empirical study, all the findings indicate that TBLT applied in Chinese English teaching class is very effective and beneficial for the enhancement of Chinese English learners.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1715
Author(s):  
Şaban Çepik ◽  
Kemal Gönen ◽  
Mustafa Kemal Sazak

The aim of this study is to find the attitudes of language instructors towards blended learning at English Language Program of a foundation university, and to find out the nature of Schoology, a learning management system, for blended learning purposes. The participants were 35 English language instructors working at the foundation university in Turkey. A questionnaire developed by Moukali (2012) was used as a data collection tool in this study. The findings revealed that the English language instructors working for tertiary level English Language Program have a positive attitude towards blended learning. On the other hand, the opinions of the participants to make blended learning more successful in language teaching and learning environments were reflected comprehensively in the study


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.


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