Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:45:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mainly Reinhardt Vieira dos Santos Ramalho.pdf: 2370241 bytes, checksum: 0f6a5822990ef31cfdf2f037d0450824 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-14 / This paper aims to study the usage of American TV series in English as a foreign language classes through the gathering of chunks of language. Though we start this dissertation from the description of the communicative and its innovative principles by presenting the communicative competence and its four divisions strategic, grammatical, discursive and sociolinguistic based on researches like Hymes (1972), Brown (2000), Richards (2006), Richards e Roberts (1986) and Savignon (1983; 1991). Besides we describe the importance of the realia in a communicative class. As well as we discuss the lesson of the communicative approach and the four abilities reading, writing, speaking and listening. Still talking about the communicative lesson we discuss about teaching grammar, vocabulary and culture. The choice of using TV series is justified because they are a rich source both linguistic and cultural of the English language (North American) and we can find a plenty of examples chunks of language, collocations, phrasal verbs, and idioms. In our analysis we gathered not only the linguistics but also the cultural references of the first episode of Gilmore Girls by using software known as Unitex® that searches the chunks in the script selected and finally we propose some activities based on the analysis. / Este trabalho tem como objetivo estudar o uso de seriados de televisão norte-americanos em aulas de inglês como língua estrangeira por meio do levantamento dos chunks da língua inglesa. Iniciamos, então, esta dissertação pela descrição da CLT e seus preceitos inovadores apresentando competência comunicativa e suas quatro subdivisões competência estratégica, gramatical, discursiva e sociolinguística com base nos estudos de pesquisadores como Hymes (1972), Brown (2000), Richards (2006), Richards e Roberts (1986), Savignon (1983; 1991). Além disso, em nossa pesquisa, descrevemos o uso de realia em sala de aula, e em nosso recorte optamos pelos seriados norte-americanos. Ainda falando sobre a CLT, discorremos acerca da aula comunicativa apresentando suas características, bem como discutimos as quarto habilidades linguísticas: a leitura (reading), a escrita (writing), a habilidade oral (speaking) e habilidade de ouvir (listening), tratamos, igualmente, do ensino de gramática (teaching grammar), de vocabulário (teaching vocabulary), e cultura acompanhadas de sugestões de atividades relacionadas ao uso de seriados. A justificativa da escolha de seriados norte-americanos deu-se por se tratar de uma rica fonte cultural e linguística e dos chunks da língua inglesa e suas subdivisões collocations, phrasal verbs e idioms está centrado na cultura americana. Em nossa análise, fizemos o levantamento das referências culturais e linguísticas de um episódio do seriado Gilmore Girls - Pilot (Episódio Piloto) - utilizando o programa de computador Unitex® que realiza uma varredura no texto e localiza os chunks of language no roteiro do episódio e, por fim apresentamos algumas atividades baseadas na análise feita.

This investigation reports on a study that explores the views of students, teachers and parents about the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach in learning English as a second language in Bangladesh. This study focuses on the improvement of English language outcomes in Bangladesh. Though compulsory for fifteen years of schooling, public examination results indicate that students perform poorly in English. This research is conducted at the secondary schools in Bangladesh where English is compulsory because of its global nature as the second or foreign language. Mainstream students learning English using the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach are facing many challenges. The study employs a mixed methods approach which includes qualitative interviews, semi-structured focus group interviews and observations; and quantitative data involved achievement tests to find gaps between oral and written attainment, in order to determine the effectiveness of CLT developing language skills to communicate in and outside the classrooms. ESL learners in Bangladesh have been using CLT for nearly two decades, but the attainments are not satisfactory particularly in oral language (listening and speaking) compared to written language (reading and writing). Four schools (two high and two low achievement) were selected from two divisional cities according to the public examination results. Five students, all English subject teachers and five parents from each school were invited randomly to participate. Findings indicated a confirmation of the gap between oral and written language achievements and highlighted that CLT is not working effectively to develop communicative competence to the learners. The participants identified several factors causing this. Among these were large class sizes (number of students), an extensive curriculum, insufficient class time (duration), an inappropriate examination system, excessive teacher workload, lack of parent awareness of CLT, and negative relationships between home and school. All of these factors impact on the effectiveness of CLT in Bangladesh. All participants agreed that CLT as an approach is better than other approaches used in Bangladesh to develop English language learning, but the varied interpretation and implementation (practice) makes it less effective. Therefore, they suggested some issues for local and national level policy makers that could enhance the CLT practice in Bangladesh.

Improving the teaching of English as a foreign language in public schools is a high priority for the Dominican administration elected in 2004. Consequently, the government’s plan of action includes a pilot project that integrates language teaching strategies and methods already found in the country’s private, K-12, foreign language programs. The purpose of this naturalistic inquiry was to investigate English teaching through case studies at two private schools in hopes of guiding the country’s educational policy. The schools were selected based on their contrasting methods of foreign language instruction. One school, Imersão, follows a structured immersion program where most academic subjects are taught in English. The second school, Cervantina, teaches all subjects in Spanish, the students’ first language, and provides one hour a day of English instruction. The research process included repeated observations of classroom activities, interviews with administrators, staff and students, and reviewing teachers’ lesson plans and student products in English. The study found that effective English language teaching can be accomplished through varying methods, as elements that promote language learning were seen in each of the schools. The programs were observed to be similar in the importance placed on meeting the academic needs of students with differing abilities, as well as cultural and linguistic backgrounds, by having language classes emphasize the importance of grammar and vocabulary alongside culturally relevant authentic communication opportunities. Even though students at both schools are able to communicate orally and in writing in English, Imersão students appear better equipped to contend with complex academic situations in the second language. However, in order to concentrate almost entirely on the teaching of English, Imersão falls short of the immersion objective of concomitantly developing the primary language at age-appropriate levels. The results also suggest that encouraging students to analyze, deduce, and think in the foreign language while learning subject content in English is advantageous. Future research into this topic should explore where the threshold of optimum exposure to the foreign language inside and outside of the classroom might be in order to achieve language proficiency, therefore allowing the administration to maximize the use of limited education resources.

In this essay, the published ELT coursebook ECHO 6 is critically examined. The focus of the examination is the communicative opportunities within ECHO 6. These opportunities are analyzed and concretized with help from the Swedish Curriculum for English 6. In the results section, the communicative opportunities within five selected chapters are explored in depth. Later, these chapters are discussed and contrasted with relevant literature about English teaching in general as well as communicative language teaching. Our conclusion is that ECHO 6 does provide students with several opportunities to communicate and develop communicative skills in English. However, there are essential parts missing in order for the textbook to be completely communicative.   Key words: Language teaching, ECHO 6, communication, communicative language teaching (CLT), students, teacher, language skills and language systems.

The following dissertation aims to scrutinize amongst other things, some English teachers’ beliefs and thoughts concerning communicative language teaching at two schools in Sweden and France. Since the steering documents of both countries clearly promote a communicative approach to language teaching, we wanted to see how it could be applied in these two different contexts as well as how it was interpreted by some teachers. With the information obtained from qualitative interviews and classroom observations, we juxtapose what the teachers have said with the steering documents for both countries, their implementations of CLT and the teaching methods adopted in general. In order to do this, an analysis and comparison of the two syllabuses for English was necessary and we also needed to set a foundation by discussing the theories and possible complexities of CLT and teacher beliefs. This discussion could not be valid without also taking into account the status and influences of the English language in Sweden and France.The analysis of the two steering documents showed similar ideas about language teaching. However, Sweden has a separate syllabus for English, whilst France has a joint one for foreign languages. Furthermore, from our interviews and classroom observations we found that all teachers taught grammar in their native language. We also found the French school to be more traditional in that the lessons were often teacher-centered and that the teachers did not allow for any errors in the spoken language. The difference in discipline between the schools was another finding which we found surprising. Finally, our results also indicate occasional discordance between the teachers’ thoughts and ideals and their actions in the classroom.

This work explains the types of affixation errors second language learners make when learning English word formation processes, especially derivational and inflectional affixations. The data for the study were collected as primary sources from two secondary schools in Sweden. The data were analyzed with the use of Error Analysis noted by Corder (1967) and the error analysis framework adapted by Ellis et al. (2005, p. 57). The method chosen was to identify, classify, describe,and evaluate derivational and inflectional affixation errors. In total 2,812 answers were retrieved. The results consist of some findings, for example, some of the derivationaland inflectional affixations errors were noticed to be intralingual and interlingual. Also, the nature of the errors issuch that they are either transferred, omissive, additive or substitutive errors. Moreover, the errors were also due to overgeneralization, including substitutionerrors, or additive errors. Previous research findings showedstudents make grammatical errors with letter insertions, letter omission, or substitutionerrors. This study made the same findings as students made errors of letter insertion, letter omission, substitution errors, and errors due to overgeneralization. Some of the most difficult derivational and inflectional affixation errors were also noticed across all the grades.

This study was an investigation of Japanese high school teachers' (N=139) beliefs and practices regarding communicative language teaching (CLT). Four research questions were posited concerning the beliefs that Japanese high school teachers hold regarding CLT, how Japanese high school teachers use CLT in the classroom, how Japanese teachers' beliefs and practices differ between academic and vocational high schools, and how the beliefs of Japanese high school teachers, their classroom practices, their learning experience, pre- and in-service training, perceived teaching efficacy, and contextual factors relate to and influence each other regarding the use of CLT. In order to provide answers to these questions, a survey, classroom observations, and interviews were conducted. Before conducting the quantitative analyses, the questionnaire data were analyzed using the Rasch rating-scale model to confirm the validity and reliability of the questionnaire and to transform the raw scores into equal interval measures. Regarding the first and second research questions, the descriptive statistics showed that despite holding positive beliefs about CLT, the respondents to the survey did not frequently use communicative activities. With respect to the third research question, a MANOVA indicated that the types of schools (academic and vocational) did not significantly influence the survey respondents' beliefs and practices regarding CLT. Concerning the fourth research question, the Pearson correlation coefficients showed relatively strong correlations between (a) Classroom Practices and Student-related Communicative Conditions (r = .56) and (b) L2 Self-confidence and CLT Self-efficacy (r = .55). Also, the best fitting path model indicated that (a) Student-related Communicative Conditions impacted Classroom Practices, (b) Positive CLT Beliefs indirectly influenced Classroom Practices via CLT Self-efficacy, and (c) Exam-related Expectations affected most of the indicator variables and Classroom Practices. Related to this, qualitative results indicated that the respondents' learning experience, in-service training, and contextual factors influenced their beliefs and practices. / CITE/Language Arts

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:46:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Elen Del Sole.pdf: 1119476 bytes, checksum: 222fa8bddb42e6cbb98ff7e00436c997 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-10-22 / This study aims at adding some considerations on the development of intercultural competence in teaching English as a foreign language teaching (TEFL). The corpus under analysis has consisted of the observation of a group of adult students linguistical behavior in English as a foreign language classes within a 12 months ́ period of time. The programme content has been elaborated in such a way that dynamic activities should take place and provide the subjects ́ interaction, that is, the researcher and teacher on one side and the students, on the other side, as the participant group. The purpose has been to analyze students intercultural abilities on the basis of research-action methodology. Intercultural pieces of reality from Western countries, as well as the emphasis on multicultural thought, have been presented to the students. The technique adopted to introduce distinct intercultural pieces of reality has used authentic material and the criterion has involved themes related to politics, economics and creative thinking. Observation of the students linguistical behavior has resulted in subcategories such as generalization, which has been analyzed under the parameter of foreign language teaching as the third space. / O presente trabalho visa a contribuir com reflexões sobre o desenvolvimento da competência intercultural no ensino das línguas estrangeiras. O corpus para a análise constituiu-se na observação do comportamento linguístico de um grupo de alunos adultos de aulas de inglês como língua estrangeira (LE) no período de 12 meses. O conteúdo programático foi especialmente elaborado para que ocorressem dinâmicas que propiciassem a interação dos sujeitos envolvidos a saber, a professora como pesquisadora e os alunos enquanto grupo participante, com a finalidade de analisar as habilidades interculturais dos alunos, dentro dos pressupostos da metodologia da pesquisa-ação. Foram apresentadas aos alunos realidades interculturais provenientes de países do Ocidente, além de ênfase no pensamento multicultural. A técnica adotada para a apresentação de realidades interculturais distintas serviu-se de material autêntico, cujo critério de seleção foram temas relaciona dos à política, à economia e ao pensamento criativo. O resultado da observação do comportamento linguístico dos alunos trouxe subcategorias como a generalização, que foi analisada tendo como parâmetro o ensino de língua estrangeira enquanto terceiro espaço de enunciação.