Since English is increasingly being taught worldwide, questions about the importance of teaching context continue to grow. But studies of EFL (English as a foreign language) educational systems in various contexts are rare. This holistic study was intended to describe and analyze one European setting where English is taught as a foreign language, to uncover the underlying assumptions and needs that drive EFL education, to hear teacher and student voices about the confidence they have in the system, and to identify factors in the layers of context that make this system unique.The study relies mainly on qualitative methods, but uses also some quantitative data to support and/or refute information obtained through qualitative research methods. The ethnographic field work was conducted on location in Finland from January to December of 1992.The findings indicate that the Finnish EFL education system is unique because of various social, political, and linguistic factors that are characteristic of the nation itself. Several factors contribute to the effectiveness of the system, such as highly qualified instructors, excellent instructional materials, and up-to-date teaching methods. More importantly, however, it is Finland's commitment to quality foreign language education that seems to be decisively instrumental in achieving the expected results. Thus, the nation as a whole invests in the development and research of foreign language education. It appears that the key to the relative success of the English education system in Finland involves just the right combination of interrelated factors and level of confidence found at every layer of the context.Since most EFL systems consist of the same universal elements' (teachers, students, materials, methods, etc.), the study proposes an EFL Contextual System Model, which is applicable to other settings. The Model can be used to analyze and interpret the parts and interrelationships of EFL systems in various educational contexts.By learning about the EFL context in Finland, the worldwide TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) community can gain a better understanding of the importance and function of the broader teaching/learning context itself and draw parallels between EFL educational systems in various nations. / Department of English

This thesis is a curriculum development program. It suggests the introduction of English as a Foreign Language at the elementary school level in Greece for ages ten to twelve and it gives the rationale for such a program and why for the ages suggested. The program suggests introductionof the language aurally at first without speaking, then speaking followed by reading and writing. It deals with teacher training policies, recent developments in language learning and acquisition, syllabus design trends, methods of language teaching, testing and evaluation. It also suggests procedures of teaching the various skills. The program deals with some pronunciation and grammar problems the Greek learners may have and ways to overcome them. Finally, it gives the structures and vocabulary of the program and the rationale of sequencing and selecting them.

Based upon a study of a ten-county area of north central Indiana, this paper attempts to report the national origins of the residents, and more specifically those people whose native language is other than English. The paper describes all the English-language programs offered to those people whose English is deficient. The ten counties surveyed include Carroll, Cass, Clinton, Grant, Howard, Madison, Miami, Tippecanoe, Tipton, and Wabash, For each county census figures from the 1980 census are given. In Howard County a more in-depth study was made of nationality or language groups to find where the people are employed, what they do, and language problems encountered.

Communicative language teaching (CLT) has been extensively discussed and researched, especially in an English as a second language (ESL) context. Some literature has also explored the adaptation of CLT in English as a foreign language (EFL) environments, such as in Asian countries like China. No research, however, has been conducted with consideration given to a specific group of teachers who teach non-English major students at the tertiary level in China. The present study was designed to investigate Chinese university teachers' perception of the implementation of CLT in non-English major programs in China. / This study first differentiates ESL and EFL environments, and then distinguishes the characteristics of CLT and of the traditional Chinese teaching methodology. Second, this study examines how the implementation of CLT is perceived by the university teachers of non-English major programs and whether there exist some constraints that impede the implementation of CLT at the tertiary level in China. / The results show that the adaptation of CLT to the Chinese context is welcomed by university teachers of non-English major programs. However, in the implementation of CLT in the teaching of non-English major students, there are difficulties arising from four directions, namely, the educational system, the EFL context, the cultural tradition, and the students. The results suggest that only by overcoming the difficulties from those four sources and by creating more favorable conditions for the implementation of CLT can teachers of non-English major programs in China implement CLT in their daily teaching practice.

To evaluate what is actually happening within a High School subject curriculum, the annual parade of marks, percentages and symbol distributions is not by itself adequate, especially in assessing progress towards such English syllabus goals as: That pupils expand their experience of life, gain empathetic understanding of people and develop moral awareness. (3.1. 4 HG) How too, from examination results alone, can a subject head of English assess the success of his objective "to woo his pupils into the reading habit"? (School 1: Goals 1988) Decisions on English department policy and procedures are frequently based on personal hunches and examination results. Few subject departments engage in proper evaluations of their curricula to support decisions made, or to impart meaning upon the countless daily transactions between child and adult, individual and institution in the learning process. This study demonstrates the efficacy of "illuminative evaluation" techniques in opening out an educational innovation (1986 First Language English syllabi of the Cape Education Department) at two High Schools for comment and appraisal. The array of information gathered should be useful in planning and implementing further curricula initiatives. The inherent flexibility of illuminative evaluation procedures and their freedom from large-scale data base requirements needed for 'scientific' models of evaluation are advantageous in investigating the untidy complexities of English teaching. Both 'closed' and 'open' response questionnaires, interviews, and perusal of relevant documents informed the researcher of the views of pupils, parents, English teachers, other subject heads, the two school principals and the education authorities on what waS and ought to be happening in English classes. From the considerable array of information generated, the distress of conscientious English teachers facing unreasonable work-loads emerged clearly. Such teachers are likely to occupy key roles in the non-racial state schools of the future and cannot be regarded as expendable. 'Open schools' present new challenges to existing curricula and the position of English may prove to be critical. Thus it is submitted that English subject heads should be concerned with evaluating their departments so that informed decisions can be taken on future directions. Illuminative evaluation is demonstrably useful in such analyses.

Some second language learners are more successful than others. Students in the University of British Columbia/Ritsumeikan Joint Academic Exchange Programme, a sheltered English-as-a-second-language (ESL) immersion program, have in the past exhibited varying degrees of gain in English proficiency in their writing, reading, speech, and academic achievement during their stay in Vancouver. The explanation of why some learners become proficient in a second language may lie in our understanding the interactions of such individual attributes as the learner's age, language aptitudes, autonomy and motivation, attitudes, personality, cognitive style, learning strategies, background in language and knowledge of other languages. In this study the gain in English proficiency of all the students in the program was examined first and then the gain of two different groups of students who were categorized and "low" and "high" on the basis of their entry level scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The standardized tests used in this program were supplemented with two additional tests to measure gain in proficiency. A language experience questionnaire was given to all students and interviews of selected students from each group were conducted. The results of the standardized tests were analyzed and a significant difference in the gain of English proficiency between these two groups was found. An evaluation of the individual language learning histories and the interview data was conducted to further understand the language proficiency gains found from the psychometric measures. Implications for instruction and further research were reached. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This research study seeks to explore and understand the way a Form C (the third year of high school) teacher asks questions in an English second language (ESL) classroom in a high school in Lesotho. As this is a small-scale study on a teacher’s questions in a familiar setting, an ethnographic stance was adopted. The researcher adopted the role of non-participant observer, recorded three different lesson types and took observational notes. She transcribed the lessons and used the transcription to interview both the teacher and the students. The interviews were recorded and transcribed by the researcher. She then analysed the classroom and interview data and invited the teacher to respond to the analysis she had made. The interview was also recorded and transcribed. The findings indicated that the teacher asked most questions in the three lesson types. He asked mainly lower order question. However, the nature of the questions varied according to the intentions of the teacher, even when the lesson type was the same. Although it is difficult to generalize from a small-scale study like this one, it is believed that this study has been beneficial in raising awareness about the nature and role of questions in classroom interaction, and also in raising awareness of the teacher. Consciousness raising may be essential to educators and researchers. Moreover, this research may enable educators to theorize their practice. This research demonstrates the need for teacher development. It argues that knowledge should be linked with the skills. Therefore, it proposes the need for teacher education to include an explicit focus on questioning since questions are an integral part of teaching and learning. It further proposes the need for teachers to plan their questions carefully as good questioning strategies may facilitate learning. To my knowledge, existing research on teachers’ questions has not linked the cognitive, linguistic and pedagogic functions of teachers’ questions. This study draws from literature on these three areas while acknowledging the importance of taking into account contextual issues in analysing teachers’ questions. It therefore concludes that, content, curriculum, and the teacher’s intentions and his/her ideologies cannot be ignored in the study of a teacher’s questions.

The study presented in this paper is a second language study of the acquisition of the English system of pronominalization by adult learners of English. It is a partial replication of Ingram and Shaw's (1981) first language acquisition study on the same topic. One hundred and eighty four subjects and twenty control subjects were administered a written task that involved making anaphoric assignments to pronouns in thirty five test sentences, representing seven different sentence construction types. Analysis of the data indicated that the two syntactic constraints of precedence and dominance played major roles in the anaphoric assignments made by all subjects. In addition, these two syntactic constraints were instrumental in delineating developmental stages in the acquisition process. A comparison of the response patterns displayed by the present study's subjects and those displayed by Ingram, and Shaw's subjects revealed a number of differences. These differences suggested that the acquisition process was not invariant and highly sequential in nature, but dynamic and highly creative, allowing a great deal of latitude in terms of the processing strategies employed. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

While researchers generally recommend a 1:1 ratio of native speakers (NSs) to non-native speakers (NNSs) be maintained in multicultural preschool classrooms, these- ideal proportions are often unrealistic in regions where populations reflect high concentrations of ethnic groups. In these areas, where enrolments usually consist of a majority of NNSs, pedagogical modifications may be necessary to ensure second language learners are exposed to sufficient amounts of 'meaningful target language input' which is considered essential for second language acquisition (Krashen, 1979). This study investigated the effects of deliberate pairing on NSs and those NNSs who had low English language proficiency (L) in one multicultural preschool where NNSs outnumbered NSs by 3:1. Four NS subjects were videotaped, employing a multiple baseline design, as they interacted with their peers during a math game activity time. The effects of the treatment on four interactional measures were analysed using Ruvusky's statistic. Results, as predicted, indicated significant differences for three of the four measures. When deliberately paired, both NSs and NNSs(L) took more turns, and NSs uttered significantly more directives to their NNS(L) peers than they did during the freeplay situation. -Deliberate pairing of NSs and NNSs(L) has been shown to be a successful technique for exposing NNSs(L) to increased levels of target language input in this multicultural preschool. Implications for teachers are outlined and the role of NSs in multicultural classrooms is discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Research on project-based instruction is common in mainstream education. It conceives the activity broadly, but omits language. It is rare in English as a Second Language (ESL) education, and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory conceives it narrowly, omitting a functional view of language. The present study examines the implementation of project-based instruction in ESL classes in a Canadian secondary school through interviews with Canadian ESL teachers and Chinese ESL students, observations of two projects in action, and examination of students' written work, and school, school board and Ministry of Education documents. Results indicate that the teachers held and implemented a broad, integrated conception of project-based instruction that includes a functional view of language. They have many more goals than those stressed for project-based instruction in the SLA literature, and have goals that are not included even in the mainstream literature. The teachers evaluated project-based instruction positively, and the researcher's observations support the teachers' evaluations. However, despite teacher's and students' successes, a number of students evaluated project-based instruction negatively. This discrepancy is discussed using three explanatory models (philosophical, cultural, and linguistic) that the participants may have been using when interpreting project-based instruction. The study points to the need to develop a rationale which adequately addresses project-based instruction as a functional language learning activity in the context of academic subject matter learning. It identifies problems of cross-cultural interpretation of and communication about projects, and notes difficulties of resolving them. It points out the necessity for an examination of the processes of project-based instruction, noting places of difficulty and success, and considering promising strategies. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate