Renandya, Willy A.

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.

One of the key characteristics of student-centered learning is the active involvement of students in the learning process, where they co-construct knowledge with the guidance of the teachers and their peers. The co-construction of knowledge can be greatly facilitated when students respond to teachers’ questions and when they themselves generate well-thought out questions. The purpose of this article is to discuss the role of student-generated questions in a student-centred learning environment and to offer practical strategies for language teachers to guide students in asking more and better student questions in the classroom, i.e., the kind of questions that promote deeper engagement and learning.

There are three purposes of this paper, the first of which is to elucidate the theory and principles underlying extensive reading. Long-held principles will be discussed in light of practical classroom and contextual considerations. Secondly, a critical summary of current research on extensive reading that has been conducted in English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language contexts and has been published over the last five years will be presented. By highlighting the vast benefits of extensive reading on improving many aspects of L2 learners’ language proficiency, we hope to encourage greater implementation of extensive reading in educational institutions worldwide. Teachers will also become more familiar with future directions in the practice of implementing extensive reading programs such as how to capitalize on the potential of the Internet to monitor and assess learners’ progress in reading extensively. Thirdly, the paper provides directions for future research which we believe might fill critical gaps in our knowledge about ER.

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.

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.

Choosing the right international journal for your research paper can be a daunting task and the process may seem complicated. This is particularly so if you have had little or no experience publishing in an international journal. This paper provides practical guidelines that could help novice writers find answers to questions such as these: What types of journals are available in the field of TESOL and Applied Linguistics? Which types of journals are the most suitable for their papers? What are some of the key criteria that institutions use to assess the quality of a journal? What is the review process like? How long is the wait time? What is the rejection rate of the journal? Are there journals that have lower rejection rates for novice writers? The paper also lists a number of journals that novice writers could aim for in order to increase the acceptance rates of their submissions.

Speaking in a second or foreign language often poses special challenges. Student speakers need to possess a variety of knowledge and skills, and coordinate these in real time when communicating orally with their peers, teachers or other speakers of the language. They need to know not only basic knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, but also the skills of using this knowledge for a variety of communicative purposes, e.g. how to converse with people in formal or informal settings, how to recount a past event, how to give directions to strangers and how to give a presentation in an academic setting. This chapter explores the kinds of knowledge and skills that L2 learners need to develop during the course of their study, and offers suggestions on how the teaching of speaking can best be approached in L2 classroom contexts.