This thesis investigates the tertiary English language curriculum in China and its delivery, focusing on the intensive reading (IR) course for students studying English at degree level. It examines the extent to which IR realises the aims of the current English curriculum, revised in 2000 with the intention of introducing more contemporary approaches to English language teaching. It also examines how IR relates to the behaviour and beliefs of two teachers who deliver it, and to their students' participation and views. The study applies an ethnographic approach to collect its data and discourse analysis to analyse classroom discourse constructed in teacher-student interaction. Data was collected at a university in China and consists of classroom observations, audio recordings of classes, interviews with the teachers and students being observed, government documents, teachers' syllabi and teaching plans. Data analysis focuses on the textbooks that are used to deliver the revised curriculum; how teachers use these textbooks, and their mediation of book knowledge via the use of PowerPoint slides; and the language choices made by teachers in delivering knowledge from the textbooks and PowerPoint slides. Data analysis reveals that classroom practice is very much at odds with the principles set out in the 2000 Curriculum. Whereas this emphasises the use of Communicative language Teaching (ClT) and Task-based language teaching (TBLT), the use of English as a teaching medium, and a focus on student-centred ness, the teaching itself is heavily textbook and PowerPoint slides orientated, with teachers acting as 'messengers' (Scollon 1999). The teachers tend to dominate classroom interaction to the point where students' voices are silenced. They make substantial use of l1 as the medium of instruction. A further disparity is shown between teachers' practice and students' expectations. Driven by the nature of their English language needs and engagements in world affairs, students are asking for more opportunities to practise what they have learnt and express the wish that teachers would move away from a traditional teaching pedagogy towards a more student-centred approach. This thesis aims to encourage teachers, teacher educators, policy makers, and material developers to reflect on what is happening in ELT classrooms and to consider what steps need to be taken to improve tertiary level ELT in China.

Previous research has shown that even highly proficient second language (L2) learners who have acquired the L2 beyond a hypothesized critical period tend to use forms of the target language optionally where they are obligatory for native speakers. Lardiere (2000, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009) has recently addressed issues of morphological competence, arguing that the learning task of the language learner goes far beyond the simplistic selection of features from a universal feature inventory provided by Universal Grammar to a more complicated task by having to assemble or map features into new formal configurations in the L2. This claim is tested in this study through the investigation of the acquisition of properties of the functional categories of Tense and Aspect where the L I and L2 differ in their realisation of the properties under study. It is believed that combining the logic of feature re-assembly together with a theoretical account of universals of tense/aspect interpretations could offer explanatory insights into the nature and course of L2 acquisition. A total of 60 classroom-instructed Syrian learners of L2 English and 10 native speaker controls participated in this study and were tested on their knowledge of the simple past, present perfect and simple present at three proficiency levels: lower-intermediate, higher intermediate and advanced. A tense/aspect interpretation task, a gap filling task and a proficiency test were administered in order to collect the data relevant to the tested properties. Results indicate a significant effect for L I transfer as learners approach the learning challenge from the standpoint of how form-meaning associations are instantiated in their LI grammar. Properties involving straightforward mapping between the LI and L2 values proved to be easier to acquire than properties that are differently represented in the L 1 and L2 and hence re-structuring is required. Variability across comprehension and production, and across tasks, is detected for less-proficient L2 learners. It is proposed that a UG-based account can offer testable predictions about the acquisitional process where morphological variability is situated at the mapping/re-mapping level and processing pressure is a determining factor for target-like attainment especially in production.

This thesis investigates how teachers who are non-native English speakers and who do not have the necessary qualifications for the Teaching of English as a Second Language manage with their work at a private language centre in Malaysia. The three research questions that helped guide the study are: (1) What strategies do such teachers adopt when planning their lessons? (2) How do institutional support mechanisms, both formal and informal, enable their work, and (3) How do they construct their professional identity? As the aim was to explore how the teachers learn to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) in the absence of a traditional teaching qualification, the study focused on an alternative pathway through a socio-cultural approach to enable teachers to gain pedagogical knowledge as they build their professional identity in the process. The aims of the study and the research questions meant that its design necessitated a qualitative approach within an interpretivist paradigm. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews, classroom observations and documentary analysis with seventeen teachers at the language centre. In this case study approach, the teachers were the individual cases. The data were analysed using inductive analysis to form themes. The findings concluded that the nurturing school environment and culture supported teachers’ learning and knowledge construction which stemmed from the leadership and management policies that were grounded in educational research and values. The study offers a set of facilitative conditions for the development of untrained teachers which emanated from the teachers’ perspectives about their experiences and their decision-making as they progressed from the novice stage to being competent teachers in adopting lesson planning strategies. The critical role of the institutional culture and continuing professional support system is highlighted in enabling them to develop their teaching skills and thus, the development of their sense of teacher identity.

This work investigates self-regulation of learning (SRL) in undergraduate Korean learners of English. SRL is first described with respect to its roots in both behavioural self-regulation and meta-cognition. Based on work by Zimmerman (1998), it is then conceptualized as 12 processes in a three phase framework. These phases form a cycle learners may engage in as they seek to more effectively reach their learning outcomes. With little previous work available on SRL in the Korean context, this project significantly adds to the understanding of Korean learners of English. This project considered three questions; first, the extent to which the subjects were skillful with respect to each of the 12 processes, second the relationship of skillful process usage to learning outcomes in these subjects, and third how applying an SRL framework to these subjects could help understand their approach to their overall learning of English. Results for the first two questions came from surveys given to over 800 first year university students studying English in South Korea. These results suggested both 1) that subjects were not generally skillful self-regulators of their English language learning and 2) that skillful SRL process usage showed correlations to English language learning outcomes among these sUbjects. These results also suggested that some SRL processes may have a greater impact on learning outcomes than others. Results for the third question were based on the findings above augmented with nine in-depth semi-structured interviews tracing subjects' approach to their English learning from an SRL framework perspective. Three of the nine key findings in this phase were 1) that at least half of the subjects were not well engaged in the SRL cycle as a whole 2) that the SRL process of goalsetting along with 3) a cultural predisposition to attribute learning outcomes to effort seemed to hamper subjects' ability to effectively adapt their approach to their studies through subsequent iterations of the SRL cycle. Overall these results suggest that developing Korean learners' skillful use of SRL processes would improve their English learning outcomes.

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Narrative has long been investigated as a culturally sensitive mode of expression which may vary in terms of narrative content, linguistic expression and interactional style. This thesis builds on earlier cross-cultural studies of narrative, exploring the stories told by Kurdish and English speakers. Through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data (80 stories told by Iraqi Kurdish and white British English-speaking women, and semi-structured ethnographic interviews with the same participants), I examine the variation in the structure and styles of the stories of personal experiences told by selected Iraqi Kurdish and white British English-speaking women using Labov’s (1972) and Ochs and Capps' (2001) models of narrative analysis. The thesis then goes on to explore the implications that these variations might have for interpreting the cultural identities of the participants through their stories. The findings show cross-cultural variation in the Iraqi Kurdish and white British English women’s style and structure of storytelling. All the Kurdish participants preferred repetition in their stories, regardless of their multilingual status or whether they told stories in Kurdish or English. In contrast the white British English participants favoured lexical intensifiers in their storytelling style. Another difference emerged between the groups of participants. Whilst all the Kurdish participants perceived boosters as more vivid, it was the English monolinguals who perceived repetition as more vivid (on average).The Kurdish participants’ style of storytelling is more dramatized and more interactive than that of the the white British English-speaking women. This difference could not be explained by a surface level comparison based on the cultural identity of the tellers, but instead involved the complex interplay of cultural context, story genre and topics of story genres. In terms of structure, the participants in this study did not only tell narratives but also other types of story genres including anecdotes, exemplums and recounts with exemplums being the most frequent for the Kurdish speakers. This confirmed the Kurdish women’s assertion, in the ethnographic interviews, of the moral purpose of storytelling, with their frequent use of exemplums reflecting this emphasis on moral purpose.

Some current high-stakes tests of English have abandoned native-speaker models of pronunciation for scoring purposes, and instead rely largely on raters’ estimations of ‘listener effort’ needed to cope with test-takers’ speech in order to determine pronunciation scores. Recent studies within the field of language testing have revealed significant score variance occurring on such tests due to raters’ differing familiarities with test-takers’ accents. The studies that investigated raters’ accent-familiarity differences as a threat to reliability and validity of scores on highstakes tests have only determined significant score differences can occur, but have offered little more than speculation concerning why accent-familiarity impacts raters’ score decisions. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate not only the veracity of the threat, but also attempt to provide an explanation why raters’ accent-familiarity differences affect scores. A strong rationale exists supporting a hypothesis that exposure to the speech of a particular group of speakers, or accent, positively affects listeners’ speech processing abilities of utterances in that accent by increasing intelligibility. In order to determine the veracity of the hypothesis two studies were conducted: a pilot study examined the pronunciation scores and intelligibility differences between raters with different levels of accent-familiarity with Japanese-English, and a larger study investigated pronunciation score and intelligibility differences with Arabic-English, Spanish-English and Dhivehi-English. Many-Facets Rasch Measurements of the data revealed significant differences in both pronunciation scores and intelligibility occurred between accent-familiarity rater groups with all accents. The findings also showed significant correlations between level of accent-familiarity and score leniency, as well as accent-familiarity level and increased intelligibility, though the measures and effect sizes were not equal with each accent. Raters’ accent-familiarity differences were confirmed as a valid threat to pronunciation scores.

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