Mansoor Al-Surmi | Qatar University (original) (raw)
Book Reviews by Mansoor Al-Surmi
Corpora, 2012
Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation reports on a study with a unique... more Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation reports on a study with a unique focus on television (TV) dialogue. Quaglio was motivated by the question as to whether interactions in TV dialogues capture the linguistic characteristics of natural conversations. In answering this question, Quaglio adopts a corpus-based analysis which is ideally suited for such an investigation. The analysis is based on comparing the linguistic characteristics of the American TV show sitcom, Friends, and the sub-corpus of American English conversation of the Longman Grammar Corpus. The outcome is this interesting book. The book provides a substantial linguistic description of the similarities and differences between TV dialogue in the sitcom and everyday conversational interaction with many illustrative excerpts and examples.
![Research paper thumbnail of Clear Speech Works [Software Review]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/59083897/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](TESL-EJ Journal, 2010
Introduction Listening and speaking skills are generally the primary concerns of language learne... more Introduction
Listening and speaking skills are generally the primary concerns of language learners. In response to this need, many publishing companies and software developers have produced materials that aim at enhancing these skills. Although such materials are always billed as appropriate and effective learning tools by their developers, this is not always the case. Materials must be subjected to examination and evaluation from a practical perspective. The following is one practitioner’s evaluation of Clear Speech Works.
Papers by Mansoor Al-Surmi
Routledge, Feb 5, 2014
The purpose of the present study is to examine the word coverage in both soap operas and sitcoms.... more The purpose of the present study is to examine the word coverage in both soap operas and sitcoms. It partially replicates Webb and Rogers’s (2009) study and it extends the investigation to examine whether one genre (soap opera or sitcom) provides 90% to 95% coverage at a lower word family level. The assumption is that the genre which provides a higher word coverage percentage at a lower word family level could lead to better comprehension for those learners who have lower levels of word knowledge and would increase the likelihood of IVL occurrence. For example, if at the fi rst 1,000 most frequent word families, a sitcom provides a coverage of 92%, while a soap opera provides a coverage of 87%, then it can be argued that a learner who knows the fi rst 1,000 most frequent word families would be able to comprehend the texts in the sitcoms at a relatively higher level than those in the soap operas. Therefore, there is a higher likelihood of learning vocabulary incidentally from the sitcom. One could conclude that the sitcoms seem more appropriate in this scenario for learners with the knowledge of the first 1,000 most frequent word families than do soap operas.
Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have suffici... more Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have sufficient levels of speaking ability, which is typically assessed through a combination of different tasks. One drawback of including multiple tasks is that the development, administration, and scoring might not be practical. Therefore, it is important to investigate how well the tasks account for examinees’ speaking ability, as using fewer tasks could help in minimizing resources. Using quantitative methods of analysis, this study evaluates how well four types of speaking tasks on proficiency and achievement tests account for students’ speaking ability in an IEP. The findings indicate that several tasks uniquely contribute to the speaking construct. This study has implications for the importance of balancing practicality with construct representativeness and presents a model of how IEPs might approach this issue.
Asian Englishes, 2018
Abstract The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in th... more Abstract The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in the Arab World exhibits distinctive lexico-grammatical features, and hence can be classified as a postcolonial variety of English. The study uses Schneider’s Dynamic Model as its theoretical framework and seeks to examine where such variety, if it exists, might fall on the model’s phases (i.e. foundation, exonormative stabilization, nativization, endonormative stabilization, and differentiation). A corpus of the English used in a selected newspaper was compiled and the British newspaper subcorpus of the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus was used for comparison purposes. The analysis implemented bottom-up and top-down approaches as well as a mix of quantitative and qualitative interpretations. Findings show that there are some distinctive lexico-grammatical features in the selected presumed variety of English. Based on the classification criteria of the Dynamic Model, it appears to be at the beginning of the nativization phase.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2011
TESOL Quarterly, 2012
Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a seco... more Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a second language practitioners as a source of authentic spoken conversational materials presumably because they reflect the linguistic features of natural conversation. However, practitioners are faced with the dilemma of how to assess whether such conversational materials reflect the linguistic characteristics of natural ones. Previous classifications were based on practitioners' personal impressions and intuitions. The present study shows that this subjective approach is problematic and instead adopts a corpus-based register analysis tool to investigate the extent to which soap opera, compared to sitcom, reflects the linguistic representation of natural conversation. The tool is the multidimensional analysis developed by Biber (1988). Findings indicate that sitcom captures the linguistic features of natural conversation more than soap opera does. Implications for research, teaching, and teaching materials development are discussed.
System, 2012
Abstract Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction researc... more Abstract Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lately the investigation has extended to what makes recasts beneficial or unbeneficial. Expanding the investigation to the effect of different types of recasts (i.e., declarative or interrogative) on learners' noticing, the present study reports the findings of an empirical study that examined whether learners' noticing of morpho-syntactic recasts is influenced by recast type, and whether learners subsequently recognize their morpho-syntactic errors and the target-like reformulations they received during task-based interaction. Results show that learners noticed 10% of morpho-syntactic recasts and there was no significant difference by recast type. In subsequent recognition tasks, learners tended to recognize recasted forms (i.e., target-like forms) more than their errors (i.e., non-target forms).
Asian Englishes., 2018
The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in the Arab Wo... more The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in the Arab World exhibits distinctive lexico-grammatical features, and hence can be classified as a postcolonial variety of English. The study uses Schneider’s Dynamic Model as its theoretical framework and seeks to examine where such variety, if it exists, might fall on the model’s phases (i.e. foundation, exonormative stabilization, nativization, endonormative stabilization, and differentiation). A corpus of the English used in a selected newspaper was compiled and the British newspaper subcorpus of the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus was used for comparison purposes. The analysis implemented bottom-up and top-down approaches as well as a mix of quantitative and qualitative interpretations. Findings show that there are some distinctive lexico-grammatical features in the selected presumed variety of English. Based on the classification criteria of the Dynamic Model, it appears to be at the beginning of the nativization phase.
Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2017
Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have suffici... more Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have sufficient levels of speaking ability, which is typically assessed through a combination of different tasks. One drawback of including multiple tasks is that the development, administration, and scoring might not be practical. Therefore, it is important to investigate how well the tasks account for examinees' speaking ability, as using fewer tasks could help in minimizing resources. Using quantitative methods of analysis, this study evaluates how well four types of speaking tasks on proficiency and achievement tests account for students' speaking ability in an IEP. The findings indicate that several tasks uniquely contribute to the speaking construct. This study has implications for the importance of balancing practicality with construct representativeness and presents a model of how IEPs might approach this issue.
TESOL Quarterly, 46 (4). 671-694, 2012
Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a seco... more Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a second language practitioners as a source of authentic spoken conversational materials presumably because they reflect the linguistic features of natural conversation. However, practitioners are faced with the dilemma of how to assess whether such conversational materials reflect the linguistic characteristics of natural ones. Previous classifications were based on practitioners' personal impressions and intuitions. The present study shows that this subjective approach is problematic and instead adopts a corpus-based register analysis tool to investigate the extent to which soap opera, compared to sitcom, reflects the linguistic representation of natural conversation. The tool is the multidimensional analysis developed by Biber (1988). Findings indicate that sitcom captures the linguistic features of natural conversation more than soap opera does. Implications for research, teaching, and teaching materials development are discussed.
Asian EFL Journal Quarterly,15 (1), 64-86. , 2013
This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal morphology i... more This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal morphology in L2 learners’ interlanguage temporality system. The aim was to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of discourse structure on verbal morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign Language context. The discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms predominantly in the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the background. Data obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions by Thai L2 learners of English. Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking at six pictures. Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than the background while they use more non-past forms in the background. Learners’ systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the results of the present study. The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported and that English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as a Second Language learners.
System 40 (2012) 226-236
Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lat... more Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lately the investigation has extended to what makes recasts beneficial or unbeneficial. Expanding the investigation to the effect of different types of recasts (i.e., declarative or interrogative) on learners' noticing, the present study reports the findings of an empirical study that examined whether learners' noticing of morpho-syntactic recasts is influenced by recast type, and whether learners subsequently recognize their morpho-syntactic errors and the target-like reformulations they received during task-based interaction. Results show that learners noticed 10% of morpho-syntactic recasts and there was no significant difference by recast type. In subsequent recognition tasks, learners tended to recognize recasted forms (i.e., target-like forms) more than their errors (i.e., non-target forms).
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 1, No. 12, pp. 1673-1678, 2011
This paper is a contribution to the studies conducted for investigating the relationship between ... more This paper is a contribution to the studies conducted for investigating the relationship between text linguistic signals and reading comprehension. The aim of this paper is to test the hypothesis that discourse markers facilitate reading comprehension. The specific question addressed is whether the presence of discourse markers facilitates reading comprehension at a global level (i.e., at the discourse level). Two groups of L2 learners were given a text followed by multiple choice comprehension questions. One group was given the actual text, while the other group was given the same text with discourse markers removed. The results indicated that there were no differences in the performance of the two groups. The study concluded that presence or absence of discourse markers may have no effect on the overall representation of coherent information needed for reading comprehension.
Corpora, 2012
Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation reports on a study with a unique... more Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation reports on a study with a unique focus on television (TV) dialogue. Quaglio was motivated by the question as to whether interactions in TV dialogues capture the linguistic characteristics of natural conversations. In answering this question, Quaglio adopts a corpus-based analysis which is ideally suited for such an investigation. The analysis is based on comparing the linguistic characteristics of the American TV show sitcom, Friends, and the sub-corpus of American English conversation of the Longman Grammar Corpus. The outcome is this interesting book. The book provides a substantial linguistic description of the similarities and differences between TV dialogue in the sitcom and everyday conversational interaction with many illustrative excerpts and examples.
TESL-EJ Journal, 2010
Introduction Listening and speaking skills are generally the primary concerns of language learne... more Introduction
Listening and speaking skills are generally the primary concerns of language learners. In response to this need, many publishing companies and software developers have produced materials that aim at enhancing these skills. Although such materials are always billed as appropriate and effective learning tools by their developers, this is not always the case. Materials must be subjected to examination and evaluation from a practical perspective. The following is one practitioner’s evaluation of Clear Speech Works.
Routledge, Feb 5, 2014
The purpose of the present study is to examine the word coverage in both soap operas and sitcoms.... more The purpose of the present study is to examine the word coverage in both soap operas and sitcoms. It partially replicates Webb and Rogers’s (2009) study and it extends the investigation to examine whether one genre (soap opera or sitcom) provides 90% to 95% coverage at a lower word family level. The assumption is that the genre which provides a higher word coverage percentage at a lower word family level could lead to better comprehension for those learners who have lower levels of word knowledge and would increase the likelihood of IVL occurrence. For example, if at the fi rst 1,000 most frequent word families, a sitcom provides a coverage of 92%, while a soap opera provides a coverage of 87%, then it can be argued that a learner who knows the fi rst 1,000 most frequent word families would be able to comprehend the texts in the sitcoms at a relatively higher level than those in the soap operas. Therefore, there is a higher likelihood of learning vocabulary incidentally from the sitcom. One could conclude that the sitcoms seem more appropriate in this scenario for learners with the knowledge of the first 1,000 most frequent word families than do soap operas.
Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have suffici... more Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have sufficient levels of speaking ability, which is typically assessed through a combination of different tasks. One drawback of including multiple tasks is that the development, administration, and scoring might not be practical. Therefore, it is important to investigate how well the tasks account for examinees’ speaking ability, as using fewer tasks could help in minimizing resources. Using quantitative methods of analysis, this study evaluates how well four types of speaking tasks on proficiency and achievement tests account for students’ speaking ability in an IEP. The findings indicate that several tasks uniquely contribute to the speaking construct. This study has implications for the importance of balancing practicality with construct representativeness and presents a model of how IEPs might approach this issue.
Asian Englishes, 2018
Abstract The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in th... more Abstract The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in the Arab World exhibits distinctive lexico-grammatical features, and hence can be classified as a postcolonial variety of English. The study uses Schneider’s Dynamic Model as its theoretical framework and seeks to examine where such variety, if it exists, might fall on the model’s phases (i.e. foundation, exonormative stabilization, nativization, endonormative stabilization, and differentiation). A corpus of the English used in a selected newspaper was compiled and the British newspaper subcorpus of the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus was used for comparison purposes. The analysis implemented bottom-up and top-down approaches as well as a mix of quantitative and qualitative interpretations. Findings show that there are some distinctive lexico-grammatical features in the selected presumed variety of English. Based on the classification criteria of the Dynamic Model, it appears to be at the beginning of the nativization phase.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2011
TESOL Quarterly, 2012
Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a seco... more Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a second language practitioners as a source of authentic spoken conversational materials presumably because they reflect the linguistic features of natural conversation. However, practitioners are faced with the dilemma of how to assess whether such conversational materials reflect the linguistic characteristics of natural ones. Previous classifications were based on practitioners' personal impressions and intuitions. The present study shows that this subjective approach is problematic and instead adopts a corpus-based register analysis tool to investigate the extent to which soap opera, compared to sitcom, reflects the linguistic representation of natural conversation. The tool is the multidimensional analysis developed by Biber (1988). Findings indicate that sitcom captures the linguistic features of natural conversation more than soap opera does. Implications for research, teaching, and teaching materials development are discussed.
System, 2012
Abstract Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction researc... more Abstract Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lately the investigation has extended to what makes recasts beneficial or unbeneficial. Expanding the investigation to the effect of different types of recasts (i.e., declarative or interrogative) on learners' noticing, the present study reports the findings of an empirical study that examined whether learners' noticing of morpho-syntactic recasts is influenced by recast type, and whether learners subsequently recognize their morpho-syntactic errors and the target-like reformulations they received during task-based interaction. Results show that learners noticed 10% of morpho-syntactic recasts and there was no significant difference by recast type. In subsequent recognition tasks, learners tended to recognize recasted forms (i.e., target-like forms) more than their errors (i.e., non-target forms).
Asian Englishes., 2018
The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in the Arab Wo... more The present exploratory study seeks to answer the question of whether English used in the Arab World exhibits distinctive lexico-grammatical features, and hence can be classified as a postcolonial variety of English. The study uses Schneider’s Dynamic Model as its theoretical framework and seeks to examine where such variety, if it exists, might fall on the model’s phases (i.e. foundation, exonormative stabilization, nativization, endonormative stabilization, and differentiation). A corpus of the English used in a selected newspaper was compiled and the British newspaper subcorpus of the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus was used for comparison purposes. The analysis implemented bottom-up and top-down approaches as well as a mix of quantitative and qualitative interpretations. Findings show that there are some distinctive lexico-grammatical features in the selected presumed variety of English. Based on the classification criteria of the Dynamic Model, it appears to be at the beginning of the nativization phase.
Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2017
Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have suffici... more Intensive English programs (IEPs) strive to make certain that international students have sufficient levels of speaking ability, which is typically assessed through a combination of different tasks. One drawback of including multiple tasks is that the development, administration, and scoring might not be practical. Therefore, it is important to investigate how well the tasks account for examinees' speaking ability, as using fewer tasks could help in minimizing resources. Using quantitative methods of analysis, this study evaluates how well four types of speaking tasks on proficiency and achievement tests account for students' speaking ability in an IEP. The findings indicate that several tasks uniquely contribute to the speaking construct. This study has implications for the importance of balancing practicality with construct representativeness and presents a model of how IEPs might approach this issue.
TESOL Quarterly, 46 (4). 671-694, 2012
Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a seco... more Television shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by English as a second language practitioners as a source of authentic spoken conversational materials presumably because they reflect the linguistic features of natural conversation. However, practitioners are faced with the dilemma of how to assess whether such conversational materials reflect the linguistic characteristics of natural ones. Previous classifications were based on practitioners' personal impressions and intuitions. The present study shows that this subjective approach is problematic and instead adopts a corpus-based register analysis tool to investigate the extent to which soap opera, compared to sitcom, reflects the linguistic representation of natural conversation. The tool is the multidimensional analysis developed by Biber (1988). Findings indicate that sitcom captures the linguistic features of natural conversation more than soap opera does. Implications for research, teaching, and teaching materials development are discussed.
Asian EFL Journal Quarterly,15 (1), 64-86. , 2013
This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal morphology i... more This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal morphology in L2 learners’ interlanguage temporality system. The aim was to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of discourse structure on verbal morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign Language context. The discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms predominantly in the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the background. Data obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions by Thai L2 learners of English. Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking at six pictures. Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than the background while they use more non-past forms in the background. Learners’ systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the results of the present study. The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported and that English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as a Second Language learners.
System 40 (2012) 226-236
Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lat... more Recasts are the most commonly studied type of corrective feedback in interaction research and lately the investigation has extended to what makes recasts beneficial or unbeneficial. Expanding the investigation to the effect of different types of recasts (i.e., declarative or interrogative) on learners' noticing, the present study reports the findings of an empirical study that examined whether learners' noticing of morpho-syntactic recasts is influenced by recast type, and whether learners subsequently recognize their morpho-syntactic errors and the target-like reformulations they received during task-based interaction. Results show that learners noticed 10% of morpho-syntactic recasts and there was no significant difference by recast type. In subsequent recognition tasks, learners tended to recognize recasted forms (i.e., target-like forms) more than their errors (i.e., non-target forms).
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 1, No. 12, pp. 1673-1678, 2011
This paper is a contribution to the studies conducted for investigating the relationship between ... more This paper is a contribution to the studies conducted for investigating the relationship between text linguistic signals and reading comprehension. The aim of this paper is to test the hypothesis that discourse markers facilitate reading comprehension. The specific question addressed is whether the presence of discourse markers facilitates reading comprehension at a global level (i.e., at the discourse level). Two groups of L2 learners were given a text followed by multiple choice comprehension questions. One group was given the actual text, while the other group was given the same text with discourse markers removed. The results indicated that there were no differences in the performance of the two groups. The study concluded that presence or absence of discourse markers may have no effect on the overall representation of coherent information needed for reading comprehension.
Teaching and Learning English in the Arabic-Speaking World, 2014
The purpose of the present study is to examine the word coverage in both soap operas and sitcoms.... more The purpose of the present study is to examine the word coverage in both soap operas and sitcoms. It partially replicates Webb and Rogers’s (2009) study and it extends the investigation to examine whether one genre (soap opera or sitcom) provides 90% to 95% coverage at a lower word family level. The assumption is that the genre which provides a higher word coverage percentage at a lower word family level could lead to better comprehension for those learners who have lower levels of word knowledge and would increase the likelihood of IVL occurrence. For example, if at the fi rst 1,000 most frequent word families, a sitcom provides a coverage of 92%, while a soap opera provides a coverage of 87%, then it can be argued that a learner who knows the fi rst 1,000 most frequent word families would be able to comprehend the texts in the sitcoms at a relatively higher level than those in the soap operas. Therefore, there is a higher likelihood of learning vocabulary incidentally from the sitcom. One could conclude that the sitcoms seem more appropriate in this scenario for learners with the knowledge of the first 1,000 most frequent word families than do soap operas.
Global Neighbors TESOL Newsletter, 2018
Reading fluency is one of the major goals of many reading classes, especially with intermediate o... more Reading fluency is one of the major goals of many reading classes, especially with intermediate or high-intermediate learners of language. As beginners, foreign language learners tend to read word by word, and they may continue to use this strategy as they progress in their learning, which is not helpful when they reach higher levels in their language programs. Therefore, it is very important to introduce fluency-based activities as early as possible. To promote reading fluency, many reading fluency-building activities, such as read aloud, extensive reading, paced-reading, and timed-reading, can be used in the classrooms (Grabe & Stoller, 2011). Using such exercises in classroom settings raises many issues related to the actual implementation. In this short article, the focus is on using timed reading to improve reading fluency. Drawing on information from the literature and reflecting on my personal experience, I present suggested steps for implementing timed reading and discuss issues related to such implementation.