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.

The study explored factors associated with English as Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) students’ performance on the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) from three different yet interrelated aspects. These aspects were the relationship between test performance and the characteristics of ESL/ELD students; the relationship between ESL/ELD students’ aggregated school performance and their school-level socio-economic status; and a comparison of ESL/ELD and non-ESL/ELD students’ performance on three test formats in the reading component of the OSSLT (multiple-choice questions, constructed-response questions, and constructed-response questions with explanations). The study was conducted based on 4,311 ESL/ELD students’ test data, their responses to the Educational Quality and Accountability Office’s (EQAO) Student Questionnaire, and the test results of 5,003 non-ESL/ELD students. School-level socio-economic status data from the Education Quality and Indicators Program (EQUIP) were merged with the OSSLT test data. These data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, multiple regression and discriminant analysis. The results indicated that e-literacy activities, literature literacy activities, non-fiction literacy activities, newspaper and magazine literacy activities, and literacy hours were positive predictors of ESL/ELD students’ performance on the OSSLT. Letter reading and writing, song and poetry literacy activities were two negative predictors. In terms of home language patterns, whether English was the first language of the test-takers, and what language(s) they spoke at home were both influential variables in differentiating ESL and ELD students’ literacy performance. The results also revealed that a higher parental education index positively predicted a school’s average OSSLT performance. In ii addition, ESL/ELD students demonstrated substantial performance gaps in all of the three test formats in reading as compared to non-ESL/ELD students. Only multiple-choice questions obtained a significant discriminant coefficient with a weak discriminating function. The results of this study offered some insights about identifying and understanding factors that were associated with ESL/ELD students’ OSSLT performance from the perspective of the test-takers and the test itself. The results also provide directions for future research and instructional support in relation to ESL/ ELD students in the context of the accountability framework in Ontario.

This study aims to investigate the foreign language anxieties Japanese international students at American universities have and the relationship between these anxieties and length of stay in the U.S. 151 Japanese international students answered a modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986) followed by demographic questions. The findings from the questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS 21 software. Results indicated a statistically significant relationship between students’ level of anxieties and the length of stay in the U.S. Implications for teachers and government officials in Japan, as well as for teachers and university administrators in the U.S., are discussed.

Teachers work with large student groups and their job is to make their pupils’ grow and evolve in their learning every day, even though the students may not be interested in the subject at all. How can teachers manage to do this with such a variety of students? What tools can be used to motivate as many of them as possible to achieve the most favourable learning outcomes? Music is a universal language that most people enjoy and for children it is even a natural part of growing up. Music can be a pleasant and fun element in the classroom, so we want to investigate if teachers could take advantage of this and use music and songs as an effective motivator to foster second language development. In the national curriculum, Skolverket states that teachers need to build upon the pupil’s confidence in their own ability to use language in different situations and for different purposes (Skolverket, 2011). What happens with the classroom environment when music is used and what happens to the pupils? There is research pointing to the benefits of using music in second language learning however, there exists some disagreement among researchers if music could improve language development or if it is just a fun activity. Researchers also discuss on how to use music in the classroom in the most valuable way. In the current study, we explore and provide an overview for the possible advantages of using music. We also investigate the effectiveness of different musical approaches for facilitating language learning for young children in an educational context. In particular, we will discuss how songs and music can motivate young English language learners in their process and how the second language development can benefit from this.