This study investigates expatriate English teachers’ cross-cultural adjustment in Taiwan. Cross-cultural adjustment theories and the differences between Chinese and Western culture are reviewed. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected in order to develop the framework for the study. The process was examined across three facets of adjustment: general, working and interaction with host nation. The study was based on the framework of Black, Mendenhall and Oddou (1991) and develops an empirical cross-cultural adjustment model for native English- speaking expatriates who work in Taiwan as English teachers. The framework was successfully implemented by means of questionnaire and interview data and a literature review. The key findings of this study are: 1. Expatriate English teachers’ job satisfaction, age, previous crosscultural experience and their motivation for or purpose in coming to Taiwan are the key factors which affect their intention to stay in Taiwan. 2. Expatriate English teachers’ Mandarin or Taiwanese language ability has significant effects on their daily activities and social life outside work in terms of general adjustment. 3. Cross-cultural training for expatriate teachers could improve their living conditions in Taiwan in terms of general adjustment. 4. Expatriate teachers who possessed an undergraduate degree had more difficulties in their relationship with school management. 5. The total time expatriate teachers had spent living in Taiwan had some effect on their job satisfaction and adjustment in relation to interacting with the Taiwanese. Based on the empirical findings of this study, some recommendations for language education institutions and Westerners who are working or planning to work as English teachers in Taiwan are as follows: 1. Those who are planning to go to Taiwan to work as English teachers should receive some cross-cultural training and gain basic Mandarin or Taiwanese language skills before departure. An undergraduate degree is the basic qualification but an English teaching certificate or higher degree is strongly recommended. 2. English language education institutions should offer expatriate teachers cross-cultural training which includes basic local language skills, general information about living and working in Taiwan and the differences in the education system, teaching methodology and management style between Taiwanese and Western cultures. 3. When recruiting expatriate teachers, it is recommended that English language education institutions should avoid those who are including a trip to Taiwan as part of wider Asian travel and who are likely to stay in Taiwan for a relatively short time.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, November, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-139).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, November, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-139)

Washback is a concept commonly used in applied linguistics to refer to the influence of testing on teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the washback effect of a new system of English language speaking assessment in Sri Lanka. The new assessment was introduced with the intention of promoting the teaching and learning of English speaking skills in schools as part of a Presidential educational initiative called the English as a Life Skill Programme. The study examined the washback effect of the introduction of speaking assessments at both National and school levels from the perspectives of participants at three levels of the education system: the decision making level, intervening level (teacher trainers and in-service advisors), and implementing level (teachers and students). For this purpose, a mixed methods research approach was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants at the decision making level and intervening level to examine whether there were any important gaps in translating policy intentions to the implementing level participants (teachers and students). A questionnaire survey was conducted with teachers and students to investigate their perceptions of the assessment change and its effects on teaching and learning speaking in the classroom. Classroom observations were conducted to gain insights into actual classroom practices in relation to teaching and learning speaking, along with follow-up interviews to seek teachers’ accounts of their classroom practices. The study found that the assessment change did influence teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teaching and learning speaking in the classroom, as well as teachers’ instructional practices. Therefore, some of the policymakers’ intended aims were achieved. However, the intensity and direction of washback were shown to be influenced by several mediating factors such as teachers’ training and contextual factors such as the availability of classroom resources. The findings of this study suggest that assessment reforms can be used to promote change both in what is taught in the classroom and how it is taught, but to different degrees. The study indicated that washback does occur in this context, but it operates in a complex manner associated with many other variables besides the assessment itself. The findings of this study have implications for the improvement of future assessment policies in Sri Lanka, highlighting the importance of timely implementation of reforms and of monitoring them. The findings suggest that it is especially important to listen to key stakeholders’ (teachers’ and students’) voices in the initial planning and feasibility study phases of reform.

Throughout the history of English Language teaching, the pendulum of L1 use has shifted drastically depending on the method that had gained prominence during a particular period of time. Today, that pendulum has yet to settle and the use of a learner's first language during instruction in a second language classroom continues to be an issue of serious debate. This study aimed to examine the effect of L1 use in instruction on the performance of low proficiency level learners on a grammar task of the present and progressives tenses in an ESL/IEP environment. To determine its effect, the 24 Arabic speaking English learners participating in the study were divided into two groups, an English-Only instruction group and an English & Arabic instruction group and an instrument with three item types (items with adverbials, non-action verbs and context clues that determined tense use) was created. The participants were given the instrument as a pre-and post-test before and after instruction on present and progressive tense use in either English only or English and Arabic according to the group. After the post-test, the students took a survey intended to ascertain their perceptions of the instruction they received. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent and dependent t-tests to draw comparisons between the means of the performance scores of both groups and within each group over the pre- and post-tests. Additionally, the quantitative data from the survey underwent content analysis to discover themes for student preference for instructional language use in the classroom. The resultant findings showed that the participants in the English & Arabic Group performed better on the grammar task and had greater percent increases from the pre-test to the post-test than the English-Only Group. The means of the total performance score and of the question types exhibited these same increases. The surveys indicated that the participants in the English & Arabic Group understood their instruction better and a majority of the participants preferred the use of both English and Arabic during grammar instruction irrespective of language instructional group during the treatment. This study showed that the use of L1 in the classroom has measureable positive effects on the learning of the students. Moreover, it has contributed to the growing body of research in favor of L1 use in the classroom and has considerable implications for the field of second language teaching.

The diploma thesis deals with e-learning in the sense of using online tools, programmes and websites in the English language teaching. In the current modern society we use internet and electronic devices on daily bases and it is only natural that such trend is infiltrating also the field of education. The aim of this thesis is to provide the teachers, who would like to use e- learning in their lessons, with theoretical background and inspiration. The thesis is divided into two parts - a theoretical part and a practical part. The theoretical part is divided into several chapters, each of them focuses on some theoretical aspect of e-learning. The term can be seen from more points of view, this thesis understands e-learning as any programme, tool, platform or website that needs to be used online - using an internet connection. The next chapters of the theoretical part deal with the advantages and limits that are connected with using e-learning, itsʼ history or place in the Framework Educational Programme. To put together the practical part, which is supposed to be something like a catalogue of the particular e-learning programmes, I decided to use a questionnaire as the main source of the programmes. Apart from the questionnaire my sources were literature on given topic or my own internet search....

The syllabus for upper secondary school states that interaction and communication are important for students’ oral production skills development. Also, the contemporary view on learning is that people learn a language by using it. This study examines how students and a teacher experience the ways in which classmates influence each other’s willingness to speak English in the classroom, if they believe it affects their oral production skills development, and moreover whether they think that some sort of ability grouping could support oral production skills development. The study was carried out among a total of eight students and one teacher at an upper secondary school located in Southern Sweden, using a qualitative methodology based on personal interviews. Four English 6 students belong to the natural science program, and four English 7 Cambridge Advanced English students belong to various academic programs. The teacher teaches both courses. The results showed that classmates is the factor in the classroom which affects students’ willingness to speak English the most in their different language proficiency, personality, attitude, focus, willingness to communicate in English, and relationship with each other. The students experience that these differences between them often affect their WTC negatively and thereby their oral production skills development. They want to interact with other students who are at their level or slightly above them, who want to speak English, who share the communication space, and who take the lessons seriously. Therefore, the students and teacher have a positive attitude toward some form of ability grouping in all English courses.

Learners from many corners of the earth are acquiring English as a Foreign Language (EFL), lending importance to issues of language learning and its effects on global and local identities being forged in the process. As English language users, they are recipients and producers of multiple discourses around the global status of English as a foreign language, from English as linguistic, material, and symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) to language as commodity (Heller, 1999). Such discourses are accompanied by representations of language and culture, or imagined communities (Anderson, 1983, Norton, 2001) that represent language use and cultural representations deemed as legitimate.The purpose of this study is to triangulate three different but intersecting perspectives: that of the researcher, Mexican EFL teachers and Mexican teachers-in-training, on the imagined communities and the underlying ideological discourses of English in a global EFL textbook, as well as those held by these same teachers and teachers-in-training. Critical discourse analysis, classroom observations, in-depth interviews and language learning autobiographies provided the data for a critical assessment of the language and cultural content of the textbook and the ideologies of English.While CDA has been rightly challenged for privileging the researcher's position, this study contributes to a poststructuralist view of the participants as agents of change; they are receptors of discourses that taint their ideologies about language, but they also resist and transform them, through articulated ideas as well as through specific classroom actions that allow them to appropriate the English language, despite the textbook's systematic exclusion of speakers like them, and cultural practices like theirs.This study contributes to the growing field of critical applied linguistics, where learners are viewed as social beings in sites of struggle and with multiple and changing identities (Norton, 2000). In this vein, neutrality can no longer be accepted as a construct in textbooks or in the ELT practice, since the contained practices are subject to ideologies which must be dismantled in order to offer students and teachers more equitable representations of the English language and its speakers.

Each year a group of university students from English speaking countries go to Chile and work as volunteers under the National Volunteer Centre Program. The purpose of this case study is to examine how a group of novice volunteer teachers describe their experiences in a foreign country and how these experiences shape their understanding of teaching. Participants went through the process of open-ended questionnaires and one-on-one interviews of their experience. This study was sustained in the literature by the domains of volunteerism, English Language Teaching, and volunteerism and ELT, and a socio constructivist and experiential lens was adopted. Even though volunteer teaching abroad is an increasing worldwide trend, there are few studies that combine these areas, showing that the existing blend of volunteerism and English language teaching needs to be further examined. The analysis of the data showed that novice volunteer teachers experience five types of experiences when teaching English: language teaching experiences, language learning experiences, challenges, general experiences, and volunteering experiences. Novice teachers recalled their expectations before teaching and those were maintained, modified, or unfulfilled. Volunteers stated what teaching means to them after working in public schools, they were able to describe diverse language teaching experiences, and make recommendations to future volunteers.