Creating a Web-based Communicative Learning Environment through Interactive Blogs: English Language Acquisition

This paper looks into the challenges and prospects of implementing teaching of English to speakers of other languages(TESOL) approaches in Nigeria against the background of the Nigerian National Policy on Education (2004) which legitimise the teaching of English as a the official language. The review paper is a shift from the usual approach of examining the teaching of English as a Second Language(TESL) to teaching of English to Speakers of other Languages(TESOL).The two approaches recognize previous knowledge of English language but TESOL has a wider conceptual view. However, challenges of TESOL are highlighted in order to call the attention of stakeholders. The challenges of TESOL require urgent attention as previous studies have dwelt much on prospects which are interrelated with functions of English and importance of teaching English as a Second Language.

This research paper investigates the effectiveness of three prominent Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) methodologies—Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Task-Based Learning (TBL), and Content-Based Instruction (CBI)—within the context of English language education in Kuwaiti universities. The study aims to understand their impact on language proficiency development, student engagement, and long-term retention. Data were collected through interviews with experienced English teachers from diverse universities in Kuwait. The interviews provided insights into educators' experiences, perspectives, and practices employing these methodologies. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed distinct patterns for each methodology. CLT enhanced authentic communication and fluency, TBL emphasized task-oriented language use and collaboration, and CBI integrated language learning with subject matter knowledge. The study's findings highlight the significance of context-specific adaptations and offer practical implications for language education in Kuwait. Additionally, the research contributes to the broader field of TESOL by providing insights into the diverse impacts of these methodologies within a specific cultural and educational context.

This paper examines the evolving landscape of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in Pakistan. It analyzes the interplay between historical legacies, policy directives, teacher education, and global pedagogical trends. Although English holds the status of an official language and functions as a medium of instruction across various tiers of the education system, the implementation of TESOL in Pakistan remains fraught with challenges. These include inconsistent language policies, lack of alignment between curriculum and classroom realities, inadequate teacher preparation, urban–rural disparities, and limited access to sustained professional development opportunities. This study highlights how institutional frameworks have historically shaped the quality of English language instruction, and how recent efforts—such as PakTESOL initiatives and capacity-building programs funded by the U.S. Embassy and Regional English Language Office (RELO)—are attempting to professionalize TESOL in the country. The paper discusses how context-sensitive teacher training, inclusive curriculum development, and reflective pedagogical practices can help reorient TESOL towards local needs while maintaining global relevance. The growing integration of educational technology and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is evaluated as a transformative factor in expanding access to language instruction, particularly in under-resourced regions. Critical pedagogy is also considered essential for empowering teachers and learners to engage with English in ways that support equity, identity, and meaningful communication. The paper concludes by offering practical and research-informed recommendations for strengthening TESOL in Pakistan. It also advocates for collaborative policy-making, initiate more teacher education programs, and equitable resource distribution. This study contributes to a sustainable, contextually aware TESOL framework that addresses Pakistan’s linguistic, social, and educational complexities.

This chapter describes the different aspects of teacher identity in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in terms of a frames model, building on related prior applications of the notion of framing to English language teaching and to program development and management. It discusses the two categories of the model: Practice-centered/Contextual Frames of Teacher Identity in TESOL. The first set of frames represents teacher identity in TESOL in terms of different orientations to the practices involved in TESOL work. The global facet of TESOL teacher identity connects to content and pedagogical knowledge, as it requires the teacher to be knowledgeable about different varieties of English and conscious of what variety of English is being taught and how it is being taught. The different framings of TESOL work offer different perspectives from which both future teachers and those already teaching can examine aspects of their work-related identity and map a course for change and career development.

Little work has yet explored the potential for the use of social network sites (SNSs) in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, but recent trends in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) research suggest that SNSs may be a powerful context for language learning by offering students access to online communities of practice and/ or imagined communities (as interpreted by Norton et al.). This paper reports on an exploratory study of how the use of an American based SNS in a Chinese EFL class affected student motivation. Results suggest that SNS may be particularly useful in fostering attitudes traditionally related to integrativeness through the creation of imagined communities when viewed through D_rnyei’s (2009) L2 Motivational Self System.

In this article, the author describes the three stages of his own professional development—puzzlement, endeavor, and empowerment. In describing these stages, he seeks to empower other nonnative English speaking (NNES) professionals in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The article describes the author’s experiences, which range from learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in China to teaching English as a Second language (ESL) in the U.S., from writing and publishing in his native language, Chinese, to writing and publishing in English, and from being a graduate student in a university in the United States to serving as a doctoral dissertation committee chair. The article further reveals the hurdles overcome, the challenges encountered, and the academic success in teaching and research that the author has experienced as a NNES professional. The author concludes by sharing his belief that the success of a TESOL professional does not depend on whether one is a native speaker or a non-native speaker of English.

Shadowing, a practice of repeating what one hears as simultaneously and accurately as possible, has been researched in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field for years. The research findings have shown that shadowing contributes to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ bottom-up listening skills, which leads to their overall listening comprehension skills. However, the accumulated research findings have not uncovered what aspects of bottom-up skills shadowing precisely contributes to. Thus, this study attempts to examine the aspects of bottom-up skills to which shadowing contributes and proposes a new shadowing procedure to compensate for the limitation of the current shadowing procedure. To this end, a preliminary study and a primary study were conducted. In the preliminary study, the bottom-up skill development through shadowing practice was precisely examined, using a 112-item bottom-up listening test. Thirty-six Japanese university students participated in the experiment and engaged in shadowing practice in eight lessons for a month. The result showed that shadowing practice was effective for developing the skill of identifying prominence in a speech, and word recognition skills but not effective for enhancing phonemic discrimination skills. In the primary study, to overcome the limitation of the shadowing procedure, a new shadowing procedure including three components of attention to output, corrective feedback, and explicit instruction was proposed. Twelve Japanese university students participated and engaged in the new shadowing procedure for three months. Their progress was assessed by a 32-item phonemic discrimination test, and the result showed that the new output-based shadowing procedure with explicit instruction and corrective feedback improved phonemic discrimination skills for intermediate level Japanese EFL learners.

Applying adaptive swarm intelligence technology with structuration in web-based collaborative learning

Based on a year-long, qualitative study of five East Asian women, pre-service teachers enrolled in U.S. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher education programs, this article examines one Korean woman's journey as she navigates through her multiple identities as a daughter, spouse, mother, and language teacher inside and outside of Korea and the United States. In narrative accounts audiotaped during in-depth interviews conducted over a period of seven months, Han Nah shared experiences that have been shaped by her gendered identities while also being transformed by these identities. Han Nah's identities are viewed as a site of struggle in multiple contexts: (1) Han Nah was influenced by how her parents positioned her as a traditional Korean woman in the larger Korean patriarchal society, which in turn impacted her own decisions navigating through both Korean and U.S. educational and professional contexts; and (2) Han Nah's “mothering” and “spousal” identities influenced and somewhat superseded her professional aspirations, which led Han Nah to claim her dominant language and race in the Western educational system. This article concludes with TESOL teacher education implications.

In English as a foreign language (EFL) context, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been advocated to train students’ communicative competence to improve their oral skills for decades. Nevertheless, whether CLT is appropriate for different levels of EFL learners is still debatable, especially when ‘no native language (L1)’ or ‘target language (L2) only’ in the classroom is the topic. From preschool education to higher education in Taiwan, English-only instruction in EFL classroom is recommended in order to boost effective interaction. According to some studies, some student learners are proactive and communicative speakers in CLT classroom, while others are reticent and shy learners. This study was to investigate the effects of practicing CLT in a mixed English conversion class, to examine whether L1 should be used in CLT classroom timely and if students improve their learning attitudes after a two-cycle individual action research (AR) was conducted. Twenty-seven first graders at a public senior high school in southern Taiwan participated in this study. Methodological triangulation was used to collect data through observation, oral tests, questionnaires and interviews to ensure the validity. The findings indicated that CLT was welcomed in the class and L1 would be helpful and could reduce students’ anxiety when they were lack of confidence in CLT classroom; after the teaching strategies were modified, most of the students had positive learning attitudes and became active learners. Other factors affecting the success of CLT like students’ proficiency level, personality and motivation were also found.

Recent decades have shown growing interest among outer circle language researchers and practitioners in the discussion of communicative language teaching (CLT), as both a leading teaching model and a frequently disputed dimension of language pedagogy. Repeatedly, the debate returns to the question of how to best implement CLT as a Western product in English as a foreign language (EFL) countries where contextual constraints such as low competence of teachers, student resistance, class size, and structure‐oriented books have become common issues in the local language classrooms. Drawing upon the major works on CLT implementation in EFL countries and Indonesia, this article provides a number of explanations for CLT as an advantageous approach for Indonesia's English language education and specifically argues that the challenges of CLT implementation in Indonesia can be solved and therefore should not lead teachers to abandon CLT in their EFL classrooms. Addressing the definition of CLT as a point of departure, the article reviews the literature on CLT implementation and presents an overview of CLT in Indonesia before finally suggesting possible solutions to some major CLT challenges in Indonesia's English language teaching.

In a globalized world of constantly challenging demands, the acquisition of English as a lingua franca remains essential. Bearing this in mind, the current paper explores how sustainability in English language acquisition can be emphasized to ensure quality outcomes in the long run. The study, as such, raises two questions: what components should an English as a foreign language (EFL) university course comprise to ensure sustainability in English language acquisition, and what are the specifications of an EFL course, designed to ensure sustainability in English language acquisition? Employing a mixed-methods design, the author of this paper distributed a questionnaire and conducted an interview covering two categories of subjects; namely, EFL instructors and university students. The study findings stress the need to integrate literature, life skills, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), communication skills, environment-awareness education, and human values into English language courses. In addition, the findings highlight several specifications for an EFL course designed to ensure sustainability in English language acquisition, such as utilizing technological advancements, tailoring English courses as per current trends, focusing on students’ research projects, encouraging community involvement, conducting co-curricular activities, and implementing Knowledge-Skill-Disposition (KSD)-oriented assessments. The study ends with a proposed framework for scholars to consider.

The United Nations’ Education 2030 Framework (2015) clearly stated that initial teacher-training should be enhanced to support education for sustainable development (ESD) practice. Instrumental to the acquisition of ESD learning objectives and key competencies is the advancement of trainee-teachers as agents of change (Mundy et al, 2008). Holding knowledge of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and transformative pedagogies for ESD enables educators to positively contribute to their communities. Trainee-teachers of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) are preparing to teach in a diversity of countries yet the inclusion of ESD in their training is not visible. This case study reports on the utilisation of the CoDesignS ESD Toolkit Planner (‘Toolkit’) for the learning design of a 15-credit module titled Introduction to embedding sustainability in TEFL and TESOL. The module aims to enable trainee-teachers to develop an understanding of the implications of local, national, regional, and global learning contexts upon their teaching practice. Micro-teaching was developed as part of the module to provide trainee-teachers with opportunities to tailor their pedagogical practice to the needs of their learners. The intended outcome of the learning design was to enable the trainee-teachers to feel better equipped to incorporate localised sustainability issues into their classes without detracting from delivering authentic English language learning. This case study report reflects upon the effectiveness of the design in achieving its goals at the completion of a first term of delivery to final year TEFL undergraduates and first term TESOL and Applied Linguistics postgraduates at the University of Essex, UK.

In the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), studies and scholarly publications questioning the NEST/NNEST (Native-English-Speaker Teacher/ Non-native-English-Speaker Teacher) dichotomy have steadily increased over the last 25 years. This dichotomy has resulted in discriminatory practices against NNESTs, underpinning the contested assumption that native speaker status should be the gold standard in TESOL. This study explores how this problematic perception plays out in the specific context of the Preparatory Year Programs (PYP) in two Saudi universities. This study, based on the analysis of 18 teacher interviews, examines the lived experiences of university English teachers, both native and non-native, locally and internationally recruited, working in the same programs. This paper discusses two themes: the participants’ qualifications and their beliefs about the main reason why they were recruited. The data indicate that only a few teachers believe that being a NS is the main factor in being hired whereas the majority believe that qualifications are the most important requirements for job recruitment. As the most required and obtained certificate for English Language Teaching (ELT) in the PYP, The Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) does appear to replace the NS status requirement based on the participants’ opinions. However, CELTA does not escape criticism as an English teaching qualification. The study argues that buying into the CELTA requirement perpetuates colonialism in ELT..

The field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) brings people from various racialized backgrounds together in teaching, learning, and research. The idea of race, racialization, and racism are inescapable topics that arise in the contact zones created by teaching English worldwide and thus are valid topics to explore in the field. Nonetheless, unlike our peer fields such as anthropology, education, and sociology, the field of TESOL has not sufficiently addressed the idea of race and related concepts. This special topic issue is one of the first attempts in our field to fill the gap. This introductory article will survey key concepts and theories defined and debated in various fields, including race, ethnicity, culture, racialization, racism, critical race theory, and critical White studies, to provide a foundation for future explorations.