Academic literature on the topic 'The Teaching of English'

The aim of the study was to investigate the use of laptops in English language teaching, its benefits and disadvantages. Three classroom observations, six student interviews and three teacher interviews were carried out to answer the study’s research questions, namely, what are the benefits and disadvantages of using laptops in the teaching of English at schools under study? How do teachers solve technical and pedagogical problems related to the use of laptops? What kinds of IT-support and possibility to develop teaching skills required by laptops are available for teachers of English? Results of the study indicate that easy access to authentic English through laptops is a benefit when teaching English at two Swedish compulsory schools and one high school. Furthermore, the study has shown that laptops are beneficial tools when teaching writing proficiency and working with problem-solving tasks in the classroom. The results of the study have also pointed to the disadvantage in the use of laptops during classroom activities, which are caused by students who are engaged in browsing off-task websites. However, a solution to this could be to include these websites into English language learning activities. The data from the interviews with the three English language teachers have provided evidence about different possibilities for IT-support and IT-development for these teachers. This study makes it clear that a successful implementation of one-to-one laptop programs requires teachers who can invest their time and energy into learning new technology, IT-development provided by the school and municipality through courses, workshops and visits at IT-fairs and other schools with one-to-one laptop program as well as a functional IT-support.

This research synthesis investigates the topic of movies in education, and explores advantages and challenges when using movies as a tool for language development in the English classroom. With the framework of language learning theories and methods, scholarly journal articles are synthesized to explore significant themes within this area. There are several advantages relating to the use of movies in language teaching, such as the benefits of multimodality, authentic language input, and knowledge construction. The challenges that might influence the benefits of the use of film as a teaching tool are, for instance, how to create tasks that make the viewing of movies more than just entertainment for learning language and knowledge development.

This degree project investigates how and why current affairs materials are incorporated in English language learning at two Swedish upper secondary schools. The question of what current affairs learning materials are is also answered. We look at current affairs materials from the viewpoint of two teachers and 7 students. We investigate how and why the teachers use current affairs in the ELT classroom through the use of qualitative interviews. Using the same method, we also investigate the students’ experiences of working with current affairs materials in the ELT classroom. We found that both the teachers and the students are positive towards working with current affairs materials in their ELT classrooms. Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the importance of selecting the appropriate materials. The materials should be authentic, connect to the students’ experiences and also match the teacher’s interests and personality. If fulfilling these criteria, current affairs materials function as a suitable learning material for language learning.Keywords: current affairs materials, English, learning materials, ELT classroom, authentic texts.

This thesis pursues to apply communicative language teaching (CLT) into English pronunciation teaching in the context of Finnish school and curriculum for grades 7.-9. CLT is the theoretical basis of this thesis and the research question is: How can CLT be applied to English pronunciation teaching to promote learner autonomy and motivation in order to achieve more effective learning results? This question is answered in the form of communicative pronunciation tasks (CPTs) which aim to realise the principles of the theory of CLT. Research methods used in this thesis are ethnographical observations and experience, and ideation based on the theory of CLT. The analysis resulted in three communicative pronunciation tasks which each include communicative features. However, each of the tasks also face challenges in realising the principles of CLT and are therefore examples on how to begin developing new language tasks, rather than finished model examples of communicative pronunciation tasks. Further research should be conducted in order to prove the functionality of the CPTs presented in this thesis, and to develop them further.

This is a study to investigate English Language Teaching (ELT) in Iran as well as the extent of its compatibility with communicative pedagogy. It has been accepted that language is more than a simple system of rules. Language is now generally seen as a dynamic resource for the creation of meaning. According to the advocates of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), it is generally accepted that there is a need to distinguish between learning that and knowing how. In other words, there must be a distinction between knowing various grammatical rules and being able to use the rules effectively and appropriately when communicating. In 2007, the first Iranian national curriculum for teaching foreign languages was being developed by a team who was working under the supervision of the Ministry of Education based on CLT. Considering the extent of compatibility of the curriculum with CLT was felt to be important in evaluating the degree of success in achieving the goals of CLT. There were also efforts taken into consideration in order to consider the ELT in Iran from other perspectives. To do so, since the current programme and textbooks had been designed prior to introducing the new curriculum; therefore, it was felt necessary to consider them as well. In order to investigate the situation, varieties of research instruments were applied in order to collect valid and reliable data. These instruments were mainly composed of a review of literature, a desk based analysis of the curriculum, administering questionnaires as well as conducting interview sessions. The questionnaires were mainly distributed among English language teachers and the interviews were conducted with some authors of the curriculum, textbooks and English language teachers. The analysis and interpretation of the collected data suggested that while the newly designed curriculum document is to a great extent compatible with communicative pedagogy, the materials being used by teachers, as well as the current ELT programme, are mainly structurally based and cannot be considered as communicative. The thesis goes on to discuss some of the implications of these findings both for ELT in Iran and for future research.

As the English language spreads around the globe and is used for various purposes in different social and cultural contexts, scholars and local practitioners have called for deconstructing the ideology of native-speakerism (Holliday, 2006, 2015) and reconstructing the local subjectivity of English language education (e.g., Canagarajah, 2005; Kumaravadivelu, 2016). In this transformation process of English language education, language teacher identity has played a central role because how teachers see themselves as English speakers, writers, and teachers is closely linked to what and how they teach in the language classroom (Varghese et al., 2005). Investigating such transformative potential of English writing education in Taiwan, the present ten-month qualitative case study takes social constructionist perspective to examine four Western-educated Taiwanese teachers’ writing and teacher identities and their teaching of English writing in relation to the discourse of native-speakerism in four Taiwanese universities. Based on data generated from interviews, classroom observation, email correspondence, and class materials, the study illustrates that language teachers’ training and writing experiences, their ideologies about the English language, and students’ and administrators’ expectations of how the English language should be taught all have a great impact on teacher identity formation and teaching practices. Two participants (Ava and Beth) depended on native-like English proficiency and Western pedagogical knowledge acquired while studying in Western graduate programs to define who they were as English writing teachers. The discourse of native-speakerism was reinforced in their English writing classrooms, leaving little room for local English norms and pedagogies to develop. In comparison, the other two participants (Sarah and Nita) viewed themselves as multicompetent writers and offered more space in their writing classrooms for developing non-Anglophone Englishes. However, the possibility for writing alternative forms was denied by Nita’s students and administrators, who expected her to help students achieve high scores on standardized tests. The study adds insights into the scholarship of professional identity construction of Western-educated English writing teachers, an area of research that remains scant in quantity. It also provides pedagogical implications for teacher education programs to cultivate more agents of change (Morgan, 2010) in teaching English writing as a global communicative means.<br>Education, Faculty of<br>Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of<br>Graduate

This study is an investigation of methods of teaching and learning in the A-level English curriculum consisting both of the traditional A-level English literature and the more recent arrival of A-level English language. It is generally assumed in commentaries on A-level English teaching that language is taught differently from literature because of differences in aims, content and ideology. English language is seen as a deliberate move away from the more 'pure' academic study of literary texts and towards more 'applied' and even partly 'vocational' study in which independent and collaborative forms of learning are strongly encouraged. There is, however, little empirical evidence about how students are taught and how they learn in these different courses. The study addresses these limitations by carrying out an intensive, qualitative study of the teaching styles of ten teachers who teach across the two A-level English subjects. Video recordings of twenty complete lessons (i. e. 10 English language and 10 English literature) were analysed using a formal framework of analysis adapted from the study of discourse analysis. This system identifies the organisation of the classroom discourse so as to allow for a comparison of the patterning of teaching exchanges across the two subjects. The study also investigates, using semi-structured interviews, how the teachers perceive the learning objectives of the two subjects, and the match between those objectives and the teaching and learning methods used to achieve them. The findings suggest that teachers do not vary their teaching style when teaching across the two English subjects at A-levels supporting an extensive statistical study of students' perceptions of the instructional practices employed by teachers which also found a lack of pedagogic distinctiveness between the two subjects. The analysis revealed that teacher-led recitation is a prominent feature of the discourse in both A-level English language and literature.

<p>The purpose of this essay is to investigate what different ways there are to teach English grammar at upper secondary level and what guidance experienced teachers have to offer. This is done by studying different theorists’ ideas on language acquisition as well as what researchers’ opinions are on how to teach grammar. I have also interviewed seven experienced teachers who work at upper secondary level.</p><p>The results of this investigation show that explicit grammar teaching has decreased over the years and been replaced by implicit grammar teaching and communication exercises. Grammar teaching has become integrated with activities focusing on meaning and is taught more through examples than by using grammatical terminology. Since students frequently come into contact with English they are not thought to need grammar rules as much, since they learn the language in a native-like way almost. However, they repeatedly make some mistakes. Each teacher had different methods for dealing with these mistakes, but they seemed to be keeping in mind the students’ needs and the curriculum.</p><p>In this study, I will highlight some methods for teaching grammar, factors that can influence learning and provide information on some existing theories about how students learn their second language.</p>