Practical English Structure (review)

This paper examines the institutional influences on the teaching–learning practices within English as Second Language (ESL) programme in the University of Sindh (UoS), Pakistan. The study uses qualitative case study approach, basing its findings on documentary review, observations, and responses of teachers and students. The analysis of the data is informed by Bourdieusian notions of habitus, field and capital. The study found that UoS’s institutional policies and practices are shaped by its position in the field of higher education, which shape ESL teaching–learning practices. Specifically, UoS defines its capital as “higher education for all”, which in practice translates as admitting students from disadvantage groups. To meet English language needs of these students, UoS offers the ESL programme. However, teaching–learning practices of ESL are significantly influenced by UoS’s policies related to faculty hiring and development, ESL teachers and administration relationships, teacher-student rati...

During the past decade there has been a significant increase in children’s access to the internet and digital devices, such as computers and touch-screen devices. Literature concerning the digital media usage of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and their English language development is limited, but the number of DLLs in the U.S. is increasing rapidly. The purpose of this study is to examine DLLs’ digital media (frequency & content) usage and its impact on their receptive and expressive English language development in kindergarten. It also examines how factors, such as family digital media rules and DLLs’ pre-K care arrangements may moderate their digital media’s effect on English language development. This study used a sample of 7,432 Dual Language Learners in kindergartens across the U.S. This sample was extracted from a secondary dataset, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). The study employed descriptive statistics, mean differences analyses, correlations, and regression analyses (using coefficients) to examine the study questions and hypotheses. Results showed that DLLs’ expressive and receptive language development varied based on their computer use frequency. DLLs’ expressive and receptive English language development increased as their TV viewing frequency decreased. However, it did not vary based on the digital media content they consumed. Family digital media rules had no moderating effect on DLLs’ language development, but their pre-K care arrangements did moderate the impact of TV viewing frequency on their receptive and expressive language development. Pre-K care arrangements also moderated the impact of DLLs’ recreational digital media use on their receptive language development, but not on their expressive language development. These findings contribute to the limited literature on DLLs’ digital media use in relation to their language development. Results can be used by pediatricians to recommend the best use of digital media. Parents may also find this information helpful in deciding how often and how their children should use digital media. Early childhood educators and policymakers can also use these findings to advocate for the importance of preschool attendance and its impact on young DLLs’ language development.

The Commonwealth-funded school English as a Second language (ESL) program used to be seen by the ESL profession as an essential educational access and equity provision responding to Australia’s migrant and humanitarian intakes and its growing linguistically diverse population. In the decades before and after the turn of the century, however, Commonwealth education ‘reforms’ involving literacy, broadbanding, federal relations and school funding progressively displaced and dismantled ESL as a tied-funded, specific-purpose program. In the first of three articles examining Australian schools policy and its impacts on English as an additional language/dialect provision, this study draws on Kingdon’s policy streams and New Public Management frameworks to explain how national education policy agendas displacing ESL got up and got done. The article offers a selective historical account how and why successive Commonwealth Governments developed specific-purpose ESL provision in the 1980s, broadbanded it in the 1990s, and finally disbanded it in the noughties. In so doing, it aims to foster policy literacy among TESOL educators and researchers.

Language learning involves not only acquiring the linguistic forms and structures but understanding how language is used appropriately in different socio-cultural contexts. It is believed teaching of speech acts can help foreign language learners enhance their competence in language use and enable them to communicate with native speakers successfully (Hymes, 1974; Searle, 1969; Wolfson, 1989; Yu, 1999). In the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, English textbooks play an important role for those students who receive their language inputs primarily from textbooks (Kim & Hall, 2002). Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the appropriateness of speech act presentation in the elementary English textbooks with respect to English language instruction in Taiwan. Two adjacency pairs of speech acts (compliments/compliment responses and requests/request responses) in seven series of elementary English textbooks were scrutinized to see whether adequate information regarding these two speech act pairs was properly delineated. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore elementary school English teachers' awareness of cultural-specificity in language use. The findings show that compliments, compliment responses, requests and request responses were not adequately presented in the elementary school English textbooks. The speech act presentation in the textbook did not mirror precisely the native English speakers' interaction norms and seemed to inaccurately represent the actual language use. Results from teacher interviews indicate that English teachers did not seem to equip themselves with sufficient and adequate knowledge of cultural-specificity in language use, which may be adverse for language learners. These findings suggest that textbook designers properly integrate speech acts into elementary school English instruction, and teachers further develop professional knowledge in pragmatics to facilitate their English teaching to elementary school children.

This study explored the challenges faced by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in China, particularly in speaking skills. A mixed-method approach was employed to gather data from survey, interview, and observation to ensure the validity and credibility of the results. The questionnaire used for data collection included five key issues: a) Vocabulary and Grammar, b) Practice Opportunities, c) Confidence and Anxiety, d) Cultural Influence, and e) Teacher-student Interactions. 736 students from different prestigious universities in China participated in the survey, while 20 students and 10 teachers from the prestigious universities in China were selected based on their proficiency levels and varying years of teaching experiences for the interview respectively. Classroom observations were conducted in various EFL classes to access the speaking activities. The findings identified key obstacles such as lack of practice opportunities, anxiety, insufficient vocabulary and grammar, and culture factors that hinder effective communication. Recommendations for educators and policymakers are discussed to enhance speaking proficiency among EFL learners.

This study investigated the English writing skills developed by 42 children participating in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program for approximately 315 hr, spread over 18 months. The English writing abilities were measured 3 times in terms of grammar, content, coherence, spelling, and text length. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance demonstrated that the effect of time on the growth of writing skills was both large and significant: Grammar, coherence, and text length all showed substantial improvement in a linear progression; spelling and content developed in linear and quadratic trends. In addition, the improvement rate of grammar was similar to that of coherence, but text length showed a faster improvement. The vital common point was that students showed varying but remarkable improvements across all these components. This article makes idiosyncratic contributions to the understanding of young EFL writers and the longitudinal development of multiple writing components. This study may also serve as a reference for second-language educators as they notice (a) that these children achieved a high level of English writing skills although they did not live in an English-speaking society and (b) how they learned English in a curricular context where language acquisition principles were incorporated.

This case study examines factors that influence the construction and development of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ metacognitive knowledge (MCK) about English writing in online learning in China. Drawing upon theories and research in metacognition, writing in a second or foreign language (L2), and distance language learning, we investigated two Chinese EFL learners’ knowledge about themselves as EFL writers and the affordances of second language writing instruction in an online language course over a 16-week semester. Findings suggest that the two learners’ adjustments and revisions of their MCK about EFL writing were influenced by several pedagogical factors, including the task design, online writing instruction, and teacher feedback. Findings from this study have important implications for the design and delivery of writing tasks in online language programs for EFL learners.

In addition to imparting subject knowledge, textbooks serve as a vehicle to express universal values and those specific to different communities. The present study aimed to explore the representation of peace values in three English as a foreign language (EFL) textbook series, namely Vision, New Elementary and Merit, all published in Iran. Content analysis was used to describe, interpret, and compare the peace values in the analyzed textbooks. The results suggest that all three sources of peace –inner peace, social peace, and peace with nature–are included in the textbooks to varying degrees. The Vision series highlights all the three sources of peace, while the New Elementary and Merit series place greater emphasis on social peace. However, some of the important peace values are underrepresented, which need to be addressed. This study offers pedagogical recommendations for curriculum and textbook developers, as well as educators, by drawing attention to key issues that can create optimal learning opportunities for fostering peace values.

In this study I investigate Saudi English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ perceptions of native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs), focusing on perceived advantages and disadvantages, areas of teacher strength and weakness, and the affective and social impact on learners’ academic experiences. I divided 100 participants into three groups—beginning EFL, intermediate EFL, and advanced ESL learners in Saudi Arabia and the United States. I employed mixed methods research, combining questionnaires with in-depth interviews, follow-up emails, and daily journals from 16 selected participants. Results indicate that learners value NNESTs for their empathy as former language learners, understanding of learners’ difficulties, and strategic use of the first language. Learners prefer NESTs for linguistic fluency, accurate pronunciation, cultural knowledge, and opportunities for authentic language practice. Learner perceptions varied by proficiency and context: beginning EFL learners often favored NNESTs for accessibility and guidance, while advanced ESL learners prioritized NESTs for oral and academic skill development. Notably, discrepancies between questionnaire and interview responses highlight the importance of careful instrument design and follow-up clarification in perception studies. The findings underscore that teacher qualifications and experience are more influential than native language is, and they highlight the benefits of cooperative teaching programs involving both NESTs and NNESTs. Implications include targeted teacher assignment, professional development, and enhanced cultural awareness. This study contributes to the discourse on native-speakerism in English language teaching and provides practical insights for designing inclusive and effective ESL/EFL programs.

Due to the acceptance of English in twentieth century as international language of science and medicine, a considerable body of medical research and literature has been produced in English. This dominance of English in medical accounts paves the way for emergence of a new ESP branch (English for Specific Purposes) as EMP (English for Medical Purposes). The basic insight into this trend is to offer course design, content and materials by being responsive to target language learners’ own agenda. Therefore, it is necessary to find out first what is specifically appropriate, available and applicable for the target situation and target language learners in terms of their needs. In discovering their needs, needs analysis is regarded as an integral part of decision making processes in EMP. Without conducting a needs analysis process, using a medical English course book might not be enough for a medical student studying in an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context like Turkey since most of the medical English course books in use are mostly addressing the needs of students in an ESL (English as a Second Language) context. Accordingly, as a part of a needs analysis process, this study aims to investigate academic English language needs of first year medical students who are attending advanced English course at the Faculty of Medicine at Karadeniz Technical University. The data was collected via a structured questionnaire with 47 items. It covers five different parts focusing on medical students' purposes of learning English, significance of learning English, their preference of learning environment, language learning needs of major language skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening), their preference of assessment type. The questionnaire was administered to 169 students at the Faculty of Medicine at Karadeniz Technical University. Descriptive statistics was employed in order to analyze the data.

This study explored Hispanic immigrants' perceived deterrents to participation in, and successful completion of, ESL programs in Las Vegas, Nevada. The study used a qualitative research design, as students, teachers, and administrators from two ESL program sites were interviewed in focus groups and individual interviews. Findings suggest that Hispanic immigrants face deterrents due to both their personal situations (personal deterrents) and to ESL program characteristics (institutional deterrents). Furthermore, some institutional deterrents may be easily reduced, which may in turn increase Hispanic ESL program participation.

The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now seeing a significant increase in visibility and importance. The manifestation of this phenomenon is seen not alone by the increasing acknowledgment of assistive technologies like Google Bard, but also by the recent implementation of ChatGPT. However, there exist significant milestones that must be accomplished prior to the complete replacement of authentic educators by artificial intelligence. These significant achievements include the integration of emotions, rational decision-making, and ethical discussions. The Automated ChatGPT is an AI-driven language model chatbot that offers significant progress in expediting activities like as grading assignments and homework, mitigating human bias, and achieving a level of accuracy comparable to human teachers. Notwithstanding these benefits, the use of ChatGPT has seen much criticism within the realm of education, particularly in settings involving the acquisition of English as a foreign language (EFL). In order to thoroughly examine this issue, a comprehensive inquiry was undertaken to investigate the perspectives of pre-service EFL teachers and in-service EFL teachers on the incorporation of ChatGPT. The study employed a qualitative approach, utilizing a scenario methodology that incorporated both an adaptive scenario technique and a collaborative scenario technique. In the adaptive scenario, participants were provided with sentence completions to explore their perspectives, while the collaborative scenario involved conducting an online focus-group discussions with the participants. The results of the survey indicated that pre-service EFL teachers have positive attitudes about ChatGPT. On the other hand, in-service EFL teachers often conveyed negative perspectives about the execution of this approach. The existence of differing perspectives highlights the complexities associated with incorporating AI-powered technologies such as ChatGPT into educational settings. The use of ChatGPT by students was shown to be advantageous in the improvement of their language proficiency, since it provided prompt feedback and opportunity for practice. Nevertheless, educators expressed apprehensions over the precision and reliability of ChatGPT, expressing fears that it may have difficulties in providing nuanced and contextually suitable replies. The aforementioned juxtaposition highlights the need for more investigation and advancement to tackle these issues and guarantee the efficient integration of AI-powered technology in educational environments.

This article provides an analysis of the frequency of verbs and their syntactic requirements in Interchange (Richards et al., 1991), a popular series of textbooks for English as a second language (ESL). Current theoretical approaches to verb classes permit a fine-grained crosslinguistic description of differences in semantics-syntax correspondences for verbs; in this article, transitive verbs are split into five subcategories and intransitives are split into two categories. A corpus analysis of Interchange suggests that ESL materials may under-represent some of the verb classes that are known to cause learners difficulty. These findings suggest that weak contrastive analysis and a more careful consideration of syntactic properties of verbs could be useful to teachers and materials writers.

This study investigates technology-enhanced blended learning in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program from the theoretical perspective of Diffusion of Innovations theory. The study first established that the use of a learning management system (LMS) in two ESL classes represented an educational innovation. Next, the innovation attributes described by Rogers (relative advantage, complexity, trialability, and observability) were examined. Then, the stages of the innovation-decision process (knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation) were analyzed. Two ESL teachers and thirty-one students used the LMS to combine face-to-face classroom learning and online learning in the computer lab and for homework. Both qualitative data (in-depth teacher interviews, class and lab observations, and a student focus group) and quantitative data (student surveys) were analyzed. The main findings indicate that the innovation shared common attributes with other innovations and that both positive and negative innovation attributes were present. The two teachers passed through the first four stages of the innovation-decision process that the other potential adopters go through. This study showed that the Diffusion of Innovations theory can guide research on blended language learning.

Writing plays a crucial role in the development of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ language; however, it remains a challenging skill for them to acquire. This study investigated how EFL students at a high school in Northern Vietnam engaged with the Writing Assistant Bot (WAB), an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot designed to support their writing practice at home. Focusing on students’ usage patterns, writing performance, and perceptions, the research included 47 participants, categorized into higher and lower proficiency levels. The mixed-method approach was employed, with chat logs, timed-writing tests, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated differences in chatbot usage between the two proficiency levels at various writing stages, despite similarities in their focus on specific writing aspects. Lower-level learners predominantly utilized the chatbot during the Planning stage to generate vocabulary and brainstorm ideas, while higher-level learners mainly used it during the Translating stage to elaborate on ideas and refine their language for diverse and coherent expression. The chatbot significantly enhanced writing performance across all aspects: content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics, for both levels. Students perceived it as a useful and easy-to-use tool.