The Effectiveness of the Blended Learning in Enhancing EFL Learning and Collaboration

This descriptive-analytical study investigates undergraduates' perceptions and reflections toward adopting the Blended-Learning system in the university instructions. For this goal, the study employed two tools to collect data. Firstly, a) (n=38) pre-service teachers wrote reflection essays, and b) Google forms closed-ended five scales' questionnaire investigated the academic and interaction indicators, each consisting of thirty items, distributed among (n=110) pre-service teachers. The participants were majoring in English as a Foreign language at multi-stages, Saudi Arabia, 2020/2021. The study employed the content and the SPSS analysis. The questionnaire's results showed the undergraduates' positive perceptions toward combining online and face-to-face learning and how this environment improved their learning outcomes, created a collaborative community, fostered openness for sharing, asking, expressing, and getting talk-worthy ideas. The essays' content analysis reflected the undergraduates' experiences and how they enjoyed transitioning between online and face-to-face learning; they were satisfied by the ability to track their scores. These results created a continuous feedback loop correlated with their academic progress through various activities. However, they encountered a few challenges in online classes like a) missed face-to-face warm environment, b) lost attention, and c) missed instructors' nonverbal cues. Generalized, blended learning facilitated learners' knowledge by reducing education costs, distance, efforts, and time without reducing the students' benefits. The study recommends that the BL instructors have to show some enthusiasm and inspiration. The study proposes future research.

Paired Reading Strategy and Comprehension Level Among Grade 10 Students

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of paired – reading strategy in improving the reading comprehension of Grade ten learners. In this study, the subjects were profiled first about their age, sex, parents’ highest educational attainment, family income and availability of reading materials. Then, the subjects reading comprehension level was also determined before and after the exposure in paired – reading strategy.The subjects of this study are the Grade 10 – Ruby learners which are assigned as control group and Grade 10 – Jade learners which were assigned as experimental group. Both groups are enrolled in Palina East National High School, Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, where the study was conducted, during the school year 2019 – 2020.In this study, the researcher utilized descriptive research design in addressing the problems about the profile of the subjects and their reading comprehension level. Then, a quasi - experimental research design was also used to determine the effectiveness of paired reading strategy in improving the reading comprehension of the learners. And in gathering the data needed in this study, a test which is the Oral Reading Comprehension assessment was utilized.Findings of the study revealed that both groups, the control and the experimental group, are at the literal level of reading comprehension before exposing to paired – reading strategy, then after the experimentation, the control group reached the interpretive level of reading comprehension while the experimental group reached the applied level of reading comprehension. Results were further supported by the findings of test of difference between the post-test of both groups which revealed that the experimental group had statistically better performance compared to the control group. Thus, paired reading strategy is more effective than traditional teaching in facilitating reading comprehension among learners.

Hamlet as an Arab Intellectual: A Marxist Reading of Mamduh Adwan’s Play Hamlet Wakes Up Late

The paper aims at reading Mamduh Adwan’s play Hamlet Wakes up Late (1978) from a Marxist perspective to broadly examine how life under a Capitalist system along with its foreign investments and trading services can easily destroy the political, social as well as the cultural surroundings of a certain nation. Throughout his play, Adwan brilliantly adapts Shakespeare and offers a Marxist point of view to comment on how the West continues to dominate the East with its economic power. Importantly, in employing Shakespeare’s portrayal of Hamlet as a tragic hero, Adwan uses him as a dramatic archetype to comment on one of the Shakespearean’s famous political quotes “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Seen from this perspective, the paper will read Adwan’s play from a Marxist viewpoint to demonstrate how he has in fact used Hamlet’s lack of intellectualism to criticize the Syrian policy of “The Six Day War” defeat to Israel.

Teaching English to Young Learners: Second Language Acquisition or Foreign Language Learning? – A Case Study

A well-known, long-standing and heated debate across the literature concerning applied linguistics is whether within the classroom teachers are dealing with second language acquisition or second language learning. This controversial issue is especially relevant for contexts where English is learned as an English as an Additional Language (EAL) as in Portugal. This is particulalry important at a national level, where English is currently taught as a compulsory subject across primary education, with minimal input.However, the English language curriculum, its pedagogy, and assessment are not anchored on Content for Language and Integrated Learning (CLIL) principles, hence resorting mainly to the students’ mother tongue. As we move towards identifying and synthesizing best pedagogical practices for Teaching English to Young Learners, it is key that we seek a deep understanding of the most effective teaching strategies to foster second language acquisition. As the matter of fact, second language acquisition and overall literacy development have long been considered key to young learners of English, as a strong and solid primary education is critical to ensuring their long-term academic success (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Nonetheless, one major issue concerning primary English langauae teaching is the overwhelming lack of CPD opportunities and research-informed teaching, thus resulting in English language teachers’ unsufficient pedagogical preparation, leading in turn to students’ disengagement within the second language learning process.Therefore, this paper seeks to explore whether exposure to English-only language lessons, through cross-curricular work sets a viable and solid path for second language acquisition in contexts where it is commonly believed that it is only possible to learn English as a set of isolated words.As methodology for the present study there was resort to children’s literature, language games and to an English-only classroom environment to simulate a bilingual education classroom. Within storytelling and cross-curricular work, key vocabulary was taught, hence working the language both at word and sentence level.The findings, based in students’ samples of work, do illustrate pedagogical practices which demonstrate successful second language acquisition, namely morpheme order acquisition, even with minimal exposure to the target language.

Forming Critical Reading Skills in a Low-Intermediate Class of English

Critical reading skills constitute an important part of an independent critical reader and are often formed in advanced-level students. It is argued that low-level learners of English also need to get acquainted with the basics of critical reading in the first years of their tertiary education. The aim of this study is to define a range of critical reading elements the low intermediate EFL students can demonstrate within a three-month period of critical reading instruction. The experiment on establishing the students’ attitude to critical reading and defining their critical reading abilities while commenting on texts was conducted. The findings of the questionnaire showed the participants’ attitude to critical reading as the way to question and disagree with the author’s opinion rather than to analyze information. The participants considered themselves quite competent in critical reading but did not see the practical use of applying these skills. A three-month critical reading intervention was introduced and followed by writing final commentaries upon the given text. The survey after the intervention found that the students of the experimental group showed the ability to justify their judgments by supporting claims while commenting upon the given texts. They could also express disagreement with the opinion in the text more often than before the intervention. In the control group, the prevailing agreements with the author’s viewpoint in the commentaries rarely followed by justifications showed the students’ unwillingness to create new ideas and proved their passive roles in dealing with information. Thus, according to the experiment results, the range of critical reading strategies the low intermediate class demonstrated included expressing judgments and supporting claims, finding different points of view on the problem in the text, and expressing disagreement with the given opinion. The amount of irrelevant information the participants mentioned in their commentaries proved the necessity for further interventions in order to engender their critical literacy.

Conserving the Simalungun Language Maintenance through Demographic Community: The Analysis of Taboo Words Across Times

The research was intended to describe the use of Simalungun taboo words across times in Simalungun (1930-2021). The language of Simalungun is spoken by people living outside the district of Simalungun, North of Sumatera and other people. This research was carried out in a multi-case descriptive qualitative design. Descriptual qualitative research design was defined as a social science research approach that emphasised the collection, use of inductive thinking and understanding of descriptive data in natural environments. While multi case is defined as a study which is using two or more subjects, settings, or depositories of data (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982). Documentation, interviews and observations of participants were used to collect data on linguistic taboos. The data sources were collected from 45 informants of different ages (1930-2021) and sexes who reside in Pematangsiantar, Pematangraya and Saribudolok. After having analyzed the collected data, the research finding showed that there were 62 words out of 106 the taboo words of ten categories: sexual organ, sexual activity, cursing, swearing, calling people, action, disease, dwelling ghost and name of God which were used stably across time (from 1930 to 2021) in Simalungun are 62 words, out of 106 words.

The Effects of Trained Peer Feedback for High School Students

Peer feedback is proved to be effective in helping enhance students' writing quality, but few studies were employed to train high school students to be better peer reviewers. The current study involved 64 grade-11 students in a province in Vietnam to see whether trained peer feedback could be effective for high school students. The experimental group was trained to conduct peer feedback, while the control group did it naturally. The semester lasted for 16 weeks. Data collection was from the pre-test, post-tests, and semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that the most common errors that the students committed were grammar (verbs, articles, repositions), followed by vocabulary (word order, word choice, word form), and mechanics (capitalization, spelling, punctuation). In addition, the students in the experimental group who received peer feedback training could significantly reduce the written errors in the post-test. The students obtained positive attitudes towards peer feedback activities in the writing classroom.

Item Analysis of the Rasch Model Items in the Final Semester Exam Indonesian Language Lesson

This study aims to analyze and describe the characteristics of the items for the Final Semester Examination for Indonesian Language courses at the PKN STAN official high school. The item analysis in this study was carried out with a modern approach (item response theory) using the Rasch model with Winstep software. This research is a quantitative research with descriptive method. The data was obtained through the documentation method, namely 25 multiple choice questions with 314 respondents. The results of the analysis show that the unidimensional requirements are not met. There are several items in the test that do not meet the local independence requirements, while the monotonicity requirements have been met. The ability of the subject on this test is greater than the level of difficulty of the questions indicated. The reliability of the test is generally satisfactory with the quality of the items and the consistency of the subject's answers are quite good. Persons or subjects who do not fit are 28 people, while items that are not fit are 5 items. There are 11 items indicated bias.

Revisiting the Effectiveness of Blackboard Learning Management System in Teaching English in the Era of COVID-19

The study carries out a detailed review of the overall impact of deploying the Blackboard online platform in the EFL teaching-learning process. In pursuing this aim, this study has followed the narrative literature approach, using analytical and comparative techniques as primary research methods. Numerous studies have been analysed thoroughly to conclude whether these technology-oriented tools directly affect the EFL teaching-learning process. The study also provides a definitive opinion regarding the usefulness of blackboard technology. The analysis of literature pointed out that EFL classes were positively influenced when Blackboard technology was utilised. Blackboard technology’s advantages in EFL were found to outnumber their disadvantages. However, technical challenges remain in integrating this technology successfully into modern classrooms. It should also be noted that while such technology-based teaching tools are a step in the right direction, they should not be considered as a perfect replacement for time-tested teacher-student classroom interactions that happen organically in classrooms. Additional preparation is also required from both teachers and students to make a meaningful contribution to such technology-oriented classes. Particularly, teachers need much training, encouragement, and support to move towards further advanced and collaborating pedagogies online.

Reviewer Acknowledgements

World Journal of English Language wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal are greatly appreciated.World Journal of English Language is recruiting reviewers for the journal. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, we welcome you to join us. Please contact us for the application form at: [email protected] for Volume 11, Number 2Andrés Canga, University of La Rioja, SpainChunlin Yao, Tianjin Chengjian University, ChinaDaniel Ginting, Universitas Ma Chung, IndonesiaDon Anton Balida, Oman Tourism College, OmanElena Alcalde Peñalver, University of Alcalá, SpainEmine Bala, Tishk International University, IraqGhadah Al Murshidi, The United Arab Emirates University, UAEHameed Yahya Ahmed Al-Zubeiry, Al-Baha University, Saudi ArabiaHossein Salarian, University of Tehran, IranHouaria Chaal, Hassiba Ben Bouali University of Chlef, AlgeriaJasna Potocnik Topler, University of Maribor, SloveniaKanthimathi Krishnasamy, Shrimathi Devkunvar Nanalal Bhatt Vaishnav College for Women, IndiaKenan Yerli, Sakarya University, TurkeyLeila Lomashvili, Shawnee State University, USALi Ping Chang, Department of Applied Foreign Languages, National Taipei College of Business, TaiwanMaria del Mar Sanchez Ramos, University of Alcalá, SpainMaria Isabel Maldonado Garcia, Al-Andalus Institute of Languages University of Lahore, PakistanMaría Luisa Carrió, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, SpainMuhammed Ibrahim Hamood, University of Mosul, IraqMustafa Ar, Ar-Raniry State Islamic University, IndonesiaNitin Malhotra, St. Theresa International College, Bangkok, ThailandÖzkanal, Ümit, Eskisehir Osmangazi University Foreign Languages Department, TurkeyPatnarin Supakorn, Walailak University, ThailandPham Vu Phi Ho, Van Lang University, VietnamScott-Monkhouse Anila Ruth, Language Centre – University of Parma (Italy), ItalyŞenel, Müfit, 19 Mayıs University, TurkeyShalini Yadav, Compucom Institute of Technology and Management, IndiaTeguh Budiharso, State Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIN) of Surakarta, Indonesia, IndonesiaWafi Fhaid Alshammari, University of Ha’il, Saudi ArabiaWenjie Shi, Central University of Finance and Economics, China