In 2003, English for Teaching of Mathematics and Science policy was implemented in Malaysia, requiring teachers to teach these subjects in English through primary to tertiary education. However, this policy was abolished in 2011, leaving schools to decide for themselves the medium of instruction (MOI) for these subjects during the soft-landing period. By 2022, all primary and secondary education is expected to complete the reversion of MOI to Malay. However, this is not applicable to both pre-university and tertiary education where students will continue to learn Mathematics and Science in English. Under such circumstance, it is foreseen that students and teachers in higher education will have problem learning and teaching these subjects when the reversion of MOI to Malay is completed as students will have learnt the subjects fully in Malay before entering higher education. As Malaysia is a multilingual country and most teachers and students speak both English and Malay, the researcher is interested to investigate the effectiveness of classroom code-switching (CS) and the possibility of adopting it as a strategic teaching tool in science classrooms. This research was carried out in three schools in Malaysia in 2013. Lessons conducted by two science teachers from each school were observed and audio-recorded for four hours. Three of these teachers were teaching science in English medium (EMI) whereas the other three had bilingual classrooms, teaching in both Malay and English (BMI). The recordings were then transcribed and analysed for instances of CS and their functions. These teachers were also interviewed about their language and education backgrounds. Students in each class were asked to complete a questionnaire by providing their language background and preferences of MOI for the teaching of science. Having compared both EMI and BMI classes, it is found that CS in EMI classes does provide strategic functions for classroom management and transmit of content knowledge. Students also appear to be very receptive to classroom CS and even view it as a way to improve their language skills.

Because of the affordability and widespread availability of modern technologies, researchers of second language learning in Taiwan as well as across the globe have frequently examined Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) in their studies. However, none has hitherto explored the interactional space of text-based, online chat. This doctoral thesis tries to bridge this research gap by investigating interactional phenomena as they arise in online chatting involving L1 and L2 speakers of English. Special attention is given to how the participants interact with each other to achieve mutual understanding through the sequential structures of language-in-use and the use of online interactional resources. The data for the study is provided by 24 paired participants (i.e. 24 English L1 speakers from geographically remote areas and 24 Taiwanese university students as English L2 speakers) chatting for a 10-week period within a private group on Facebook. Their text-based talk-in-interaction data were retrieved and analysed using the techniques of Conversation Analysis. The salient findings are in relation to the sequential structures of repair sequences. Mutual understandings between L1 and L2 speakers were achieved mostly through repair sequences and the deployment of online interactional devices. There is evidence of incidental learning through CMC taking place not only among L2 speakers but also among L1 speakers who learned interactionally in terms of how to adapt themselves and shape their language-in-use to interact with L2 speakers. This raises new issues with regard to the conventional approach to L2 learning in SLA. In examining the online interactional platform, the data collection and analysis, this study is of importance in providing a better understanding of L1 and L2 speakers’ online talk-in-interaction without participants’ physical co-presence. The study also contributes to the development of, and the literature on, methodology and pedagogy. On the basis of the findings, it is suggested that future studies should continue research on the use of CA for SLA in CMC, with participants of various language proficiencies, and compare the similarities and differences between spoken, online-chat, and written data.

The growth in teaching English as a foreign language to young learners (TEYL) as a distinctive area within the English Language Teaching industry during the last twenty years raises some questions over who, in an industry that has traditionally focused on adults, is going to teach these learners, aged, in this thesis, between five and sixteen years. Emerging from existing literature and the occupational experience of this researcher is a sense that teaching young learners (YLs) presents different challenges and requires different skills from teaching adults. This research explored the experiences and needs of those who trained to teach adults but also teach children. Adopting a phenomenological, constructivist approach, a mixed-methods survey of multiple-item self-report questionnaires and semi-structured, face-to-face interviews was conducted to investigate the experiences and attitudes of two criteria-based samples totalling 155 mixed-nationality EFL teachers giving out-of-school lessons in private language centres in some forty different countries. The samples included both native and non-native English speakers to reflect the possibility that some language centres might employ such a mixed staff. Following an extensive pilot, the questionnaire was used to identify general demographic trends in TEYL, to explore teachers’ experiences and attitudes towards TEYL, their attitudes towards training and continuing occupational development and their career pathway preferences. 139 questionnaires were returned, and supplemented by 16 interviews. The survey found that around 85 per cent of the respondents had not undertaken any formal pre-service TEYL training and that nearly half had received no such training in their first job. These teachers found aspects of TEYL such as planning and classroom management particularly challenging. On the basis of these findings, the thesis argues that current training and development programmes should be modified and, using suggestions from the research sample, outlines some proposals for a new TEYL training programme.

Language learning strategies and styles may be employed differently by students from different cultural backgrounds. Although this topic has attracted wide interest, there has been little research on the specific learning strategies of Japanese learners of English and none on the learning strategies of British learners of Japanese. This thesis deals with the relationships between learning strategies, styles, and cultural beliefs, focusing on 356 Japanese and 80 British students learning EFL and JFL respectively. Questionnaire and interview studies were conducted to determine: first, the differences between the two groups, second, correlations between strategies, styles, and cultural beliefs, and third, the role of background variables, such as gender, months of stay in target countries, course majors, and language proficiency. The results revealed that: first, British students of JFL preferred planned, active learning strategies, while Japanese students preferred receptive comprehensive strategies. British students showed strong preferences for the analytic, but global, experience-based learning styles, whereas Japanese students tended to think of their EFL learning as just a subject, focusing on comprehension. British students showed typical "Western" communication styles, whereas Japanese students preferred what are often quoted as "typical" Japanese communication styles. Second, there were significant correlations among strategies, styles, and cultural beliefs for each subject group and between the two subject groups. Interestingly, the Japanese English majors showed more closely about a 30 % overlap with the Western variables, while British JFL learners some overlap with the Japanese variables. This implies that strategies, styles, and cultural beliefs can develop across target cultures. Third, with respect to background information, gender, months of stay in the target countries, and proficiency were also correlated with strategies, styles, and cultural beliefs. Interview studies also shed light on key aspects of EFL/JFL learning: homestays and error correction played an important role in the students' language learning. Developmental aspects should be considered for future research on learning strategies, styles, cultural beliefs in EFL/JFL.

It has been known for a long time that LI writers perform differently in different modes of discourse. Despite its importance, there has been no conclusive evidence to shed light on the issue of ESUEFL learners' writing performance across various discourse types especially in EAP environment. Therefore, this research study was designed to investigate differences resulting from the effect of four discourse modes (i.e. Narrative, Description, Explanation, and Argument) on EFL writing skill. The research was conducted in three different phases mainly with university students in Iran. The hypothesised differences were examined in the three dimensions of production (through eliciting compositions), recognition (through cloze tests derived from compositions written in different discourse modes), and finally the learners' attitude towards these types of writing (through questionnaires). The results of the production phase show a statistically significant difference between argument and description but not between narrative and exposition. For the recognition phase, significant differences were observed among all four types of discourse, ranking narration, exposition, description, and argument in order of their difficulty level as cloze tests. At the third stage of the study, an examination of learners' attitudes towards composition prompts was examined which showed their reluctance towards writing in argumentative mode. It can be concluded that argument proved to be the most difficult mode and narrative the easiest in all three phases of this research study. Description stands somewhere in between. Exposition did not follow any consistent pattern and seems to be too broad a category to be considered as a single mode and needs to be narrowed down into more manageable sub-modes. Overall, the findings of this study indicate that the L2 learners at tertiary level behave in the same pattern that has been established for the LI young writers. Recommendations are made to increase the construct validity of writing element of test batteries and to improve pedagogical insights into writing skill.

China, recognising the importance of English literacy, has made English language teaching a major imperative in universities. Reading is the major aspect within the National College English Teaching Syllabus, but despite its importance and the large number of students studying English, little is known about how Chinese teachers and students perceive their reading or which reading strategies are currently used effectively. This research provides an exploratory investigation into the relationship between Chinese teachers' and students' perceptions of English reading strategies through statistical analysis of questionnaires and follow-up questionnaires given to 115 teachers and 201 students in China and 100 students in Britain and interviews with 5 teachers and 5 students. The questionnaires were designed by incorporating reading strategies mainly from Grellet (1981) and Nuttall (1982) into Oxford's SILL Model (1990). The literature review and data analysis suggested the complexity of the subject and raised many questions regarding whether reading strategies are useful and, if so, how they may be learned. The research was therefore extended to answer these questions by investigating the related learning process. Teaching reading strategies in an interactive approach was suggested and illustrated in a material workshop to offer insights into the development of more dynamic language classes and a Spiral Model of Reading was developed to provide a representation of the learning process. The main results suggest: a significant difference between teachers' and students' perceived strategy use; the importance of teachers' qualifications and training in teaching behaviour; and the suggestion that students' use of strategies, learning attitude and motivation are strongly correlated with their performance. Models were derived to represent the relationships, degrees and directions of factors that influence the use of strategies and the Spiral Model of Reading combine strategies with reading levels to show how knowledge is acquired within the learning process and how the act of linking facilitates reading. Yet, many questions still remain unanswered and suggestions for future research are made.

This study focuses on digital literacies, and real-time multimodal design, within the context of migrant adult learners in the UK. It seeks to understand the frameworks of peer-interaction when second-language learners are paired at a computer and how they negotiate second-language writing. In this research, pairs of students sharing the same language were tasked with an environmental project which included the digital design of an image, designing a four-page booklet using Publisher, a website and to produce all of these using English as a second language. The process was videoed across a threehour classroom session with four pairs of learners: Kurdish, Polish, French and Arabic. New literacies, embodied peer-interaction and second-language writing are the primary fields informing this research. The outcomes of the research are: (1) a methodology is developed for the collection and analysis of multimodal data when learners collaborate at a computer; (2) the field of new literacies is extended through an analysis of the design-process, as opposed to product-analysis; (3) a peer-interaction framework is presented which broadens our understanding of classroom interaction, including linguistic, paralinguistic and mediating resources when learners share technology; (4) the field of second-language writing is extended through an analysis of peer-writing with technology. The research concludes with a peer-interaction framework comprised of learner alignment and misalignment across language, literacy and technology. Spoken and written language goes through an iterative cycle of transformation. The central finding from the research is the naming and defining of transmodal talk within a peer-interaction framework. The sequentiality of this process has common features across all the pairs of learners. Transmodal talk is presented to identify the fluid process of transposing off-screen dialogue to on-screen text. They both shape and mediate each other through temporal mapping and polyvocality.

This work investigates practical realities of international socio-cultural inclusivity from a linguistic point of view in a context of International Higher Education. It speculates that linguistic inclusivity in International Higher Education appears to be merely rhetoric when it comes to the adaptation to and accommodation of Non-Native varieties of the English language on the basis of intelligibility. The need to consider this rhetoric as against what obtains in reality was strengthened by a conflicting tension observable in the literature and by certain Higher Education practices in countries categorised as Native Speaking (NS). The tension has to do with the conflict in global English discourse between the Standard English (SE) camp and the World English (WE) one. While scholars of the former advocate for sustaining the Native Speaking (NS) varieties as the ‘standard’ in the international use of the English language, scholars of the latter state that Non-Native (NNS) varieties could also be standardised in their own rights. International Higher Education appears to be favouring the SE side of the divide over WE, as can be seen for example on the dependence on NS-based testing systems through IELTS and TOEFL or their equivalents for recruitment and selection of both international students and international staff. This work starts from the premise that true ‘internationalisation’, socio-cultural inclusivity and integration is meant to be void of any superiority views or practices that favour one socio-cultural group over another, even linguistically. With this in mind, the project set out to investigate perceptions on linguistic inclusivity in International Higher Education, albeit with recognisable limitations on generalisabilty of the results of the findings, because this study is considered as the beginning of a more wide-reaching research gap area. In order to achieve the stated purpose above, data was gathered from students-as-stakeholders and managers-as-stakeholders on their orientation towards international NNS scholars and academics who possess country-specific varieties of English which are clearly different from those of the NS. A two-sided innovative approach aimed at testing for intelligibility, as well as gathering perception on and seeking orientations of NNS/WE speakers was employed. It involved the use of an IELTS listening test, where the recorded speakers were NNS/WE users, and a post-test perceptions questionnaire, administered to the student participants. There was also the use of focus group discussions aimed at spurring more in-depth and insightful orientations towards NNS varieties from the students. The orientation of the management participants, which had more to do with how NNS/WE varieties of English influence their recruitment and selection decisions, were collated through interviews. The findings showed that although both stakeholder groups identify with the need for, and importance of socio-cultural integration, their linguistic orientations towards NNS/WE varieties of English, were negative and influenced by subjective judgements that favour the upholding of SE or NS based standards and competences over WE or NNS ones. The findings also particularly showed that even when NNS/WE speakers are intelligible, the varieties of English they possess is not considered worthy of acceptance for academic, scholarly or teaching roles in the supposedly ‘international’ or ‘internationalising’ Higher Education environments. It was therefore concluded that there appears to be contradictions in the equal opportunities and diversity claims within the two International Higher Education institutions surveyed when it comes to linguistic communicative realities involving the use of the English language as a lingua franca. This is because, while the rhetoric projects the propagation of inclusivity and integration, the reality with major stakeholders appears to still be in sharp contrast with the overall meaning of international accommodation, adaptation and acceptance, particularly as it concerns linguistic differences that are peculiar to Non-Native users of the English Language.

This study explored the lives of South Korean ‘manager moms’ within the integrated conceptual framework of Korean Confucianism, English and globalisation, and lifelong learning. To understand these ‘manager moms’ and shed light on the topic of mothers in the educational field, what they do for children’s English language education and how they go about doing it were investigated by qualitative research methods. Thirty South Korean participants were involved in articulating their perceptions of ‘manager moms’ and/or being ‘manager moms’ in the male-centred Confucian society; they shared their experiences and stories through interviews, focus group meetings, observations, and diaries. These personal stories demonstrated how their daily conducts as ‘manager moms’ affect themselves, their children, family, and the wider society. Their devotion and enthusiasm towards children’s English language education confirmed the significance of this global language in the South Korean society and at the same time verified the unique position these mothers hold in this context. The study aimed to investigate why this ‘manager mom’ phenomenon is happening, what it means, and why it is important by focusing on listening to the voices of mothers themselves. To these mothers, children’s education means so much; it means fulfilling responsibility to maintain the collective family name, identifying themselves within the family and society, and ‘succeeding’ as mothers (Lee, 2011). The notion of ‘succeeding through education’ that provides people with power ties nicely into the scholastic Confucian doctrine that has shaped the South Korean society for a long time. Through education, hereditary succession of wealth and credentials are legitimately passed down (Lee, 2016) which is embedded in the ruling philosophy of the nation. To analyse the rich data effectively, thematic analysis was employed. With the derived themes, a model was conceptualised which initiated the formulation of a substantive theory explaining the South Korean ‘manager mom’ phenomenon. The findings of this study demonstrate that there are micro, meso, and macro levels of forces that drive the phenomenon; personal desires, familial expectations, and societal pressures governed by Confucian values mingled with added powers brought in by globalisation have shaped a new motherhood or mother image called ‘manager moms’. They take certain actions and approaches to be ‘successful’ mothers and earn a certain position within the household and society. The processes these mothers go through and what they achieve from these conducts are understood from the perspective of lifelong learning. By exploring lives of ‘manager moms’ who indeed occupy a special place in society, this study managed to capture voices of mothers who hold the most power in children’s education but whose opinions are ironically underrated. After all, mothers are the first and last teachers for their children who guide and coach children by providing endless love and support.

This thesis sets out to explore the complexity of curriculum reform by examining how different stakeholders, experiencing English language curriculum reform in different ‘layers’ of the education system in one province in Vietnam, make sense of change in relation to their professional roles, practices and behaviours. While there is a plethora of research on curriculum change in TESOL contexts, much of this is focused on the teacher and the practical constraints they might face in implementing a new curriculum. The multi-level interactions and relationships involved in sense-making, and the complexity that such interconnectedness suggests, seems to be a neglected research area. This qualitative case study begins to fill this research gap. Using a complexity perspective, the study investigated the perceptions, understandings and responses to primary English language curriculum change of seven primary English language teachers working in three districts in one province in Vietnam. The study also examined the sense-making of three district specialists and four university INSET trainers who are involved in supporting those teachers in implementing the new curriculum. Data were generated through multiple qualitative interviews, classroom observations and document analysis carried out over two research phases. The research identified a number of control parameters which appeared to be constraining the participants’ practices and behaviours towards a paradigm shuffle rather than a paradigm shift. The findings show how the interconnectedness of the educational culture, perceptions of risk, feelings of being supported and the flow of communication experienced by the different participants seemed to mediate teachers’ emergent classroom practices and behaviours. The research identifies several policy implications for policy makers, curriculum change planners and TESOL practitioners which have emerged from these control parameters, and which are likely to help promote the desired curriculum change outcomes.