A Case Study of Student Perceptions toward Between-class Ability Grouping in Freshman Practical English Class

This study is trying to optimize the effectiveness of English lecturers held in the non-English departments conducted by lecturers from the English Department of the Faculty of languages and Art (FBS) of the State University of Yogyakarta (UNY). To achieve the objective, this study sets the methods as: 1) selecting core material,2) developing activities in the lecturing, 3) training the candidate lecturers 4) implementing the designed instruction, 5)evaluating and discussing the results of the implementation of the instruction in the target classes. The learning processes run well in the seven target classes, but it runs so slowly in one target class because on belief conflict in the lecturer’s side. Positive aspects reported are: 1) the teaching method is practical, 2) easy to follow, 3) giving new experience and spirit to students; 4) continually given homework are promoting strong students’ motivation and spirit to study harder, 5) the exercises are helping students to have better understanding and competence of English; teaching materials, methods, and techniques are very effective; the teaching learning processes are felt very special, new, enjoyable, and promoting students’ competencies of English. Negative aspects reported are materials to learn are too much comparing to time available, too much of memorization, using uncommon terms, too much time used for discussing formulas, too much demanding of command on teaching materials and methods to the teachers, too many numbers of formative tests, short of rich examples for each type of sentences, lack intention of promoting oral communication. Keywords: lecturing of English, basic general subject, the non-English department, learning instruction design.

This study aims to explore the gender differences in the majors' of students who experienced English language learning anxiety at a University of Technology in Taiwan. The participants were 245 randomly selected students at this university in Taiwan. A questionnaire about English language learning anxiety was adopted as data collection. The results show that students attributed the cause of anxiety to the fear of speaking, the fear of exam consequences, a lack of both learning motivation and self-confidence, as well as the teacher's influence. Also, the finding of this study indicates that male students have stronger feelings of English learning anxiety than female students, and non-English majors have stronger feelings of English learning anxiety than English majors. The findings of this study suggest that EFL teachers in Taiwan should strive towards making classrooms more relaxing with a less formal atmosphere, and move away from the exam paradigm.

Learning goal for students in Teacher's college is set up to be elementary school teachers. Any college course without direct relationship with elementary school teaching can't be easily accepted. Students want credits for specialized courses. But, they like gut courses. They will ask instructors to modify the courses, so, it can be applied in elementary school teaching. By my ten years teaching experence in this environment, I developed a new method to teach Genetics for Natural Science Education Department students during Feb.-June 2002 in National Taitung Teacher's College. This new method almost 100% relys on internet resources. I compiled lots of web site materials together to build my own web site and use a notebook connected to a single beam projector. All teaching materials were complied in my own web site. No textbook was needed. Students saved their money. The main point of my method is not to teach students the knowledge of Genetics. I taught them how to gain the knowledge for Genetics. I used lots of interesting classroom activities to conduct them to dig in their own study. Every semester, our college will do a student survey to understand how instructors did in their classes. Each item is 6 points maximum. Those 22 students in my class gave me 4.95 (college average was 4.78) for ”the teaching material is adequate according to studets' ability and needs”, and 5.25 (college average was 4.74) for ”the teaching material can match the goal of the course”, and 5.06 (college average was 4.79) for ”assignments set by the instructor was helpful for reaching the goal of the course”. These data showed the new teaching method was successful and worth to share.

This study examined History teachers’ perceptions and experiences on teaching and learning history in secondary schools in Kigoma region in Tanzania. The study focused on teachers’ perceptions of significance of teaching and learning History, teaching methods, perception of how students learn history, perception of learnability of History, and perceived challenges. About fifteen history teachers from seven secondary schools were involved. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The data were analysed using content analysis method. The findings indicated that the teachers highly perceived History as an important subject in secondary school education. They acknowledged the use of both teacher-centred and learner-centred teaching methods in teaching History, with more use of teacher-centred methods. Teachers highlighted various challenges to history teaching and learning in their schools. These include shortage of teaching and learning materials, use of English as the medium of instruction, lack of professional development opportunities and examination oriented teaching. It is recommended that educational authorities give priority to in-service teacher education and professional development and ensure availability of teaching and learning materials in schools. Article visualizations:

From the viewpoint of empiricism and revisionism, relativism has practically changed the conception of English teaching from the late 19th century up to nowadays and the idea of teacher-centered instruction as well as student-centered instruction has become optional focus by teacher's thinking and for students' needs. Therefore not only empiricism and revisionism can be regarded as the reflection of relativism but also teacher-centered instruction and student-centered instruction can be regarded as the scheme from relativism.As a matter of fact, the orientation of teacher-centered instruction and student-centered instruction in English teaching mostly lies in teacher's teaching goals and students' competence indicators, in which some teaching respects are relatively considered including the selecting of teaching materials, the using of teaching methods, the deciding of teaching strategies, and the implementing of teaching assessment as well as evaluation. For the purposes of reaching instructional ideal of teacher's teaching goals and students' competence indicators, teacher-centered instruction and student-centered instruction must be not only practiced separately but also realized integratively. In the developing processes of English teaching, teaching-centered instruction has prevailed when the grammar-translation method went well since the late 19th century and then was challenged greatly by student-centered instruction when the communicative approach became popular since the early 1970s.The theory and practice of English teaching (such as teaching materials, teaching methods, teaching strategies, and teaching assessment & evaluation) have been experienced and revised successively from the 19th century up to the present, in which the ups and downs have been proved individually, the creations have been replaced one by one, or the influences have been developed step by step. For this reason, how to enhance the English teaching for teacher's teaching function and students' learning effect will be focused on making good using of teacher-centered instruction and student-centered instruction together so as to be wonderful and successful in English education developments.No matter how great the challenge on English teaching may be, the creating and replacing processes of English teaching will be developing continuously. As a matter of fact, the traditional teacher-centered instruction has practiced its path independently before the 1970s, and the current student-centered instruction has excelled the predecessor since the 1970s. Therefore, empiricism and revisionism will constantly influence the changing and the developing of English teaching by way of teacher's suitable consideration and decision for student's practical needs.

Foreign language professionals are in constant search for ways to enhance students' learning experience. The implementation of CALL in the English classroom not only helps teachers to promote communications, but also fosters interactions between students. Furthermore, with the help .of Information Technology and eWeb, language learners and instructors can easily gain the access of CALL learning materials virtually anywhere around the world. Implementing CALL and IT in the English classroom provides variety of learning experiences and it is capable of giving immediate feedback to students. In addition, it is capable of motivating students' language learning experience and saves time and work for both teachers and students. However, critics argue that CALL shouldn't be utilized in all aspects of language learning, unless it is able to be integrated with other programs and being practical to teachers and students. This study intends to look at the studies that have researched in the implementation of CALL and IT in the language classroom to gain in-depth knowledge of computers' capabilities in assisting teachers to promote interactions and motivate students, specifically in learning English.

The thing that the virtual reality can do is really a lot, and its strong function is also noticed by everyone already. In fact virtual reality is also very extensive in the application of the education and, the future development is also limitless. The objectives of this research are to establishing Network Virtual Reality Learning Environment, also assist the implementation of merging information science technology into nature and science domain education and explore the impact of network virtual reality learning system to the learning performance of nature and science domain teaching in primary school on ”Nine-year Coherent Curriculum Education System in Nature and Life Science & Technology Domain”. The test samples designed by this research are grade 6 in primary school who receive virtual reality education in Kaohsiung County. The research result shows that children who receive virtual reality education have better learning results than students who receive conventional education. Meanwhile, through the operation of network virtual reality, students have stronger impression about the teaching material, which indicate the special features of network virtual reality in assisting students learning. In addition, the learning activity of network virtual reality has considerable attractiveness. Students are more willing to learn. This also helps them in learning.

This paper aims to examine the motivations of Iraqi students of Materials Engineering Undergraduates at University of Technology have toward the learning of the English language. Iraqi university students face many difficulties in mastering and learning English. Where they lack several ingredients for language learning. The language teaching methods in Iraq are very simple and insufficient to master the language well. Since language does not only need long years to learn, but learning the language requires many factors and many steps and serious and identify the motivations to learn English. One of the most important factors is the identification of learning motivations. This study aims to try to find solutions to these problems and try to find multiple motives in order to achieve this goal.

In the present scenario of education system, all people are under pressure to use the innovative strategies in the teaching and learning process, to teach students the knowledge and skills that are required for the 21st century. Active learning is a term used to identify teaching methods that require students to be actively involved in the learning process. Although there is clear evidence for the benefits of active learning, most lecturers in higher education still adhere to traditional teaching methods. This paper seeks to identity the characteristics and attitudes of “active instructors” towards active learning and discerning a distinction between these attitudes and those of the remaining instructors. This study examined the attitudes of 160 lecturers in three higher education institutions in East Ethiopia. The research used attitude questionnaire developed specially for this study on the basis of the experience of 7 ‘’active instructors” exposing the process of change they had undergone moving from traditional teaching to more active instruction. An analysis of these interviews provided the basis for characterizing the attitudes of “active instructors” and subsequently for the development of the research questionnaire. Based on a literature review and an examination of the attitudes of ‘’active instructors’’ a content analysis was undertaken in which the attitudes were grouped into six key domains that can characterize the tendency of a lecturer to adopt active teaching. The findings reveal that in all these six domains there were differences between the attitudes of “instructors” and their colleagues. This diagnostic tool can supply crucial information to the college and universities directors when planning supportive steps toward advancing active learning in their institutions. Key words: Active learning, instructors’ attitudes, traditional learning versus active learning, scale-up, innovation.

The content of optical isomerism is the difficult point of organic chemistry teaching, and so case-based learning (CBL), theoretical-experimental integration teaching method and micro class teaching methods are tried to be used in classroom teaching according to the actual teaching situations. For CBL teaching method, the course is guided by the step of introduction-question-discussion and summary-exten-sions; For theoretical-experimental integration teaching method, combined with the theory class, the two experiments including the determination of optical rotation and organic molecular model are set for the opti-cal isomer content, to enhance the students' understanding of theoretical knowledge through the hands-on operation; For micro class teaching method, the key and difficult points of this chapter are dug out and about 10 minutes of video are recorded by using common video software before class, which are introduced in the classroom or provided to students after class for repeated watching, to deepen the students' understanding of the concept and phenomenon of optical isomers. In brief, it is important to combine various teaching method to improve the classroom instructing effectively and stimulate the students' interest in organic chemistry. Key words: Optical isomerism; Case-based learning; Teaching method; Theoretical-experi-mental integration teaching method; Micro class; Molecule model

This study was carried out at a nursing college in Taiwan. The main purpose of the study was to examine affective learning in an English curriculum for English as foreign language (EFL) learners in Taiwan. For affective learning to take place it is crucial that the contents and skills that students acquire are directly or in directly relevant to their life experiences (Hsu, 2002:2). This project therefore that is being discussed in this paper mainly hope to investigate the impact of a meaningful learning environment through modern technology. By building up an interactive learning classroom via multimedia technology, the students' learning motivation and English proficiency were expected to be improved.According to the European perspectives of affective education, learning could be efficient if teaching materials are relevant to students' beliefs, attitudes, and faith of life (Lang, 1998). Hence to develop an affective curriculum of the English language, the project was carried out in a sequence of teaching in a language laboratory within a formal curriculum. The study was undertaken in the periods of 2009-2010. This English curriculum was developed to provide students with new learning experiences. For example, the students could communicate with English native speakers through English learning websites. The approach of case study was adopted as the main methodology (Yin, 1994). Classroom observation, students' workbooks, and a questionnaire survey were employed to investigate their learning outcomes and to validate the findings for generalization (Robson, 2000). 120 Students aged 15 to 16 were the main research group. The findings showed that students' attitudes were positive and it appeared that students were no longer afraid of using English as a communicative tool.This study showed the evidence of the data that the study concluded: the EFL learners can improve their learning interests and proficiency through multimedia learning within an affective environment. Students learnt English not only by using textbooks but also through real experiences of their use of English websites. This study showed that the adoption of modern technology indeed offered students more opportunities to use English.

To mobilize students' interest and enthusiasm for learning, this paper explores the application of the combination of computer multimedia technology and network technology in college English teaching. Based on the relevant theoretical basis and specific content of English teaching, it analyzes the current situation of college English teaching from three aspects, including English teaching goals, teaching methods, and teaching effects. The application of the network teaching platform based on information technology in college English teaching is discussed. Also, the relevant data of the results obtained after the implementation of the network platform are listed. The research results show that teachers and students should make good use of the advantages of information technology teaching, develop strengths and avoid weaknesses. The means can enrich the learning approach, innovate teaching methods and optimize the English teaching environment, thereby improving the quality of English teaching. Therefore, the combination of computer multimedia technology and network technology can bring fundamental changes to English teaching methods and student learning methods. And it can stimulate students' enthusiasm for learning English and promote students' autonomous learning ability. The research has realistic guiding significance.

Indigenous students living in Traditional language communities in countries such as Australia and Papua New Guinea, where English is the language of education, attend primary schools where they learn using English. This study is an investigation of how teachers understand the English environment experience of Indigenous students who live in Traditional language communities and the requirements for their successful learning in English. Most of the research on Indigenous students has concentrated on Indigenous students in general rather than the specific language and learning context of those who live in Traditional language communities. The unique nature of these communities’ English language and learning experience requires a specific understanding, rather than a general understanding, for the understanding to be valid and the learning of Traditional language students to be successful. This study uses grounded theory to investigate teachers’ understanding. The process involved the teachers themselves sharing their understanding during interviews, focus groups and critical groups. Most of the teachers who participated in this study were interviewed in the Traditional language communities where they live and work. The majority of the participants were teachers working in schools in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and the desert region of north-west Australia. The teachers, without exception, observed that the English environment had a very minimal presence in their students’ communities and consequently in the lives of their students. They also appreciated the impact of the low profile of English on the learning of their students in school. This study has defined these students’ experience of an English environment as an experience of English as a distant language. While teachers had a partial and some shared understanding, there was no comprehensive, collective understanding of the English environment experienced by their students and the requirement for their successful learning in English. The reporting and coding of the results revealed themes on which these results were based. These themes were used to analyse and discuss the results and the relevant literature. From this discussion, elements emerged for understanding the ways in which students in Traditional language communities experience English as a distant language. The relationships and connections identified between these elements were discerned as threads to tie these elements together, and to develop a framework for understanding English as a distant language. The development of this framework was an unanticipated outcome of this study. The new understanding in this framework has implications for all those involved in the education of Indigenous students in Traditional language communities. It not only provides the basis for informed understanding, but for the development of strategies that will improve the learning success of Indigenous students attending primary schools in Traditional language communities.

Objective To evaluate the feasibility of problem-based learning(PBL) combined with WeChat’s teaching model in clinical probation teaching. Methods The students of grade 2011 and grade 2012 on clinical medicine program in Capital Medical University were applied with two different teaching methods. The grade 2011 were applied traditional PBL teaching method and the grade 2012 were applied PBL combined with WeChat teaching method. The teaching effect was assessed after testing and measuring. Results The students of grade 2012 had better test scores in the first department of internal medicine and had better total scores in department of internal medicine (t=-2.688, P<0.05; t=-3.372, P<0.05)and learning effect such as learning interest and more comprehensive profit about analysis of clinical thinking than grade 2011 (all P< 0.05). Conclusions In clinical probation teaching, the method of PBL combined with WeChat can promote knowledge acquirement and improve the clinical ability on thinking and analysis in department of internal medicine. Key words: Problem-based learning; WeChat; Internal medicine; Probation; Teaching method

Children and adults with Down syndrome vary widely in their achievements and interest in number skills and mathematics. There is only a small amount of research in the area and little that provides guidance for effective teaching methods and materials. Typically, the achievements of individuals with Down syndrome in number are at a lower level than their achievements in literacy. However, there is a wide range of progress and while some children find number difficult, other children with Down syndrome enjoy mathematics. When a pupil is interested, motivated and taught well, he or she may achieve at an age appropriate level in primary school. Research findings indicate that good teaching, using the children's strengths for visual learning, does promote learning and that children with Down syndrome follow similar stages of progression as typically developing children, although often with more steps and practice needed at each stage. This overview module reviews the development of number and maths skills in typically developing children, research on number and mathematics for children with Down syndrome, the implications for teaching and learning, inclusion in the mathematics curriculum, typical levels of achievement across the age range and the necessity for language teaching. This overview module links with the practical number modules for children aged 3-5 years, 5-11 (primary) and 11-16 years (secondary pupils). These modules contain discussion of the range of achievements, teaching methods and practical activities for each age group.