IOLC Conference | Academic Conferences International (original) (raw)

Papers by IOLC Conference

The Internet and computer assisted learning technologies have created new opportunities for Engli... more The Internet and computer assisted learning technologies have created new opportunities for English as a foreign language (EFL) students to gain valuable experience interacting in English. In order to prepare students from five, university-level EFL classes in Japan for accessing English speaking contexts online, a teacher incorporated a class blogging component into the class’ syllabus. Students were asked to write a 300 to 500-word blog post every week during the 15-week semester. This paper presents an action research study into this experience. Student perceptions of the blogging component; an analysis of how students utilized technology; and, whether class blogging influenced learner motivation were evaluated. Important findings were that in spite of major technical problems, students had a very positive perception of the blogging component and participation in the blogging component had a positive influence on students’ motivation. The author hopes that this paper will illustrate the value in incorporating a class blog and provide some useful insights into how a class blogs can be effectively implemented in an EFL class.

The contemporary digital era has largely contributed to the exponential spread of English worldwi... more The contemporary digital era has largely contributed to the exponential spread of English worldwide catalyzing numberless changes in all social spheres of our lives and having an impact on foreign language teaching, too. Directly/indirectly, it has induced transformations and forced pedagogues to face and address new classroom applications. Within this unprecedented and ever-changing scenario, training teachers in English as a foreign language (FL) is a challenge that has become vibrant today. The present essay presents an overview on teacher-training in the Italian/European scenario as a way to investigate the past, learn from it and identify those missing features in teacher-training that need to be addressed in contemporary training courses.

Learning English in the context of English as second language (ESL) is unarguably complex. It inv... more Learning English in the context of English as second language (ESL) is unarguably complex. It involves various ways of human processing that very much concerns several factors such as learning styles as well as learning setting itself. In Malaysia for instance, understanding English has been considered as the second language and being taught for years in both primary and secondary schools, there is always a huge question mark pertaining to the proficiency of Malaysian ESL learners. Some studies have discovered that numbers of Malaysian ESL learners still demonstrate low proficiency in English besides struggling in learning such intended language due to some reasons. Hence, this research mainly aims to identify the effective language learning strategies being implied by some successful Malaysian ESL learners in mastering the four macro skills in English – listening, speaking, reading and writing. This research also intends to discover the individual purpose of learning English in Malaysian context.

Kumzari is one of the lesser-known minority languages spoken in the Sultanate of Oman. Speakers o... more Kumzari is one of the lesser-known minority languages spoken in the Sultanate of Oman. Speakers of Kumzari language make up a tribal community of a few thousand members living largely in a small coastal mountain village called 'Kumzar' in addition to a small number of speakers scattered over the Musandam Peninsula in the northern part of Oman. Although it is a threatened language, scholarly work done on Kumzari is either outdated or shows scanty concern to the different areas of Kumzari grammar. In view of that, this study, as part of a more comprehensive study, aims to establish the consonantal and vocalic sound system of Kumzari.

The Multiple Intelligence (MI) Theory suggests that different learners have different capacities ... more The Multiple Intelligence (MI) Theory suggests that different learners have different capacities and strengths. Similarly, if students have different abilities, so does the teachers. Teachers will also teach differently because they adopt different materials and teaching approaches that suits their own MI strengths. This study aims to find out how the pre-service teachers’ MI affect their choice of teaching methods. Besides that, the study also investigates the pre-service teachers’ consideration of teaching based on their own MI. The instrument used in the study is a questionnaire consisting of three sections namely Section A, demographic information of the participants, Section B, an adapted and modified teachers’ Multiple Intelligences Inventory and Section C, with one multiple choice question and three open-ended questions. The questionnaire was distributed to 34 UTAR Bachelor of Arts (Hons) English Education pre-service teachers. The findings showed that majority of the pre-service teachers preferred to choose activities and materials that suit their own MI strengths. Besides, most of them also showed interest in considering to teach according to their own MI. However, nearly all respondents showed concern about the adaptability of the MI Theory in Malaysian classrooms due to student diversity and its conventional teaching environment.

This study investigates the practice of politics in Yemeni universities and its effects on the qu... more This study investigates the practice of politics in Yemeni universities and its effects on the quality of education. It explores the university students’ as well as teaching and administrative staffs’ attitudes towards the students’ involvement in politics. A survey has been conducted through a well structured questionnaire among 70 respondents as well as 30 teaching and administrative staff, as interviewees, have been selected from different universities. The study finds out to what extent political parties and regional discrimination negatively influence the educational process in university. Some suggestions are presented in a form of messages to reduce the political interference in university’s educational mission and help create safe and clear educational environment away from politics.

One form of online communication categorised as asynchronous is online discussion board forums. T... more One form of online communication categorised as asynchronous is online discussion board forums. This paper presents the findings of a study on the interactive language functions and the phases of knowledge construction in asynchronous computer-mediated discourse (CMD) in an online discussion board forum in Malaysia. Data for the study was collected using purposive non-random data samples motivated by theme. It was found that the members of the online discussion forum used more assertive speech acts such as explaining, giving suggestions, agreeing, supporting, and answering to queries while interacting online. The second part of the study revealed that the most common phase of knowledge constructing was the act of sharing and comparing of opinion, as well as the discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts or statements.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an approach to discourse analysis that goes beyond the textu... more Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an approach to discourse analysis that goes beyond the textual analysis of language, to include analysis of what is between the lines. More specifically CDA deals with the analysis of linguistic features in relation to the broader social, cultural, political, ideological contexts in which language is used. The present paper is an attempt to show how CDA can be useful to the area of EFL teaching /learning. EFL learners usually face the big task of learning not only new vocabulary, syntactic patterns and phonology, but also discourse and socio-cultural dimensions of the target language. Within CDA, there are many frameworks and analytic tools that can be exploited by EFL teachers, but in this paper focus will be on Fairclough’s (2001) framework. An analysis of news reports using that framework will be presented to illustrate how CDA can be conducted and implemented in the EFL classroom. The research aims to demonstrate that using a CDA of authentic texts such as news reports or any other discourse type will make learners more motivated and thus successful, and will improve the learning process in general.

Reflective teaching goes through an analytical process of self-observation and self-evaluation. S... more Reflective teaching goes through an analytical process of self-observation and self-evaluation. Self-reflection can be one of the effective means of finding out one’s strengths and drawbacks in respect of teachers’ professional development. Teacher education has directly or indirectly been connected to the reflective teaching practice. Capturing the actual picture of language teaching directly or indirectly leads to look at what the teacher does in the classroom. A teacher can collect information and then bring necessary changes to teaching by reflecting upon his/her own teaching practices. But the fact is, the process of reflection should be systematic and carried out by some carefully designed steps. There are some important ways or methods of conducting the process of reflection like peer observation, recording lessons, student feedback. A teacher can invite a colleague to come into the class to collect information about the lesson and to have students’ opinions and perceptions as well. The respective teacher may also record the lessons regularly to have the actual picture of the class. After collecting authentic information the teacher can Think, Talk, Read and Ask while going through some structured steps. Thus this paper will focus on a cyclical process of reflective teaching that once starts and keeps going by implementing changes. Reflections might go on continuously by posing different rhetoric questions like, What I am doing? Why I am doing? Is the teaching method effective? What are the problems? and What could be the solutions?. This is how the teacher’s professional development is related to the evaluative cycle of reflective teaching. This paper, therefore, attempts to discuss the findings of a study that investigated the role that reflective teaching can play in effective English language teaching contexts and in the field of teachers’ professional development. Most importantly this paper offers recommendations by suggesting a well-designed procedure for reflective teaching in ESL/EFL classroom.

Making students aware of their erroneous utterances effectively is a substantive issue in second ... more Making students aware of their erroneous utterances effectively is a substantive issue in second language learning. Therefore, the present study set out with the aim of examining whether the corrective recasts could be more beneficial in comparison with elicitation in making the students notice their deviated past tense utterances. To effectuate the objectives of the study, 40 pre-intermediate English learners were recruited from Navid Language Center, Shiraz, Iran. They formed two experimental groups, each consisting of 20 male and female students. In each group, the incorrect past tense utterances were corrected by one of the afore-mentioned corrective moves. To gather the required data, the participants were assigned to perform a picture description task; moreover, a second task in which learners were given a set of scrambled pictures to sequence them in order to form a coherent story. For further analysis, for each testing session (pre-test, post-test) two tests were administered. The findings indicated that the students, corrected by corrective recasts, benefited far more than the students receiving elicitation; in addition, the findings proved that corrective recasts can raise the perceptual saliency of the target form; in addition, the contiguity of the learner’s utterance and the teacher’s recast will highlight the existence of an error and it could help the learners to notice the negative evidence, and also the gap between their own inter-language forms and that of target-language.

This paper describes the level of burnout among educators and examines the role of gender in cont... more This paper describes the level of burnout among educators and examines the role of gender in contributing to significant differences in burnout. The samples of this research are 31 english language educators from UTAR who completed the questionnaire (Maslach Burnout Inventory). Independent sample t-test analysis conducted reveals that the burnout level between female educators is relatively higher than males in terms of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. In terms of depersonalization, both male and female educators indicate a moderate level of burnout.

Some studies (Fung, 2010; Hwang & Mohamed Amin, 2007; Nadzrah, 2005; Puteh-Behak, 2013; Tang & Ab... more Some studies (Fung, 2010; Hwang & Mohamed Amin, 2007; Nadzrah, 2005; Puteh-Behak, 2013; Tang & Abdul Ghani Kanesan Abdullah, 2007) show that a significant characteristic in Malaysian learning is that the ability of a particular student is usually measured through his/her performance in the examination. In this examination-based culture, learning usually concentrates on techniques in answering examination questions through the process of drilling. Often students are well-prepared for the examination however unable to use the knowledge gained in praxis. Being part of a larger study, this paper explores the implementation of a multiliteracies approach in an English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom in Malaysia. It was a participatory action research project and involved two lecturers as co-researchers and 30 Diploma of Civil Engineering students as participants. Data was collected through qualitative means such as classroom observations, informal conversations and classroom artefacts. Data was analysed through Critical Reflective Analysis Steps (Puteh-Behak, 2013) which included the process of observing and noting personal reflections, confronting and thinking, and taking action. The findings suggest that through the multiliteracies approach the students experienced a shift from monotonous drilling activities to exciting yet challenging learning activities. It seems that the use of the multiliteracies approach enhanced the students’ learning experience by providing a sense of adventure in the usually-monotonous learning process.

The paper is concern with teaching literature in English. It is described as literary work in rea... more The paper is concern with teaching literature in English. It is described as literary work in real life situation or imaginary situation expressed in the four genres: prose, poetry and drama. Since literature is language in action, teachers of English at the secondary school are expected to expose students to various literary components such as the theme, setting, plot, characters, dialogues and monologues. A well- coordinated integrative language teaching of literature in English at the secondary school should clearly bring out the vital roles of literature as a laboratory where students go to practice their ideas of English language. That is literature should be used to facilitate the learning of English language. Therefore, it is against this backdrop that this paper aims at discussing simplified teaching methodologies, strategies and techniques for effective and productive teaching and learning literature in particular and by extension English language generally in secondary schools.

Globalisation, without doubt, is one of the major defining characteristics of modern society. It ... more Globalisation, without doubt, is one of the major defining characteristics of modern society. It constitutes both a threat and a challenge, depending on the points of view and the predisposition of the observer. Thanks to the globalisation, borders are losing their former importance, and the world is becoming 'a small village' (Mcluhan, 1962). The globalised people are looking for a common language to communicate with each other and get benefit of globalisation. At that stage, English, indispensably, emerges as the language of the new world. Having become a member of NATO in 1952, the fast spread of ‘Englishization’ in Turkey has been felt more than anytime else. The present study aims at revealing the effects of irresistible power of English language on Turkish language based upon the views of Turkish undergraduate students and Academics. At the same time the study argues the place of English as an international language in Turkey. The data were collected through questionnaires from 306 undergraduate students and 80 academics, and then the data were analysed. The results provided valuable information to able to get Turkish academics' and undergraduate students' views on English language, its irrepressible spreading, and its impact and prospect impact on Turkish language.

The curriculum reform in Hong Kong resulted in a change in the direction of academic English enha... more The curriculum reform in Hong Kong resulted in a change in the direction of academic English enhancement courses in the University of Hong Kong. The change involved the replacement of generic English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses by English-in-the-discipline (ED) courses, one of which is ‘Writing Psychology: Text and Context’. It was offered in the 2013-14 academic year in hopes of helping students master various writing genres of psychology. A genre analysis approach (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990) was adopted in course design with an aim of enhancing students’ awareness of the language forms of disciplinary-specific writing through exploring the linguistic and rhetorical features of various texts in psychology. After its first launch it was felt by course developers that the pedagogical benefits of the course could be maximized by a scrutiny of students’ competence in genre-based writing. This study therefore sets out to investigate the perceptions of psychology students’ major difficulties in writing, and to analyze their actual writing problems.

The main aim of the following article is to provide the analysis of the masculine and feminine wo... more The main aim of the following article is to provide the analysis of the masculine and feminine words used in both spoken and written Chinese language. At first, the author will focus on describing the specificity of the Chinese characters from the perspective of their construction and some historical background which has a significant influence on their meaning. Following, a set of words introducing both types of gender will be thoughtfully examined, implementing a rule on how to differentiate the two types of gender and what kind of attributes the elements in question obtain in terms of Chinese written system. Moreover, the author will analyze the personal pronouns and occupation words in terms of gender distinction, which is problematic in terms of telling apart the masculine and feminine form of such words as opposed to English and Polish equivalents.

This paper examines Athol Fugard’s creative exploitation of the means of drama in garnished prote... more This paper examines Athol Fugard’s creative exploitation of the means of drama in garnished protest against South Africa’s apartheid. The focus is on his three plays: “Sizwe Banzi is Dead," "The Island," and "Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act,” in the collection entitled Statements: Three Plays. The paper explores Fugard’s unique introspection into human emotions, his themes on the depersonalising system, and his furtive techniques arising from his social context of creative censor.

It is important to study language as a tool used by politicians to persuade the public with their... more It is important to study language as a tool used by politicians to persuade the public with their assertion of power. In fact language is ideological as speakers can speak in a way that supports their interests. What are the mechanisms of power inherent in language? Language is a powerful instrument employed by political leaders. They use linguistic strategies including linguistic manipulation as an influential instrument of political rhetoric to persuade audiences for a specific political action. To argue in favour of their political ideologies and goals, political leaders deploy a broad range of manipulative and rhetorical devices at the phonological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic and textual levels in their political discourse. In this paper examples will be taken from a number of world leaders, past and present, dead or alive, who have used such strategies to persuade their audience of the correctness of their stance in order to provide the reader with information about the most widely used political rhetoric devices.

Non-verbal communication is the study of communication without words. Our actions are the means o... more Non-verbal communication is the study of communication without words. Our actions are the means of communication, subject to interpretation by others. Even the failure to act is a way of communicating. Today when we interact with others, we continuously give and receive wordless signals. All of our nonverbal behaviors—the gestures we make, the way we sit, how fast or how loud we talk, how close we stand, how much eye contact we make—send strong messages. These messages don't stop when you stop speaking either. Even when you're silent, you're still communicating nonverbally. Facial expressions, body movements, eye contact, vocal qualities all help us to communicate without words. These silent messages communicate our feelings during any form of interpersonal communication that we have with our friends, teachers, seniors, subordinates or colleagues. The present paper deals with what is non-verbal communication, its various forms and types, how to interpret them, and also some tips of how to enhance these non-verbal communication.

Currently acknowledged as an ancient practice of communities from various parts of the world, as ... more Currently acknowledged as an ancient practice of communities from various parts of the world, as of the 70s and 80s, Intercomprehension (IC) has become a field of research for linguists who are interested in the apparent benefits of this communication model.
In the aftermath of these research studies (EuroCom4 and 5, Euro-mania, Itineraires romans, Galatea, Redinter or Intermar – to randomly name but a few) and without being considered a method for learning foreign languages according to the common acception of this process, IC strengthened its position as a methodological alternative to linguistic training by providing its users with a practical solution to communication in plurilingual and multicultural contexts. Based on mutual respect of diversity and credit given to the Other, IC paves the way to a climate which annihilates hierarchies, showcases the individual, favors a positive image of the self and raises awareness of both the intellectual and language potentials which are brought out in authentic communication situations.
Therefore, this paper puts forward several insights in this mechanism of understanding different foreign languages in IC situations, mostly based on an interactive module called Icebreaker (An Introduction to Intercomprehension) that was devised within Intermar – an EU funded project that was underway between 2011 -2013.

Elizabeth Bishop’s Over 2,000 Illustrations and A Complete Concordance tells about story narratio... more Elizabeth Bishop’s Over 2,000 Illustrations and A Complete Concordance tells about story narration of journey that contains various perspectives of phenomena and scene situations. The poem also contains story about cross cultural phenomena all over the world which portrays the real condition of global situation in this universe. This study is aimed to give understanding to the readers about diegetic elements inside the poem combined with the messages of the poem. According to Macrae’s metanarration theory used in this study, the theory is divided into five parts. Those are five diegetic elements. This study is conducted using qualitative design since the data are taken as they are without any change and described in form of words.
It is concluded that there are five elements of diegetic metanarration. By finding the availability of those elements, description of historical reality can be structured. Further, all diegetic elements can be found in the poem.

This paper mainly evaluates on the implementation of Inductive Model in English language teaching... more This paper mainly evaluates on the implementation of Inductive Model in English language teaching to empower the students’ writing in classroom. The rationale of traditional pedagogical technique such as lectures is mainly transmitting the content knowledge to the students without allowing and engaging the students to gain the proper understanding in the learning process itself. The technique generally felt to be ineffective in promoting them to construct their own understanding of the topics as the students were totally relying on the lecturers to increase the new knowledge and experience. This study is designed to emphasize the students’ involvement in writing by implementing the Inductive Model as teaching tool by the instructors as it allows the students to enhance their critical thinking in questioning assumptions, gathering information and engaging them in research area. This study incorporates data on classroom observation and students’ report writing by the students from four ASIAN countries consisting of Malaysia, Korea, Indonesia and Thailand. The overall findings of this study will be elaborated further upon this paper.

The analysis of the EFL P.Æ.C.E. Corpus (Landolfi 2012a) shows that university students are fully... more The analysis of the EFL P.Æ.C.E. Corpus (Landolfi 2012a) shows that university students are fully aware of the multifaceted value of English in our contemporary world and feel unsatisfied when considering their failure in language learning particularly in the presence of a significant number of years of exposure to formalized language learning prior to university enrollment. Despite their past negative experiences, however, students’ desire to own the target language still pushes them to enroll in English courses and nurtures their expectations for future success. Though desires can be considered strong motivating factors, which supposedly lead to academic achievements, students’ expectations may hide problems particularly when factors that lead to failure are out of focus and expectations are too high to be fulfilled in one academic course.
The present article intends to address the above issues with the scope to show that students’ voiced/implied Self-representations illustrate despair in admitting incompetency in English but also lack of responsibility in the learning process or inappropriate blame transfer. Both issues poorly match their voiced desire to reach out toward a futuristic, language competent Self. The distance between the two Self-representations constitutes an intersection where language teachers may play a significant role guiding students toward a successful reframing of their expectations so as to overcome the issue and reduce/avoid future blocks in language learning, fear-entanglements, and/or detachment from the academic path.

The shipping world has always been a globalised and competitive business and thus, one of the mos... more The shipping world has always been a globalised and competitive business and thus, one of the most important consequences is the ability to cooperate successfully across linguistic and cultural barriers. It is well acknowledged that English is the working language onboard ships but if it stays the sole language, a lot will be missed in terms of communication and understanding each other as well as other cultures, in a word, the whole being of a community which is obliged to live in a small and confined space for long periods of time, will be negatively affected. The aim of this paper is to present a very ambitious project, INTERMAR, whose main goal is to raise awareness of linguistic knowledge in people and their ability to understand different foreign languages which have not been acquired through a formal learning process. This knowledge will empower students to use the many social situations they will be exposed to in their lives and professions and thus open up for lifelong learning. The paper will refer to the relevance of the project, its innovative character, the European added value, the quality of the consortium and other important aspects connected to it.

Is it conceivable that, in the era of globalization when English is used, abused, and misused in ... more Is it conceivable that, in the era of globalization when English is used, abused, and misused in a variety of contexts for countless purposes, students of English as a foreign/second language (EFL/ESL) are afraid of studying/learning it? How is it possible that in our contemporary world students expressly and markedly indicate this to be the case? This phenomenon is what clearly emerges from the P.Æ.C.E. Corpus (Landolfi 2012a) where myriad fears are openly voiced.
The P.Æ.C.E. Corpus was specifically designed to give EFL students to opportunity to express themselves anonymously about their language-related microcosm(s), sets of beliefs, preferences (P), expectations and hopes (Æ), certainties (C), and emotions (E).
While the qualitative analysis of the data (nearly 1,000 texts) has unveiled a variety of fears, the quantitative analysis (more than 100,000 words) has identified the word FEAR(s) as the second most frequently used noun in the English subset of the corpus and PAURA (the Italian equivalent of fear) as the third most frequently used noun in the Italian subset. Both findings have generated, and left unanswered, several issues related to what EFL/ESL instructors can do to overcome this disturbing, though authentic, data-driven insight.
The present paper discloses students’ discomfort issues at university level, identifies fear-activator fields, and discusses possible aspects that signal students’ negative learning attitudes. The study also proposes the use of guided visualizations as working solutions to overcome/minimize fears, motivate learners, and sustain long lasting learning paths.

The foreign spouses in Taiwan are called new immigrants. Because of the differences of the langua... more The foreign spouses in Taiwan are called new immigrants. Because of the differences of the languages and cultures, those new immigrants encounter various difficulties in their new life. They may busy themselves with working or taking care of their baby, so we want to develop the courses in self-learning.
In the courses, the new immigrants not only listen to the conversations but also learn the sentence patterns of Mandarin and keywords of Mandarin. We hope that we can fulfill the needs of language learning of new immigrants; address the social needs of new immigrants; assist new immigrants to depend on themselves to acquire Mandarin.

Contrastive Analysis was used extensively in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in th... more Contrastive Analysis was used extensively in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a method of explaining why some features of the second language are more difficult to acquire than others. As English is a popular second language in Iranian society, it has always been targeted by researchers to be analyzed in contrast with Persian language. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether Iranian students had any difficulty using English double object constructions. To do the study, a translation test was administered inclusive of 18 sentences containing verbs with double object arguments. Thereupon, 20 EFL B.A. students and 20 EFL A.A. students were randomly chosen and were asked to translate the Persian sentences into English. The percentage of errors on each verb category as well as the errors on preposition use was calculated. As a result the plausible reasons behind the probable causes of errors were given and the source of errors, whether interlingual or intralingual was accounted. It is also inferred from the result that a great majority of Iranian students had difficulty using these constructions. It was also known that a large number of errors were due to interference or interlingual errors.

Standard health service requires proper communication. Communication problems are at the core of ... more Standard health service requires proper communication. Communication problems are at the core of many unexpected health care events comprising unexpected patient deaths and harmful injuries as well as the substantial judicial obligation and fiscal loss for health organizations. Therefore health care practitioners need to have the ability to communicate effectively with diverse patients to provide the desired care. In Malaysia diverse people have been meeting and mixing since the very beginning of its history, so linguistic competency has become a basic quality for health practitioners in Malaysia. Each profession demands job-related language proficiency. In this research, the researcher conducted a case study on a group of nurses from University College Shahputra, Kuantan. She administered a writing test named Occupational English Writing Test, a profession-oriented testing instrument, on the nursing students of University College Shahputra to assess their performance and its suitability in Malaysian context. Some nurses were also interviewed individually. From the test and interview, it stands out that the test is very suitable to be used in Malaysian context and it will have a positive impact on Malaysian health care if it can be implemented for the nurses in Malaysia.

One of the most important components of writing is spelling. Spelling is essentially a complex li... more One of the most important components of writing is spelling. Spelling is essentially a complex linguistic skill that requires the developing speller to reflect on the linguistic factors that contribute to the spelling a word (Treiman, 1998, Moats, 2000, Ehri, 2000). Recent research indicates that several linguistic knowledge sources provide the foundation for spelling abilities. These linguistic foundations include: knowledge of phonology, orthography and morphology (Bourassa & Treiman, 2001; Apel & Masterson, 2001). Since each of these areas contributes to spelling success, the present study aims to investigate the nature of Persian learners' spelling errors in learning EFL to identify their linguistic deficits in phonology, orthography and morphology that are interfering with Persian learners’ ability to spell EFL. Upon the analysis of spelling errors of Persian English language learners in the current study it can be concluded that students with poor phonological, orthographic, and morphological knowledge have problems with substitution of consonant, consonant cluster, vowel digraphs, double consonants, silent vowels, silent consonants, homophone and spelling rules.

Although it is unquestionably important to be proficient in English, studies have shown that the ... more Although it is unquestionably important to be proficient in English, studies have shown that the English proficiency of many Malaysian young learners are at an average level. Keeping this into account, researchers found that a certain mixture of teaching strategies could allow teachers to adjust their teaching methods to suit different types of learners. However, there appear to be few studies on the impacts of different teaching strategies on the English proficiency of young Malaysian learners. Hence, this study aims to determine these impacts, with an emphasis on the perspectives of senior English teachers at a language centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The study involved both qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 10 surveys were collected back and 2 senior teachers were interviewed. The results showed that the elicitation strategy was the most commonly used teaching strategy. Be that as it may, the efficacy of every teaching strategy may depend on the level of English proficiency that each young learner possesses, the topics discussed in the class and the teacher's flexibility in adjusting his/her teaching style to the learning capabilities of the young learners.

This pilot study aimed at examining how vocabulary knowledge of the language of the text may affe... more This pilot study aimed at examining how vocabulary knowledge of the language of the text may affect one’s reading comprehension when reading in that language. In order to find out how vocabulary knowledge may affect reading comprehension, a foreign language learner’s reading comprehension performances when reading in a foreign language and in his native language were compared. The findings show that vocabulary knowledge plays a role in reading comprehension performance. Within the context of this study, the participant was lacking in vocabulary knowledge of the target foreign language which deficiency adversely affected his reading comprehension ability in the foreign language. The findings of the study were discussed in relation to the importance of enhancing foreign language vocabulary knowledge for better reading comprehension performance when reading in a foreign language.

The term ‘focus’ has always been a great source for debates among linguists. What is ‘focus’ and ... more The term ‘focus’ has always been a great source for debates among linguists. What is ‘focus’ and how it is represented in languages have been a great concern for both formalists and functionalists. Though a functional term, Formalists struggle to illustrate it in tree diagrams. Some Information Structuralists believe it to be having new information while the rest of the sentence is supposed to bear old information. This article aims to study focalization in general and its representations in particular. Focalization is represented in three different strategies or tools. These strategies comprise syntactic, morphological, and phonological tools. This article attempts to illustrate these three different tools in Persian and exemplify how constituents can be focalized. The main outcome of this article is that Persian utilizes clefting, pseudo-clefing, and preposing as syntactic tool, focus markers as morphological tool, and heavy stress as phonological tool for focalization.

This study aimed to find out if engagement with L2 writing revision tasks in class journals would... more This study aimed to find out if engagement with L2 writing revision tasks in class journals would reduce common Non Correct Forms (errors and mistakes) in student essay writing. The study followed a quasi-experimental, before and after design, with a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group engaged with a treatment, a semester long involvement with revision tasks in their class journals. The error analysis was completed before and after the treatment. An SPSS independent sample t test showed there was no overall significant difference between the control group and the experimental before the treatment. Overall, there was a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group after the treatment (P = .000). Moreover, there was a significant difference in the experimental group before and after the treatment (P = .000).

Language choice and use, which refers to the selection of language(s) for diverse purposes in div... more Language choice and use, which refers to the selection of language(s) for diverse purposes in diverse contexts with different individuals or groups, are common but rather vital sociolinguistic phenomena in a multilingual setting. This study integrates Fishman’s (1972) domain analysis to determine the dominant language choice of Tamil Christian youths in Malaysia based on their patterns of language choice and use in the domains of family, friendship, and religion; and to examine the underlying factors that govern their language choice patterns in the selected domains. The data were collected through a questionnaire administered to 60 Tamil Christian youths at a church in Kuala Lumpur; together with 4 face-to-face interviews. SPSS was used to get percentage values and frequencies through descriptive statistics of data from the questionnaire. The findings of the study indicate that the respondents chose and used English, Tamil, and Bahasa Malaysia in the selected domains. The English language was found to be used predominantly in all three domains as a result of the influence of these particular domains; the speakers’ verbal repertoires and those of their addressees; their attitude towards a language and its speakers; motivation; and also their sense of solidarity and social identity.

On the one hand, English is a foreign language for Iranian learners, on the other hand, speaking ... more On the one hand, English is a foreign language for Iranian learners, on the other hand, speaking in English is one of the main purposes of Iranian learners, parents, and private institutions. But there is a deliberative factor that hinders achieving this goal. This factor is termed foreign language learning anxiety. So, this article describes a research project concerning the link between collaborative learning and the level of anxiety in speaking among EFL learners in Kerman. The participants were two groups of intermediate English learners in one of the private institutions (N=50).The first group consisted of 25 learners in a teacher fronted class, and the second one 25 learners in a collaborative learning class. The foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS –Horwitz et al.’s 1986) which was translated into Persian was used to measure the level of anxiety after treatment. The results indicated that according to the answers to the questions, the level of anxiety for speaking was lower and consequently the frequency of class participation in order to speak was higher for the second group.

Teaching languages requires specific linguistic and methodological knowledge and experience. Howe... more Teaching languages requires specific linguistic and methodological knowledge and experience. However, the teachers should not forget about introducing culture-oriented elements during the classes, especially as far as oriental languages are concerned. The aim of this contribution is to provide important pieces of information concerning Chinese language acquisition and learning process. I would also like to answer a question: how the knowledge and cultural awareness of the L2 influences the understanding of another language by foreign learners.
At first a comparative outline of Polish and Chinese will be made. Next, the specificity of the Chinese language and difficulties in learning it will be explained. As a main research source the textbook ‘Contemporary Chinese’ will be used.
In the second part, the methodology of teaching Chinese will be explained concerning introducing linguistic and culture-oriented items. Later, the ways of coping with difficulties in learning and teaching Chinese will be described followed by a set of tips on how to teach Polish students oriental languages such as Chinese.
My conclusions were based on experience I have obtained during a few years of teaching including working at the Silesian University at the Institute of English among 1st and 2nd year students of Chinese program.

The present study aimed to explore the reading strategies use of Yemeni university learners and t... more The present study aimed to explore the reading strategies use of Yemeni university learners and to find whether females and males significantly varied in their utilization of reading strategies. For the collection of data, 100 Yemen university students (female=70; male=30) completed the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002). The data collected were statistically processed by using SPSS. The results obtained showed that: (a) the majority of both male and female students are active strategy users; they use all the three types of reading strategies, though, problem-solving strategies were more slightly used than global and support strategies, (b) no significant differences has been found between females and males’ use of reading strategies, and (c) the learners’ use of problem-solving and global strategies significantly (r=.280, p < .01 and r=.219, p < .05) correlated with their marks in reading skills.

In this paper I present the data of the second part of an offline experiment. The preferences of ... more In this paper I present the data of the second part of an offline experiment. The preferences of Modern Greek L1 and L2 learners are presented here and show how they expressed the thematic roles’ order in an argument structure. It is investigated whether or not there is difference between L1 and L2 groups in the way they choose the position of thematic roles (Agent(s), Theme, Recipient/Goal) for various verbal constructions. Twenty eight L2 learners (13 and 15 years old) and twenty two L1 learners (13 years old) took part in this experiment. All participants are pupils in Greek Junior High School.
In previous studies on second language acquisition by adults without second language training in or outside a classroom, it is suggested that L2 learners create their own language system. As far as the level of morphosyntax and semantics is concerned, the L2 learners make rules and constraints about the argument structure and the hierarchy of thematic roles in the interface of syntax and pragmatics (Klein & Perdue 1997). Similar studies are based on second language acquisition by younger learners (12-25 year old) with or without formal training in second language (Boss 2005).
Based on previous researches, on proposals of Thematic Hierarchy (Larson 1988 et c., see Baker 1996) and comparing the preferences of L1 and L2 learners, in this paper I examine: on the one side, whether or not there are differences in the preferences of the two groups and on the other side, whether or not the L2 learners a) fossilized some semantic features about thematic roles, b) create their own interlanguage and c) whether or not their attendance at secondary education play a role in their L2 knowledge of Modern Greek.

This study is an analysis of the spelling errors made by EFL students of English language in one ... more This study is an analysis of the spelling errors made by EFL students of English language in one of the Jordanian universities, Tafila Technical University (TTU). It aims at identifying the types of errors students at TTU make in spelling when answering essay questions. It also seeks the spelling difficulties the students have when writing English. The study was conducted based on the information observed and gathered by the researcher within 2 years from students’ answer sheets. Because of the irregularities of spelling rules and the confusion or misspelling English pronunciation sometimes brings about, the present study is primarily conducted to suggest solutions to spelling mistakes and to find out why most students make such mistakes in spelling. In addition, the study reported that the students have the same problems and that they make identical errors in English spelling.

This study was designed to investigate the results of a reading comprehension strategy treatment ... more This study was designed to investigate the results of a reading comprehension strategy treatment in an English Reading course for science and technological sophomores at Burapha University, Thailand. The subjects were divided into an experimental group and a control group and there were seventy-seven participants in each. The experimental subjects were surveyed by questionnaire for reading strategy use on the first English reading class of the semester in order to show the presence and absence of reading strategies, and then they were instructed and provided with reading strategies for the entire semester for four months. Before the summative exam, the experimental subjects were again required to answer the same questionnaire to report their reading strategy use to compare reading strategy use before and after the treatment. The research findings indicated: 1) reading strategies were applied differently before and after the treatment by the experimental group; 2) a significant difference in the formative and summative scores between the experimental group and the control group. The outcome of this study may facilitate EFL teachers to provide a suitable teaching framework for their learners.

Argument Structure (AS) of a word is the list of its arguments. For example, in English, the verb... more Argument Structure (AS) of a word is the list of its arguments. For example, in English, the verb ‘came’ has one obligatory argument in its AS: ‘John came’. While the verb ‘gave’ has three arguments: ‘John gave the book to his brother’. Derivation usually changes the AS of a word, so the AS of a derived word is different from that of the stem. This paper tries to study the AS of Persian verbal derivations and the effect of affixation on the AS of the base. Lieber’s view (1992) forms the theoretical framework of this paper. According to this view, AS of a word is a projection of its Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS). Using this framework, this study will demonstrate that only affixes which change the LCS of the base can affect its AS. In other words, affixes which exert no change to LCS of a base have no effect on AS.

Intensification is a linguistic category denoting the degree of property or quality. Traditionall... more Intensification is a linguistic category denoting the degree of property or quality. Traditionally, lexical means of intensification are investigated. Nevertheless, there are syntactic units in English and Belarusian stereotyped as means of intensification. So/such … (that) and tak/taki … što have not received proper examination and often contradictory interpretation, especially in English. Accordingly, there is a need for their intra- and cross-linguistic study. The continuous sampling, quantitative and distributive analysis of literary prose allowed to create inventories of composite sentences expressing intensity, unite them into lexical-syntactic (LS) fields of intensification (LSFI) and state what sentence elements are intensified in each language. In English, the LSFI is more homogeneous (the nuclear element has a larger percentage in the field) and less varied (has less constituents); intensification is selective (46% of cases is intensification of predicative) and explicit (the intensified property is verbalized). In Belarusian, the field is less homogeneous and more varied; intensification is evenly distributed among sentence elements and implicit (property is not verbalized but deictically designated by the intensifier). This work widens our idea of syntactic means of intensification, specifies the classification of clauses in English and provides material for teaching English and theory and practice of translation.

This paper was an effort to explore the effect of Isolated, Integrated and Synonym Generation voc... more This paper was an effort to explore the effect of Isolated, Integrated and Synonym Generation vocabulary instruction on writing skill among Intermediate EFL learners. For this purpose, 77 male and female learners within the age range of 15-22 were chosen from a total number of 100 intermediate learners studying at Najm institute through administering a piloted Preliminary English Test (PET). The 77 learners were then divided into three experimental groups and each one was taught vocabulary through one of the three procedures of Integrated, Isolated, and Synonym Generation vocabulary instruction. At the end of the study, the participants in all groups were given a writing test. One-way ANOVA on the posttest led to the rejection of the null hypothesis, thereby demonstrating that the learners in the Integrated and Synonym Generation groups benefited significantly more than those in the Isolated Group in terms of improving their writing ability.