Communication strategies (CSs) have been the focus of an increasing number of L2/FL studies. Some pedagogically-oriented studies indicate that teaching would be more effective if it were based on what learners actually did while learning a given language, including their use of CSs. However, the possibility of teaching CSs is a controversial issue. There are many people who think that CSs should not or cannot be taught, a belief which this thesis aims to disprove. The researcher’s strong epistemological belief in the value of teaching CSs has motivated the choice of topic for this thesis. This paper, then, explores the effect of teaching oral Communication Strategies on English language learners. It starts with an introduction to the institution where the study was carried out, giving a brief history of the English department at Misurata University and of the teaching and learning problems encountered there. Then, the rationale, purpose, and significance of the study are explained. A literature review follows, to shed light on different perspectives of CSs, the teaching of CSs, empirical research on CSs, and some factors which affect the use of CSs. Finally, research design, research tools, and the interventions used are explained in the methodology section. The findings of this study reveal that explicit teaching of CSs enhanced English language learners’ effective ability to communicate and raised their awareness of strategy use. The results also showed that language learners had a positive attitude towards the teaching of CSs and found these strategies useful for improving their conversation. There was also evidence that teaching CSs had a long lasting impact on the communication skills of Libyan English language students.

This thesis presents the results of four studies that investigated the perception and production of English by Saudi Arabic learners. Additionally, the thesis sought to investigate the role of different types of training, production- or perception-based, in learning, with the aim of understanding how training in different domains contributes to second language acquisition. A preliminary study (Study 1) investigated problematic phonemic contrasts for Arabic speakers, confirming that accuracy in perception and production depends on the similarity between L1 and L2 phonemes. Study 2 investigated the specificity of second language phonetic training by comparing the effect of three training programmes on the acquisition of British English vowels. Saudi Arabic learners were randomly assigned to one of three training programmes; Production Training (PT), High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT), and a Hybrid Training Program (HTP). They completed a battery of tests before and after training. All participants improved after training, but improvements were largely domain-specific; production training led to improvements in production but not perception, whilst perception training led to improvements in perception but not production. Participants in the HTP showed improvements in both production and perception, indicating that only a small amount of training in production appears to be necessary to effect changes in production. Additionally, improvement on particular tasks appeared to be linked to initial L2 proficiency, and learning in perception and production was retained (Study 3) and production training appeared to be more beneficial for participants who were trained in a non-immersion setting (Study 4). In brief, the results suggest that L2 learners improve in both perception and production if training explicitly trains these domains. Production training was beneficial not only for L2 learners in an L2-speaking country, but also in non-immersion settings. Overall, these results suggest that a hybrid training programme would be most beneficial for L2 learners.

This study was based on an action research project aiming to investigate how training effectiveness could be influenced by the design of an ICT training program and to explore what factors may affect teachers' engagement in ICT integration. The aim was to understand how ICT training could be designed to meet the needs of a particular group of TESOL teachers and improve their current practice in the context. The main action consisted of a series of ICT training programs in two phases designed for the eight participating TESOL teachers. They shared their experiences and views with me through personal interviews after each phase. The findings emerged from the analysis of interview data and were triangulated with data from observations and informal conversations. The findings show that ICT training has different effects on teachers with different levels of ICT competency. The findings further suggest that the training programs can be more effective if they are tailor-made for teachers in order to cater for their various training needs. Based on the findings, an emergent design model consisting of four basic design features, three specific design features and some design factors was developed. The four basic design features form the basis of the training design while the specific design features and the design factors are to be adjusted according to the particulars of the teachers and their teaching context, making the training programs more effective and connected to real practice. The findings also reveal the importance of some non-design factors on training effectiveness, including hardware provision, technical support and teachers' attitudes towards ICT training and ICT integration, suggesting the need to view the problems from multiple perspectives. These findings, the development of the design model in particular, offer a contribution to our understandings of ICT training for TESOL teachers.

This study explores teacher perceptions of an approach to teaching academic reading and writing that focuses on local English for Academic Purposes (EAP) exams (the Exam-Practice Approach) and presents a textual analysis of the teaching materials. The research context is the EAP component of an international foundation year programme for undergraduate students embarking on Business or Engineering pathways at a British university operating in China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with English teachers and analysed thematically. This data was enhanced through participant observation, documentary evidence and a survey. Findings indicate concerns regarding the separation of academic reading and writing skills, and a mismatch between course aims and assessment. Contextual factors influencing the development of the local EAP programme are identified and concerns are raised over a perceived lack of purpose in teachers’ professional roles. Corpora were constructed from the reading input in the EAP materials divided according to the students’ disciplinary studies (Business and Engineering) and a keyword analysis conducted using the British Academic Written English (BAWE) reference corpus. This was supported through the manual analysis of rhetorical functions in reading materials. Findings indicate that the reading input does not provide a coherent model of target situation writing and that the local academic reading materials contain language features that directly contradict local writing instruction. The primary implication of the findings of this study for pedagogical and professional practice is that course assessment can greatly influence the development of an English for Academic Purposes programme. Focus on English-language test practice risks alienating teachers and reinforcing a deficit model of Chinese students. The purpose of the EAP programme therefore needs to be clear and assessment should reflect that purpose.

While storytelling in conversation has been extensively investigated, much less is known about storytelling in the English language classroom, particularly teachers telling their personal experience stories, termed teacher personal narratives in this study. Teacher personal narratives, a combination of the ancient art of human storytelling and the current practices of teaching, offer an innovative approach to language teaching and learning. This thesis examines teacher personal narrative use in Japanese university English language classrooms and is of relevance to both practicing classroom teachers and teacher educators because it explores the role, significance, and effectiveness of personal stories told by teachers. The pedagogical implications which the findings may have for language teaching and learning as well as for teacher education programs are also discussed. Four research questions were posed: 1. What are the characteristics of teacher personal narratives? 2. When, how, and why do language teachers use personal narratives in the classroom? 3. What is the reaction of learners to teacher personal narratives? 4. How do teacher personal narratives provide opportunities for student learning? A mixed methods approach using the tradition of multiple case studies provided an in-depth exploration of the personal narratives of four teachers. Data collection consisted of classroom observations and audio recordings, teacher and student semi-structured interviews, student diaries, and Japan-wide teacher questionnaires. Ninety-seven teacher personal narratives were analyzed for their structural and linguistic features. The findings showed that the narrative elements of orientation, complication, and evaluation are almost always present in these stories, and that discourse and tense markers may aid in student noticing of the input which can lead to eventual student output. The data also demonstrated that reasons for telling narratives mainly fall into two categories: affectiveoriented and pedagogical-oriented purposes. This study has shown that there are significant differences between conversational storytelling and educational storytelling.

Against a backdrop of ongoing educational reforms that seek to introduce Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in Albanian primary and secondary state schools, Albanian teachers, among others, are officially required to use communication-based textbooks in their classes. Authorities in a growing number of countries that are seeking to improve and westernise their educational systems are also using communication-based textbooks as agents of change. Behind these actions, there is the commonly held belief that textbooks can be used to support teacher learning as they provide a visible framework teachers can follow. Communication-based textbooks are used in thousands of EFL classrooms around the world to help teachers to “fully understand and routinize change” (Hutchinson and Torres, 1994:323). However, empirical research on the role materials play in the classroom, and in particular the role of textbook as an agent of change, is still very little, and what does exist is rather inconclusive. This study aims to fulfill this gap. It is predominately a qualitative investigation into how and why four Albanian EFL teachers use Western teaching resources in their classes. Aiming at investigating the decision-making processes that teachers go through in their teaching, and specifically at investigating the relationship between Western-published textbooks, teachers’ decision making, and teachers’ classroom delivery, the current study contributes to an extensive discussion on the development of communicative L2 teaching concepts and methods, teacher decision making, as well as a growing discussion on how best to make institutional reforms effective, particularly in East-European ex-communist countries and in other developing countries. Findings from this research indicate that, prompted by the content of Western-published textbooks, the four research participants, who had received little formal training in CLT teaching, accommodated some communicative teaching behaviours into their teaching. The use of communicative textbooks, however, does not seem to account for radical, methodological changes in teachers’ practices. Teacher cognitions based on teachers’ previous learning experience are likely to act as a lens through which teachers judge classroom realities. As such, they shape, to a great degree, the decisions teachers make regarding the use of Western-published textbooks in their classes.

Adults often have difficulty in acquiring non-native vowels especially when the vowel inventories in first (L1) and second language (L2) are very different. However, even when testing L2 groups with similar profiles, there are great individual differences in the perception and production of non-native sounds. Similarly, computer-based training studies of L2 sounds report that improvement after training can range greatly across individuals. This thesis explores possible sources of individual differences in Greek native speakers’ perception and production of Southern British English vowels. Study 1 examined the perceived relationship between English vowels (in /bVb/ and /bVp/ contexts) and Greek vowels along with English vowel discrimination by the same participants. Greek speakers were found to perceive English vowels via both spectral and temporal assimilation to their L1 categories despite the fact that Greek does not use duration in L1 vowel distinctions. Study 2 defined the endpoints for the synthetic vowel continua to be used in Study 3 using a best exemplars experiment. In study 3, Greek speakers from a homogenous population (in terms of L1 background, age of L2 learning, amount and quality of L2 input) were tested on a large test battery before and after receiving 5 sessions of high-variability perceptual training. The test battery examined their perception of natural and synthetic vowels in L1 (Greek) and L2 (English) and their frequency discrimination ability (F2 only) as well as their production of L2 vowels. Group results showed significant improvement in the trainees’ perception of natural L2 vowels and their L2 vowel production. However, large individual differences were evident both before and after training. Vowel processing in L2 was found to relate to individual variability in vowel processing in L1 and, importantly, to frequency discrimination acuity, a finding that favours an auditory processing hypothesis for L1 and L2 speech perception of vowels.

This dissertation examines perception and production of English /r/-/l/ by adult Japanese speakers. This programme of research is organized into three sections, termed Study 1, Study2, and Study 3. The first study examined whether category assimilation between English /r/-/l/ and Japanese /ɾ/ was predictive of /r/-/l/ identification accuracy using an individual difference approach. Japanese speakers were assessed in terms of /r/-/l/ identification and assimilation of English /r/-/l/ into Japanese /ɾ/, /r/-/l/ production, and perceptual best exemplars for /r/, /l/, and /ɾ/. The results demonstrated that, although Japanese speakers strongly assimilated /l/ to /ɾ/, category assimilation was not predictive of English /r/-/l/ identification accuracy, and that only Japanese speaker’s representations for F3 in /r/ and /l/ was predictive of /r/-/l/ identification ability. The second study similarly took an individual difference approach and examined whether there is a relationship between perception and production of /r/-/l/ measuring perception accuracies (i.e., identification, discrimination, and perceptual best exemplars) and production accuracies (i.e., acoustic measurements, and recognition accuracy by English speakers). The results demonstrated that perception and production of /r/-/l/ were moderately related. However, not all aspects of /r/-/l/ perception were incorporated into /r/-/l/ production. The third study examined whether one-to-one pronunciation training leads to improvement in production and perception of English /r/-/l/ using a multipronged approach (i.e., explicit instructions, real-time spectrograms, and feedback with signal-processed versions of their own productions). The results demonstrated that Japanese speakers could be trained to produce native-like English /r/-/l/, improving to the point that they approached a 100% accuracy ceiling in terms of how well native speakers could identify their productions. However, the training did not improve their English /r/-/l/ perception at all.

Learning to speak English not only involves knowing the foreign language, but also knowing strategies that help interactants communicate. One aspect of communication refers to strategic behaviour when a breakdown in communication causes misunderstanding (Mauranen 2012) or non-understanding (Cogo and Dewey 2012). Dealing with these kinds of communication problems showcases the different ways in which interactional pragmatic strategies interconnect in order to help interactants reach mutual understanding. Awareness and deliberate use of these strategies may have a positive impact in the workplace that has adquired characteristics of a globalized society (Chiang 2009), in which English is the means of communication most of the time. The language classroom is one of the settings where interaction could be studied in that sense, where the study of English is fundamental to students’ professional development. It is in the classroom where second language is shaped (Walsh 2011); and here different interactional pragmatic strategies such as repetition, rephrasing, repair, and code-switching among others are used to fulfil the teaching and learning processes. Therefore, this thesis examines some interactional pragmatic strategies that help to overcome communicative breakdowns that could hinder understanding within classroom interaction in business English classes. The detailed analysis of classroom interaction – naturally occurring speech – has revealed there is a diverse set of patterns, which go from using one single strategy to more complex patterns that encompass a series of strategies, necessary to reach understanding. In addition, participants have evidenced from their own perceptions that interactional pragmatic strategies are used commonly and confirm both simple and complex classroom interaction patterns, which signals speakers’ awareness of interactional behaviour. In a wider view, students’ and teacher’s perceptions also suggest contradicting issues among English that is used in the workplace (e.g. ELF) and English taught in the classroom (native-like English). This set of findings has implications in language teaching and learning.

The use of English as the language of online intercultural communication among users of different first languages and cultures is an established phenomenon. However, there has been little research into the extensive use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in more recent developments such as online and social network sites (SNSs) in particular. With regard to the myriad of linguistic and cultural resources that ELF users have brought into their online intercultural communication and the multimodality of online mediums, this thesis is concerned with complexity in the use of English for online intercultural communication. This thesis aims to explicate the roles of cultures and essential intercultural communicative competence (ICC) for successful online intercultural communication. It also investigates the perceptions of online English users towards English in the dynamic, fluid and emergent field of online intercultural communication. This thesis is predominantly qualitative in order to probe the investigated phenomenon. The fieldwork took place over eight months at the selected UK university and also on Facebook, as this was the most popular SNS among the research participants. The participants in this thesis are Thai international students living and studying in the UK. Five of them formed the core of this study, as they were English users who had experienced using English online with people with different first languages and cultures. Drawing data from multi-research methods (online questionnaires, observation of online conversations, interviews and a focus group), the findings of this thesis demonstrate that communicative meanings are not represented and constructed only through languages but also with the support of the multimodal features of the online medium. The findings further suggest that the participants contain different levels of intercultural awareness in online intercultural communication through ELF and, as such, cultures and English language in this context are dynamic, fluid and emergent in each instance of online intercultural communication. Further, English language and cultures are not tied to native English norms for the former or nation based cultures for the latter; rather there are variations of English use online and cultures through English language are shuttled around within individual, local, national and global frames of reference. As a result, the role of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has become clear in terms of its manipulation and negotiation of communicative meanings for successful online intercultural communication. The essential ICCs needed for communicating with multilingual and multicultural users successfully are knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, critical cultural awareness, attitudes and multimodal symbolism. Online intercultural communicative competence provides the knowledge for online English users to be aware of English variations and help them to improve their ability to communicate in English efficiently in a real world and currently popular context.