Developing Students’ Media Literacy in the English Language Teaching Context

The research outlined in this paper explores the potential of the ELT classroom as a venue for developing students’ media literacy with the help of the support materials designed within the project of Dostoevsky Omsk State University. It is a part of a larger body research that investigates the idea of mass media studies incorporated into the regular ELT course of this University. The perspective is based on the idea of including media literacy development into the program. The modular structure of the course book designed within the project provides a model for creating support materials on the basis of authentic British and American mass media multi-media sources. Classroom observations and interviews conducted with instructors and students examine perceived pros and cons of the studying/teaching with the help of these support materials identify undisputed, sincere interest, delight, and acceptance. This provides evidence that multi-media used to constitute the core of the support materials designed as a course book, might provide invaluable help for teachers in the media-oriented classroom. What is more, most course instructors participating in the project valued the efficiency of the support materials not only in terms of media literacy, considering them to be a noteworthy factor in enhancing students’ language performance. Analysis and interpretation of multimedia texts via tasks from the course book allow students to update their mass media awareness and to access, analyse various kinds of mass media. The paper is accompanied by numerous tasks from the mass media included in the suggested book.

در تاریخ آمریکا، «بدن سیاه» هم در دوران برده‌داری و هم در دوره معاصر کالایی بوده است که مدیریت خصوصی زندان‌ها تا حدی موجب حبس گسترده سیاه‌پوستان شده است. لغو برده‌داری در حدود 150 سال پیش در مقایسه با 400 سالی که مورد استفاده قرار گرفته هنوز نسبتا جدید است. بنابراین، برخی از رفتارهای شنیع صاحبان برده به سیستم عدالت کیفری منتقل شده و باعث شده است پلیس، هیئت منصفه، قضات و غیره در رفتار با همتایان سفیدپوست خود و مردم سیاه‌پوست نابرابر و غیرعادلانه رفتار کنند. از «اقدامات شیاطین عصیانگر» در دوران برده‌داری گرفته تا پوشش رسانه‌ای نژادپرستانه وحشیگری پلیس علیه سیاه‌پوستان، اعتراضات سیاه‌پوستان، رفتار با مظنونان جنایی و غیره، مشخص شده است که رسانه‌های جمعی آمریکا نقش مهمی در حفظ ساختارهای نژادپرستانه عمیقی دارند که موجب حبس گسترده سیاه‌پوستان شده است. این نوشتار برخی از اقدامات تاریخی علیه سیاه‌پوستان را با شیوه‌های نژادپرستانه معاصر پیوند می‌زند تا نشان دهد که برده‌داری همچنان در آمریکا زنده است و به‌طور مشخص از طریق سیستم عدالت آشکار می‌شود. هدف این نوشتار، تقویت بحث‌های جاری درباره نابودی بقایای برده‌داری در آمریکاست.

This decade is proving to be crucial to national security of Sri Lanka as there are many international pressures upon the country. Some of these pressures are legal whilst others are economic. However, the common nature of all these pressures is that it threatens Sri Lanka’s national security and obstructs the development of the country. Therefore it is imperative that Sri Lanka conducts itself in a manner that safeguards the country’s national security. In this context, this research highlights the importance played by mass media and communication in safeguarding Sri Lanka’s national security and interests. The research thus provides an analysis of mass media in reporting international pressures on Sri Lanka. It will also analyse the media relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs against these international pressures. Towards this end, the research mainly utilises secondary data such as newspaper articles, press releases, feature articles from reputed websites and reports from social media etc. The research will also analyse media relations against existing communication models among others Shannon – Weaver and Defleur and identify a mechanism that will help safeguard Sri Lanka’s image. The research identified there is a communication gap and that mass media is not being utilised appropriately by the relevant authorities in presenting and projecting the image of Sri Lanka. In conclusion, the research provides a communication tool for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to follow when interacting with the media both local and international in order to safeguard Sri Lanka’s national security. It also highlights the importance of social media and its uses in the future and finally provides a link to the interconnectedness of national security and mass media as they both together assist with the development of the country. KEYWORDS: Foreign affairs, national security, mass media and communication

Particularly in coverage of unresolved conflicts, mass media news of both the one-to-many broadcast era and the new networked era are not guaranteed to sufficiently provide the historical and analytical depth required for publics to understand these infinitely complex tensions in their respective cultural and temporal context. Mass media news coverage of the day, however, does perpetuate mediated images that seek to affect how publics contextualize and collectively remember simmering cultural conflicts into the future, afar and close to home. This article conducts a small-scale theoretical review of the theories of collective memory and agenda-setting, complemented by an analysis of mass media news coverage and literature on unresolved conflicts concerning the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) and “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. This interrogation, in light of theoretical conceptions of dominant news discourses, offers an explanation as to how publics may come to understand ongoing conflicts in the external world. In shaping understandings of unresolved conflicts by publics, mass media news can play a biased role in making certain political tensions affectively salient for the preservation of a nation’s collective past by attempting to influence how compassion is evoked from publics in the present and even into the future. While certainly historically and geopolitically situated, a commonality exists between the unresolved conflicts of the FLQ terrorist attacks in Québec, Canada and the Troubles in Northern Ireland: nationalist cultural tensions, ones that simmer cyclically until discontent erupts between players on opposing sides. Although apparent collectives can seek out countless contemporary alternative sources of information in the digital era of abundance, this paper argues that collective memory remains significant in the context of scrutinizing how mass media news problematically sets biased agendas, which then promotes quite different historical worldviews of deeply complex conflicts.

Perkembangan teknologi informasi yang pesat di era digital telah membawa dampak signifikan terhadap pola konsumsi informasi masyarakat. Namun, kemudahan akses terhadap informasi juga membuka celah bagi maraknya penyebaran hoaks yang dapat menyesatkan publik dan memicu keresahan sosial. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis peran literasi media dalam menangkal penyebaran hoaks di era digital. Metode yang digunakan adalah studi pustaka (library research) dengan pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif yang mengkaji berbagai literatur, artikel ilmiah, dan data empiris terkait literasi media dan fenomena hoaks. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahwa literasi media memiliki peran strategis dalam membentuk kemampuan individu untuk mengakses, memahami, mengevaluasi, dan mendistribusikan informasi secara kritis. Individu yang memiliki tingkat literasi media yang baik cenderung lebih skeptis terhadap informasi yang belum terverifikasi, serta mampu mengenali ciri-ciri konten hoaks, seperti judul provokatif, sumber yang tidak kredibel, dan manipulasi visual. Selain itu, literasi media juga mendorong partisipasi aktif dalam membangun ekosistem digital yang sehat melalui penyebaran informasi yang benar dan edukatif. Oleh karena itu, peningkatan literasi media melalui pendidikan formal, pelatihan komunitas, serta kampanye digital merupakan langkah penting dalam menghadapi tantangan penyebaran hoaks di era digital. Penelitian ini merekomendasikan kolaborasi antara pemerintah, lembaga pendidikan, media massa, dan masyarakat sipil dalam merancang program literasi media yang inklusif dan berkelanjutan.

This study investigates the perspectives of EFL students regarding the integration of ChatGPT in ELT and learning. To this end, this study employs the quantitative approach with 71 participants majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT). The students with ChatGPT experience in various ELT contexts were specifically selected through purposive sampling. The data collected through the questionnaire centres around the utilization of ChatGPT, their attitudes towards the use of ChatGPT toward English language skills, and their suggestions for integration of ChatGPT into ELT classrooms. The study findings indicate a favourable response of the EFL students toward the use of ChatGPT in ELT and learning. Moreover, most of the students reported improvements in their English language skills, especially in writing, reading, and speaking. Besides, the findings highlighted the impressive improvement in the students' vocabulary knowledge and grammar. Although there were some challenges mentioned, the overall satisfaction and willingness to recommend indicate that EFL students have positive views of ChatGPT.

Computer and telecommunication technologies have led to the development of modern mass media and have made significant competition with the print edition (newspapers, magazines, and books), the dominance of telecracy, etc. The media have gone a significant path of development from a channel of information and entertainment to a political institution, significantly increasing their capabilities as an in- strument of influencing public consciousness. The study?s main purpose is to conduct a socio-philoso- phical analysis of mass media as a factor in the formation of public consciousness. In this article, the pro- cess of cognition of mass media and socio-philosophical analysis of its impact on society were used: gen- eral scientific methods; logical methods of theoretical analysis; technical analysis, clarification.

The magnitude of the influence of the dissemination of information in the mass media to the audience, makes the audience should be accustomed to doing media literacy. In the concept of media literacy, a good culture of media is to look at aspects of the level of public trust in information in the mass media. The purpose of this study is to determine the level of public confidence in the news in the mass media. This study uses descriptive quantitative correlational methods. The population in this study were students who enrolled in the city of Bogor, determining the sample using incidental sampling techniques. Khalayak agreed (76.9 percent) that they knew new information from the mass media. By receiving information from the mass media, respondents can add insight related to information displayed in the mass media. On the other hand, the more they receive a lot of information from the mass media, the respondents understand if the news displayed in the mass media is not always objective, some of which benefit certain parties. Therefore, respondents felt the need to know the same news in different mass media. A total of 54.4 percent agreed that respondents believed more in the information conveyed by mass media than social media.

While motivation has been recognized as a key catalyst for the uptake of self-initiated professional development (PD), motivational changes that occur in the course of self-initiated PD practices remain unexplored in English Language Teaching (ELT) contexts and beyond. Yet this research area warrants closer attention since motivation is a dynamic construct displaying nonlinear trajectories over multiple timescales. The exploratory single-case study reported here aims to tackle changes in motivation and the sources of these changes as reported by an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teacher trainee who engaged in ELT assistantship in a real classroom as a self-driven PD activity over four months in Turkey. Drawing on data from self-ratings of perceived motivational intensity, journal entries, and semi-structured interviews, the analyses showed that the focal participant’s motivational development manifested a constantly evolving pattern with temporal ups and downs, fluctuating in response to a complex array of individual and contextual factors such as shifting self-efficacy beliefs, display of coping efforts, perceived success/failure of the lessons, and group dynamics in the classroom. Implications for facilitating (trainee) teachers’ sustainable engagement in self-directed learning are discussed.

In the current hypermedia age, the borders of information are increasingly indistinguishable. There now exist few, if any, limits to how far, fast, and wide messages may travel. Across the globe--from the growth of community internet in rural Europe and the Middle East, (1) to the expansion of cell phone technology in India (2) and Africa, our media-saturated world is shrinking. At the same time, the convergence of media platforms has enabled access to information on a global scale. New media technologies have allowed for wide and unfettered consumption of information in many parts of the world. (3) Such progress has brought the world closer together. From recent public health scares, to the economic recession, and continuing efforts to combat climate change, we can no longer ignore the need to understand the role of information in defining issues globally. Beyond specific issues, the global expansion of media has allowed for new understandings of culture. Nations that are increasingly dependent on one another for economic, political, and social stability must, often cultivate public awareness of such relationships through media. This entails an understanding of cultures and communities far removed from physical and geographic familiarity. The current global media environment as a result, will continue to have significant effects on how individuals, societies, and nations view and interact with one another. Within this new landscape exists the opportunity for a new type of global citizenship: one that hinges on preparing future citizens for lives of inclusive and active participation in global dialogue. Writes UNESCO's Benito Opertti: The challenge is not just to provide criteria and instruments so the child or youth can critically face off to the media, but also to understand that the media contextualize and often determine the ways that people exercise their rights culturally, politically, economically, and socially. (4) What are the best practices for enabling new understanding of global culture through media? In the present, cultivating media literacy education for global audiences must embrace much needed educational responses to an increasingly borderless and open media environment. It is no longer an option to ignore the media's increasingly central role in framing identity. Media literacy can enable future generations to recognize both the power and potential of media to bridge cultural and ideological divides. DEVELOPING MEDIA LITERACY FOR GLOBAL AUDIENCES Media literacy, commonly defined in the United States as the ability to access, evaluate, analyze, and produce all types of communication, (5) has been expanding worldwide. Across all levels of education, media literacy is increasingly seen as a core component in preparing the future public for active and engaged citizenship. While media literacy programs continue to grow within nations, few initiatives have collectively pursued curricular efforts that address media literacy on a global scale. Global media literacy, as developed in the context of the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, not only seeks to enhance students' media analysis skills, but also their critical understanding of media's larger political, cultural, and ideological implications. (6) In this way, the Academy's approach to media literacy is based not on specific content, but rather on the application of content to specific cultural contexts. By shifting the focus from content to context, the dialogue initiated during the three-week program in Salzburg, Austria, approaches media from a cultural perspective. In a global setting finding common ways to discuss media is challenging because of its many diverse voices. The experiences of the Salzburg Academy have shown that attempting to analyze a specific message--whether about health, conflict, economy, or politics-- in a global context fails if it is not understood first in terms of where it originated, who created it, in what context it was created, and what values are associated with the message. …

Reading the Media: Media Literacy in High School English by Renee Hobbs. New York: Teacher’s College Press; Newark, DE: The International Reading Association, 2007, 190 pp. Reviewed by Myrna Goldstein Are You in Your English File?® Second Language Learning Research Center, Milan, Italy This book, written by national expert in media literacy education and com- munications professor at Temple University, Dr. Renee Hobbs, is a highly scien- tific, reflective and exhaustive account of the inception and outcome of one year of a pioneering project in Grade 11 high school media literacy in Concord, New Hampshire. The project, already in its ninth year, was created by teachers with the help of Hobbs. The project’s goals focus on empowering students to effect meaningful social change by developing the skills to receive, decipher, analyze, and put to productive and creative use the daily media bombardment that all of us face. Hobbs’ research goal is to use micro- and macro-analyses to lead to gen- eralizations about the usefulness of media literacy within the context of English language arts education. The book is written in a scientific but quite readable, down-to-earth style. Therefore, the information it contains is highly accessible for all types of profes- sionals interested in the topic, including those who may be interested in conceiving a similar program in their own institutions, but perhaps may not be interested in pursuing scientific research. This volume, a joint publication effort of the International Reading As- sociation and Columbia University’s Teachers College Press, traces the project’s development and outcome, capturing the complex kinds of learning that students experienced. The in-depth research includes valuable quantitative and qualitative data including over 700 pages of teacher and participant interview transcripts, classroom observations, four handwritten field notebooks, and nearly 200 differ- ent samples including student writing, videos, lesson plans, and assignments. The qualitative data was used to help Hobbs understand the contextual details of local practice, and the quantitative data was examined in order to better comprehend the program’s impact on student performances, attitudes, behaviors, and literacy practices. Hobbs gathered quantitative data from both Concord High School and a matched control group school to map changes in students’ interpretation of media texts, in print, visual, electronic, and audio formats. The research included 200 variables culled from nearly 400 students at two points in time, resulting in almost 16,000 pieces of data. Sixteen questions about four focused categories served as the inquiry springboard: teacher, students, program, and community. For example, Issues in Applied Linguistics © 2009 Myrna Goldstein ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 17 No. 2, 167-168

The media has a very important function in providing information needs for each individual. Media that contains content that is negative to the community can have an adverse effect on the formation of people's perceptions in decision making. Regarding this, mass media users need other options in order to be protected from the various influences of mass media and require individuals to be smarter using media. This study aims to determine the level of media literacy on the self-esteem of students at 214 Public Middle Schools Jakarta. The method used in this study is a quantitative method with a clause associative approach. Data analysis technique is done by tabulating data according to students' answers to the questionnaire, then calculated using the Simple Linear Regression formula. The results of the study concluded that Media Literacy influences students' self-esteem, this is evidenced through hypothesis testing which is known to have a significance value of less than <0.05 with a value of 0.009, in addition it is known that the R Square value of 0.091. This value means that the influence of Media Literacy (X) on Self-Esteem (Y) is 9.1%. From the results of the hypothesis test, it can be concluded that media literacy has a positive effect of 9.1%, which means increasing student media literacy will affect the increase in self-esteem

This paper explores the evolving role of grammar instruction in English Language Teaching (ELT), examining contemporary trends and methodologies that influence its integration into language classrooms. Focusing on student preferences, the study investigates the effectiveness of both traditional grammar teaching methods and the incorporation of modern, technology-enhanced approaches. Through an analysis of survey data from students across various ELT contexts, the research highlights the continued importance of explicit grammar instruction, while also recognizing the growing appeal of hybrid approaches that combine explicit and implicit learning. The findings emphasize the increasing use of digital tools for grammar practice, showing how technology can support autonomous learning and provide personalized feedback. The paper argues for a balanced approach to grammar teaching, combining structured, rule-based instruction with communicative tasks and technological resources. It concludes with recommendations for future research and teaching practices, emphasizing the need for adaptable, student-centered methodologies in grammar instruction to address the diverse needs of modern learners.

Written Discourse Analysis and Its Application in English Language Teaching

The current study aimed at exploring the most prominent constituent elements of collective teacher efficacy beliefs and their contributing factors in the specific context of English language teaching. To this aim, 30 English language teachers and instructors’ perceptions of collective teacher efficacy were inspected through a series of in-depth interviews at different high schools, English language institutes, and universities. Three focused group interviews were also conducted with 15 English language teachers and instructors in those three educational contexts. Data gleaned from interviews were analyzed utilizing thematic content analysis. The common themes that emerged from the qualitative data as the constituent elements of collective teacher efficacy encompassed instructional capability, decision-making capability, the ability to cope with difficult situations, the ability to communicate effectively, the ability to create a positive climate, the ability to collaborate with colleagues, and the...