No description available.

No description available.

The focus of this Diploma thesis is to find out the state of teaching through music in ELT classes at the higher level of primary school. The main concentration is the area of contemporary modern popular music. The theoretical part will be occupied with characteristics of these pupils from pedagogico-psychological and linguo-didactic points of view. Next it will deal with motivation and the Theory of multiple intelligences. The music style this work focuses on will be defined, and answers concerning why and how to work with it will be answered. The practical part will consist of teachers' and pupils' questionnaire surveys and their evaluation.

This essay examines the use of interactive white boards (IWBs) in English language teaching. The aim of the essay is to find out whether IWBs encourage a teacher-centred, transmission-based form of teaching. The project was carried out as a quantitative study of classroom observations, with the aim of counting teacher-initiated interactions in the classroom as a measure of teacher-centredness. Sinclair and Couldhard’s (1975) model of discourse analysis was used as a reference tool for counting the interaction in the classroom with the structure of Initiation, Response, Feedback (IRF). If IWBs encourage a transmission form of teaching, the number of IRF exchanges should be higher. The results of the study showed only a slightly higher average number of IRF exchanges during lessons where the IWB was use. The results also show several activities for which the IWB is used which involve a reduction in the number of IRF exchanges, and therefore providing the basis for the rejection of the hypothesis that IWBs encourage a transmission form of teaching. The essay comes to the conclusion that IWBs is a tool that can be used in a way that is suitable for today’s approaches to pedagogy

No description available.

The thesis presents a theoretical framework for the preparation of a portfolio for the course Didaktická propedeutika pro studenty angliètiny na FF UK. This preparatory course in didactics should serve as an introduction to the subject for future teachers of English in secondary schools, whom it should equip with a basic level of understanding of the general principles of learning, language acquisition and language learning. The work presents a course syllabus and in its individual chapters it describes the theoretical background for each seminar. The themes introduced in the course are: theories of learning and their application to language teaching, language identity, theory and description of first and second language acquisition, learner variables (age, gender, aptitude, intelligence, motivation, affective filter, learning styles, multiple intelligences, learner beliefs, the role of brain and memory in language acquisition, methods of teaching foreign languages, interlanguage, linguistic errors, levels of proficiency, communication and learning strategies, learner autonomy, the theory of a good language learner and teacher. The thesis includes an appendix containing handouts for each seminar and a student evaluation form for the assessment of the quality of the seminar.

No description available.

In recent years EFL education within Saudi Arabia has come under increased scrutiny, due to government efforts to reform the broader education system within the country, and the perceived importance of English as a global language of commerce and enterprise. EFL education within Saudi Arabia suffers from a number of problems, including low standards and a tendency within the Saudi education system to rely upon prescriptive and authoritarian teaching paradigms. In addition to this, there is no cohesive national strategy for EFL teacher training and education, and little emphasis on professional development opportunities for teachers within the EFL field. This study focuses attention on EFL teacher quality within Saudi Arabia as a critical component in improving English language education across the country. The study presents a case study of Umm al-Qura University, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in which the perspectives of students, teachers and managers were explored in depth in order to shed light on the current mechanisms for ensuring teaching quality in EFL. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the study engaged in an in-depth case study of the English Language Centre (ELC) at the Umm al-Qura University. A quantitative questionnaire was distributed to students within the ELC, and semi-structured interviews were undertaken with teachers and academic managers, in addition to classroom observations conducted by the researcher. The findings corroborated recent research on educational paradigms within Saudi Arabia, and highlighted a number of cultural factors that impacted upon teacher quality within the ELC. The findings of the study form the basis of a series of recommendations for improving English language teaching quality within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In this study, three aspects of technology integration in English Language Teaching within the context of private universities in Ankara, Turkey were investigated. Firstly, preservice and in-service teachers&amp / #8217 / computer usage frequencies/types, computer competence levels, perceived barriers to technology integration and attitudes toward computers were explored. Then, factors (age, gender, work experience, institutional factors being preservice or in-service) that might potentially affect the findings of the first research question were examined. Finally, the educational value preservice and in-service teachers assigned to technology usage in their language teaching practices and their ideas on effective technology integration were scrutinized. In order to reach aforementioned goals, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected with the help of a questionnaire and semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The institutions sampled in this study were all private universities, the infrastructure of which varied drastically. A total of 182 questionnaires collected from the teachers (in-service N=120, preservice N=62), as well as eight in-service and four preservice teachers were interviewed. The findings indicated that teachers used computers at their schools at limited frequency. It was also found that they indicated high levels of instructional computer usage outside the school and technology competence. It was also seen that age, gender and the institutions the teachers worked at affected their technology usage and competence levels. As for the educational value assigned to technology usage in their language teaching, the teachers indicated that technology would help make their lessons more student centered. However, the teachers mainly mentioned using technology as teacher tools rather student tools which help foster higher order thinking skills and learner autonomy. Keeping the usage statistics in mind, it was concluded that the schools, even though all of them were private, lacked computer infrastructure to the point that the teachers had difficulty even to use computers for their personal purposes. It was also concluded that the schools in Turkey were still at the stage of fighting with first-order barriers, even at private institutions, indicating that a vision towards technology integration lacks. As for the educational value assigned to computer usage in ELT, it was concluded that institutional barriers were more of a concern for the teachers as they did not have a chance to delve into actual instructional usage and the ICT courses at college were not preparing the teachers for effective technology integration due to lack of proper training activities.

The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer uses a near-infrared camera to measure the optical path length variations between the two AO-corrected apertures and provide high-angular resolution observations for all its science channels (1.5-13 microns). There is however a wavelength dependent component to the atmospheric turbulence, which can introduce optical path length errors when observing at a wavelength different from that of the fringe sensing camera. Water vapor in particular is highly dispersive and its effect must be taken into account for high-precision infrared interferometric observations as described previously for VLTI/MIDI or the Keck Interferometer Nuller. In this paper, we describe the new sensing approach that has been developed at the LBT to measure and monitor the optical path length fluctuations due to dry air and water vapor separately. After reviewing the current performance of the system for dry air seeing compensation, we present simultaneous H-, K-, and N-band observations that illustrate the feasibility of our feedforward approach to stabilize the path length fluctuations seen by the LBTI nuller.