The thesis explores the place of culture in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). The study originally set out to investigate the ways in which teachers understand culture and deal with it in their teaching of English. A survey of teachers found that while the teachers had sophisticated understandings about culture and its relationship with language at a general level, they did not have clear understandings about how cultural teaching can be enacted in the classroom. This conundrum was also evident in the literature on teaching culture in TESOL. An extensive survey of the literature found that while there are a number of different perspectives on how culture can be understood and dealt with in TESOL, none of these provide a comprehensive basis for the understandings teachers need for the practicalities of teaching. The focus of the study shifted from an investigation of professional development to the articulation of a conceptual framework to inform teachers in the way they can manage the teaching of culture. The framework draws on some significant insights of one of the perspectives in the literature, Intercultural Language Teaching, as well as some insights from other perspectives. The framework identifies dimensions in which teachers need to understand how culture can be manifest and managed in TESOL. For each dimension a number of factors on which decisions need to be made are identified. The framework also identifies a number of principles to guide teachers in their decision-making about the teaching culture. The potential of the framework to inform the teaching of English to adult immigrants in Australia, as well as students studying English in a university in Vietnam is explored. The capacity of the framework to inform TESOL teacher education, research and theory building is also evaluated.

The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the implementation of Cooperative Learning (CL) activities, incorporating the insights given by Howard Gardner’ (1993) theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) and the notion of Whole Language Approach (WLA) in college EFL classrooms will have a positive effect on students’ language proficiency and attitude. A quasi-experimental study was developed. The site of this study was in an EFL classroom in a Taiwanese College. The subjects were from the researcher’s three English classes at Chung Hwa Institute of Medical Technology during one semester. Many learning activities based on Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences were used while a Cooperative Learning approach was practiced. The data for this study was collected from three sources. One was from the subjects’ questionnaires on attitudes and on motivation, regarding Cooperative Learning and Multiple Intelligences. Another was from student interviews. The third was from the students’ test scores on their language proficiency tests. The results of the study showed that the experimental group that was taught using the ideas based on CL and MI outperformed the group based on CL, and the control group, on the Simulate English General Proficiency tests for the four language skills. Though there were no significant differences among them within this short-time study, the motivation in learning English was enhanced a great deal for the experimental group that was taught using the CL and MI ideas. Based upon the insight gained from this study, CL, MI, WLA and Language Learning Center were thus recommended to be integrated into the Junior College English curriculum. Pedagogical implications for the application of CL and MI in an EFL classroom were developed. Above all, suggestions for teacher development in CL and MI were proposed. Finally, suggestions for future research have been recommended.

In recent years, English has become a compulsory subject in schools and many tertiary institutions of Vietnam. The need to train teachers of English is greater than ever before. However, in the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers Training College (HFLTTC), English language teaching in general and the teaching of oral skills in particular leave much room for improvement. The students' oral proficiency is far from satisfactory. This problem has inspired the writing of this study report as an attempt to search for an appropriate method to improve the students' communicative competence. The study consists of four chapters. Chapter one will overview some English Language Teaching (ELT) methods in relation to teaching spoken English and their application in Vietnam. Chapter two will consider the context of the HFLTTC where teaching and learning are carried out with a view to identifying an appropriate approach to the problem. Chapter three will outline communicative competence as an objective of the ELT and discuss principles of the communicative approach to attain the objective, and suggest teaching material through which the principles can be applied. Chapter four will recommend the classroom techniques which may improve the students' oral proficiency. This study report should be regarded as an attempt to apply the communicative approach to teaching oral skills to students in the context of Vietnam.

The communicative approach is one of the most characteristic features of contemporary language teaching. This paper aims to study ways of achieving communicative competence of students by using informal language practice and games in teaching. It attempts to look more closely at the relationship between language acquisition, language games and communicative language teaching. This study is based on the theory that language games and informal language practice allow natural learning to occur and provide opportunities for developing communicative competence in a foreign language. While games and informal language practice are widely used in language classrooms in many countries, it appears from the writer's observation and experience of teaching English in China that there is still, among Chinese teachers and students, a great deal of suspicion and uncertainty about the functions and the effectiveness of such classroom activities. Problems detected in language classrooms in using these activities and games suggest that Chinese teachers and students have misunderstood and misused these activities. In this study, it is hoped to analyze in some depth the problems involved in using language games in China, including the attitudes, teaching methods and expectations of the teachers and students. Also, it is hoped to investigate the optimal use of games and practice in Chinese classrooms. As the use of games has received little serious attention in China to date, it is hoped, finally, to suggest ways of using games effectively to improve learners' communicative ability.

The present study is one of the first attempts undertaken to study English and Vietnamese news discourse on a contrastive basis. More specifically, it investigates the structure, the lexical and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese political news discourse. It is hoped that the results of the study may help the Vietnamese teacher and student to make better use of newspapers in the process of English language teaching and learning. In addition, it is hoped that the study may benefit the journalist, to some extent, because it is generally assumed that if the knowledge of news discourse structure, the linguistic features and the factors involved are professionally known and shared, this will facilitate news discourse production and comprehension. The study reveals two different strategies used by English and Vietnamese political news writers. English news writers predominantly employ the IP structure pattern whereas Vietnamese news writers employ BTN (Background-to-News). Lexically, English newspapers use more lively, vigorous language, metaphors, puns and hyperbole. In contrast, the occurrence of serious, formal language is a very pronounced feature of Vietnamese newspapers. This is the area where Vietnamese students of English often have difficulty, as is indicated by the survey. The greatest syntactic difference is sentence order, namely, English news stories often use S + V + (O) + (A) while their Vietnamese counterparts use A + S + V + (O) +. The other difference is that English news paragraphs are mostly single sentence paragraphs as disctinct from their multi-sentence Vietnamese ones. Chapter One is an introduction explaining the rationale, the methods, and the data for analysis, of the present study. Chapter Two is concerned with the theoretical background to the study. It deals with such concepts as cohesion, coherence, structure, relevance, text and discourse. Chapter Three provides a contrastive overview of English and Vietnamese newspapers, essentially in terms of ownership and the approach to news. Chapter Four examines the different structure patterns used by English and Vietnamese reporters and journalists. Chapter Five and Six study the different lexical and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese political news discourse, respectively. In chapter Seven, a comparison of English and Vietnamese political news discourse is given, which is based on the analyses presented in chapters Four, Five and Six. In addition, it presents the results of a survey of comprehension difficulty encountered by Vietnamese students studying English now at the University of Canberra, and looks at some discourse strategies involved in news discourse production and comprehension. The last chapter offers some implications for TEFL in Vietnam, which are based on the author's own experience and results of a survey. The author hopes that these implications may be of some help to the practising teacher as well as the student.

This study sets out to describe the current situation in the Home Tutor Scheme in the Australian Capital Territory, and to evaluate the Scheme's effectiveness in achieving its goals as listed in the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs Review (1980). These stated goals were: to improve the students' English language proficiency, to encourage integration of the students into the wider community, and to prepare them to attend more formal English language classes. The writer also considered a further question in evaluating the Scheme, whether it satisfied the needs and expectations of the tutors and the students. There were two sections to the investigation: the main study, in which the progress of eighteen tutors and their students was followed for a period of up to six months, and a subsidiary study that was designed to assess the generalisability of the data elicited in the main study. A range of instruments were employed. In the main study, findings were derived principally from interviews, and from lesson reports written by tutors. In the subsidiary study, data were collected by means of questionnaires issued to a greater number of tutors and to students from the Scheme's four major language backgrounds. The introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the study and explains its relevance in the current Australian context. This is followed, in Chapter 2, by a review of the relevant literature and previous research. The design of the study is set out in Chapter 3, where details are given of the procedures and instruments employed to gather data. In Chapters A, 5 and 6, the results of the study are presented. Discussion of these results and a consideration of their implications may be found in Chapter 7. In the final chapter, Chapter 8, the findings are summarised and recommendations are made for future developments in the Scheme. In summary, the study found that in the ACT the Scheme was achieving some success in its language teaching and social objectives, and in satisfying its student clientele. It was also found, however, that the Scheme's operational efficiency was hampered by the low level of staffing and that a significant number of tutors withdrew from the Scheme after a short period because they were not experiencing a high level of satisfaction. The recommendations made would, it is thought, lead to greater efficiency of organisation and could raise the level of tutor satisfaction.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 96-98). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 137-143). Also available in print.

<p>Arbetet syftar till att ge en bild av lärarnas metoder i klassrumsundervisningen av tvåspråkiga barn.</p><p>Min forskningsfråga lyder: Vilka metoder använder sig läraren av för att undervisa engelsk grammatik till tvåspråkiga barn?</p><p>I teori delen börjar jag med att upplysa om tvåspråkighet. Vilken uppfattning hade man om tvåspråkighet och undervisning av tvåspråkiga barn för ungefär 40 år sedan? Vilken uppfattning har forskare om tvåspråkighet och undervisningen av tvåspråkiga elever idag? Jag fortsätter med att belysa om de olika metoderna lärarna använder sig av i klassrumsundervisningen för att undervisa tvåspråkiga elever i engelsk grammatik?</p><p>I resultat delen och efter att ha använt intervjun som forsknings redskap kom jag fram till följande resultat: Lärarna använde sig av liknande metoder för att motivera de tvåspråkiga eleverna till språkinlärning. De använde sig främst av leken som metod för att lära ut engelsk grammatik till deras elever. På så sätt blev grammatik undervisningen, enligt lärarna, mycket roligare och intressantare. Alla tre lärare varierade sina lektioner genom att använda sig av olika metoder. Eleverna fick ibland ansvara för sin egen språkinlärning och valde de metoder som passade bäst för deras kognitiva lärande. Lärarna använde sig också mycket av metoden 'Learner Autonomy' som gick ut på att eleverna fick arbeta självständigt och i sin egen takt med olika skrivuppgifter och övningar. Lärarna fick agera som rådgivare på dessa lektioner.</p><p>I analysdelen belyste jag om Skillnader samt Likheter i lärarnas åsikter. Jag jämförde vad alla tre lärarna sa i varje fråga och om det fanns några likheter samt skillnader i deras utsagor. Jag kom som sagt fram till att lärarna använde sig av liknande metoder för att lära ut engelsk grammatik i klassrummet, men självklart så fanns det även vissa skillnader på deras sätt att jobba.</p><p>Jag avslutade arbetet med en slutdiskussion där jag belyste om de olika problematiska momenten i lärarna utsagor. Samt om den bild jag fått ute på fältet i form av intervjuer, överensstämde med tidigare forskning (litteratur) som gjorts i detta område?</p>

<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>