Asian EFL Journal: English Language Teaching and Research Articles

June 2003 Articles

The Asian EFL Journal presents a selection of submitted articles for readers' analyses. We thank the authors for their dedicated work in advancing the understanding and application of Asian EFL practices . A special thank you is extended to the learned authors, Mr. Paul Nation and Mr. Dave Sperling for their submissions.

The first article is presented by the learned and highly respected Mr. Paul Nation of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Nation discusses the role of L1 in the classroom and presents guidance and advice for both native and non-native teachers in the Asian classroom on presenting an L2. Mr. Nation submits that whilst the L1 plays an important part in any English lesson, the teacher should use the L2 to the greatest extent possible. Guidance is given as to just what L1 should be used in an L2 lesson.

The second article is presented by Mr. Dave Sperling , who is well known to the TEFL community for his internationally acclaimed website, Dave's Eslcafe . Mr. Sperling presents the reader with invaluable insights into the use of the Internet. The comprehensive guide presented for the TEFL teacher lists extremely useful Internet sites that the ESL/EFL teacher may wish to draw from. This guide will appeal to all NS and NNS English speaking teachers alike. Mr. Sperling was a former adjunct professor at California State University, Northridge, before pioneering and breaking new ground in the EFL/TEFL Internet field.

The third article is presented by Mr. Marcus Otlowski B. Ed. M.A. (Applied Linguistics.) Mr. Otlowski continues the examination of gender bias in EFL materials and exams materials currently in use in Japan. His hard hitting study reveals that publishers of EFL material fail to consider ethnic minorities on the whole who are ignored or portrayed wrongly, whilst merely portraying stereotypical images of women. EFL books fail to deliver a proper picture of the target culture and thus students of English are not taught nor prepared how to communicate with other than stereotypes.

The fourth article is presented by Mr. Peter Dash who considers the effect of Culture upon the Asian L2 student and whether the EFL teacher should separate Culture or subsume it within his teaching methodology. Mr. Dash is currently a foreign specialist working in China. He obtained his Master in Education and was a former Harvard researcher. Mr. Dash spent many years working for the government of Korea as a teacher trainer and advisor to the Pusan Education Department.

The fifth article is presented by Mr. Paul Robertson who examines the issue of the viability and usefulness or otherwise of teaching 'Pronunciation' to Asian EFL students. The author looks to theories for and against such a notion, and proposes on the balance of evidence, that even untrained teachers, who largely predominate throughout Asia, will have a significant influence upon the students pronunciation mastery despite the impacting Confucionist Korean culture. The author has worked for the last decade in Asia having obtained a doctorate in TEFL. He has has 2 internationally selling novels, and is widely published in EFL materials in Greece and the Czech Republic.