Cultural threads in oral presentations

Author(s): Elena Savu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2014

Foreign language education in the 21st century does no longer focus on the merely linguistic competence, but rather on instructing our learners how to use the language communicatively. Given the globalization we are experiencing, communicative competence equally involves cultural awareness as a means to effectively communicate with other people who do not share the some cultural background. Oral presentations are complex classroom activities that can train learners to become competent oral communicators who are culturally sensitive. This paper will discuss the impact that culture has on oral competence and signal some important cultural cues learners should be made aware of when delivering live presentations.

"Blended Learning": Concept and Implementation in Language Learning

Author(s): Stefan COLIBABA / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2007

The aim of this article is to offer the reader an overview of the concept of "blended learning" and of the advantages of using this approach in language learning/ teaching. After online learning exposure has fallen short of creating real group bonding, the rise of the blended learning approach has given a fresh impetus to the role new technologies have in education in general and in language education in particular. Its key features are illustrated with examples of how blended learning methodology functions in the context of a number of language learning courses elaborated in two European Lingua projects called TOOL 2 and ALL, respectively.

"Fit für Europa". Spracherwerb und (Inter)Kulturelles im studienbegleitenden Deutschunterricht

Author(s): Lora Constantinescu / Language(s): German / Issue: 1/2009

Fit for Europe – it is the core idea of a unit in a new book for teaching German for Special Purposes ("Mit Deutsch in Europa"/A2-B1). FL-acquisition means linguistic communication patterns and sometimes different cultural perceptions as well as the attribution of (possibly) different meanings. Therefore, the learners should be offered means and opportunities to get insights into what the foreign cultural background holds. It is the aim of this paper to highlight some basic theoretical positions and practical aspects when teaching German to students of Economics on L2-level. The focus lies on the chances/challenges of integrating a "blended choice" of L2-competences, business and intercultural communication skills.

"I am years seven old." Acquisition of English word order by Bosnian and Turkish children

Author(s): Azamat Akbarov,Larisa Ðapo / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

This paper aims to investigate differences in the acquisition of English word order between Bosnian and Turkish students resulting from word order in these two languages (Bosnian and Turkish). In second language acquisition, the knowledge of the native language (L1) in acquisition of a foreign language (L2) can indeed have a facilitating or inhibiting effect on the learner’s progress in mastering a new language. Thirty children from the first grade at the International School of Sarajevo were tested. Some of them attended the kindergarten where English was a language of communication and the rest of them had six months of exposure of English in school settings. We wanted to find possible differences in acquiring word order in English in these groups of children as well. This study offers new results for acquiring correct word order in English.

"Земя" и "пустиня" в българската фразеология

Author(s): Ekaterina Struganova / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2017

This article is dedicated to analyses of Bulgarian idioms stemming from semantic fields centred round "earth” and "desert” from the point of view of cultural linguistics. An attempt has been made to classify cultural markers which were found in our material published in the phraseological dictionaries.

(Trzeba) wyjść poza tekst

Author(s): Urszula Swoboda-Rydz / Language(s): English / Issue: 24/2017

Reading is a complex skill which is indispensable in order to be successful in pursuing a scientific career. While reading specialist texts, it is necessary to go through the literal, inferential and creative-evaluative levels of comprehension. For an inexperienced reader, who is already familiar with the basic terminology in a relevant field, specialist texts may pose difficulty since they need critical approach. It means using experience and knowledge beyond the text, and also the ability to ask adequate questions. Moving beyond the text gives the reader an opportunity to have an insight into the problem. Two examples used in the workshop show how teachers may prepare students to read specialist texts. Czytanie jest złożonym procesem, który jest nieodzowny w skutecznym rozwoju kariery naukowej. Podczas czytania tekstów specjalistycznych zachodzi konieczność przejścia przez poziom dosłowny, domyślny oraz twórczo-oceniający. Dla niedoświadczonego czytelnika, który już zapoznał się z podstawową terminologią z danej dziedziny, specjalistyczne teksty mogą stanowić trudność, ponieważ potrzebne jest mu również krytyczne podejście. To oznacza wykorzystanie doświadczenia i wiedzy, które są poza tekstem, oraz umiejętność zadania odpowiednich pytań. Wyjście poza tekst daje czytelnikowi szansę lepszego zrozumienia zagadnienia. Dwa przykłady wykorzystane podczas warsztatów dają przykład, jak nauczyciele mogą przygotować studentów do czytania tekstów specjalistycznych.

/fɑɪs/, /fes/ or /feɪs/? Teachers’ phonetic accommodation of diphthongs in an L2 classroom setting

Author(s): Piotr Steinbrich / Language(s): English / Issue: 11/2016

The following paper aims to investigate whether, and if so to what extent, native speaker teachers resort to phonetic accommodation in the use of diphthongs in the classroom setting. In the course of analysis, seven native speaker teachers, each representing a different variety of British English, were recorded in two distinct contexts: classroom and natural. The recordings were used in acoustic analysis in order to gauge potential differences in F1 and F2 in each context. It was concluded that phonetic accommodation does occur in the classroom setting and the modifications of either individual segments or the whole glides can be observed, irrespective of the native accent of the user. It was found, however, that the speakers representing northern varieties of English accommodate more than those speaking with other accents. Another important observation resulting from the analysis was that some diphthongs are likely to undergo phonetic accommodation more than others. On the one end of the cline we observe the diphthong price, whereas the other end is occupied by the glides goat and cure. It is still unclear, however, whether the modifications occur consciously, thus representing a rather developed declarative knowledge of the users, or subconsciously, which would suggest an inner need to attempt to pronounce diphthongs in a standardized way.

100 години Лекторат по български език и литература в Карловия университет в Прага

Author(s): Milena Prikrylová / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 33/2016

4;0-6;0 Yaş (48-72 Aylar) Arasındaki Çocukların Ad-Eylem Kullanımları

Author(s): Gülsün Seda Gökmen / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 137/2007

Within the language acquisition researches, the main focusing subject is searching the dominant usage of word category among acquisition and usage. In the findings through the researches, it takes part that noun spurt phenomenon does not have the same validity within the all databases and all languages. This study is based on the natural speech context of the 4-6 years old children groups. Also this is study is dealed with whether there is the noun bias in noun usage of children who acquired Turkish and are in later period. The most important finding of this study is determining that there is the dominance of verb usage rather than noun category which is also valid for either in three age groups. Additionally, it was found that the higher usage ratio of the verb type is the event category.

50LANGUAGES: A MOBILE LANGUAGE LEARNING APPLICATION

Author(s): Musa Nushi,Mohamad Hosein Eqbali / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

review

7. Sınıf İngilizce Ders Kitaplarında Cinsiyet Kavramı

Author(s): Hatice Çubukçu,Pinar Sivasligil / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 137/2007

This study aims to investigate ELT textbooks from the perspective of gender ideology underlying the representations of female and male figures, considering that coursebooks play an important role in children’s development of ‘gender’. The 7th grade English coursebook published by the Turkish Ministry of Education has been selected as the object of investigation, mainly because they are used by a large population at state schools. Both verbal and non verbal features of the textbooks have been analyzed through the content analysis, and discourse analysis has been applied to the verbal components to depict any possible power assymmetries reflected through language between two genders.

8. Sınıf Türkçe Ders Kitaplarındaki Metinlerin Metinsellik Ölçütlerine Uygunlukları

Author(s): Esra Lüle Mert / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 153/2011

The problem sentence of the study which aims to evaluate the compatibility of fictional and pragmatic texts in 8. grade Turkish textbooks with textuality criteria, is determined as “Are the texts in 8. grade Turkish textbooks compatible with textuality criteria?” This study is assumed to be important as it will provide feedback regarding the determination of textualities of the texts in Turkish textbooks. The data source of this study which depends on scanning model are the pragmatic and fictional texts in Turkish textbooks that were distributed to 8.grade students in city of Malatya in 2012-2013 academic year. There aare totally 19 texts in the book. 8 of the texts that are going to be examined are fictional texts and 11 of them are pragmatic texts. In the study, the textuality criteria suggested by İşeri (2010) was used as source. Only in 1 of the 19 texts (8 fictional and 11 pragmatic) (Memories and Documents about Ataturk) there is one to one compatibility with the determined textuality criteria. The texts being fictional or pragmatic did not effect their compatibility / incompatibility with textuality criteria. On the other hand the readability points of the texts are incompatible with student level except 5 texts. The readability levels of the 14 examined texts are below the student level. In this context, it is determined that the texts in 8.grade Turkish textbook were not created and selected by taking the textuality criteria into consideration.

A BLENDED-LEARNING APPROACH TO ESP TEACHING: DESIGNING A VIRTUAL PLATFORM

Author(s): Lorena Clara Mihaes,Anda Dimitriu,Irina BOCIANU / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2016

The demand for English courses particularly tailored to specific needs is ever growing in today’s higher education system. We teach a generation of undergraduate students who will most likely use English as a medium of instruction for their master’s degree, whether they decide to apply for one in Romania (the University of Bucharest offers 20 such programmes) or abroad. A greater emphasis, therefore, should be laid on meeting the competence standards required by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, so that, upon graduation, the student will be an independent user of general English and have a good mastery of the terminology of his field of study. Since the undergraduate English course spans anywhere from two to five or six semesters, during which time the instructors have the task of bringing students with various language levels up to the same proficiency par - when they would ideally be able to apply for the abovementioned postgraduate programmes, a solution to the problem is offered by digital technologies, which can complement the traditional teaching methods already in use. Based on students’ answers to a questionnaire which led us to conclude that not only are they conversant with the new technologies, but they also consider that their language skills would improve, should the virtual medium be used during the in-class activities, we have devised a rough draft of an online platform specifically designed to facilitate the students’ access to and assimilation of information through online applications.

A blessing or a curse? Introducing autonomy to third-year BA students

Author(s): Malgorzata Szulc-Kurpaska / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2015

As a requirement for obtaining a BA degree in English philology studies, students have to write an academic paper of considerable length. This is the first work of this kind that they have to complete at the end of the three-year course of study. The supervisor monitoring students in writing the paper faces challenges in helping them find a topic, search for appropriate materials, develop skills in reading, analyzing and synthesizing the information found in the resources, and adopt the required academic style. Motivating students to finalize the paper within the third year of their studies seems to be a difficult task because writing of the paper is an arduous endeavor, especially that they quite often work and have other duties to perform. Completing a diploma paper requires a significant amount of independence on the part of the students in the out-of-class time. The paper presents the findings of a small-scale questionnaire study carried out among three groups of students from three different institutions of higher education writing their diploma papers. The aim of the study was to determine the students’ perceptions of and attitudes towards autonomy, as well as their thoughts on the final requirement for gaining the BA degree. The results serve as a basis for drawing some conclusions concerning the development of autonomy in third-year English philology students.

A Brief Outline of the History of English

Author(s): Jerzy Welna / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 2003

The book contains a brief account of the history of the English language as well as its variants in the British Isles and overseas. In order to illustrate the problems under discussion the author adduces text samples from documents relating to English history and literature and also translations of some difficult words and phrases.

A case study of a Hungarian EFL teacher’s assessment practices with her young learners

Author(s): Gabriella Hild / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

The case study aims to provide insights into how a Hungarian EFL teacher used tests, assessed her young learners and gave feedback to them in the classroom. This qualitative, exploratory study was a follow-up to a large-scale project. In this single-case study, data were collected from an EFL teacher and five of her seventh graders on what tasks she used to assess them and how. The participants were interviewed. For the purpose of triangulation, the students were also audio- and video-recorded while doing four speaking tasks, and two classes were observed. The results revealed that for the teacher with decades of teaching experience there was room for improvement in her knowledge of age-appropriate teaching methodology and that some of her beliefs and practices reflected a lack of understanding how children develop. She had difficulty diagnosing her students’ strengths and weaknesses. The learners were rarely provided with feedback on their performance and language development; therefore, they did not see how much they had progressed. Low achievers had a hard time catching up with their peers; and they lagged further behind. The teacher seemed to be more interested in what her students did not know rather than focusing on what they could do.

A comparative study of form-focused and communicative methods of language teaching in ESP courses

Author(s): Amin Karimnia,Mahmood Khosravani / Language(s): English / Issue: 12/2018

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the use of communicative methods and form-focused methods as implemented in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. To accomplish this, two groups of management students were selected for the study. Each group consisted of 30 participants. Their level of proficiency in English and their subject matter knowledge were tested through a sample of IELTS and a pre-test. The two groups were at the same level of proficiency in both general English and English for Students of Management before receiving treatment in 20 sessions within a period of 75 days. Participants in Group A received a form-focused method with some occasional uses of their L1. In Group B, however, the participants were exposed to a communicative ESP course which exclusively relied on English the L2. After the period of treatment, the two groups were examined via a post-test. Results showed that Group B was more successful in the post-test. Moreover, the learners who were proficient in English and the subject matter achieved more from the communicative methods of language teaching in the ESP course. Findings imply that the nature of the subject matter, or whether it is theoretical or applied, could be a factor in deciding a method of language teaching for ESP courses.

A Comparative Study of Perception of (Im)Politeness between Iranian EFL Learners and Americans: The Case of Request Speech Act

Author(s): Bahareh Ghasempour,Maryam Farnia / Language(s): English / Issue: 29/2016

Learning a language means learning the culture. What we act and speak reflect the culture of our language. Requests have attracted the attention of many researchers which they have often been investigated adjacent to the politeness (Liu, 2007; Jalilifar, 2009; Al-Marrani & Sazalie, 2010; Félix- Brasdefer, 2010; Youssef, 2012; Mohammadi & Tamimi Sa’d, 2014). The purpose of this study is to examine Iranian EFL learners, Persian native speakers, and American English native speakers’ perception of speech act of requests without politeness markers. To this end, the data were collected from 35 EFL learners, 35 Persian native speakers, and 14 English native speakers. The data were collected through an open ended questionnaire in the form of Discourse Completion Task and a Perception questionnaire in the form of Likert scale adopted from Saidi and Khosravi (2015). The questionnaire consists of situations with variations in contextual variables, i.e. social status: requests made by people of higher social status, equal social status and lower social status relative to the speakers. The participants were asked to imagine themselves in the situations and rate the (im)politeness of each request situation on a 4-point Likert scale. Moreover, they were required to write down what they would say if they were in a situation without politeness markers. A translated version of questionnaire was handed to Persian native speakers. Results indicated that there was a significant difference between EFL learners and English native participants, and also between EFL learners and Persian speakers’ perceptions of (im)politeness of different request situations. Moreover, by comparing the three groups of participants who perceived a request as mostly/ slightly impolite, the writer provided information about their expectations of politeness in different situations. It is hoped that the findings of this study can add to the body of knowledge in speech act studies in general and to our understanding of Iranian EFL learners and Persian native speakers’ perception of (im)politeness in particular.

A COMPARISON OF ARGENTINEAN AND TURKISH ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION CURRICULA

Author(s): Andrea Paola Diaz,Arda Arikan / Language(s): English / Issue: 9/2016

In this study, we look at the education of English language teachers in two countries, namely, Argentina and Turkey. We specifically discuss the curricula of the teacher education programs by focusing on the specific courses taken by prospective teachers of English in each country and the steps they have to take to start teaching officially. Methodologically, we studied and analyzed two sample curricula, one from each country, in terms of the titles of the courses offered. While comparing, first, each curriculum was studied individually to understand the general outlook of it in terms of the type of English language teacher it aims to graduate. Hence, we tried to understand to “ideal” teacher that is to be educated for the country’s specific needs. Then, courses are grouped under categories and the groups are compared with each other. Results show that the Argentinean curriculum aims at graduating “proficient” language users who will develop their knowledge and practice of the language teaching methods on the job whereas the Turkish curriculum aims to graduate a workforce of teachers who have strong knowledge of teaching methods and who, most probably, will develop their language skills in time. This finding is supported with another which shows that literature and culture-related courses are given a significant place in the curricula offered at Argentinean teacher education institutions whereas little importance is given to literature and culture-related courses in the Turkish curriculum.

A Competence-based Perspective on Foreign Language Teaching at the Master Level: Insights from John Dewey’s Educational Philosophy

Author(s): Svetlana Muntyan,Lilia Valentinova / Language(s): English / Issue: 7/2011

The article determines the specific bundle of competences and strategies underpinning the modern process of foreign language teaching by building upon the selected elements of educational philosophy of John Dewey. The article proceeds by reconstructing some of these elements and subsequently by drawing implications for the competence development strategies in the foreign language teaching. The main implications include adopting cutting-edge teaching technologies and fine-tuning and individualizing teaching materials. A key aspect of teaching technologies to be adopted is assisting students in developing their own self-study strategies.