scholarly journals Formative Assessment: Master Trainers’ Attitude and Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Noraini Abd Samad ◽  
◽  
Zolkepeli Haron ◽  

Formative Assessment (FA) as discussed by Black and Wiliam (1998) was introduced to English teachers in 2018 through English Language Education Reform which aligns the curriculum, teaching and learning, and assessment to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). A group of teachers were handpicked by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to undergo a centralized training regarding FA with Cambridge Assessment in English Language Training Centre (ELTC). These teachers were then appointed as Master Trainers (MT) and were tasked to train teachers all over the country. However, two years after the introduction, little application of the assessment can be seen in schools. Hence, the research focusses on the MTs to see whether they themselves possess good attitude towards the assessment and practise the principles of assessment. Data was collected from 40 MTs all over Malaysia through a questionnaire which was distributed online. Overall, data from the questionnaire have revealed that the participants have positive attitudes towards FA and the assessment is an establishing practice in their classroom. Even though there is a positive correlation between attitude and practice, attitude is found to play a small role. Therefore, more support should be provided by MOE to teachers as to ensure assessment for learning is practised widely by English teachers in the nation.

Author(s):  
Susi Andriani Simanjuntak ◽  
◽  
Hsi-Nancy Lien

This study investigated the potentials and obstacles to learn and teach English as an international language (EIL) approach in one of senior high schools, in Tebing Tinggi. Indonesia. EIL is embracing the language variations among nations included native and nonnative English language. In our increasingly diverse communities, this approach is a talkback to the monolingual focus in ELT pedagogy and pay much attention to multilingual in the local and global communities and also situated English language education in global/local multilingualism. There were 6 English teachers and two classes (grade 1 and grade 2 which were approximately 60 students) in senior high school were interviewed designed to gain an understanding of both English teachers and students’ perspectives on English as international language (EIL) to get deep information about their tensions, conflicts, struggle, and challenges EIL teachers and students may experience before and after teaching and learning of EIL approach in five meetings. From this result, we could see there were some fertilities and infertilities that we got from implementing and acknowledging this approach. The fertilities that we cultivated were the students learned these topics as knowledge, embracing bright future of learning English, getting to know foreigners and countries, good experience with international friends, learn about their own country (transforming, reflecting themselves as Indonesia, proud to be Indonesia), well understanding the function of English, and fulfil the students’ needs. The other side, the infertilities of implementing EIL approach were they had deficit perspective toward themselves; they did not know about Englishes since it was never taught by their English teachers, bad environment from their community, their preferences and saw Englishes as an error and wrong perception about Englishes, and facilitation and resources as well. From the teachers’ perspective, there were also controversial and possibilities of teaching EIL in this school. They welcomed to the nature of English and getting to know EIL approach, well understanding of English as a tool for students’ future, and willing to pursue English teaching effectively. But, they concerned to the students’ problems, teaching beliefs, preferences, lack of understanding of English variation diversity, curriculum and textbooks. Those problems made them afraid to make any risk, little faith to apply EIL, and created two different worlds of English standard and nonstandard English. By seeing those results bear fruitful pedagogical implications for learning and teaching English, they are meta-awareness; broaden exposure of English learning and teaching, and open English pedagogy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 177-189
Author(s):  
Mohamad Syafiq Ya Shak ◽  
Norasyikin Abdul Malik ◽  
Nuru Ain Hasni ◽  
Mohd Haniff Mohd Tahir

The present study aims to further explore Malaysian secondary English teachers’ perspective on the use of PULSE 2 in their language classrooms, after three years of its introduction in Malaysian secondary schools. The study is qualitative in nature, employing semi-structured interview as the approach for data collection the data. However, due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) the study was conducted through a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) application, WhatsApp. ATLAS ti. was employed to perform the content analysis to the collected data. The findings revealed that the respondents preferred to use imported English textbooks with local modifications in their language classroom.  Most of them also felt that the level of the language content and skills offered by PULSE2 did not match with their students’ abilities. They also reported grouses about the difficult foreign content of PULSE 2, which indicated that they have yet to change their mind about it even after using it for three years. It is suggested that relevant stakeholders such as the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) to review the use of imported textbooks such as PULSE 2 in Malaysia, as this will bear an impact on the creation of the country’s version of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) called ‘CEFR-M’ as projected in the on-going English Language Education Reform in Malaysia by 2025. Not only that, selecting a textbook that is relatable, localized, and matches the students’ level is crucial in this COVID-19 era, where the new normal in education forces learning to be done remotely. Inevitably, there will be students who are less privileged, and  their only hope to gain access to continuous education is through a textbook that can easily be used for self-study and is readily available, without having the needs to have access to advanced technological devices.


Author(s):  
Dentik Karyaningsih ◽  
Puji Siswanto

Lecture courses in the English Language Education Study Program of STKIP Setiabudhi Rangkasbitung are still conducted in face-to-face class, so the students who do not attend lectures cannot know the pronunciation material at that time, because the Pronunciation course is a practical course in the English pronunciation system. The E-Learning Pronunciation is built so that lectures can be carried out anywhere and anytime without reducing the quality of the teaching and learning process. Therefore, the students who are left behind can continue to follow the Pronunciation course material, as well as habituating students in utilizing communication and information technology. E-Learning Pronunciation is important to be built to improve the ability of students’ pronunciation when doing distance learning, so that students are clearer and more firm in understanding Pronunciation so that there are no errors in English pronunciation. Participants in this study were first semester students of English education study programs. This study uses an experimental research design with the Prototype System development method and system of testing uses Black box testing.


Author(s):  
Wenyang Sun ◽  
Xue Lan Rong

Language education is becoming an increasingly important topic in education in Asian countries, especially as schools in Asian countries have become more multilingual and multicultural as a result of rapid urbanization and globalization. A comparative analysis of the issues in language education reform in Asian countries—using China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore as examples—shows that, historically and currently, English language education policies are shaped by various underpinning ideologies such as linguicism, nationalism, and neoliberalism. English can serve as a vehicle for upward socioeconomic mobility, or an instrument of linguistic imperialism, or both, in Asia contexts. These ideologies, through language education policies and reforms, impact the status as well as the pedagogy and promotion of the English language. There is a trend and a need with regard to addressing critical consciousness in English education in order to counter the forces of linguicism and neoliberalism in an increasingly multilingual, multicultural, and globalized world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Jinjin Lu ◽  
Yingliang Liu

<p>Enhancing students’ learning autonomy has been emphasized in the current round of English curriculum reforms by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in China. The initial aim of the new guidelines was developed to enhance students’ English proficiency to better fulfil their basic education (Nine-year compulsory education). However, up until now, very little is known about the quality of students’ basic education and their learner autonomy development. This paper uses the English language subject as a case to examine the relationship between the different locations of students’ attendance of their basic education and their learner autonomy development at university level. The result shows that secondary schools’ locations play a more important role in students’ learner autonomy development at university. A ‘Have A Go’ model is proposed to improve students’ transition between high schools and universities in the English language learning process.</p>


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):  
Rachel Koross

<div><p><em>Micro teaching is a method that has been used since 1960s in teaching and learning environments to enhance prospective teacher’ instructional experiences. Microteaching is a remarkable technique that is used in teacher education programs to offer valuable opportunities for trainee teachers to develop effective teaching strategies. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences, competencies, and perceptions of 100 pre-service teacher trainees from the Kiswahili language Education program in the school of education, University of Eldoret Kenya. A combinations of quantitative and qualitative techniques were used and a questionnaire and focus group interview were used to collect data from the respondents. The findings indicate that prospective teachers gained a variety of experiences and competencies from micro teaching and that majority of them have positive attitudes toward micro teaching as a training technique. </em></p></div>


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Hanae AIT HATTANI

<p>With English becoming the world’s lingua franca and the proliferating scientific and technological advances, English language education has been gradually shifting from its classical applications such as EFL (English as a foreign language) or ESL (English as a second language) toward new paradigms like English for specific purposes (ESP). The most important and problematic question in ESP teaching and learning is whether the course is effective or not. ESP is student-task oriented, thus, measuring its effectiveness is strongly related to measuring learners’ attitudes, needs, expectations, satisfaction, and achievement. For this purpose, this study attempted to investigate ESP needs analysis of Moroccan university students, case study of renewable energy engineering students at the Higher School of Technology (ESTF).  The research was conducted using quantitative surveys d. The data was gathered from 30 undergraduate renewable energy engineering students. The study findings confirmed that the participant students have highly favorable attitudes towards English language for both their personal and professional careers. However, the survey results indicated that these students have some difficulties with English language productive skills, namely speaking and writing, in addition to some other sub-skills. Therefore, this research suggests a reform at the level of ESP teaching and learning curricular, focusing on the incorporation of innovative approached and methods that aims at enhancing students’ language acquisition and competency.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-58
Author(s):  
Chin-Wen Chien

This study analyzed eight Taiwanese English as a foreign language student teachers’ metaphors to explore their self and professional identity. This study has four major findings. First, metaphor writing was able to reveal important information about student teachers’ professional identities. Second, in terms of teaching demonstrations, metaphors written by those who taught and those who observed were different, being seen as variously as an “adventure” or a “carousel,” for instance, due to their different teaching and learning experiences. Third, their metaphors or metaphor discussions were not in-depth revelations of their understanding and knowledge of English language teaching. Fourth, these participants held positive attitudes toward metaphor writing, analysis, and discussion as “useful for reflection.”


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