Category: PDFs

PDF #184 – ESL Activities and Mini-Books for Every Classroom

The number of children in our schools who are new to the US is growing. Estimates range from 2.5 million to 4.6 million children, representing more than 180 different language groups. They leave a variety of environments in their home countries and arrive with a whole set of culturally based values and expectations. Most of all, they are scared and anxious about surviving in a new school with a new language.

Supporting second-language learners in a class full of fluent English speakers can seem a dauting task. How will your new students follow the English-language lessons? How will you assess these students? Communicate with new families? Help the students fit into the group socially? And, most immediately, if you don’t share the students’ first language and they don’t speak any English, how will you communicate throughout the day?

This guide gives you quick and easy ways to provide your second language learners with a little shelter from the storm. Mini-books, games, and activities help students build a basic English vocabulary and manage their own language-learning experience. From the first day in the classroom, students will complete challenging yet achievable tasks that teach words they need to know immediately. Later on, they will memorize basic texts, such as “The Pledge of Allegiance”, that their English-speaking peers know by heart.

After reading “What Do the Names of British Houses Mean?” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #183 – Approach, Method and Technique in Language Learning and Teaching

This is a great presentation on Approach, Method and Technique in Language Learning and Teaching. The slides contain:

1. TEFL APPROACH, METHOD AND TECHNIQUE Elih Sutisna Yanto- FKIP PBI Unsika West-Java Indonesia

2. Edward Anthony (1965) An approach is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language and the nature of language learning and teaching.

3. According to Edward Anthony’s model (1965) approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs about language and language learning are specified; method is the level at which theory is put into practice and at which choices are made about the particular skills to be taught, the content to be taught, and the order in which the content will be presented; technique is the level at which classroom procedures are described.

4. Summary and elements and sub elements that constitute method (Richards & Rodgers:33) Method Approach a. A theory of the nature of language b. A theory of the nature of language learning Design a. The general and specific objectives of the method b. A syllabus model c. Types of learning and teaching activities. d. Learner roles e. Teachers roles f. The role of instructional materials Procedure a. Classroom techniques, practices, and behaviors when the method is used. b. Resources in term of time, space, and equipment used by the teacher. c. Interactional patterns observed in lessons. d. Tactics and strategies used by teachers and learners when the method is being use.

5. Three different views of The nature of language 1. Structural view: It views language as a system of structurally related element. 2. Functional view: It regards language as a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning. 3. Interactional view: It sees language as a vehicle for the realization of interpersonal relations and social interaction between individuals.

6. The common assumptions about the nature of the language 1. Language is a group of sounds with specific meaning and organized by grammatical rules (The Silent Way). 2. Language is the everyday spoken utterance of the average person at normal speed (Audio Lingual Method). 3. Language is a system for the expression of meaning (Communicative Language Teaching). 4. Language is a set of grammatical rules and language consists of language chunks (Total Physical Responses)

7. Definitions of learning 1. A change in behaviour as a result of experience or practice. 2. The acquisition of knowledge. 3. Knowledge gained through study. 4. To gain knowledge of , or skill in, through study, teaching, instruction or experience. 5. The process of gaining knowledge. 6. A process by which behavious is changed, shaped, or controlled. 7. The individual process of constructing understanding based on experience from a wide range of sources. (Alan Prichard 2009:2)

After reading “Approach, Method and Technique in Language Learning and Teaching” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

PDF #182 – Routledge Handbooks

The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners celebrates the ‘coming of age’ for the field of research in primary-level English Language Teaching.

With 32 chapters written by international scholars from a wide geographical area including East Africa, Mexico, the South Pacific, Japan, France, the USA and the UK, this volume draws on areas such as second language acquisition, discourse analysis, pedagogy and technology to provide:

• An overview of the current state of the field, identifying key areas of TEYL.
• Chapters on a broad range of subjects from methodology to teaching in difficult circumstances and from Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) to gaming.
• Suggestions of ways forward, with the aim of shaping the future research agenda of TEYL in multiple international contexts.
• Background research and practical advice for students, teachers and researchers.

With extensive guidance on further reading throughout, The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners is essential reading for those studying and researching in this area.

After reading “Routledge Handbooks” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

PDF #181 – English Language Teachers’ Awareness of English as a Lingua Franca in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts

English as a Lingua Franca – Today English has become the Lingua Franca or common language of many people, regardless of their being native or nonnative speaker of English all over the world.

Therefore, it has become necessary to educate pre-/in-service teachers with an awareness towards the significance of the involvement of an “English as a lingua franca” (ELF) perspective in their language teaching practice in multilingual/multicultural contexts.

In a rapidly changing world. Many English language teachers and teacher trainers are cognizant of the impact of migration in their teaching contexts. However, it is still not very clear to what extent and in what context they are integrating ELF related issues in their language teaching practice.

In this English as a Lingua Franca study:

In this study, we make an attempt to unveil in-service teachers’ beliefs about
ELF in pedagogical practice in three different countries – Poland, Portugal and Turkey. In order to do that we have adopted a questionnaire from an earlier study investigating the involvement of culture in ELT in expanding circle contexts.

The findings of the study revealed that although teachers in these contexts are aware of the significance of the inclusion of an ELF-aware perspective in ELT, they are still hesitant about its applicability in their own teaching context. This study has implications for raising English language teachers’ awareness in conceptualizing how an ELF-aware pedagogical approach can be implemented in a multilingual/multicultural context.

Developments in English as a lingua franca (ELF) have often been perceived as an opportunity for thinking about what it means to use, teach and learn an English language that is no more a foreign language to the wide majority of learners around the world (Sifakis, 2014). In this debate, the education of teachers of English as a foreign/second language takes center-stage (Hamid, Zhu & Baldauf, 2014; Sifakis, 2007, 2009, 2014; Sridhar & Sridhar, 1986).

After reading this article you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #180 – Linguistic knowledge: perspectives from phonology and from syntax

In their day-to-day research practice, phonologists and syntacticians are guided – implicitly or explicitly – by ontological and epistemological assumptions about their respective objects of study. These views of phonology and syntax are in turn inscribed within wider conceptions of the nature of language in general and of the proper conduct of linguistic research

PDF #179 – Clitics and Constituents in Phrase Structure Grammar

In this study, I address a set of problems on the status of Phrase Structure Grammar and its importance to the syntax-morphology and the syntax-phonology interfaces. The point of departure of this study was the realization that the results of the classical constituency tests which have been proposed to motivate constituent structure in generative grammar, as inventoried for instance in a classical syntax textbook, pose a number of problems with respect to the classical assumptions about the constituent structure of English, and even more so, of French. In this paper the author makes an inventory of such tests and discuss their results – at a very naive level of linguistic sophistication – concentrating especially on the question of the internal syntax of the NP. This review lead to a number of somewhat surprising results. It first shows that the constituency tests can be largely divided into two groups, syntactically oriented criteria and phonologically oriented criteria. The it shows that the syntactically oriented tests largely undetermined constituent structure choices below the phrasal level, to an extent which is not usually taken into account. Furthermore, it shows that the results of the phonologically oriented tests often contradict the choices classically made for sub phrasal constituency in syntax.

After reading “Phrase Structure Grammar” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #178 – ESL Learners’ Writing Skills: Problems, Factors and Suggestions 

Writing is an important skill for language production. However, it is considered a difficult skill, particularly in English as a second language (ESL) contexts where students face many challenges in writing. Therefore, the present study was conducted with an aim to investigate problems in Pakistani undergraduate ESL learners’ writing and factors that hinder their writing skills.

It also aimed at obtaining suggestions on how to improve Pakistani ESL learners’ writing skills. For this purpose, focus groups of Pakistani English language teachers’ and undergraduate ESL learners were conducted.

groups of Pakistani English language teachers’ and undergraduate ESL learners were conducted. Writing samples were also collected from 30 ESL undergraduate learners to find the major problems in their writing. The interviews and essays were analyzed using thematic content analysis.

The findings reveal that the major problems in Pakistani undergraduate ESL learners’ writing are insufficient linguistic proficiency (including command over
grammar, syntax and vocabulary), writing anxiety, lack of ideas, reliance on L1 and weak structure organization.

These challenges are influenced by various factors including untrained teachers, ineffective teaching methods and examination system, lack of reading and writing practice, large classrooms, low motivation and lack of ideas. The study also sheds light on the remedial measures such as increased reading, conscious and incidental vocabulary teaching, writing practice, trained teachers, reforms in the examination system, and writing competitions.

Writing is a significant skill in language production. Its significance increases when it comes to writing in English language which is extensively used for global mediation of knowledge (Mahboob, 2014; Mansoor, 2005; Marlina & Giri, 2014; Rahman, 2002). Hyland (2003) believes that performance in language development is subject to improvement in writing skills. A text of an effective ESL writer must be cohesive, logical, clearly structured, interesting and properly organized with a wide range of vocabulary and mastery of conventions in mechanics (Jacobs & L, 1981; Hall, 1988).

After reading “Local Teachers Work Through Challenges” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

PDF #177 – Deva Richards – EFL Teaching and Teacher Training in  Nicaragua: A Master’s International Experience 

English as a foreign language is a mandatory part of public education in
Nicaragua, Central America. Many Nicaraguan English teachers, however, lack the English and teaching skills to be able to do their job effectively. Furthermore, teacher training and professional development opportunities for English teachers in Nicaragua are often inaccessible and/or of low quality. As a Master’s International Program student, I studied Teaching English as a Second Language/Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TESL/TEFL) and served in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua, where I sought to improve EFL education. This M.A. Project tells the story of my Master’s International Program.

In Chapter 1, Introduction, I outline the project. In Chapter 2, Master’s
International Training and the Nicaraguan TEFL Context, I describe the TESL/TEFL training I received at Humboldt State University and in the Peace Corps, and the relevancy of that training to my later TEFL development work in Nicaragua. Chapter 3, Co-Teaching, discusses the two years I spent as a Peace Corps volunteer training Nicaraguan EFL teachers through co-planning and co-teaching high school English classes. Chapter 4, Secondary Projects, details the other TEFL development work I did in Nicaragua, including teaching English at the community and university levels and giving workshops to Nicaraguan EFL teachers. Lastly, in Chapter 5, Conclusion, I summarize my thoughts and feelings regarding my Master’s International Program. 

You can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs and visit my channel by YouTube.

PDF #178 – Beyond the Constituent A Dependency Grammar Analysis of Chains

A Dependency Grammar Analysis – The paper introduces a unit of syntax beyond the constituent called the chain. A number of mechanisms are shown to be sensitive to chains, e.g. the formation of predicates and idioms, the ellipses of gapping, pseudogapping and VP-ellipsis, and the elided material of stripping and answer fragments.

The presentation is couched in a surface syntax, dependency-based framework, as opposed to a constituency-based one. While the chain can be defined in a manner consistent with constituency, doing so requires that one adopt some controversial assumptions about the nature of constituency structure. The potential of the chain concept is great; it is the tool necessary to address the manner in which semantic compositionality occurs in the syntax.

This paper has adopted from O’Grady (1998), and developed further, a novel
syntactic unit called the chain. The chain can be viewed as picking up where
the constituent leaves off insofar as certain mechanisms of syntax are sensitive to chains, not necessarily to constituents. The presentation above has considered the extent to which the chain is the essential unit of syntax behind predicate formation, including the predicates of idioms. In this regard, the chain can be viewed as the tool necessary for capturing the manner in which semantic units are realized in the syntax. Furthermore it has been demonstrated that the elided material of many ellipsis mechanisms – i.e. gapping, pseudogapping, stripping, and answer fragments – must correspond to chains.

The strength of dependency is its economy, dependency structures lacking the projections of constituency structures and hence containing generally half the number of nodes and edges. In this regard, compare the two formulations. The constituency-based definition must reference the projections of constituency structures in order to accomplish the same thing as the dependency-based definition, which has no need for such projections. The result is that the constituency-based definition is more cumbersome than the dependency-based version. 

After reading “A Dependency Grammar Analysis”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

PDF #177 – What are the core aims of English as a school subject? A study of teacher understanding in lower secondary school

The core of English as a school subject – Teachers’ interpretations of the core aims of a school subject open or constrain what can be taught and learned in the subject in school. The global spread of English and its changing status in the world have impacted how English as a school subject is understood and what it is meant to achieve. This article explores teachers’ understandings of the core aims of English as a school subject at the end of basic English education in Norway.

The spread of English through globalization, technology, and migration –together with the rise in non-native users of English – is challenging previous definitions of what it means to know or to be proficient in English (Graddol, 2006; Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011). As English increasingly becomes a language of contact for diverse speakers, new understandings of English competence potentially conflict with the established understanding and practices of the English language classroom (Hult & King, 2011; Nauman, 2011; Seidlhofer, 2011). Moreover, in many countries, changes in English education have often been top-down and rapidly implemented, assuming the benefits of early education and underestimating the teaching challenges involved in implementation (Hu, 2007).

In anticipating a new subject curriculum for deeper learning of central elements in English as a school subject (Kunnskapsdepartement, 2017), it is timely to investigate how teachers understand these elements and the relationships between them. While much research on English language teaching in Norway has focused on developing specific English language skills – such as reading (Bakken, 2017; Brevik, 2014; Charboneau, 2012), writing (Burner, 2016), speaking (Bøhn, 2015; Bøhn & Hansen, 2017), and vocabulary development (Hestetræet, 2012) – less research has focused on the overall aims of the subject and even less on teachers’ understanding of these aims and how they expand or constrain what can be learned in the subject.

After reading “The core of English as a school subject” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.