scholarly journals Exploring the Relationship between Social Capitals and English Language Achievement within a Specific Grade and Context

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebrahim Khodadady ◽  
Reza Pishghadam ◽  
Farnaz Farokh Alaee
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Dogan Yuksel ◽  
Samantha Curle ◽  
Sibel Kaya

This article explores the relationship between Turkish undergraduate students’ language learning mindsets, English language achievement, and English medium instruction (EMI) academic success. Student test score data on an EMI course and an English language course were collected from fourth year students studying mechatronics engineering (n = 68) and business administration (n = 75) at a public university. Students also responded to the Language Learning Mindsets Inventory (Lou & Noels, 2019). Regression analyses revealed that both incremental (positively) and entity (negatively) mindsets predicted academic success in engineering. Neither mindset was a statistically significant predictor of mechatronics engineering students’ English language achievement. Business administration students’ academic success and English language achievement were both statistically significantly predicted by both incremental (positively) and entity (negatively) mindsets. These results are discussed according to discipline-based differences in EMI courses and pedagogical implications are explored.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 328
Author(s):  
Ebrahim Khodadady ◽  
Mozhgan Ashrafborji

This study aimed to 1) explore the social capitals of students who had registered in the three branches of Khorasan Language Institute (KLI) to learn English, 2) establish their factorial validity and 3) explore their relationship with English language achievement. To this end the 40-item Social Capital Scale (SCS) developed by Khodadady and Alaee (2012) and validated with grade three senior high school students in Mashhad was modified and administered to 493 female English language learners (ELLs) in the KLI. The application of Principal Axis Factoring and Varimax with Kaiser Normalization to the collected data showed that the SCS consisted of seven factors, i.e., Social Attachment, Parental Supervision, Parental Expectation, Helpful Others, Social Contact, Religious Activities, and Parent Availability. When the SCS was correlated with the ELLs’ scores on oral and written examinations, no significant relationship could be found between social capitals and English language achievement. Out of seven factors, only Helpful Others correlated significantly but negatively with ELLs' English achievement. The results are discussed from both empirical and theoretical perspectives and suggestions are made for future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulmalik Usman ◽  
Dahiru Musa Abdullahi

The paper seeks to investigate the level of productive knowledge of ESL learners, the writing quality and the relationship between the vocabulary knowledge and the writing quality. 150 final year students of English language in a university in Nigeria were randomly selected as respondents. The respondents were asked to write an essay of 300 words within one hour. The essays were typed into Vocab Profiler of Cobb (2002) and analyzed the Lexical Frequency Profile of the respondents. The essays were also assessed by independent examiners using a standard rubric. The findings reveal that the level of productive vocabulary knowledge of the respondents is limited. The writing quality of the majority of the respondent is fair and there is a significant correlation between vocabulary and the witting quality of the subjects. The researchers posit that productive vocabulary is the predictor of writing quality and recommend various techniques through which teaching and learning of vocabulary can be improved.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272110272
Author(s):  
Maura R. Cremin ◽  
Bogdan G. Popescu

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between ISIS propaganda content and ISIS-inspired attacks by those outside of the group’s control. We examine the content of ISIS’ English language magazines, as well as speeches by two of its top leaders. We find that statements made about enemy countries in most contexts are not associated with a higher likelihood of violence in those countries. However, when a country is mentioned in ISIS propaganda in the context of its participation in the air campaign, this corresponds to an increased likelihood that the country will experience a violent attack. This suggests that propaganda highlighting key military adversaries may play a role in directing attackers that are outside the control of the organization’s hierarchy to the group’s preferred targets.


Pragmatics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Petraki ◽  
Sarah Bayes

Research in English language teaching has highlighted the importance of teaching communication skills in the language classroom. Against the backdrop of extensive research in everyday communication, the goal of this research was to explore whether current discourse analytic research is reflected in the lessons and communication examples of five English language teaching textbooks, by using spoken requests as the subject of investigation. The textbooks were evaluated on five criteria deriving from research on politeness, speech act theory and conversation analysis. These included whether and the extent to which the textbooks discussed the cultural appropriateness of requests, discussed the relationship of requests and other contextual factors, explained pre-sequences and re-requests and provided adequate practice activities. This study found that none of the coursebooks covered all of the criteria and that some coursebooks actually had very inadequate lessons. The results of the textbook analysis demonstrate that teachers using these five coursebooks and designers of future coursebooks must improve their lessons on requests by using pragmatics research and authentic examples as a guide.


Linguaculture ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Cook

Abstract The first part of this paper considers approaches to teacher education for EFL developed during the 1960s-1990s, drawing upon two sources: the taxonomy of three approaches proposed by Wallace (1991) and personal reminiscence. It discusses each of Wallace's approaches in turn: craft, 'applied science', and reflective practice.The second part considers whether these approaches are adequate models for teacher education now. I suggest that while they are still relevant, they are also too inward looking for contemporary needs.They need to be supplemented with a more outward looking approach, in which teachers are prepared to engage with four aspects of the contemporary context: new communication technologies, the new global linguistic landscape, the relationship between English and learners' own languages, and the rival political views of English language learning as promoting either a global neoliberal agenda or a global civil society.


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