scholarly journals IMPACT OF EXTENSIVE READING ON SOPHOMORE ENGLISH MAJORS’ READING COMPREHENSION DEVELOPMENT AT DALAT UNIVERSITY

Author(s):  
Nguyen Thi Thao Hien ◽  
Nguyen Thi Tuong Vy

This paper reports on an extensive reading program utilizing graded readers and the Moodle Reader for sophomore English majors at Dalat University. The main purpose of the study was to determine the impact of such a program on student reading abilities and to explore their attitudes toward the program. Data were collected from pretests, posttests, and questionnaires. Findings indicated that the extensive reading program was largely responsible for the higher mean gain on the posttest made by the experimental group, and that the majority of students expressed positive opinions toward the program. The paper concludes by putting forward some pedagogical implications on the implementation of such a program with English language students and lecturers in their courses of reading.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Hussein Al Noursi

The blended learning approach utilizes modern technologies and electronic media in teaching to create a technology-based environment. However, it is not an exclusive online environment because the teacher and the students have to be present in a traditional face-to-face classroom. It is widely believed that adopting a blended learning approach will enable learners to have quality educational opportunities and improve their performance. The incentive for conducting the research is to evaluate the effect of the blended learning approach on high school students’ English proficiency. Specifically, the study aimed at answering the question: is there a significant difference in the Twelfth-Grade students’ English language proficiency as measured by IELTS due to the model of delivery (Blended learning model and the traditional delivery model)? To achieve the study’s goal, the researcher applied the experimental method and used IELTS to measure language proficiency. The study sample selected purposively consisted of 63 male twelfth-grade students in one of the private schools in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study sample was assigned to two groups: the experimental group taught using blended learning consisted of 31 students, and the control group led by the traditional method consisted of 32 students. The results showed statistically significant differences at the level of (a<0.01) between the means of the results of the two groups on the post achievement test in favor of the experimental group. These results illustrated the impact of adopting the blended learning approach in an English Foreign Language (EFL) setting on students’ achievement in standardized tests. However, the successful implementation of blended learning largely depends on how responsible and committed students are towards active learning.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 197
Author(s):  
Mandana Yousefi

<p><em>The present study was an attempt to examine the EFL intermediate learners’ interpretation performance in translating texts from English to Persian on mediated mode vs. non-mediated one focusing on two different kinds of mediation (clip-mediated vs. peer-mediated mode). It has also investigated the participants’ attitudes toward the mediation sessions. It was conducted in an English Language Institute in Bojnourd, Iran. To this aim, a standardized 50-item Nelson English Language Test was administered to 31 participants. Following the homogenizing procedure, the number of the participants decreased to 24. Then, they were randomly divided into two equal groups (control and experimental), each consisting of 12 students. Both groups took part in interpretation classes twice a week, during which the experimental group received mediation as the treatment. The collecte</em><em>d data were analyzed by conducting ANCOVA and paired-sample t-test. </em><em>The results indicated that the EFL learners’ interpretation performance was better in mediated mode vs. non-mediated one, and peer-mediation was more effective than clip-mediation in improving their listening performance. In addition, all the participants stated </em><em>mediation had an effective role in improving their interpretation performance by reducing their anxiety and increasing their self-confidence.</em></p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Gholam Reza Parvizi

This study focuses on the impact of the type of form-focused instruction (FFI) on its efficiency in mastering L2forms. The hypothesis that FFI, which induces structural and metalinguistic salience on the basis of contrastiveanalysis of the learner’s L1 and L2, would be particularly effective at facilitating the acquisition of difficult L2 formswas tested in a quasi-experimental study comparing the effectiveness of two types of FFI, one with and one without acontrastive component. The contrastive FFI explicitly drew learners’ attention to the cross-linguistic differences inthe tense-aspect systems of their L2 and L1 while the non-contrastive treatment only focused on the tense-aspectsystem of the L2. The effects of these two types of FFI were assessed by analyzing the learners’ pre-test and post-testperformance on two tasks differing in the extent to which they involve the activation of explicit and implicitlinguistic knowledge: a grammatical judgment task and a controlled translation task. The subjects of the studycomprised of 43 students majoring in English language in the Iranian capital university, Tehran, 22 were selected asfor experimental group and 21 for control group randomly. The results of the study revealed that the quantitativeanalysis of the Grammatical Judgment Test (GJT) data indicated no significant effect of CFFI due to the novelty ofthe translatory technique, or the potential individual differences in the learning orientation of the learners. On thecontrary, the qualitative analysis indicated differential effects of this type of FFI according to the nature of targetform, i.e. CFFI was beneficial in raising the grammatical judgment of Persian Learners of English (PLE) regardingpresent perfect form but not effective in their judgment of ungrammatical progressive forms. In terms of translationtask, the CFFI appeared to be effective in the correct use of the target structures by PLE. This may be mainly due tothe fact that Translation Test (TT) needed explicit knowledge which was presented in CFFI and that translation is acontrastive activity in nature.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulkhaleq Q. A. Hassan ◽  
Sayed Salahuddin Ahmed

To investigate the effectiveness of e-learning by using a particular mobile application, namely WhatsApp, an empirical study was conducted on sixty undergraduate English language majors at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia. The objective of the study was to determine whether the levels of motivation, content knowledge and grades of the students (who took the course “Syntax”)-, developed after receiving additional support through WhatsApp apart from traditional classroom lectures. The results showed that the experimental group that got extra support from fellow students and the course teachers through WhatsApp outperformed the students of the control group who studied the course only through traditional method. Moreover, the gap of success rate between the experimental group and the control group is about eighty nine percent with zero failure in the experimental group. The study proved that WhatsApp can be effectively used for providing supplementary support to motivate students to study properly and to get higher grades.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Seyyed Rasool Mirghasempoor Ahmadi

Through the introduction of different dimensions of vocabulary knowledge, various studies attempted to examinenumerous effective factors on these dimensions. The present study aimed to show the effects of different vocabularylearning styles through extensive and intensive reading programs on depth and breadth aspects of vocabularyknowledge. To achieve this goal, 45 sophomore undergraduate students of English language teaching and translationin Payam-e-Noor University participated in this study. Initially, in order to homogenize the learners based on theirlevel of language proficiency, MEPT was administered. Then, by measuring the mean and standard deviation ofparticipants’ scores, the number of participants reduced to 35. The ultimate subjects’ scores on the readingcomprehension items of MEPT show that they are all at the intermediate level of reading ability. Participantsdivided into three experimental groups randomly: two groups were in the extensive reading program with differentform-focused and meaning-focused tasks as incidental vocabulary learning style. And the third group was in theintensive reading program as intentional vocabulary learning style. Participants in these experimental groups readlong stories or passages per week with ten goal-oriented words. After 8 weeks, Word Associates Test (WAT) andVocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) were administered to measure the acquired knowledge of new words and also,determining the effects of various learning styles on different dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. The results ofPaired-samples and Independent T-tests revealed that both incidental and intentional groups developed in the periodbetween the pre- and post-test, but, there was a significant difference between the effects of incidental vocabularylearning in the form of ER program and intentional vocabulary learning in the form of IR program. Moreover, therewas a significant difference between the effects of the form-focused and meaning-focused task.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 210-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ali Rahimi ◽  
Samira Mouri

This study aimed to explore the impact of computer-assisted language learning on Iranian EFL students’ vocabulary learning. Participants of the study were 76 students – 29 males and 47 females – learning English as a foreign language in Parto, Sadr, Poyesh and Andishe Institutes in Ahvaz who were selected after taking the Nelson English Language Test as a proficiency test. They were randomly divided into two groups. One group was taken as control and the other as experimental group. Both groups participated in the teacher-made test of vocabulary, Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), and Word-Associates Test (WAT) as pre-test. During class sessions the control group was taught the vocabulary, in the conventional way, through the printed textbook while the experimental group taught by the software version of the same book. Three ANCOVAs were run to compare the performance of experimental and control groups after the treatment period. The results of the ANCOVAs revealed that using vocabulary learning software was more effective than using printed book on vocabulary learning, vocabulary breadth, and vocabulary depth of the participants. The results of the present study could help EFL course book designers, foreign language institutes, educational planners, material developers, teachers, and learners to provide a better context for EFL learning. Keywords: computer-assisted instruction, computer-assisted language learning, information communication technology, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary teaching software.  


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Christine Manara

This paper is a teacher’s critical reflection on the implementation of an Extensive Reading (ER) Program in a teaching context with low resources of commercial graded readers. The paper presents the teacher's dialogue with the ten principles for ER in designing and implementing an ER program. During this process, there are several issues related to the education system and culture as well as the availability of L2 resources. The paper firstly starts with the initial reflection on the previous practices on teaching English reading at a tertiary level to identify the problems. Next, the rationale for initiating an Extensive Reading Course is laid out. Then, samples of teaching activities implemented during the program are presented. Lastly, reflective evaluation of the program is presented with several contextual and pedagogical considerations in working at a low English “commercial” resources context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 498-515
Author(s):  
Liudmyla Herasymenko ◽  
Svitlana Muravska ◽  
Maryna Lomakina ◽  
Nadiia Martynenko ◽  
Iuliia Mazurenko

English language proficiency is a vital requirement for air-to-ground communication for aviation specialists. A special attention should be paid to developing speaking skills of future pilots, air traffic controllers and engineers. Our research has shown that future aviation specialists come across certain challenges in the process of communication in English: insufficient aviation knowledge to give an opinion, low motivation to speak, poor grammatical skills and insufficient knowledge of vocabulary items, uneven participation in discussions, and fear of making mistakes. To overcome these challenges some recommendations were formulated for teachers to follow. The problem-solving activities were chosen and designed to enhance students’ speaking skills. They include value-clarification tasks, discussions, role-plays, information-gap activities, describing pictures, and discussing videos. This research aims to define the impact of applying these problem-solving activities on developing students’ speaking skills. 120 second year students in aviation specialties took part in this experiment. They were divided into a control and an experimental group of equal numbers. In both groups, the teachers taught the same Aviation English content which corresponded to the syllabus. In addition, in the experimental group the teacher implemented the problem-solving activities, which contributed significantly to the development of future aviation specialists’ speaking skills.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (34) ◽  
pp. 102-115
Author(s):  
Lamis Abdulkarim Al-Shuga’a ◽  
Kamariah Yunus ◽  
Mohammed Abdulgalil Abugohar

The cooperative learning method is one of the most effective student-centered learning methods used in teaching English language classes. It is an updated and effective pedagogic method that should be integrated into classrooms. The previously reviewed studies showed that the use of cooperative learning method may improve students’ knowledge of the language. This paper aims at investigating the impact of cooperative learning methods on Yemeni adult students’ knowledge of global issues vocabulary. The study employed an experimental method research design where the quantitative data collection method was conducted. A pretest and posttest (of the same test) were administered to the 25 respondents in the experimental group and the other 25 respondents in the control group. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 was used to analyse the difference between the two groups’ performance using the t-test. Results showed that the students in the experimental group performed significantly better than the students in the comparison group in the required tasks relating to global issues vocabulary knowledge. Findings also indicated that the cooperative learning method had positive effects on students’ vocabulary knowledge in classrooms. The participants gained confidence and their language skills were improved. Social skills like leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills were also developed. The study concludes that cooperative learning contributes to cognitive growth, increased autonomy and productivity of adult learners. The cooperative learning method should be integrated into English language classrooms to improve the growth and productive knowledge of students at the tertiary level.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-25
Author(s):  
Anna M. Maldoni ◽  
◽  
Emmaline L. Lear ◽  

Over the last 10 years the higher education sector has undergone a myriad of changes both in student demographics and the influx of international students. With these changes, concerns about the ability of students to meet the English language and academic demands of tertiary study have come to the forefront. This paper reports on a project of embedding academic literacy into nine units across four disciplines, which spanned the duration of a decade. The paper documents the process by which the Unit Support Program (USP) evolved from a discipline-based reading program in a university preparation context to an embedded, integrated and team-taught approach in the university mainstream. It sought to determine whether the introduction of the program improved student learning in the discipline, specifically in English language and academic literacy development. Using data drawn from over 2500 students relating to progression rates, final grades, participation levels, and qualitative data relating to student and staff perceptions, this longitudinal study demonstrated a positive relationship between embedding academic literacy in the disciplines and student learning. The added benefit of academic socialisation for staff is also a reported result of this study. Although significant ongoing institutional support is needed, this paper advocates that an embedded, integrated and team-taught model should be incorporated into the first year of study. Using a case study approach, this paper firstly explains the rationale to embed language and academic literacy development within disciplinary contexts; the framework from which the Unit Specific Model emanated; and the team teaching approach used in the delivery of the Unit Support Program (USP) across a variety of disciplines. It considers the comparative results for both participating and non-participating groups, and the impact of collaboration across the faculty on the success of USP. Finally the paper recommends strategies for the long term sustainability of these programs.


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