RSSVolume 10 Issue 1

English-teaching in Elementary Schools in Japan: A Review of a Current Government Survey

English-teaching in Elementary Schools in Japan: A Review of a Current Government Survey

| March 25, 2008

In this article, I present a critical overview of the current situation in English-Teaching in public elementary schools in Japan whilst making some productive suggestions based upon contemporary research and social trends.

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The Study of English Learners Synthesizing Process While Reading

The Study of English Learners Synthesizing Process While Reading

| March 25, 2008

This research investigated how English learners could retell two types of passages with culturally familiar and unfamiliar topics. The oral retelling was used to measure the fourteen teenage participants’ reading comprehension of twelve English passages with Chinese and non-Chinese topics.

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An Economical Approach towards Interaction in the L2 Classroom: A Task-based Learning Experiment

An Economical Approach towards Interaction in the L2 Classroom: A Task-based Learning Experiment

| March 25, 2008

This paper reports on a piece of classroom research involving a group of Liberal Arts/TEFL undergraduates from the Federal University of Amazonas. Informed by Jane Willis’s framework for task-based language learning and Michael Breen’s insights into the involvement of learners in the evaluation of learning task cycles, a unit of study was designed and implemented to experiment with clustered tasks as a means of maintaining peer-peer oral/aural interaction in the classroom at substantial levels.

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Lexical Collocations and their Relation to Speaking Proficiency of College EFL Learners in Taiwan

Lexical Collocations and their Relation to Speaking Proficiency of College EFL Learners in Taiwan

| March 25, 2008

The present study explores the knowledge and use of English lexical collocations and their relation to the speaking proficiency (assessed by two speaking tests) of Taiwanese EFL university learners. Data for the study were collected from 56 junior English majors at a national university of science and technology in southern Taiwan.

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Another Look at the C-Test: A Validation Study with Iranian EFL Learners

Another Look at the C-Test: A Validation Study with Iranian EFL Learners

| March 25, 2008

This study probes into the validity and discrimination power of the C-Test for the assessment of overall language proficiency. A total of 144 university students participated in this study. A Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) and a C-Test developed by the researcher were administered.

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Is Syntactic Maturity a Reliable Measurement to Investigate the Relationship Between English Speaking and Writing?

Is Syntactic Maturity a Reliable Measurement to Investigate the Relationship Between English Speaking and Writing?

| March 25, 2008

Numerous studies have been carried out to study the relationship between English speaking and writing. Researchers have adopted a great many measurements to investigate this relationship. However, the reliability of these measurements has been questioned.

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Mentoring Beginning EFL Teachers at Tertiary Level in Vietnam

Mentoring Beginning EFL Teachers at Tertiary Level in Vietnam

| March 25, 2008

Mentoring is a prominent approach used in teacher professional development in the world, especially in the U.S.A, U.K. and other Western countries but is not fully employed in beginning teacher education in Vietnam. Therefore, this study examines the current situation of mentoring at university and investigates beginning English language teachers’ attitudes and feelings toward their mentoring experiences.

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The Discourse of an English Teacher in a Cyber Writing Course: Roles and Autonomy

The Discourse of an English Teacher in a Cyber Writing Course: Roles and Autonomy

| March 25, 2008

The case study reported in this paper investigates the relationships of teacher roles and learner autonomy in the cyber teaching of two EFL adult writers. The discourse of the teacher and learners was constructed in the written e-mail text because e-mail was their only means of communication.

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Determinants and issues in student achievement in English at the Lao Secondary Education Level

Determinants and issues in student achievement in English at the Lao Secondary Education Level

| March 25, 2008

English language education was introduced into Lao secondary schools in 1986 under the “Chintanakan Mai” (new way of thinking) policy. Since then, the demand for it has been steadily increasing. This demand, however, has not been matched by a corresponding quality improvement.

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Factors Predicting Effective Oral Presentations in EFL Classrooms

Factors Predicting Effective Oral Presentations in EFL Classrooms

| March 25, 2008

This paper outlines a study that explores what factors EFL learners consider to be important when making presentations. 304 undergraduate students were surveyed at a large private university in Japan. A 30-item questionnaire was used to discover what components are considered to be important to learners in doing effective English presentations.

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