Search results for "ENGLISH"
showing 10 items of 846 documents
The English pronunciation teaching in Europe survey: selected results
2012
This paper provides an overview of the main findings from a European-wide on-line survey of English pronunciation teaching practices. Both quantitative and qualitative data from seven countries (Finland, France, Germany, Macedonia, Poland, Spain and Switzerland) are presented, focusing on teachers' comments about:
 ● their own pronunciation,
 ● their training,
 ● their learners’ goals, skills, motivation and aspirations,
 ● their preferences for certain varieties (and their perception of their students' preferences).
 The results of EPTiES reveal interesting phenomena across Europe, despite shortcomings in terms of construction and distribution. For example, most re…
Knowledge ecology for conceptual growth:Teachers as active agents in developing a PluriLiteracies approach to Teaching for Learning (PTL)
2017
This article explores how a group of educators and researchers enacted an inclusive process of conceptual growth involving teachers and teacher educators as active agents, knowledge builders and meaning-makers in the development of a Pluriliteracies approach to Teaching for Learning (PTL). The evolution of a working model based on five emergent principles, foregrounded the need for stakeholders across different languages, cultures and disciplines, to work together from the start so that learning spaces were created where teacher development went alongside researcher development, and theorizing was not only inclusive of praxis but validated by it. A growth cycle emerged using theories of pra…
Viewing CLIL through the eyes of former pupils : Insights into foreign language and intercultural attitudes
2018
This article examines the long-term effects of CLIL on former pupils’ foreign language and intercultural attitudes. The 24 participants, who received English-medium CLIL for nine years in the 1990s, were interviewed and the data analyzed using thematic analysis. The participants generally felt that CLIL had had a very positive effect on their target language attitudes. However, many considered that CLIL had affected negatively on their attitudes towards other foreign languages. The perceptions regarding the effect of CLIL on intercultural attitudes diverged more. The study elucidates the long-standing impact CLIL can have on individuals’ attitudes yielding insights into future CLIL educatio…
English pronunciation teaching at different educational levels: Insights into teachers’ perceptions and actions
2016
The aim of the present paper is to reflect upon the place of pronunciation in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching at different educational levels in Poland. To collect the data, an on-line survey was conducted among EFL professionals teaching at primary, lower secondary, and higher secondary schools in Poland. The questions focused on the respondents’ beliefs about pronunciation, teachers’ competences regarding pronunciation and pronunciation teaching, and the pronunciation teaching techniques they use. The results depict the most and least frequently used pronunciation teaching techniques at each of the three educational stages, and the beliefs of EFL teachers in Poland regarding …
University language policies : How does Finnish constitutional bilingualism meet the needs for internationalisation in English?
2018
In this article, we discuss the position of Finnish constitutional bilingualism in higher education in the context of internationalisation in English, by focusing on two universities: one dominantly monolingual (Finnish), one dominantly bilingual (Finnish–Swedish); in addition, both teach in English. This article investigates how discourses around language choices (language policy documents, selected staff and student interviews) construe these universities as monolingual, bilingual or trilingual, and what these discourses say about the universities as organisations themselves. Results suggest that, although lack of clarity remains regarding language choices in many practical situations, Fi…
The exclusive language of science? Comparing knowledge gains and motivation in English-bilingual biology lessons between non-selected and preselected…
2018
ABSTRACTThe dominant role of English as the global language of science entails a requirement for science teachers to equip their non-native English-speaking students with receptive and productive l...
Stop the Deficit: Preparing Pre-service Teachers to Work with Bilingual Students in the United States
2018
This chapter explores the education of bilingual students from an American teacher education perspective. Bilingual students in the United States are often diminished to their student status of “English Language Learner” (ELL). Not only does this ELL designation assume a onesize-fits-all approach to education for and understanding of bilingual children, but the label itself implores a deficit perspective which neither captures nor values bilingual children in the United States. Driven by the goal to model and introduce assets-based pedagogies to our pre-service English as Second Language (ESL) teachers, the main question guiding our work was, as teacher educators, how can we challenge pre-s…
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOREIGN LANGUAGE ENJOYMENT AND GENDER AMONG SECONDARY GRAMMAR SCHOOL STUDENTS
2018
In the context of second language acquisition, foreign language enjoyment (FLE) is a relatively new concept. For that reason, none of the few research carried out in the field thus far has been focused on whether gender might be an important determinant of either a high or a low level of FLE. Thus, the purpose of the present paper was to examine the influence of FLE on learning English as a foreign language, as well as to investigate this relationship from the perspective of gender. The results of this study revealed that there are no statistically significant differences between males and females in FLE, while such differences are found in terms of the sources of FLE each gender perceives …
Polish Adolescents’ Perceptions of English and Their Desire to Learn It
2016
In the process of foreign language learning the way in which students perceive the language may have a strong facilitative impact on their language acquisition process, especially when this perception is positive (Despagne, 2010). Unfortunately, it has not yet been clearly established whether the relationship between perceptions and foreign language achievement can be explained by the moderating power of the student’s desire to learn the foreign language. For the purpose of this paper it is hypothesized that the learner’s perception of the foreign language is strongly related to the desire to learn it, leading to higher achievement in cases of positive perception. In order to corroborate th…
‘We are more than EFL teachers – we are educators’: emancipating EFL student-teachers through photovoice
2016
AbstractThe prevailing pedagogical orientations of English as a foreign language (EFL) education in Spain oppress learners intellectually in ways that are counterproductive to their learning. As a reaction to this, 129 EFL student-teachers (STs) took part during the 2013/14, 2014/15, and 2015/16 academic years in a workshop which drew on the methodology of participatory action research and on photovoice as a data-creating strategy, in order to emancipate these STs intellectually, boost their EFL development, and offer an alternative critical model for their future EFL teaching. The research was assessed collectively through a variety of qualitative strategies. Results showed that the photov…