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New technologies have increased access to written texts, while creating new ways of reading and of sharing responses. Yet, despite the centrality of reading in language learning, and the expanding use of computer technology in English Language Teaching (ELT), many questions concerning the integration of these two fields of knowledge remain unanswered. This study explores a global online discussion forum which links over 1,400 ELT professionals and students of TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages). The ELT Online Reading Group makes literary works in English available to participants in over 75 countries and, by facilitating asynchronous discussion, contributes to their professional development. This study investigates readers' responses to literary texts and their comments on such texts. It adopts Bakhtin's concepts of dialogue and heteroglossia as the theoretical framework for the analysis of data collected from the forum. The forum posts are complemented by an online survey and by semi-structured narratives provided by selected Group members. The data are analysed in terms of compositional features, interactive patterns, and participants' accounts of group participation. The findings suggest that readers engage in dialogue with literary texts by making use of the language and features of the fictional narrative in the composition of their comments. The findings also suggest that the internal dialogue that Bakhtin observes in the novel is also present in the fabric of the texts which participants create in order to discuss literary works in the Group online environment. The thesis concludes with some reflections on the validity and limitations of this study, and a discussion of its possible implications for ELT professionals, educators and researches working on various disciplines in social sciences, arts and humanities.

This classroom•based research contributes to an understanding of how student writers in a Hong Kong English Language Learning (ELL) classroom sustained their idea generation processes, co•constructed their social relational climate, and projected their discursive identities mediated in the target language, as they engaged in peer dialogue on planning feature articles to be published in their class magazine. The interplay among the three dimensions: the socio-cognitive strategies used, the social-relational climate co-constructed, and the discursive identities projected, are analyzed and illustrated. The implications of these findings for pedagogy arc discussed. Three research questions arc posed: 1) How did the student writers in this study sustain their idea generation in their peer dialogue mediated in the target language (TL), as they shared ideas on planning their feature articles? 2) How did the student writers co-construct the social l-relational climate in their peer dialogue? . 3) What discursive identities emerged as the student writers engaged in sharing their plans for their writing? A discourse sequence analytic framework is proposed, and analyses are described and presented in Chapter 4, with findings to the three research questions presented. This dissertation study is a contribution to research studies on peer dialogue in exploring how student writers generate ideas among peers during their planning sessions. The salient findings indicated that the three groups of students negotiated different patterns of discourse, based on the way they initiated and responded to each other's use of sociocognitive strategies at utterance level, and also their response to the relational dynamics of their group members. The findings indicated that the use of the socio-cognitive strategies by the group members had social-relational consequences. The findings from the analyses of the interactants discursive identities projected in their dialogue indicated that their discursive identities emanated from the use of their socio-cognitive strategies and the way they co-constructed the social-relational climate, as well as their positioning in their discursive roles. The conclusion chapter reiterated the central focus of this study: the interactive dynamics among the three dimensions, namely, the use of socio-cognitive strategies in the dialogue sequences, the social l-relational climate co-constructed, and the discursive identities projected. Dialogic construction of understanding among peers involves not just the construction of an epistemic milieu, but also a social-relational one. The implication is that students have to be prepared to nurture empathetic dispositions. There has to be an acceptance of their dialogue partners at their level of development and the range of language resources available to them. There also has to be an acceptance of the diversity of response style among dialogue partners. This study captures the interactive dynamics of the three dimensions as the student writers shared their plans in their dialogic space. This is a dynamic, co-constructed process of writers authoring their discursive identities mediated in the target language, and their projection, and response to each other’s target-language selves.

This thesis identifies and compares theme positioned poetic devices in effective school essays in English and German. It reveals that themes in English as well as in German school essays contain poetic devices. Subsequent to an initial discussion on the school essay writer/reader relationship in chapter 1, a theoretical framework has been developed in chapter 2 that draws upon theories and literature from three distinct areas: the history of the school essay, rhetoric and systemic functional theory. The main research question presupposed the idea that effective school essays in English and German have persuasive power, which was confirmed in chapter 4 and defined as new markedness. The research method itself is divided into two parts: whereby the initial method of analysis is based on the Hallidayan concept of Theme identification, the second step identifies poetic devices in the theme position of English and German school essays. A consequent quantitative analysis is used as a comparative tool between essays written in the two languages. The data analysis shows clearly that poetic devices are positioned in Themes in effective school essays in English and German, which can be regarded as conscious or subconscious strategies to persuade examiners of the effectiveness of students' arguments in their essays. Most importantly though, what emerges from the thesis is that student culture and the classroom are tightly interlinked and this observation has to be taken into consideration when designing essay writing skills programmes, which focus on new markedness.

This thesis examines the impact of the high-stakes International English Language Testing System (IELTS) across different stakeholders in Pakistan, and on Pakistani education, society and economy more broadly. The global profile of IELTS means that washback and impact studies (both comparative and country-specific) are now increasingly carried out by Cambridge ESOL (Hawkey, 2006; Moore et al., 2012). These are undertaken not simply with a view to improving the test, but with a view to investigating how it is used and perceived. In Pakistan, as elsewhere, IELTS has assumed great significance on account of its gate-keeping function in emigration, higher education abroad and professional registration. Demand and candidature grow daily. However, specific conditions that pertain in Pakistan, mainly political instability, and major disparities in wealth and development, have a particular effect on the role of IELTS in the country. The current impact study employs a sequential exploratory concurrent embedded mixed methods design to assess the impact. Phase 1 is a preliminary survey of 20 IELTS preparation institutes, followed by an in-depth qualitative study of two IELTS preparation centres. The qualitative study employs classroom observations, semistructured interviews with teachers (N=2), informal conversational interviews with test-preparers (N=20), and pre- and post-study testing to assess the efficacy of IELTS preparation. Phase 2 analyses questionnaires from a further ten preparation centres. Respondents comprised 200 IELTS test-preparers, 100 IELTS test-takers and 10 IELTS preparation teachers. The survey was supplemented by a focus group with four test-preparers and semi-structured interviews with five employers and five parents. The initial survey of the private English Language Teaching industry in Pakistan showed a radical expansion of IELTS preparation courses. Yet the in-depth study of two specific centres showed that the courses are not effective in improving the scores of students. Courses, although relatively expensive, are very short and most testpreparers enter them with lower English proficiency than is appropriate for IELTS. Questionnaires and interviews showed that IELTS test-preparers and test-takers are primarily motivated to take the test for emigration and study abroad. The test preparers have high expectations from the course regarding improvement of their English proficiency which are generally not met. Disappointed test-takers hold some beliefs that their IELTS course and test will be of benefit to them in Pakistan. Although English ability is always considered as part of recruitment, employers interviewed for this project confirmed that an IELTS certificate is never explicitly required. It is likely that the local uses of IELTS that are emerging in Pakistan are much more indirect. I argue that because public education is not meeting the demand for English, IELTS is now perceived as a route of English education and general certification, and a badge of middle class status if not actual material gain. These findings have implications for both providers of state education in Pakistan, and providers of the IELTS test (Cambridge ESOL). The former needs to address the lack of publicly funded English education and English qualifications; and the latter needs to consider whether IELTS is appropriate for large numbers of low proficiency candidates, and for purposes other than admission to universities abroad and immigration.

The Huang and Van Naerssen (1987) survey in Southern China proved conclusively that the more fluent Chinese L2 learners ofEnglish used more communicative strategies than their not :fluent counterparts. This study was an attempt to repeat the Huang and Van Naerssen study in a different setting with L2 learners of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. L2 learners of English at secondary level were chosen from four countries in which I had recently lived and worked. In addition an attempt was made to empirically test the validity of Schumann•s (1978) acculturation hypothesis on models for which it was not originally intended. A correlation was being sought between the level of acculturation ofL2 learners and their fluency in English. A cloze test was given to the one hundred and twenty-five L2 learners in the study in order to gauge their level of proficiency in English. A survey was then presented to L2 learners in all four countries, Chile, Paraguay, South Africa and Botswana. Part One of the survey asked questions related to acculturation. Part Two asked the same communicative questions used in the South China study. The results from the survey were inconclusive though the raw data for the communicative strategies and acculturation helped to show that the more proficient the student in English, the more likely he or she was to use communicative strategies or show a higher level of acculturation. The results were not statistically significant. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Στην εργασία αυτή, παρουσιάζεται η ανερχόμενη μέθοδος εκμάθησης Intercomprehension καθώς και η αξιοποίηση αυτής από το διαδικτυακό εκπαιδευτικό λογισμικό εκμάθησης ξένων γλωσσών ‘Intercom’. Η συγκεκριμένη εφαρμογή στηρίζεται αποκλειστικά στη μεθοδολογία αυτή, η οποία και αναπτύσσει μια μέθοδο διδασκαλίας για την προώθηση της αμοιβαίας κατανόησης, στηριζόμενη σε κοινές στρατηγικές που αξιοποιούν τις μη-γλωσσικές πτυχές της δεκτικής ικανότητας. Το λογισμικό αυτό, αποτελείται από ένα σύνολο διαδικτυακών δραστηριοτήτων αλληλεπίδρασης με σκοπό την εκμάθηση τεσσάρων γλωσσών: Γερμανικά, Πορτογαλικά, Βουλγάρικα και Ελληνικά, αξιοποιώντας παράλληλα δύο γλώσσες οδηγούς (Αγγλικά και Γαλλικά). Η πρωτοτυπία του εκπαιδευτικού αυτού λογισμικού, συνιστάται στην εξέλιξη της συγκεκριμένης μεθόδου διδασκαλίας επεκτείνοντας την και πέρα των γλωσσικών οικογενειών παράλληλα με την αξιοποίηση μη γλωσσικών πτυχών κατά την εκμάθηση μιας ξένης γλώσσας. / The purpose of this paper is to present the new learning method "Intercomprehension", as well as a web based educational software of learning foreign languages called "Intercom", which is based in this particular method. The application is exclusively based in this learning method, which also develops a teaching method for the promotion of mutual comprehension, supported in common strategies that develop the not-linguistic aspects of receptive faculty. This software is constituted by a number of web interactive activities aiming at the learning of four languages: German, Portuguese, Bulgarian and Greek, while using two guide languages (English and French). The originality of this educational software, is contested in the extension of this learning method over linguistic families while trying to develop not linguistic aspects in the procedure of learning a foreign language.

The Huang and Van Naerssen (1987) survey in Southern China proved conclusively that the more fluent Chinese L2 learners ofEnglish used more communicative strategies than their not :fluent counterparts. This study was an attempt to repeat the Huang and Van Naerssen study in a different setting with L2 learners of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. L2 learners of English at secondary level were chosen from four countries in which I had recently lived and worked. In addition an attempt was made to empirically test the validity of Schumann•s (1978) acculturation hypothesis on models for which it was not originally intended. A correlation was being sought between the level of acculturation ofL2 learners and their fluency in English. A cloze test was given to the one hundred and twenty-five L2 learners in the study in order to gauge their level of proficiency in English. A survey was then presented to L2 learners in all four countries, Chile, Paraguay, South Africa and Botswana. Part One of the survey asked questions related to acculturation. Part Two asked the same communicative questions used in the South China study. The results from the survey were inconclusive though the raw data for the communicative strategies and acculturation helped to show that the more proficient the student in English, the more likely he or she was to use communicative strategies or show a higher level of acculturation. The results were not statistically significant. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

The aim of this dissertation is to present a critical literature review and conceptual analysis of selected genre-based research materials from 1960-2002 on the theoretical and pedagogical issues involved in teaching reading and writing to students of English for Science and Technology. Methodologically, the comparative data-analysis is aimed at identifying commonalities and differences between the various data texts in terms of their definition, orientations, and pedagogical uses. Based on the analyses, suggestions are made for the additional practical applications of the approaches within a learning-centred, communicative framework. The main conclusion is that genre analysis is a fusion of textual-contextual orientations on a structural-linguistic, social-ethnographic cline, which involves simultaneous microlinguistic and macrorhetorical, social-ethnographic processing. Owing to the scope of genre analysis, it is suggested that a considerably expanded, in-depth investigation is needed to clarify the dynamic tensions between and within the individual genre-based approaches, as well as their pedagogical applications. / English Studies / MA (TESOL)

There is no comprehensive model of language test or examination impact and how it might be investigated within educational contexts by a provider of high-stakes examinations, such as an international examinations board. This thesis addresses the development of such a model from the perspective of Cambridge ESOL, a provider of English language tests and examinations in over 100 countries. The starting point for the thesis is a discussion of examinations within educational processes generally and the role that examinations board, such as Cambridge ESOL play within educational systems. The historical context and assessment tradition is an important part of this discussion. In the literature review, the effects and consequences of language tests and examinations are discussed with reference to the better known concept of washback and how impact can be defined as a broader notion operating at both micro and macro levels. This is contextualised within the assessment literature on validity theory and the application of innovation theories within educational systems. Methodologically, the research is based on a meta-analysis which is employed in order to describe and review three impact projects. These three projects were carried out by researchers based in Cambridge to implement an approach to test impact which had emerged during the 1990s as part of the test development and validation procedures adopted by Cambridge ESOL. Based on the analysis, the main outcome and contribution to knowledge is an expanded model of impact designed to provide examination providers with a more effective “theory of action”. When applied within Cambridge ESOL, this model will allow anticipated impacts of the English language examinations to be monitored more effectively and will inform on-going processes of innovation; this will lead to well-motivated improvements in the examinations and the related systems. Wider applications of the model in other assessment contexts are also suggested.