Extensive reading
Extensive reading is an approach to language teaching that aims to facilitate second language acquisition by immersing L2 learners with large amounts of interesting and comprehensible language. In extensive reading, students choose what they want to read, how they want to read it and what they want to do with it after they have finished reading.
A corpus-based study of the vocabulary profile of high school English textbooks in China
The study investigates the vocabulary profile of a set of English textbooks New Senior English for China, which is widely used for senior secondary education in China. It examines how the words required by the 2017 National English Curriculum Standard for General Senior Secondary Education in China are covered, repeated and distributed in the textbooks. The results show that the textbooks cover only about 80% of the lemmas required by the 2017 English Curriculum Standard. Among the lemmas covered in the textbooks, half of them are repeated less than five times in the textbooks. Most of the lemmas which recur more than five times in the textbooks have dispersion values above 0.5. Lemmas with dispersion values below 0.1 are mainly composed of theme-based words. Although the study indicates that some words are distributed favorably, the textbooks fail to provide sufficient coverage and repetition of the words required by the 2017 English Curriculum Standard. Therefore, extra exposure and repetition of these words are required for optimal learning.
Far apart, yet close together: Cooperative learning in at education
Online education can play a crucial role in increasing access to educational opportunity and in promoting lifelong learning. The Covid-19 pandemic has done even more to raise awareness of the importance of online education. The pandemic has been a Category 5 disruptor of education systems. This article was written to help teachers at all levels of education facilitate cooperation among their students as a key element of online education. While many teachers believe in the benefits of student-student cooperation, and theory and research support this view, many teachers worry that distance learning is already difficult enough without adding the complications of cooperative learning, no matter how beneficial it might be. The article begins by discussing some of the obstacles teachers may encounter as they seek to integrate cooperative learning as part of online education. The main part of the article presents nine lesson plans for language education via cooperative learning in online education settings. While the content of the lessons focuses on language learning, the lessons can be employed in a wide variety of content areas. The article concludes with general suggestions on overcoming the previously mentioned obstacles.
What makes a good language teacher in a changing world?
The quality of students’ teachers can have a major impact on their lives during and after students’ formal education. This article proposes nine areas for teacher improvement toward the goal of being good teachers. These areas for possible improvement include: (a) language proficiency, (b) pedagogical knowledge and skills, (c) understanding of their students, (d) balance of implicit and explicit teaching, (e) membership in communities of teachers, (f) participation in lifelong learning, (g) use of technology, (h) promotion of student engagement and (i) safeguarding of their own health.
Learning how to write socially appropriate emails through textbooks: An evaluation of international English textbooks
This study investigates email pragmatic instruction in four sets of international English textbooks. The prevalence of email communication in today’s technology-mediated world necessitates its inclusion in second language classroom instruction. However, our analysis of the books reveals inadequate attention to the sociocultural aspects of email writing. The analysis also indicates limited opportunities for learners to notice form-function-context connections, engage in output practice, and reflect on their pragmatic performance. These findings underscore the gap between research recommendations and current teaching practices, highlighting the urgent need for textbook writers to integrate research findings for enhanced pragmatic instruction. The findings also provide recommendations for teaching email communication in the second language classroom.
An analysis of the cognitive rigor of questions used in secondary three English textbooks
Textbooks are an essential component in the classroom, making it extremely crucial to regularly evaluate textbooks used in schools so that their pedagogical contributions towards the teaching and learning processes can be guaranteed.
This study aimed to identify and analyse the cognitive levels of questions available in Secondary Three “All About English” textbooks, which have been used in Singapore since 2013. The objective of carrying out the analysis was to determine the overall cognitive rigor of questions, using a matrix superimposing two taxonomies: Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Domain-of-Knowledge (DOK) model.
The sample of this study consisted of questions from the Express and Normal Technical (NT) English language textbooks from Hodder Education, where 346 questions were analysed in total. The cognitive rigor matrix was used in the classification of the questions.
The results revealed that in the Express level textbook, most questions were within the cell [2,3] (35.9%), consisting of Understand and “Strategic Thinking” questions. In contrary, for the Normal Technical level textbook, most questions were within the cell [5,4] (17.6%), consisting of Evaluate and “Extended Thinking” questions. Overall, there was a good mix of Lower-order thinking skill (LOTS) and Higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) questions. However, not all cognitive levels were clearly varied, with an over-emphasis on Understand and Evaluate questions, neglecting Remember and Apply questions.
In light of the results, it is recommended that coursebook writers incorporate questions of varied cognitive demands. Similar studies should also be conducted regularly to evaluate the effectiveness of school textbooks in their potential in enhancing students’ critical thinking.
Use of gesture for correcting pronunciation errors
The role of gesture in second language acquisition (SLA) has recently become a promising area of research, characterized by the growing number of empirical research studies that examine the potential of incorporating gestures in such areas as the teaching of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. This paper focuses on how gesture can be productively used to help students notice and subsequently correct their pronunciation errors, both segmental and suprasegmental errors. First, a critical review of the literature is presented in which we carefully explore recent research on oral corrective feedback and the role that gesture plays in facilitating comprehension and acquisition. Next, pedagogical implications are considered in which we discuss a pedagogical framework that language teachers can use as a guide for incorporating gestures in pronunciation instruction. Finally, future research possibilities are discussed, including suggestions for more robust research design and new areas to investigate.
Unequal Englishes: Re-envisioning the teaching of English in linguistically diverse classrooms
The globalization of English means that it has also been undergoing the process of localization as it is used and taken up by multilingual and multicultural speakers around the world. Thus, in the classroom, despite the explicit agenda of teaching “Standard English” or “Global English”, sociolinguistically speaking the very process of teaching and learning English is a process of localization. Teachers and students are by and large bringing along with them unequally valued multiple accents, languages, and cultures which shape their teaching and learning of English. This chapter discusses how to reconceptualize the teaching of English today as it confronts inequalities of linguistic diversity in the classroom. First, we begin with the idea of multilingual English (or Englishes). The character of “global” and “standard” English that we teach and learn today is plural and multilingual. Second, the teaching of multilingual English, precisely because it represents and is shaped by those who use it, should work towards three interdependent pedagogical aims: Attitudinal change, cultural affirmation, and facilitative learning. And third, the teaching of multilingual English(es) must be viewed as compensatory, redemptive, and/or transformative. Such teaching confronts the reality of Unequal Englishes in order to provide learners, whose accents, languages, and cultures have traditionally been ignored or devalued in the classroom in the name of “standard” norms and practices, new opportunities to improve their learning of English through the cultural resources they bring along with them in the classroom.
A balanced approach to teaching L2 speaking in China
In many EFL contexts, the ability to speak fluently is often the goal of L2 learning. However, L2 teachers may not be well-equipped to help their L2 learners achieve this goal. Some may still be using antiquated teaching methods that may in fact impede or even harm learners’ speaking development, while others may use teaching methods that overly emphasize certain dimensions of speaking skills (e.g., linguistic or cognitive aspect) and neglect the other equally important dimensions (e.g., affective and metacognitive aspects). This paper first examines two approaches to teaching speaking: the direct/controlled approach and the indirect/transfer approach, highlighting their major strengths and weaknesses. It then describes a more recent approach, proposed by Goh and Burns (2012), which combines the strengths of the older approaches into a more coherent and comprehensive model for teaching speaking. A lesson plan will then be presented to exemplify how this approach might pan out in a speaking lesson designed for a group of intermediate students in China.