The Storyline method requires learners to create a fictive world and take on the role of characters in a story which they develop themselves. The story, co-created with the teacher, is based around a topic in the curriculum. In the course of the story, key questions based on curriculum-mandated aims are asked by the teacher in order to engage the learners in tasks during which learning occurs. Although Storyline has been used for many years in the classroom, its applicability to the foreign language classroom has only been researched recently and not extensively. By establishing a simulated ‘real world’ and providing students with ownership of their learning, students can use and improve their language skills, developing intercultural communicative competence in a meaningful context. This action research case study investigated the impact of the Storyline method on the foreign language classroom in the context of teaching military linguist cadets at a Russian university. A fictive base of a United Nations military observation mission, invented by the students themselves, served as a meaningful context for learning. The aim of the study was to improve the effectiveness of teaching in terms of developing language skills and raising student motivation, in the context of teaching English as a foreign language to military linguist cadets. The study found that the student response was positive, with improvements in motivation and satisfaction with the teaching and learning process. Moreover, students also showed improvements in terms of English language skills. It was also discovered that Storyline could benefit from adaption to include form-focused instruction for teaching grammar points. Additionally, explicit explanations of certain Storyline activities, in particular art work, might be beneficial when working with military linguist cadets. Ultimately Storyline was found to be an effective foreign language teaching method for military linguist cadets in Russia and has potential for use in other foreign language teaching for specific purposes contexts owing to its capacity for making language learning more relevant to the real life contexts in which professionals find themselves.

Willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) has become an important focus of inquiry in applied linguistics over the last decade or so. However, little is currently understood about the practical tasks of producing communicatively competent L2 users in Chinese higher education, an aim which has been fully recognized by the English language teaching (ELT) sector in China. In order to fill this gap, this research study was conducted in one of the universities in mid-east China over a period of one academic term with the aim to produce an empirically-supported fine-grained portrait of Chinese EFL learners’ L2 WTC in actual communication actions. Informed by complexity theory and adopting a qualitative multi-case study research design, this research focused on five first-year postgraduate student participants and investigated their L2 WTC experiences in communicative actions through multiple sources of data, including individual life story interviews, ethnographic classroom observations followed by stimulated recall interviews, and photo-based interviews. The findings confirm L2 WTC as a multidimensional and complex construct, and further demonstrated that the features and trajectories of individuals’ L2 WTC are interrelated, dynamic and largely unpredictable. This study has also identified a construct that seems central to understand L2 WTC: socially constructed future self-guides. The study has shown that our understanding of students’ actual L2 engagement offers critical pointers for practical interventions for encouraging and supporting language learners’ development of a healthy sense of self with regards to L2 learning and, consequently, of their L2 WTC.

Reading and understanding texts in English is problematic for university EFL students in Libya, and processing English literature is even more so. Some of these difficulties are related to teacher-centered approaches that focus on form, accuracy, and translation rather than on students’ abilities to make meaning. The aim of this study is to determine an instructional approach to help Libyan EFL university students learn to read and respond to fiction (short stories) by drawing on their imagination. Therefore, this study set out to explore the role of the imagination in meaning making in education (Vygotsky, 1930; Dewey, 1938; Egan, 1992; Craft, 2005), the role that literature plays in Libyan culture (in both its oral and written forms), the role of education in Libya and the place of English therein, and the challenges of reading in a second language (English). By analyzing the literature on the imagination and its role in learning, on reading processes in L1 and L2, on Reader-Response Theory, and on the process of meaning making in literature, I was able to answer the first research question, namely how the imagination could be stimulated and developed to extend Libyan EFL students’ abilities to read and respond to short stories. Then I synthesized that analysis into a conceptual model. Features of the imagination that have been conceptualized in the model for imaginative reading and meaning making include: schema (background knowledge and experience); the interactive theory of reading; the role of the imagination in learning (meaning making), which includes an intellectual faculty or ‘analytical thinking’ and an emotional faculty or what is called ‘intersubjectivity’; the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD); and possibility thinking. The next stage was to demonstrate that this model could be applied to the design of a reading program which makes a transition from a teacher-centered and translation-centered approach to reading literature (short stories) to a student-centered and interactive approach. The study relates the model to the literature on syllabus design to set up a framework for selecting and grading texts into five levels. I drew on the literature for interactive task design and standard EFL approaches of teaching reading to design lesson plans for the five stages of the program. The study concludes by suggesting that for the successful implementation of the model, there is a need for a shift in attitudes to more interactive approaches that facilitate meaning making. It also suggests conducting a series of workshops to introduce interactive teaching approaches and provide teachers with techniques for dealing with the challenges of shifting from teacher-centered to student-centered teaching. Finally, the thesis provides ideas on how to further the current research by evaluating the effectiveness of the program through empirical enquiry.

This is an account of qualitative ethnographic case study research investigating the identity construction of English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers. This study was conducted at a higher education (HE) college, namely, Public High College (PHC) in Oman over a period of six months. In this study, I explore teacher identities in relation to the particular spatial locations of the teachers as well as the ways that networking and social capital and institutionalised cultural capital intersected with their nationalities and linguistic backgrounds to produce complex hierarchies. The thesis provides a rich exposition of teacher identity construction in Omani HE as theorised through the lens of Bourdieu, recognising the different educational practices, such as assessment and teacher evaluation, as well as the influence of space in the field of struggle within which teacher identities were implicated. The methodological approach and research design adopted in this study was dictated in part by the nature of the research questions and the theoretical framework adopted. Because I was interested in the embedded struggles in different educational practices between different groups and how these groups articulated and expressed these struggles, I positioned my research within a constructivist-interpretive paradigm. I adopted a case study approach and drew on ethnographic methods, such as semi-structured interviews, observation, and field notes. Over thirty-five local and non-local ESL teachers from western, Arab, African, and Asian contexts took part in this study. Furthermore, I kept a research diary to record my own experiences and decisions about my research. In addition, I analysed official documents from macro, meso, and micro levels. Both content analysis and thematic analysis were conducted to trace the tensions which were observed during my ethnography of teacher identity construction at Public High College in part produced by the emergence of new assessment procedures, and quality assurance agendas, and the Global North's influence on the Omani HE system. In the analysis chapters (Chapters Five to Seven), I problematise how educational practices were implicated in the production of hierarchical, spatial, and at times, male-female positioning of teachers. In the first analysis chapter, I conduct a documentary analysis of the national standards for the General Foundation Programmes to trace back potential tensions that were embedded in the new assessment processes and teacher appraisal procedures and the potential importance of these for teacher identity production. In Chapter Six, I examine the significance of space in producing hierarchical relations between local and non-local teachers and other hierarchies that cut across these groupings. My analysis shows that research respondents gained social capital from networking and highlights the complexity of this networking. In my final analysis chapter, I examine both assessment and teacher evaluation as the key processes through which teacher hierarchies at Public High College were produced. My analysis shows that assessment was one of the fields where struggle for positioning and legitimacy took place so that teacher identity production was bound up with assessment practices at Public High College. In addition, my analysis focuses on teacher evaluation processes in this chapter as another field where struggles for teacher positioning and legitimacy took place. My analysis interrogates both implicit and explicit teacher evaluation processes and the implications of such processes for the production of teacher identities. Through its ethnographic approach, the thesis shows the tensions, nuances, and power relations that pervade this HE institution, and examines how these were central in the production of teacher identities. It also shows the importance of taking teacher identity construction into account in the expansion and reform of Omani HE.

The research began with the study of teachers' written comments on pupils' written work in an English teaching context. There were several reasons for the selection of the written comment as the subject of an investigation: first, the comment communicates the teacher's response to the pupil's work, and as such it offers a potential source of information to the pupil of relevance to his learning. In addition, written comments, as a form of individualised teaching on an informal day-to-day basis, seem likely to represent a significant portion of the total feedback received by any one pupil in relation to his individual performance. Third, to date, teachers' comments have not figured to any real extent as an area of research. Where they have, they have tended to be part of a wider study which did not involve the conceptualisation of comments as providing instructive information of value to the learner. For all of these reasons, an investigation of the character and possible contribution of the written comment to pupil learning seemed a potentially worthwhile area for research. Hence, the written comment is the focus of the first part of this study. Though the work began with the written comment, in time the questions emerging from the initial investigation suggested the value of extending the field to include a detailed study of the relationship between the classroom context and the written comment; and, more significantly as it turned out, of the oral comment as instructive feedback to the learner. Oral comments, therefore, are the subject of the second part. In the third section, the main questions arising from the oral comment data are examined. This meant in fact consideration of some teachers' images of the aspect of their teaching which most features the oral comment. In summary, the three parts of the study are: 1) an investigation of written comments; 2) an investigation of oral comments; 3) a report of teachers' accounts of one major aspect of their teaching.

State universities in Saudi Arabia have adopted a new educational policy, which made English the medium of instruction for all scientific departments. This has led to establishing a Foundation Year Programme (FYP) in the English Language Institute (ELI) of those universities, which aims to prepare university students to cope with the new academic requirements in their chosen majors and to improve their overall language competence. This study investigates teachers’ roles and beliefs regarding assessment practices in the ELI with the aim to uncover not only the role(s) teachers play in both continuous and summative assessment practices, but also teachers’ understandings of and attitudes towards assessment and their roles in it. Findings will also include how teachers perceive this role in this interpretive study, where the data were collected using open-ended interviews with twenty male and female expatriate and Saudi EFL teachers who work in the ELI of a specific Saudi university. The data were analysed on the basis of participants’ views and explanations about their roles in both continuous and summative assessment in the institution. The findings revealed that teachers had no role in summative assessment unless they were members of the Assessment Committee and that most teachers wanted to have a voice and be more involved. While teachers had a limited role in continuous assessment in the classroom, they felt the need for more involvement in the choice of materials/topics employed as well as more freedom regarding the way it is administered. The study also revealed that the ELI was not well receptive of criticism from teachers, which made teachers sometimes reluctant to being more involved in assessment or voicing their views in fear of being labelled negatively. Finally, some contributions to knowledge, implications for the context and recommendations are provided as well as some suggestions for improving teachers’ roles in assessment for future consideration.

Communicative approaches, such as communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based language teaching (TBLT), have been promoted in second language education around the world for over four decades. This continued mainstream status may be due to their convincing theoretical bases in principles of second language acquisition, which are believed to be beneficial to language learners. However, they are not widely accepted by teachers in many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. A number of studies in a variety of contexts have aimed to identify factors which impede their implementation, but few of these have further built on the implications of these investigations. The current investigation, instead, studied classroom practice in a Taiwanese EFL secondary school, in order to identify and solve any problems arising. Based on the assumption that teacher learning is a complex process, it was necessary to set up a teacher development programme (TD) and use action research to explore how it could help teachers develop their practitioner knowledge of communicative approaches. Drawing on the data from questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations, the main finding was that the teachers’ limited understanding of these approaches seemed to be a more dominant factor than the teachers’ beliefs. This resulted in perceptions of learners, syllabus/textbooks and time becoming barriers to the implementation of the approaches, as often pointed out in past studies. This study also found effective ways to encourage teachers to learn to implement this new pedagogy. First, supplying examples of a theory’s practical application equipped practitioners to develop practical knowledge of that theory. Second, collaborative learning between the teachers, as well as the assistance of an expert, helped make the teacher education programme work. This led to the conclusion that communicative approaches motivated teachers in their professional practice. The findings of this research could shed light on these aspects of L2 teaching in a variety of other similar contexts and could be useful for educational policymakers, practitioners, and teacher educators in implementing innovative approaches.

In preparation for Thailand to join AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) in 2015, the Thai Government has made efforts to prepare its citizens for this competitive market by improving their English competence. This has driven the Education Ministry of Thailand to establish bilingual Thai-English education, namely through the English Programme (EP) and Mini English Programme (MEP) in both public and private schools. While in-service teachers are trained in teaching in EP and MEP through the cooperation between the Educational Ministry and four institutes: ELI (English Language Institution), ERIC (English Resource and Institutional Centre), British Council and Chulalongkorn University (Ministry of Education, 2003; Punthumasen, 2007), it is found that pre-service teacher training for bilingual education is relatively new and there has been little/no research in terms of its effectiveness in Thailand. This study examined Thai pre-service teachers’ perceptions of an English teacher education programme at a university in Bangkok, regarding the programme potential of preparing them to work in bilingual schools, especially for teaching in EP and MEP in the future. A mixed-methods methodology underpinned the study by providing method and data triangulation. This methodology involved the adoption of self-report questionnaires (n=37) and follow-up Facebook-chats (n=17) as method triangulation, and from Thai pre-service teachers in different year groups as data triangulation. Descriptive analysis i.e. frequencies and percentages was used to analyse closed questions of the questionnaires and content analysis was employed for analysing data from open questions of the questionnaire and the Facebook-chats. A good understanding of the English bilingual education system and teacher requirements respective for work in bilingual schools in Thailand was displayed and in line with the Ministry guidelines as expressed in the Ministry’s order number Wor Gor 65/2544 as of 9 October 2001.The findings revealed that they felt they needed English knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge and Experiences in preparing them for work in bilingual schools also involved. It was also found that native-English speaker norm regarding communication and pronunciation skill resulted in less confidence in English proficiency. They desired to learn more about English especially relating to oracy skills, followed by a topic relating to teaching through English. The findings of the study contribute to the development of teacher training programme for bilingual education. Practical suggestions and future research are firstly related to the shift from native English speaking norms to bilingual or multilingual speaking norms to eliminate the feeling of failure to the linguistic competence. Secondly, CLIL and Content-based instruction are suggested to respond to the participants’ need in learning a topic relating to teach through English.

Many learners of English as a second or foreign language at university, especially preparatory year students, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere struggle to achieve a satisfactory level of English language writing. Writing in English with control of accurate mechanics of writing and vocabulary and syntax, logical flow of ideas and clear structure of organisation and coherence is a condition for students’ academic success and vital for effective written communication. Despite its importance, the majority of such learners fail to meet these requirements and they have difficulties in composing texts with a logical sequence of ideas and persuasive content (Roberts and Cimasko, 2008). Part of this problem is said to occur because many writing instructors still follow traditional teaching methodologies such as the grammar-translation method and use of repetitive exercises. Such practices may seem demotivating to many learners, particularly the young generation of learner writers. However, there are a number emerging technologies such as social networking tools (e.g. wikis), which if included in normal classes can help and are therefore relevant. Many such tools utilise writing and written messages. There is now a mismatch between what learners do in the traditional class and what they actually spend most of their time on outside class (web 2.0 technologies). A compromise between two environments: formal (in class) and informal (outside class) could offer solutions. The current study aimed to fill a gap in the research by addressing the specific problems related to learning writing. It will suggest that a process-oriented wiki-mediated collaborative writing (PWMCW) approach can assist learners in practising writing in second/foreign language. The research also aimed to provide a formal learning setting for writing outside the classroom, to train the ESL/EFL learner writers to target a new audience other than their instructor. In this way, they will learn to develop their abilities to share knowledge and to respond to peers and their own feedback. The study addressed three main questions (eight sub-questions): to explore how the students perceive the PWMCW, how the learner writers process it and how it impacts on their collaborative and individual texts. The study takes a quasi-experimental case study design (one single pre-and-post-experimental group) in order to contribute to the continuity of development of learner writers regardless of place-related restrictions (Green et al., 2011). It was carried out with a mixed-research design. The quantitative analysis provided robust statistical operations to identify the significance level for certain issues, e.g. e feedback, authentic tasks and peers interaction. The qualitative analysis showed how collaborative planning and revision are achieved during the PWMCW. The data were collected from pre-and-post questionnaires, initial-and-follow-up focus groups, delayed interviews, wiki-based contributions and samples for written texts. A purposive sampling was applied and a group of university level, preparatory year, language learners were chosen in one of the universities in Saudi Arabia. This procedure is held to ensure that writing can be socially processed in an online learning environment. The findings revealed significant and insignificant changes in the perceptions of the learners along with emerging specific themes which contributed to understanding the topic of the PWMCW. The findings also explored the nature of how the collaborative writers worked together to establish a good start for better written texts, by emphasising collaborative planning and collaborative revision. Finally, the findings showed the impact of the PWMCW on the texts produced collaboratively (that used collaborative planning and collaborative revision) and individually (those texts produced by the individual learners before and after the course).

This study examines subject teachers’ orientations and implementation of English as a medium of instruction in Chinese universities, against a background of the internationalisation of higher education. The study also explores the way in which English as a medium of instruction policies are actualized in teaching practices. The study is informed by English as a lingua franca perspective on English communication, language policy theory and English as a lingua franca in academic settings. This study draws on data retrieved through questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations. 106 questionnaires were collected, 14 interviews were conducted and 15 hours of classroom observations were analysed. The findings of the study suggest the majority of teachers favour English as a medium of instruction, while at the same time pointing out concerns regarding the teaching quality, and ambivalent language policy, as well as some perceptions towards attachment to native English ideology. The participants have ambivalent orientations towards English use; on the one hand, exhibited native-like competency was still considered as important for many teachers. On the other hand, the responses of the participants revealed their belief in the need to communicate effectively rather than aiming at native speaker competency in practice. In addition, both questionnaire and interview findings reveal that the English language policy in China is still based on native speaker English, but that teachers and students are using ELF in practice. The classroom observations suggest that some teachers adopted ELF orientated approach in their practices. The data analysis confirmed the existence of a gap between policy as stated and the implementation of the policy. The findings of this study can contribute to ELF, EMI, and language policy research. It is argued that the ELF concept should expand to include interlocutors from the same language cultural background. It is suggested that English policy and ELT in China should take account of the students’ future needs and the global use of English. Thus, the traditional native-normative approach to English language should be questioned. The findings also raise questions as to how English as a medium of instruction in China could be implemented effectively.