Abstract: This study integrates a larger research empirical
project that examines second language (SL) learners’ profiles and
valid procedures to perform complete and diagnostic assessment in
schools. 102 learners of Portuguese as a SL aged 7 and 17 years
speakers of distinct home languages were assessed in several
linguistic tasks. In this article, we focused on writing performance in
the specific task of narrative essay composition. The written outputs
were measured using the score in six components adapted from an
English SL assessment context (Alberta Education): linguistic
vocabulary, grammar, syntax, strategy, socio-linguistic, and
discourse. The writing processes and strategies in Portuguese
language used by different immigrant students were analysed to
determine features and diversity of deficits on authentic texts
performed by SL writers. Differentiated performance was based on
the diversity of the following variables: grades, previous schooling,
home language, instruction in first language, and exposure to
Portuguese as Second Language. Indo-Aryan languages speakers
showed low writing scores compared to their peers and the type of
language and respective cognitive mapping (such as Mandarin and
Arabic) was the predictor, not linguistic distance. Home language
instruction should also be prominently considered in further research
to understand specificities of cognitive academic profile in a
Romance languages learning context. Additionally, this study also
examined the teachers’ representations that will be here addressed to
understand educational implications of second language teaching in
psychological distress of different minorities in schools of specific
host countries.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to find the efficacy
of high school student self-assessment of written production. It aimed
to explore the following two research questions: 1) How is topic
development of their written production improved after student
self-assessment and teacher feedback? 2) Does the consistency
between student self-assessment and teacher assessment develop after
student self-assessment and teacher feedback? The data came from the
written production of 82 Japanese high school students aged from 16
to 18 years old, an American English teacher and one Japanese English
teacher. Students were asked to write English compositions, about 150
words, for thirty minutes without using dictionaries. It was conducted
twice at intervals of two months. Students were supposed to assess
their own compositions by themselves. Teachers also assessed
students’ compositions using the same assessment sheet. The results
showed that both teachers and students assessed the second
compositions higher than the first compositions. However, there was
not the development of the consistency in coherence.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the English
version and a Malay translation of the 21-item Learner Awareness
Questionnaire for its application to assess student learning in higher
education. The Learner Awareness Questionnaire, originally written
in English, is a quantitative measure of how and why students learn.
The questionnaire gives an indication of the process and motives to
learn using four scales: survival, establishing stability, approval and
loving to learn. Data in the present study came from 680 university
students enrolled in various programmes in Malaysia. The Malay
version of the questionnaire supported a similar four factor structure
and internal consistency to the English version. The four factors of
the Malay version also showed moderate to strong correlations with
those of the English versions. The results suggest that the Malay
version of the questionnaire is similar to the English version.
However, further refinement to the questions is needed to strengthen
the correlations between the two questionnaires.
Abstract: The literature on language teaching and second
language acquisition has been largely driven by monolingual
ideology with a common assumption that a second language (L2) is
best taught and learned in the L2 only. The current study challenges
this assumption by reporting learners' positive perceptions of tertiary
level teachers' code switching practices in Vietnam. The findings of
this study contribute to our understanding of code switching practices
in language classrooms from a learners' perspective.
Data were collected from student participants who were working
towards a Bachelor degree in English within the English for Business
Communication stream through the use of focus group interviews.
The literature has documented that this method of interviewing has a
number of distinct advantages over individual student interviews. For
instance, group interactions generated by focus groups create a more
natural environment than that of an individual interview because they
include a range of communicative processes in which each individual
may influence or be influenced by others - as they are in their real
life. The process of interaction provides the opportunity to obtain the
meanings and answers to a problem that are "socially constructed
rather than individually created" leading to the capture of real-life
data. The distinct feature of group interaction offered by this
technique makes it a powerful means of obtaining deeper and richer
data than those from individual interviews. The data generated
through this study were analysed using a constant comparative
approach. Overall, the students expressed positive views of this
practice indicating that it is a useful teaching strategy. Teacher code
switching was seen as a learning resource and a source supporting
language output. This practice was perceived to promote student
comprehension and to aid the learning of content and target language
knowledge. This practice was also believed to scaffold the students'
language production in different contexts. However, the students
indicated their preference for teacher code switching to be
constrained, as extensive use was believed to negatively impact on
their L2 learning and trigger cognitive reliance on the L1 for L2
learning. The students also perceived that when the L1 was used to a
great extent, their ability to develop as autonomous learners was
negatively impacted.
This study found that teacher code switching was supported in
certain contexts by learners, thus suggesting that there is a need for
the widespread assumption about the monolingual teaching approach
to be re-considered.
Abstract: The phatic function of communication is a vital
element of any conversation. This research paper looks into this
function with respect to personal blogs maintained by Indian
bloggers. This paper is a study into the phenomenon of phatic
communication maintained by bloggers through their blogs. Based on
a linguistic analysis of the posts of twenty eight Indian bloggers,
writing in English, studied over a period of three years, the study
indicates that though the blogging phenomenon is not conversational
in the same manner as face-to-face communication, it does make
ample provision for feedback that is conversational in nature.
Ordinary day to day offline conversations use conventionalized
phatic utterances; those on the social media are in a perpetual mode
of innovation and experimentation in order to sustain contact with its
readers. These innovative methods and means are the focus of this
study. Though the personal blogger aims to chronicle his/her personal
life through the blog, the socializing function is crucial to these
bloggers. In comparison to the western personal blogs which focus on
the presentation of the ‘bounded individual self’, we find Indian
personal bloggers engage in the presentation of their ‘social selves’.
These bloggers yearn to reach out to the readers on the internet and
the phatic function serves to initiate, sustain and renew social ties on
the blogosphere thereby consolidating the social network of readers
and bloggers.
Abstract: This paper shows the connection between emoticons and politeness in written computer-mediated communication. It studies if there are some differences in the use of emoticon between Czech and English written tweets. The assumptions about the use of emoticons were based on the use of greetings and thanks in real, faceto-face situations. The first assumption, that welcome greeting phrase would be accompanied by positive emoticon, was correct. But for the farewell greeting are both positive and negative emoticons possible. The results show lower frequency of negative emoticons in this context. There were also quite often found both positive and negative emoticon in the same tweet. The expression of gratitude is associated with positive emotions. The results show that emoticons accompany polite phrases of greeting and thanks very often both in Czech and English. The use of emoticons with studied polite phrases shows that emoticons have become an integral part of these phrases.
Abstract: This paper participates in giving new vision and
explains the learning and acquisition processes of English language
by analyzing a certain context. Five important factors in English
language acquisition and learning are discussed and suitable solutions
are provided. The factors are compared with the learners' linguistic
background at Bisha College of Technology BCT attempting to link
the issues faced by students and the research done on similar
situations. These factors are phonology, age of acquisition,
motivation, psychology and courses of English. These factors are
very important; because they interfere and affect specific learning
processes at BCT context and general English learning situations.
Abstract: Reticence is a prominent and complex phenomenon
which occurs in foreign language classrooms and influences students’
oral passivity. The present study investigated the extent in which
students experience reticence in the EFL classrooms and explored the
underlying factors triggering reticence. The participants were 104
Iranian freshmen undergraduate male and female EFL students, who
enrolled in listening and speaking courses, all majoring in English
studying at Islamic Azad University Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch and
University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. To collect the data, the Reticence
Scale-12 (RS-12) questionnaire which measures the level of reticence
consisting of six dimensions (anxiety, knowledge, timing,
organization, skills, and memory) was administered to the
participants. The statistical analyses showed that the reticent level
was high among the Iranian EFL undergraduate students, and their
major problems were feelings of anxiety and delivery skills.
Moreover, the results revealed that factors such as low English
proficiency, the teaching method, and lack of confidence contributed
to the students’ reticence in Iranian EFL classrooms. It can be
implied that language teachers’ awareness of learners’ reticence can
help them choose more appropriate activities and provide a friendly
environment enhancing hopefully more effective participation of EFL
learners. The findings can have implications for EFL teachers,
learners and policy makers.
Abstract: Students' academic achievement, along with the
effects of different variables, has been a serious concern of educators
since long ago. This study was an attempt to investigate the interplay
of Locus of Control (LOC), academic achievement and biological
variables among Iranian online EFL Learners. The participants of the
study included 100 students of different age groups and genders
studying English online at Iran Language Institute (ILI), Isfahan,
Iran. The instrument used was Trice Academic LOC questionnaire
which identifies orientations of internality or externality. The
participants' Grade Point Averages (GPAs) were used as the measure
of their academic achievement. A series of independent samples ttests
were performed on the data. The results of the study showed that
(a) there were no significant differences between male and female
participants in LOC orientation, (b) there was no relationship
between LOC and academic achievement among internal males and
females, (c) external females were better achievers than external
males, (d) and the age had no significant relationship with LOC and
academic achievement. It can be concluded that the social, cultural
patterns of genders have changed. This study might help sociologists
and psychologists as well as applied linguists in that they reflect the
recent social changes and their effects on the LOC and their
consequent implications in teaching languages.
Abstract: The Speexx results revealed four main factors
affecting the success of 190 Thai sophomores as follows: 1) Future
English training should be pursued in applied Speexx development.
2) Thai students didn’t see the benefit of having an Online Language
Training Program. 3) There is a great need to educate the next
generation of learners on the benefits of Speexx within the
community. 4) A great majority of Thai Sophomores didn't know
what Speexx was.
A guideline for self-reliance planning consisted of four aspects: 1)
Development planning: by arranging groups to further improve
English abilities with the Speexx Language Training program and
encourage using Speexx into every day practice. Local communities
need to develop awareness of the usefulness of Speexx and share the
value of using the program among family and friends. 2) Humanities
and Social Science staff should develop skills using this Online
Language Training Program to expand on the benefits of Speexx
within their departments. 3) Further research should be pursued on
the Thai Students progression with Speexx and how it helps them
improve their language skills with Business English. 4) University’s
and Language centers should focus on using Speexx to encourage
learning for any language, not just English.
Abstract: Organizational tendencies towards computer-based
information processing have been observed noticeably in the
third-world countries. Many enterprises are taking major initiatives
towards computerized working environment because of massive
benefits of computer-based information processing. However,
designing and developing information resource management software
for small and mid-size enterprises under budget costs and strict
deadline is always challenging for software engineers. Therefore, we
introduced an approach to design mid-size enterprise software by
using the Waterfall model, which is one of the SDLC (Software
Development Life Cycles), in a cost effective way. To fulfill research
objectives, in this study, we developed mid-sized enterprise software
named “BSK Management System” that assists enterprise software
clients with information resource management and perform complex
organizational tasks. Waterfall model phases have been applied to
ensure that all functions, user requirements, strategic goals, and
objectives are met. In addition, Rich Picture, Structured English, and
Data Dictionary have been implemented and investigated properly in
engineering manner. Furthermore, an assessment survey with 20
participants has been conducted to investigate the usability and
performance of the proposed software. The survey results indicated
that our system featured simple interfaces, easy operation and
maintenance, quick processing, and reliable and accurate transactions.
Abstract: The purposes of this study are 1) to study the effects
of participatory error correction process and 2) to find out the
students’ satisfaction of such error correction process. This study is a
Quasi Experimental Research with single group, in which data is
collected 5 times preceding and following 4 experimental studies of
participatory error correction process including providing coded
indirect corrective feedback in the students’ texts with error treatment
activities. Samples include 52 2nd year English Major students,
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat
University. Tool for experimental study includes the lesson plan of
the course; Reading and Writing English for Academic Purposes II,
and tools for data collection include 5 writing tests of short texts and
a questionnaire. Based on formative evaluation of the students’
writing ability prior to and after each of the 4 experiments, the
research findings disclose the students’ higher scores with statistical
difference at 0.00. Moreover, in terms of the effect size of such
process, it is found that for mean of the students’ scores prior to and
after the 4 experiments; d equals 0.6801, 0.5093, 0.5071, and 0.5296
respectively. It can be concluded that participatory error correction
process enables all of the students to learn equally well and there is
improvement in their ability to write short texts. Finally the students’
overall satisfaction of the participatory error correction process is in
high level (Mean = 4.39, S.D. = 0.76).
Abstract: This study aimed to examine the management and
development of forest tourism Kamchanoad. Ban Dung, Udon Thani
sustainability. Data were collected by means of qualitative research
including in-depth interviews, semi- structured, and then the data
were summarized and discussed in accordance with the objectives.
And make a presentation in the form of lectures. The target
population for the study consisted of 16 people, including
representatives from government agencies, community leaders and
the community. The results showed that Guidelines for the
Management and Development of Forest Tourism Kamchanoad
include management of buildings and infrastructure such as roads,
water, electricity, toilets. Other developments are the establishment
of a service center that provides information and resources to
facilitate tourists.; nature trails and informative signage to educate
visitors on the path to the jungle Kamchanoad; forest activities for
tourists who are interested only in occasional educational activities
such as vegetation, etc.; disseminating information on various aspects
of tourism through various channels in both Thailand and English, as
well as a web site to encourage community involvement in the
planning and management of tourism together with the care and
preservation of natural resources and preserving the local cultural
tourist area of Kamchanoad.
Abstract: The present study is an attempt to provide a relatively
comprehensive preview of the Iranian English translators’ perception
on Machine Translation. Furthermore, the study tries to shed light on
the status of implementation of Machine Translation among the
Iranian English Translators. To reach the aforementioned objectives,
the Localization Industry Standards Association’s questioner for
measuring perceptions with regard to the adoption of a technology
innovation was adapted and used to investigate the perception and
implementation of Machine Translation applications by the Iranian
English language translators. The participants of the study were 224
last-year undergraduate Iranian students of English translation at 10
universities across the country. The study revealed a very low level of
adoption and a very high level of willingness to get familiar with and
learn about Machine Translation, as well as a positive perception of
and attitude toward Machine Translation by the Iranian English
translators.
Abstract: The English competence of Thai people was examined
in the context of knowledge of English in everyday life for Small and
Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs), and also integrated with Second
language acquisition (SLA) students’ classroom. Second language
acquisition was applied to the results of the questionnaires and
interview forms. Levels of the need on English used for SME
entrepreneurs in Thailand, satisfaction on joining the street classroom
project were shown to be significantly high for some certain language
functions and satisfaction. Finding suggests that the language
functions on etiquette for professional use is essential and useful
because lesson learned can be used in the real situation for their
career. Implications for the climate of the street classroom are
discussed.
Abstract: The performance and analysis of speech recognition
system is illustrated in this paper. An approach to recognize the
English word corresponding to digit (0-9) spoken by 2 different
speakers is captured in noise free environment. For feature extraction,
speech Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) has been used
which gives a set of feature vectors from recorded speech samples.
Neural network model is used to enhance the recognition
performance. Feed forward neural network with back propagation
algorithm model is used. However other speech recognition
techniques such as HMM, DTW exist. All experiments are carried
out on Matlab.
Abstract: Large-scale data stream analysis has become one of
the important business and research priorities lately. Social networks
like Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms hold an enormous
amount of data that is large in volume, velocity and variety.
Extracting valuable information and trends out of these data would
aid in a better understanding and decision-making. Multiple analysis
techniques are deployed for English content. Moreover, one of the
languages that produce a large amount of data over social networks
and is least analyzed is the Arabic language. The proposed paper is a
survey on the research efforts to analyze the Arabic content in
Twitter focusing on the tools and methods used to extract the
sentiments for the Arabic content on Twitter.
Abstract: This research focused on comparing the critical
thinking of the teacher students before and after using Miller’s Model
learning activities and investigating their opinions. The sampling
groups were (1) fourth year 33 student teachers majoring in Early
Childhood Education and enrolling in semester 1 of academic year
2013 (2) third year 28 student teachers majoring in English and
enrolling in semester 2 of academic year 2013 and (3) third year 22
student teachers majoring in Thai and enrolling in semester 2 of
academic year 2013. The research instruments were (1) lesson plans
where the learning activities were settled based on Miller’s Model (2)
critical thinking assessment criteria and (3) a questionnaire on
opinions towards Miller’s Model based learning activities. The
statistical treatment was mean, deviation, different scores and T-test.
The result unfolded that (1) the critical thinking of the students after
the assigned activities was better than before and (2) the students’
opinions towards the critical thinking improvement activities based
on Miller’s Model ranged from the level of high to highest.
Abstract: This research study aimed to survey and analyze the
attitudes of pre-service teachers’ the analytical thinking development
based on Miller’s Model. The informants of this study were 22 third
year teacher students majoring in Thai. The course where the
instruction was conducted was English for Academic Purposes in
Thai Language 2. The instrument of this research was an open-ended
questionnaire with two dimensions of questions: academic and
satisfaction dimensions. The investigation revealed the positive
attitudes. In the academic dimension, the majority of 12 (54.54%),
the highest percentage, reflected that the method of teaching
analytical thinking and language simultaneously was their new
knowledge and the similar percentage also belonged to text cohesion
in writing. For the satisfaction, the highest frequency count was from
17 of them (77.27%) and this majority favored the openness or
friendliness of the teacher.
Abstract: The paper deals with the usage of speech acts and
politeness strategies in an EFL classroom in Georgia (Rep of). It
explores the students’ and the teachers’ practice of the politeness
strategies and the speech acts of apology, thanking, request,
compliment / encouragement, command, agreeing / disagreeing,
addressing and code switching. The research method includes
observation as well as a questionnaire. The target group involves the
students from Georgian public schools and two certified, experienced
local English teachers. The analysis is based on Searle’s Speech Act
Theory and Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies. The findings
show that the students have certain knowledge regarding politeness
yet they fail to apply them in English communication. In addition,
most of the speech acts from the classroom interaction are used by
the teachers and not the students. Thereby, it is suggested that
teachers should cultivate the students’ communicative competence
and attempt to give them opportunities to practise more English
speech acts than they do today.