scholarly journals An Investigation into English Language Instructors' and Students’ Intercultural Awareness

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Yılmaz ◽  
Yonca Özkan
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Intercultural Awareness ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Language Instructors ◽  
Language Students

The role of English as a global language has been increasing greatly in importance for the past few decades, giving rise to different varieties of English spoken by native and non-native English speakers all around the world. It has pointed to the need to raise intercultural awareness in English language classes. This study aims to reveal teacher and student perspectives of intercultural awareness regarding ownership of English and cultural integration in English language classes in Turkey. A mixed method research investigation was used in this descriptive case study. Questionnaires were employed to collect data from 45 English language instructors and 92 English language students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight English language instructors, and focus group interviews were conducted with 24 English language students. The quantitative data was analyzed via SPSS 20 and the qualitative data was analyzed via NVivo 10.0 qualitative data software. The findings revealed that while both instructors and students seemed to be aware of the importance of intercultural awareness in English language teaching, their perspectives didn’t indicate a thorough intercultural point of view. The findings yielded several significant implications including the need to develop an intercultural curriculum, textbook, and teacher training programs to enhance intercultural awareness in English language teaching and learning process.

scholarly journals The peace tree in ELT: A problematizing exploration

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-57
Author(s):  
Yeraldine Aldana Gutiérrez
Keyword(s):  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Knowledge Construction ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Alternative Reading

The English language teaching (ELT) field has undergone transformations regarding its views on knowledge and language. Although instrumental perspectives situate English teachers in a passive, receptive and technical position, their research and pedagogical work displays an interest in extracurricular phenomena about Peace Construction (PC) in ELT. This qualitative exploratory study aimed at unveiling possible connections between PC and ELT in Colombia. Documental revision and semi-structured interviews were applied with 4 English teachers. Findings discuss an organic metaphor as facilitating “teachers’ situated knowledge construction” (Serna, 2018, p. 585). Thus, a critical reflection is developed on how ELT and PC may articulate one another towards an alternative reading on their possible relationality or the reduction of the canonical distance imagined between these two fields, in order to acknowledge their interconnection. Conclusions around the multifaceted transdisciplinary ELT field are presented.

scholarly journals Arab English Language Teaching Candidates Climbing the IELTS Mountain: A Qualitatively Driven Hermeneutic Phenomenology Study

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Al-Issa ◽  
Ali Al-Bulushi ◽  
Rima Al-Zadjali
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Hermeneutic Phenomenology ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Structured Interviews

As a high-stakes international language proficiency benchmark, the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) requires different and special Language Learning Strategies (LLS), which pose numerous challenges to its takers. Some Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT), have therefore, failed to achieve an overall score of Band 6 on the IELTS as a language proficiency requirement and a condition mandated by the Ministry of Education for selecting English language teachers among. This qualitatively driven hermeneutic phenomenology study, hence, discusses this issue from an ideological perspective. The study triangulates data from semi-structured interviews made with six fourth-year ELT Student Teachers (STs) at SQU and the pertinent literature. The critical discussion revealed various ideologies about the powerful impact of the IELTS on the STs’ English language development. The findings have important implications for the practices of the teachers in the Omani ELT school system and elsewhere.

scholarly journals Teachers’ Beliefs, Praxes, and Post-method Pedagogy in English Language Teaching

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-102
Author(s):  
Remedios C Bacus
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Teachers Beliefs ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Quantitative Design ◽  
Language Teaching Methods ◽  
Personal Assessment

To address the challenge of identifying an effective English language teaching pedagogy, this study explored the Grade 10 teachers (n=50) and students’ (n=2,221) beliefs of effective language teaching methods and the teachers’ classroom practices. It further investigated the convergence and divergence of the teachers’ and students’ beliefs and the teachers’ practices along with the pedagogic parameters of practicality and particularity. Using the descriptive quantitative design, the findings revealed the convergence of responses between (a) teachers’ and students’ beliefs of effective language methods, and (b) teachers’ beliefs and their practices. Analysis of responses also revealed the pedagogic parameters of practicality and particularity in the conduct of their English language classes. Teachers continually engage in the cycle of personal assessment to increase their autonomy in formulating enlightened choices responsive to the students’ needs. It is imperative that English teachers be engaged in programs that support their awareness of local exigencies to strengthen their belief systems on post-method pedagogy.

scholarly journals Situating English Language Teaching in Indonesia within a Critical, Global Dialogue of Theories: A Case Study of Teaching Argumentative Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding Courses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ribut Wahyudi
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Practices ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Curriculum Policy ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Cultural Understanding

<p>This dissertation aims to critically examine lecturers’ discursive statements in interviews and English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom practices in Indonesia, primarily in the teaching of Argumentative Writing (AW) and Cross Cultural Understanding (CCU) courses at two universities (Multi-Religious and Islamic University) in Java. This study uses poststructural and interdisciplinary lenses: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA); Connell’s (2007) ideas of Southern Theory, Kumaravadivelu’s (2006b) Post Method Pedagogy, and Al-Faruqi’s (1989) and Al-Attas’ (1993) Islamisation of knowledge, as well as the critiques of these theories and other postcolonial voices. The critical examination of ELT practices through poststructural and interdisciplinary lenses in an Indonesian context is urgent, as teaching practices at present are subjected by competing regimes of ‘truth’ including Western, neoliberal, Southern, and Islamic discourses. The data were collected from curriculum policy documents, semi structured interviews, stimulated recalls and classroom observations from seven lecturers. The data were then transcribed and analysed primarily using FDA and also discussed in relation to other interdisciplinary theories, the critiques of these theories, and other relevant postcolonial literatures. Within the analysis there is a particular focus on how ELT Methods and World Englishes are enacted, negotiated, or resisted by lecturers.  This study strongly suggests that Western discourses have dominated other regimes of truth, as evidenced in the privileging of process and genre approaches, global Northern structures of AW essay, as well as an emphasis on American and British English in AW courses and the privileging of those two dominant English varieties in CCU courses in most contexts. The study also suggests there are tensions between religious discourse and emerging neoliberal discourses in national policies and university documents and some lecturers’ language. Southern discourses seem to have been marginalised and seem to be only resorted to support the use of Western discourses in the classroom teaching. The use of FDA and interdisciplinary lenses, along with their critiques and other postcolonial voices, are underexplored in current studies of ELT practices. Therefore, this study extends scholarship in the ELT field and makes a case for exposing lecturers to counter discourses, such as Southern and Islamic discourses, in order for them to be able to critically negotiate or appropriate Western and neoliberal discourses in their teaching practices.</p>

scholarly journals Classroom Politics

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109
Author(s):  
Mirjana Želježič
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Pure Research

What we are faced with at present is a blatant neoliberal transformation of universities, whose social relevance depends increasingly on the ability to serve the needs of neoliberal capitalism. If we see this as a problem – as many of us do – then we also feel the need to defend (and develop) the traditional practices of universities, such as “pure” research and critical reflection on society. Yet such a response, inevitably, goes hand in hand with critique of and struggle against ideology behind capitalism itself, against the logic of competition and profit. Drawing on the legacy of Freire and Althusser, the article highlights some of the links between the English language teaching and the neoliberal politics, and gives suggestions about ways in which departments of English in general, and language classes in particular, can be a part of the socially critical forces rather than a part of the so-called liberal-progressive camp.

scholarly journals Effects of Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) Approach and Language Assessment on Students’ Competences in Intensive Reading Course

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shijun Chen ◽  
Jing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Intensive Reading

Task-based language teaching on the purpose of enhancing students&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s own teaching practice to explore positive impacts on students&rsquo; 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&rsquo; 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.

scholarly journals Pedagogical knowledge in English language teaching: A lifelong-learning, complex-system perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Babak Dadvand ◽  
Foad Behzadpoor
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Classroom Management ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Pedagogical Knowledge ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
System Perspective

Pedagogical knowledge has been the subject of theoretical and empirical studies. However, no research has so far integrated the existing scholarship with data to develop and validate a framework for pedagogical knowledge in English language teaching informed by lifelong-learning, complex-system perspectives. In the absence of such research, we used a mixed method research design through a systematic review of the literature, semi-structured interviews with experienced teachers (N=10) and teacher educators (N=10), as well as a survey of 336 practising teachers in Iran to: (1) develop a framework for pedagogical knowledge; and (2) validate this framework by designing a self-assessment questionnaire for pedagogical knowledge. Our analyses yielded a nine-component model that included: knowledge of subject matter; knowledge of teaching; knowledge of students; knowledge of classroom management; knowledge of educational context; knowledge of democracy, equity and diversity; knowledge of tests/exams; knowledge of learning; and knowledge of (professional) self. Within this nine-factor framework, each component of pedagogical knowledge consists of a number of subcomponents. The proposed framework highlights the multidimensionality and complexity of pedagogical knowledge, and the mutually constitutive relationships among different knowledge domains.

scholarly journals Lights, camera, action!: Using cinematographic genre in English language classes

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. e414101321352
Author(s):  
Eristoteles Pegado Andrade ◽  
Amilcar Ximenes de Albuquerque Junior ◽  
Márcio Aurélio Carvalho de Morais
Keyword(s):  
Professional Education ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Technological Education ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Short Films ◽  
Language Classes

This study consists of an academic activity carried out in a master's degree in Professional and Technological Education (PROFEPT) of Instituto Federal do Piauí (IFPI) in progress. The use of the short film genre in English language teaching becomes relevant as it allows the student the opportunity to practice and understand the language orally and critically. In this context, this article sought in the epistemological way to discuss the dyad education and work and their conceptions and interrelationships in professional and technological education, as well as to present a prior state of the art on the use of short films in the English language teaching in technology in contemporary society. From a qualitative perspective, this systematic literature review used as references: journals, dissertations, theses and books, found through the following databases: SciELO, Portal Capes and Google Scholar. Therefore, due to the aspects mentioned in this academic-scientific investigation, it was possible to show that the short film genre is a pedagogical strategy to promote the praxis of conversation in English language classes with students in the High School Technical Professional Education, considering contextualization and interdisciplinarity as guiding principles, thus ensuring the inseparability between theory and social practice. This research seeks to highlight the conceptions, possibilities and challenges in contemporary English language teaching, through the short film genre.

scholarly journals Viewpoints of Intercultural Competence Development in English Language Teaching / Learning Classroom

Verbum ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 95-105
Author(s):  
Roma Kriaučiūnienė ◽  
Auksė Šiugždinienė
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Teaching Learning

The article presents an analysis of viewpoints on the development of intercultural competence in the English language teaching/learning classroom. Intercultural competence, acknowledged as the key component of foreign language studies, increases the need to adapt teaching methods and materials to raise learners’ cultural awareness. The following research problem is formulated: how schoolchildren’s intercultural competence is developed at schools during English language classes and what the preconditions of its improvement are. Based on the survey carried out at secondary schools and gymnasiums, the article presents the findings on the ninth and tenth formers’ viewpoints regarding the extent to which cultural activities are incorporated into their English language classroom. The respondents’ answers indicated that the present practices for the development of intercultural competence in the English language classroom are not sufficient. A conclusion is made that the English language teaching/ learning process should be more purposefully aimed at developing all the dimensions of learners’ intercultural competence.

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