Asian EFL Journal: English Language Teaching and Research Articles

September 2005 Articles

Volume 7. Issue 3

We present 11 articles in this September 2005 edition. We thank both the authors for their outstanding work and our Editorial team for their dedicated efforts enhancing and promoting the TEFL profession. Articles can be read in up to three formats, MS Word format, and PDF format and some in HTML format. You need Adobe pdf reader to read the pdf files, and always run a virus scan of all MS Word files before opening any file.

We also introduce this Volume in Full MS Word E Book Format. pps 1- 159 (click)

Foreward
Welcome to the September Issue of the Asian EFL Journal. This edition reflects our eclectic editorial policy in that it covers a wide range of topics and writing styles spanning many geographical areas within and beyond Asia. Our journal attempts to attract papers by leading international specialists and by authors writing for the first time in an international academic journal. Some papers are of a practical nature and others are examples of academic scholarship reporting research that is less immediately applicable to the classroom, but which sheds light on areas that are relevant to language acquisition or materials and curriculum planning. Others are designed to stimulate debate on current topics of interest to the profession such as competence in teaching English as an International language and form-focused instruction.

We are delighted to be able present the papers presented at the 2005 Asian EFL International Conference. Mark Helgesen challenges us to consider the idea of input raised by Ellis, in a very practical way, arguing persuasively in favour of extensive reading programmes, and Alex Poole raises the important issue of the precise nature of the benefits of form-focused instruction, suggesting that students, at least in his context, attend to lexical rather than grammatical cues. We are also fortunate to have a practical piece by an acknowledged international specialist on teaching vocabulary, Paul Nation.

Helping to edit this journal requires many hours at the computer, often in one enclosed location, but fortunately provides the vicarious pleasure of online travel to our expanded and overworked editorial team of volunteers. We have discovered with Yang et al. the value of collaborative e-learning in a Hong Kong middle school. Ali Al-Issa's piece from Oman is a refreshing example of a more narrative style of writing, while Esmat Babaii and Hasan Ansary from Iran provide us with an example of meticulous and detailed scholarship in the systemic linguistic tradition. From Vietnam, Na Pham leads us skillfully into the intricacies of topic-comment structures in Vietnamese illustrating the difficulties of translating these into subject-predicate structures in English, whereas Phan Le Ha challenges us to consider the complex issues surrounding the characterization of English as an International English. Ahmet Acar from Turkey revisits the linguistic/ communicative competence controversy and my own piece is designed to present a challenge to future Asian EFL authors by raising the issue of competence in relation to English learnt as an international language. We would welcome contributions on this topic for future issues and would also like to develop our teaching section. Papers that have direct classroom relevance, descriptions of classroom approaches and rationales of curriculum and materials design would be most welcome.

Dr. Roger Nunn, Senior Associate Editor

Dr. David Nunan introduces this edition with a special essay examining the teaching of English across the Asian region. Professor Nunan considers the use of task based teaching techniques. The learned author submits educators need evermore to recognize the importance and distinctive context based needs of those requiring education in English outside the traditional native speaker contexts.

The second article is presented by Marc Helgesen. Professor Helgesen considers a definition of Extensive Reading (ER) and benefits of including it in a program. In the main part of the paper the author explains four reporting forms that work with different intelligences and levels of processing.

The third article is presented by Dr. Phan Le Ha. The author argues that together with encouraging and valuing users' appropriation of English, TESOL workers also need to promote an EIL pedagogy in which the teaching and learning of EIL should involve valuing and nurturing the expression of other cultural voices in English, making explicit the values that support judgements about 'good' English and individual ability, and helping students to construct identities as owners, meaning makers, and authorised users of EIL.

The fourth article is by Professor Paul Nation. Vocabulary learning, both within and outside the domain of reading has been a key part of English education in many Asian contexts where it has been traditionally stressed. There is a need for more student centered approaches that improve both the retention and usage in a progressive fashion that goes beyond rote memorization. The analysis here is supportive to this end.

The fifth article is presented by Dr. Ahmet Acar. The main aim of this article is to question Hymes` theory of communicative competence as developed in his paper "On Communicative Competence" (1971) and to critically examine the implications it had for the field of foreign and second language teaching. The article examines the model of language presented by the theory of communicative competence with the claim that the theory is based on highly unsound and unidealized evidence

The sixth article is presented by Dr. Roger Nunn. Roger Nunn considers different types of competence in relation to the teaching of English as an International Language, arguing that linguistic competence has yet to be adequately addressed in recent considerations of EIL. The paper first discusses the need to reconsider the scope of 'communicative competence' and then goes on to consider other kinds of competence relevant to EIL including linguistic competence.

The seventh article is presented by Dr. Alex Poole. Many studies have attempted to exam the efficacy of focus on form instruction. However, few studies have described focus on form instruction as defined by Long (1991) and Long and Robinson (1998). Such a description is necessary in order for EFL/ESL instructors and curriculum designers to discover whether or not focus on form instruction can address the types of forms their students need to learn. The purpose of this study is to describe the types of forms that learners attend to when focus on form instruction is used.

The eighth article is presented by Dr. Ansan Yang, Chan Lik-Ho and Bonnie Tam. This paper investigates how students responded to each other in an e-Community learning situation. Forty students, at two levels, were invited to respond to five questions regarding the Legislative Council election 2004 posted on the school forum. Questionnaires and interviews were conducted to see if students enjoyed the discussion with peers and casual browsers. It has been concluded that students find the forum discussion useful toward their formal curriculum.

The ninth article is presented by Dr. Ali S.M.Al-Issa. This research paper examines from an ideological perspective the importance of English language knowledge to the non-native speaker English teachers (NNEST) and the implications it has for English as a second language (ESL) education design, teacher education and policy implementation in the Sultanate of Oman.

The tenth article is presented by Drs. Esmat Babaii and Hasan Ansary. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, an attempt was made to systematically characterize Book Reviews (BRs) as an academic written genre in terms of the elements of transitivity system. Secondly, the effect of disciplinary variation on the lexico-grammatical features of this genre was explored.

The eleventh article is presented by Pham Phu Quynh Na. the aim of the study is to investigate the extent to which the typological differences between Vietnamese and English influence the process of translating authentic Vietnamese sentences into English. This investigation uses preliminary findings drawn from an error analysis of the Vietnamese-English translations by Vietnamese EFL students. The analysis focuses on the errors made when translating the dropped subject and empty elements of Vietnamese.