Exploring classroom assessment practices: the case of teachers of English as a foreign language

The research investigated the factors which underlie the perceptions and usage of alternative assessment procedures among EFL teachers in Israel. The research was conducted within the framework of an earlier model by Hargreaves and colleagues comprising four perspectives – technological, cultural, political and postmodern – to account for teachers’ assessment practices and beliefs. The sample included 113 EFL teachers who responded to a self‐report questionnaire. The model’s four perspectives were validated using a two‐stage factor analysis. Results show that the predominant factor related to the usage of alternative assessment is the technological one, followed by the cultural and postmodern perspectives. The political perspective yielded mixed results. The findings highlight the complexity of teachers’ assessment practices reflecting not merely a testing approach but a social and educational paradigm encompassing micro constraints (technological), macro influences (political), ideologies and commonly‐held beliefs (cultural) as well as evidence of critical pedagogy (postmodern).     

Pre-service English as a foreign language teachers' perceptions of the relationship between multiple intelligences and foreign language learning

The relationship between intelligence, language, and learning is a challenging field of study. One way to study how this relationship occurs and works is to investigate the perceptions of advanced language learners. Therefore, this paper reports a study that was conducted to explore 160 pre-service English language teachers' perceptions about which type(s) of multiple intelligence(s) play a role in foreign language learning. The findings of the study indicated that virtually all participants (97%) agreed on making use of all intelligence types in the process of foreign language learning and linguistic intelligence alone does not guarantee success in learning a foreign language. The results of the study also illustrate that multiple intelligences and foreign language learning have an ongoing, complex, and interactive relationship. Finally, a foreign language learning discipline MI profile is suggested.     

English as a foreign language,globalisation and conceptual questioning

This text discusses the locus of English in globalisation discourses. Assuming that languages constitute discursive formations informing ways of knowing, discourses of English as a global language (EGL) are positioned in relation to teaching English as a foreign language in the glocal scene. We draw on post‐colonial theories and critical education, treating languages as social practices and conceiving of teaching EGL as a privileged context for discursive agency, especially when discourses of global English are critically engaged with through dialogue and conceptual questioning. We present a post‐method suggestion of procedures to promote conceptual questioning through construction of open spaces.     

Formative assessment of writing in English as a foreign language

Recognizing the importance of formative assessment, this mixed-methods study investigates how four teachers and 100 students respond to the new emphasis on formative assessment in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing classes in Norway. While previous studies have examined formative assessment in oral classroom interactions and focused on either studying students or teachers, little research has been conducted on formative assessment of writing where both students and teachers are studied. As such, this study provides new insight. The findings mostly indicate that contradictions are prevalent amongst teachers’ and students’ perceptions of formative assessment of writing. The contradictions revolve around feedback, grades, text revision, self-assessment, and student involvement. The identified contradictions suggest the need for developing a mutual understanding of formative assessment in order to make it useful and meaningful.     

英语外语教学与汉语外语教学的教学异同点分析

随着经济全球化的发展,国家与国家之间的联系也日益密切,文化的交流也是必不可少的。而这就要求我们对他国的语言具有一定的了解,以便于相互地沟通理解。对于文化的学习,教育的重要性是不言而喻的。但是,并不是所有语言的对外教学都是一样的,它们也会有各自的特点,这样才能更好地使其被学习。本文就对于英语和汉语两种语言作为外语教学的异同点进行分析。     

English as a foreign language spelling: comparisons between good and poor spellers

This study examined English as a foreign language (EFL) spelling development amongst 233 fifth‐grade, eighth‐grade and 10th‐grade Hebrew first‐language speakers to examine effects of English orthographic exposure on spelling. Good and poor speller differences were examined regarding the acquisition of novel phonemes (/æ/, /Λ/ and //) and orthographic conventions (/ð/, /θ/, // and silent ‘e’). Hebrew measures included standardised spelling and orthographic and phonological tasks. Experimental English measures included real‐word and pseudoword spellings, orthographic tasks and standardised spellings. Results showed significant differences in spelling accuracy between good and poor spellers at all grades. Spelling accuracy for most conventions did not improve after the eighth grade. Spellings of consonantal clusters, initial h and /ð/ differed between good and poor spellers in the fifth grade only. Hebrew spelling was one of the strongest predictors of EFL real‐word and pseudoword spellings in both fifth and eighth grades. Implications for teaching practice are discussed.     

二外英语在外语院校非英语语言类专业中课程设置探究

二外英语为外语院校非英语语言类专业的必修课程,本文首先从《教学要求》,教师队伍建设,教学模式等角度探讨二外英语的必修课地位;其次以笔者所在院校为例探究二外英语教学中的多样化学分设置;并进一步论述了英语选修课对二外英语教学的有益补充。     

Reading skills in extended discourse in English as a foreign language

Are there different reading skills (Davis, 1944; 1968; 1972) or is there just one‘basic’(Spearitt, 1972) or‘common’(Thorndike, 173) reading skill? Tests designed to measure some posited reading comprehension skills were given to advanced students of English as a Foreign Language. There were five tests: I) Vocabulary Recognition as measured by a multiple-choice test, 2) Extraction of Meaning during reading as measured by open-end questions, 3) Extraction of Meaning during and after reading as measured by a question-cued recall test, 4) Fast and accurate reading as measured by a Word Intrusion Test, and 5)‘Overall reading proficiency’as measured by a modified cloze test. Results indicate the existence of two factors: Factor I which is connected with‘receptive’reading skills, and Factor 2 which is connected with‘productive’reading skills. It is suggested that reading comprehension tests of extended discourse in English as a Foreign Language which do not tap‘productive’reading skills, such as are required in recall (and in real life), are only partial tests of reading comprehension.     

浅谈对外汉语口语课词汇教学研究

运用适合的教学法对迅速扩大留学生的汉语词汇量,提高他们运用汉语词汇的能力非常重要。     

Recoding strategies of German learners of English as a foreign language

This study investigated whether German learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) acquire additional recoding strategies that they do not need for recoding in the consistent German orthography. Based on the psycholinguistic grain size theory (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) we expected students with little experience in EFL to use the same small-grain recoding strategy as in German, while more advanced students were expected to switch flexibly between small and large grain size recoding strategies when reading English nonwords. German students in Grades 5, 7, and 9, as well as university students were presented with an experimental nonword reading paradigm introduced by Goswami, Ziegler, Dalton, and Schneider (2003) which assesses the effects of language (nonwords derived from German vs. English), orthographic neighborhood, item length and presentation format (blocked vs. mixed) on reading latencies and accuracies. The data were analyzed using hierarchical linear models. The youngest age group did not use larger units to read English nonwords, but mostly applied simple grapheme-phoneme translation, as they would in their first language. University students were able to switch flexibly between large- and small size recoding strategies.     

Students' perceptions of Wiki-based collaborative writing for learners of English as a foreign language

This study proposes a Wiki-based collaborative writing approach to the writing process for EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. A five-stage computer-mediated collaborative writing project including collaborative planning, partitioned drafting, peer-revising, peer-editing, and individual publishing was blended with on-campus English composition course. Fifty-one L2 learners at a university in central Taiwan participated in this project. Procedural scaffolding and collective scaffolding were provided to promote students' self-regulation and thus to foster the development of students' writing skills. A cross-referencing questionnaire survey was adopted to investigate students' perceptions of Wiki-based collaborative writing and students' perceptions of their work in each stage of collaborative writing. As the results indicated, a high percentage of students' satisfaction showed positive perceptions of this Wiki-based collaborative writing environment, and the instructional design of implementing a Wiki-based collaborative writing project with a five-stage writing process does assist EFL learners to accomplish a collaborative writing task on the internet with less limitation of time. This article also points to new possibilities for future research.     

Single-case experimental designs in remedial teaching of English as a foreign language

First-year failure of German Gymnasium pulils is frequently the result of insufficient achievement in EFL (English as a foreign language); such failure has traditionally been attributed to a lack of talent and/or effort on the learner's part.The poor statistical correlation between intelligence and EFL achievement does not adequately explain this failure. Although the proportion of failure in EFL has long been known, no basic changes in teaching approach have resulted.Concepts of didactic models presented by Carroll, by Bloom, and by Harnischfeger and Wiley indicate that too little emphasis on active learning time, quality of instruction, and individualized teaching strategies may constitute sources of failure. Furthermore, the concept of learning hierarchies suggests that the cumulative effect of learning deficits will inhibit further learning.In the absence of institutionalized remedial teaching in the German school system, a research project was planned; its aim was to identify factors responsible for learning difficulties, and to work remedially with failing pupils in order to ensure further learning in the normal classroom setting.Both areas and sources of failure in first-year EFL and effective strategies are reported on. The possibility of monitoring and quantifying the effectiveness of remedial teaching is discussed in presenting multiple baselines as documentation of single-case experimental designs.Presented in part at the Third Overseas Conference of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, Poznán, Poland, April 18–20, 1979.     

谈英语歌曲在英语语言教学中的运用

英语歌曲在交际法英语教学中是一种非常重要的教学手段，为语言教师提供了大量丰富多彩的语言材料，他们不仅能用于有目的的语言训练，而且可以最大程度地激发学生学习英语的兴趣，提高学生主动的参与英语语言学习的意识。     

Narrative inquiry for teacher education and development: Focus on English as a foreign language in China

Teacher education and development takes place within an encompassing local system of education and ongoing forms of school improvement. Critical to successful teacher development when Western ideas are being adopted in other cultures is narratively linking development programmes to this local education system, such as in China, and to its culturally established ways of knowing and being. This paper presents a narrative inquiry approach to teacher development that builds on the existing educational system, ongoing school reforms, and culturally established ways of knowing and being. The paper concludes with the potential of teacher development to shape global values that may be shared among cultures.