The international status of English for intercultural understanding in Taiwan's high school EFL textbooks

The purpose of this study is to evaluate linguistic and cultural issues around the status of English as a lingua franca and intercultural understanding as presented in one set of Taiwan's (English as a Foreign Language (EFL) high school textbooks. The methodology centres on the analysis of textbook content as categorized in three central themes: (1) the status of English language in international communicative settings; (2) intercultural/interpersonal understanding and diversity in English language texts; and (3) the linguistic and cultural effects of globalization on Taiwan and the world. Results found that the textbooks generally legitimate the hegemony of American English and British English as the only acceptable varieties or standard forms of the language. Furthermore, most of the texts are limited to specific aspects of societal issues and regions that represent influential cultures and their commercial commodities. The United States receives the most attention, followed by the United Kingdom and certain dominant Western European nations, where the image of ethnic and cultural homogeneity prevails in the texts. Most content focuses on reporting achievements, cultural practices, and perspectives of dominant groups in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe with little or no critical analysis of content.     

“用”还是“不用”语料库——语料库在中国特定的ELT环境中的角色(英文)

该文通过简要评论McEnery和Wilson关于"课本上的ELT材料和语料库里呈现的现实生活英语有很大差别"开篇,进而分析英语语言教学(ELT)中"教学材料真实性"和"英语为母语教学者"这两个方面及其对"使用"语料库的肯定。但"学生使用语料库的各种障碍"和"语料库资源与教学材料的区别"又支持"不用"语料库进行教学的观点。作者继续分析语料库和实际教学的关联,引入"教学用语料库"和"学习者语料库",最终以分析如何在中国特定的ELT环境中使用语料库作结。     

A critical review of the role of texts in fostering Intercultural Communicative competence in the English Language classroom

This review maps and critically evaluates 36 empirical studies from English language teaching (ELT), focusing on the role of texts and activities in intercultural learning. The rationale for this review is the call for theoretically-based recommendations for English language (EL) teachers and researchers on the selection of texts and the design of activities for intercultural learning. It draws on principles from Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS), and the studies were gathered from systematic searches of databases, supplemented by manual searches of relevant journals. The results show that fiction texts are more widely used and more strongly rationalized for use than nonfiction texts. There is also a strong focus on dialogic and student-centred activities, and less focus on experiential teaching. It argues that an awareness of the affordances of different text types can assist teachers in mediating EL students’ intercultural learning and recommends a greater variety of research and teaching approaches to identify intercultural learning processes. Furthermore, the review calls for more research on intercultural learning in primary and secondary ELT.     

Reading Materials Adaption for English Language Training

According to the observance of ELT(English Language Training)classes in China,the selection of reading materials becomes a big problem.Most teachers there are in a traditional way of following the textbooks,and regard texts given in those books as the sole resource of teaching materials.However,those texts are not ideal for all situations,and when there are problems,we need to make improvements instead of sticking to the authority of textbooks.In this paper the author will illustrate the necessity of adapting reading textbooks mainly in a Chinese ELT context and set forth some corresponding suggestions about adaption in different cases.     

英语教材语料库与小学教材词汇分析

目前语料库不仅成为语言学研究的重要手段之一,也被越来越多的人应用于语言教学。研究语料库在小学英语教材编写词汇选择方面起什么作用,以及如何运用软件对小学英语教材文本语料进行词汇分析,有助于我们发现和解决通过其他手段不容易发现的问题,为更科学地编写小学英语教材服务。     

“It Was Because I Could Speak English That I Got the Job”: Neoliberal Discourse in a Chinese English Textbook Series

The issue of neoliberalism has aroused sustained interest among English language teaching (ELT) and applied linguistic researchers who are politically minded. Neoliberalism is a dominant rationality with immense economic, political and ideological consequences in all aspects of social and institutional life in globalization, including foreign language education. This article presents a critical analysis of the neoliberal discourse on English language learning in the Chinese context with a special focus on teaching materials. Informed by a political economy perspective on English language education, the study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a methodological principle. Specifically, it examines the way (a) competence in English is commodified as a desirable linguistic cultural capital, (b) English learning is portrayed as an individualized and asocial undertaking, and (c) a monolingual and monocultural dream is built to include learners in an imagined homogeneous discourse community. Implications for ELT pedagogy and curriculum are discussed.     

中国英语中的民族身份标志研究

中国英语指的是被具有中国语言和文化背景的人普遍使用,带有汉语语言和文化特征,能达到语言使用目的,并被其他语言和文化背景的英语使用者接受的英语变体。中国英语的民族身份标志可以从社会语言学、二语习得以及跨文化角度进行论述,在英语教学中保留民族身份具有十分重要的意义。意识到中国英语的存在并把中国文化植入英语教学将是对现有文化教学的有力补充,有助于英语学习者克服“中国文化失语”,并提高跨文化交际能力。     

Opening Up Alternatives to Dominant Ideological Constructions of English Language Teaching in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the impact of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) on the way English language teaching (ELT) is currently understood and practised in Malaysia. It presents a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts in order to show how CEFR represents a form of Western-imposed globalisation that conflicts with local cultures and values. We argue that the newspapers construct a dominant discourse that promotes a vision of society that accords with CEFR–ELT implementation. Our aim is to contribute to the development of a counter-discourse that challenges the broader world-view underpinning ELT.     

Building Inclusive Language Classroom Spaces through Multilingual Writing Practices for Newly-Arrived Students in Norway

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an action research project that aimed to increase opportunities for multilingual literacy engagement and identity investment for newly-arrived immigrant students in Norway. A language teacher and a researcher jointly developed a cross-curricular, multilingual module focusing on identity texts written in three languages: English, Norwegian, and each student's home language. Fourteen adolescent students speaking 15 different home languages participated. To assess the effectiveness of the multilingual pedagogical practices, the data collected included a language use questionnaire, student reflection logs, students’ identity texts, lesson plans, and the teacher's notes and reflections. The results suggest that explicit emphasis on including all languages in students’ linguistic repertories can help build inclusive classroom spaces and foster learners’ multilingual identities.     

论中小学英语教师专业能力:内涵、特征与内容结构

学科教师专业能力是实现学科课程教学目标的首要保障。本文以我国中小学英语教师专业能力研究现状为基础,探讨英语教师专业能力的内涵、特征与内容结构。与已有英语教师研究所不同的是,作者分析了教师专业能力的动态特征,探讨了英语教师专业能力结构的四大维度及其内容结构,以期明确中小学英语教师职前教育与在职发展方向,提高中小学英语课堂教学效率,确保中小学英语课程标准目标落地学校课堂。     

Teaching and Assessing Writing: an Australian Perspective

This article examines issues of writing instruction and assessment as they relate to an approach to English language education that has been developed in Australia. The approach, put forward by proponents of genre theory, is underpinned by the argument that it is essential for all teachers, and especially English teachers, to have a ‘metalanguage’ about language education. The expectation is that such a metalanguage makes it possible for teachers and students to develop shared understandings of how written and spoken language works in their various forms. The related argument is that the teacher represents an authoritative (as distinct from authoritarian) language user in the classroom and is responsible for teaching the linguistic characteristics of texts as well as the relationship between texts and the cultural and social contexts in which they are produced and received. In this article I examine the ‘genre’ position and consider its relevance to the business of teaching, learning and assessing in the English classroom.     

对牛津初中英语教材（译林版）的内部评价

英语教材是英语教学中极为重要的资源。正确的教材评价能够帮助教师合理使用教材,对语言教学的成功起着不可估量的作用。根据程晓堂提出的教材内部评价标准,译林版的牛津初中英语教材具有理念先进实用、内容得体新颖、设计灵活有趣、语言真实地道的优点。希望能帮助教材使用者对牛津英语教材有更多地了解,以更好地利用该教材。     

大学英语教学的转型发展——专门用途英语

在世界经济全球化的背景下,中国国际竞争力的提升急需既精通专业且英语素质良好的复合型人才。然而,承担培养外语人才重任的大学英语教学却忽视了学生的专业特点,缺少针对学生的需求分析。本文基于一项针对大学生英语学习满意度的调查,剖析大学英语教学的困境及其原因,阐述需求分析对大学英语课程的意义,提出大学英语教学由通用英语转向专门用途英语的必要性与可行性,以及实施专门用途英语教学的途径,探索大学英语教学改革的方向。     

Teaching English at a distance in China’s Radio and Television Universities

English language teaching (ELT) has played an important role in the Chinese Radio and Television Universities (RTVU) network since its establishment in the late 1970s. Based on a literature review and reflection from an insider’s perspective, this paper gives a full account of the RTVU distance ELT model, examining how it supports autonomous language learning, how autonomy features in its English courses/programmes and how well the students respond to the model. It also discusses issues related to the improvement of the model, including student support, course production, curriculum design, course assessment, and staff development. It is argued that ELT in RTVUs should not be ignored in the international academic community although not much is known about it outside China, and that the RTVU model may be of practical relevance to other open and distance learning contexts.     

Critical incidents in pre-service EFL teachers’ identity construction process

ABSTRACT

Knowledge and human identity are socially constructed phenomena. Like other aspects of human identity, teacher identity is shaped through social influences. Some of the social influences that contribute to teacher identity development happen through critical incidents that teachers or teacher candidates experience. The current study, adopting a critical incident analysis perspective, attempts to ascertain the nature of the critical incidents that 49 pre-service teachers of EFL have experienced throughout their English learning process. It also tries to uncover the effects of these critical incidents on their English learning and teacher identity. The data for the research was collected using a Critical Incident Form developed by the researchers and focus group interviews. The findings indicated that pre-service ELT teachers’ early learning experiences included certain critical incidents. An inductive quantitative analysis of these incidents revealed that they can be categorized into three themes: people, context, and outcome. Exploring the nature of critical incidents and their role in the construction of English language teacher identity will hopefully be a benefit to teachers and teacher educators.     

Understanding the growth of ESL paragraph writing skills and its relationships with linguistic features

This study sought to examine the development of paragraph writing skills of 116 English as a second language university students over the course of 12 weeks and the relationship between the linguistic features of students’ written texts as measured by Coh-Metrix – a computational system for estimating textual features such as cohesion and coherence – and the scores assigned by human raters. The raters’ reliability was investigated using many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM); the growth of students’ paragraph writing skills was explored using a factor-of-curves latent growth model (LGM); and the relationships between changes in linguistic features and writing scores across time were examined by path modelling. MFRM analysis indicates that despite several misfits, students’ and raters’ performances and scale’s functionality conformed to the expectations of MFRM, thus providing evidence of psychometric validity for the assessments. LGM shows that students’ paragraph writing skills develop steadily during the course. The Coh-Metrix indices have more predictive power before and after the course than during it, suggesting that Coh-Metrix may struggle to discriminate between some ability levels. Whether a Coh-Metrix index gains or loses predictive power over time is argued to be partly a function of whether raters maintain or lose sensitivity to the linguistic feature measured by that index in their own assessment as the course progresses.     

英语专业学习者接受式隐喻能力与阅读水平相关性的实证研究

隐喻能力是构成语言概念流利和交际能力的重要组成部分,调查表明,大概每三句母语产出的英语句子中,就至少出现一次隐喻表达。因此,隐喻能力的高低在一定程度上直接决定学习者的语言能力。Azuma博士在前人研究的基础上,提出了隐喻能力由接受式隐喻能力和产出式隐喻能力两部分组成,后者比前者更难习得。对英语专业一年级学生进行实证研究,结果显示其接受式隐喻能力与阅读水平呈正相关,但接受式隐喻能力仍然偏低。     

中国EFL语境下伦理语言观念的转变——英语教材内容纯净化之伦理思考

英语学习在我国的国情决定了英语对大多数学习者来说只能是外语（EFL）,而不是二语（ESL）,二语习得的某些理论是不适合这种外语学习的。文章以英语粗话作为例证,认为英语粗话是人们创造和运用语言的一种社会行为,它在日常交际中扮演着情感宣泄的重要作用,理应在我们的英语教材中占有一席之地。可是我们目前的英语教材中都是被过滤的语言,其内容的纯净化使得它们远离世俗生活,书卷气十足,这也是造成我国学生英语交际能力不高的部分原因。这就要求我们适当改变伦理语言观念,改革教材编写规范,合理把握教学尺度,从而提高学生的语言交际能力。     

Linguistic Gender Sensitivity Strategies in Current South African Intermediate Phase English Workbooks: Feminisation or Degenderisation?

This study extends research on manifestations of gender insensitivity in learners’ reading materials by shifting attention to the linguistic strategies that authors of current texts employ for the realisation of gender sensitivity. We analysed the content of 12 current (2014) English workbooks (Grade 4–6) used in South African government and public schools for gender sensitive strategies they employed. Most strategies sought to get round the problem caused by the lack of a singular third person gender neutral pronoun in the English Language. Although both feminisation and degenderisation strategies were apparent in the few strategies observed, we observe the difficulty of degenderising reading materials without radical reforms within the English language. We posit that the judicious combination of feminisation and degenderisation holds promise for gender sensitivity in texts.     

Teachers and Polish children: capturing changes in the linguistic field

This article presents original insights into the English learning experiences of Polish children and contributes a longitudinal perspective on teachers’ relationships with them. Data from interviews conducted in 2016 with primary school teachers, Polish children and their parents are compared with outcomes from an earlier study ending in 2009, in order to examine whether teachers’ practice for their Polish children has persisted or changed. Previously, findings suggested that teachers in England are constrained by a monolingually-oriented curriculum and that they identify Polish children as a ‘model minority’. In the current study, interviews with teachers, parents and children were used to develop and question these findings. Using Bourdieuian notions of linguistic field, habitus and capital, data analysis illuminates: the changing responses of teachers to migration; the ways in which teachers’ pedagogy has adapted for children who have English as an additional language; and the fluid nature of children’s linguistic identities.