Search results for: hegemony of English

Authors: Ram A. Giri, Amna Bedri, Abdou Niane

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Exclusion in education on the basis of language in multilingual contexts operates at multiple levels. Learners of diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds are often expected to learn through English and are pushed further down the learning ladder if they also have to access education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The paper explores marginalized children’s lived experiences in accessing technology and English in four low-income countries in Africa and Asia. Based on the findings of the first phase of a multinational qualitative research study, we report on the factors or barriers that affect children’s access, opportunities and motivation for learning through technology and English. ICT and English - the language of ICT and education - can enhance learning and can even be essential. However, these two important keys to education can also function as barriers to accessing quality education, and therefore as zones of exclusion. This paper looks into how marginalized children (aged 13-15) engage in learning through ICT and English and to what extent the restrictive access and opportunities contribute to the widening of the already existing gap in education. By applying the conceptual frameworks of “access and accessibility of learning” and “zones of exclusion,” the paper elucidates how the barriers prevent children’s effective engagement with learning and addresses such questions as to how marginalized children access technology and English for learning; whether the children value English, and what their motivation and opportunity to learn it are. In addition, the paper will point out policy and pedagogic implications.

Keywords: exclusion, inclusion, inclusive education, marginalization

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Authors: Mairo Musa Galadima

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This paper examines the impact of Mother tongue interference on students’ performance in English Language in Bauchi State. It is observed that the students of Bauchi district share the same problem with Hausa native speakers of Kano dialect which is the standard form. It is observed that there are some phonemes which are present in English but absent in Hausa so the Hausa speakers of Bauchi district also replace these sounds with similar ones present in Hausa. Students in Bauchi district fail English language because they transfer features of their mother tongue (MT) into English. The data is obtained through unobtrusive observation of the English speech of about fifty Hausa native speakers of Bauchi district which is similar to Kano dialect from Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, Bauchi since only those who have had some good background of secondary education are used because uneducated Nigeria English of whatever geographical location is more likely to be unintelligible as cockney or uneducated African-American English. For instance /Ə:/ is absent in Hausa so the speakers find it difficult to distinguish between such pairs of words as /bƏ:d / and /bΛst/, /fa:st/ and /fƏ:st / hence /a:/ is generally used wherever /Ə:/ is present regardless of the spelling, that is why words like ‘work’, ‘first’ and ‘person’ all have / a:/. In Hausa most speakers use /P/ in place of, or in alternation with /f/, e.g. ‘few’ is pronounced as ‘pew’, or ‘pen’, as ‘fen’, /b/ for /v/, /s/ for /z/ and /z/ for /ᵹ/. Also the word vision/visn/ is pronounced as /vidzn/. Therefore, there is confusion in spellings and pronunciation of words. One solution out of the problem is having constant practice with a qualified consistent staff and making use of standard textbooks in the learning process.

Keywords: English, failure, mother tongue, interference, students

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Authors: Mairo Musa Galadima, Phoebe Mshelia

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In Nigeria, the national policy of education stipulates that the kindergarten primary schools and the legislature are to use the three popular Nigerian Languages namely: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. However, the English language seems to be preferred and this calls for this paper. Attempts were made to draw out the challenges faced by learners in understanding English speech sounds and using them to communicate effectively in English; using 5(five) selected secondary school in Bauchi. It was discover that challenges abound in the wrong use of stress and intonation, transfer of phonetic features from their first language. Others are inadequate qualified teachers and relevant materials including text-books. It is recommended that teachers of English should lay more emphasis on the teaching of supra-segmental features and should be encouraged to go for further studies, seminars and refresher courses.

Keywords: kindergarten, stress, phonetic and intonation, Nigeria

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Authors: Kanokrat Kunasaraphan

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The purpose of the study was to identify whether English language learning strategies commonly used by the first year students at International College, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University include six direct and indirect strategies. The study served to explore whether there was a difference in these students’ use of six direct and indirect English learning strategies between the different levels of their English proficiency. The questionnaire used as a research instrument was comprised of two parts: General information of participants and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). The researcher employed descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA (F-test) to analyze the data. The results of the analysis revealed that English learning strategies commonly used by the first year students include six direct and indirect strategies, including differences in strategy use of the students with different levels of English proficiency. Recommendations for future research include the study of language learning strategy use with other research methods focusing on other languages, specific language skills, and/or the relationship of language learning strategy use and other factors in other programs and/or institutions.

Keywords: English learning strategies, direct strategies, indirect strategies, proficiency level

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Authors: Kawinphat Lertpongmanee

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The purposes of this study were (1) investigate the English language learning motivation and the attainment of their English proficiency, (2) to find out how motivation and motivational variables of the high and low proficiency subjects are related to their English proficiency. The respondents were 80 fourth-year from Faculty of Management Sciences students in Rajabhat Suansunadha University. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaires. The statistically analyzed by using the SPSS program for frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation (SD), t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Pearson correlation coefficient. The findings of this study are summarized as there was a significant difference in overall motivation between high and low proficiency groups of subjects at .05 (p < .05), but not in overall motivational variables. Additionally, the high proficiency group had a significantly higher level of intrinsic motivation than did the low proficiency group at .05 (p < .05).

Keywords: English language proficiency, faculty of management sciences, motivation factors, proficiency subjects

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Authors: Humaira Irfan Khan

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The paper explores teaching of creative writing in Pakistani classroom. The data collected from the questionnaire and focus group interview with a large public sector university’s Master of Arts in English students, who are also in-service school teachers, discovers that English teachers in Pakistan do not teach to develop the creative writing of pupils. The findings show that English teachers can define creative writing but are confused about strategies needed in rousing learners’ interest in creative writing. The teachers make their students memorise compositions from the textbooks to be reproduced in class. English teachers must be encouraged and trained to engage in activities that are essential for enhancing creative writing in schools.

Keywords: creative writing, teaching creative writing, textbooks, Pakistan

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Authors: Sanja Seljan, Ivan Dunđer

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The paper presents combined automatic speech recognition (ASR) for English and machine translation (MT) for English and Croatian in the domain of business correspondence. The first part presents results of training the ASR commercial system on two English data sets, enriched by error analysis. The second part presents results of machine translation performed by online tool Google Translate for English and Croatian and Croatian-English language pairs. Human evaluation in terms of usability is conducted and internal consistency calculated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, enriched by error analysis. Automatic evaluation is performed by WER (Word Error Rate) and PER (Position-independent word Error Rate) metrics, followed by investigation of Pearson’s correlation with human evaluation.

Keywords: automatic machine translation, integrated language technologies, quality evaluation, speech recognition

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Authors: Aamna Zafar

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Through linguistic and cultural analysis, this study seeks to trace the development of the English and Urdu languages. Along with examining how the vocabulary and syntax of English and Urdu have evolved over time and the linguistic trends that may be seen in these changes, this study will also look at the historical and cultural influences that have shaped the languages throughout time. The study will also look at how English and Urdu have changed over time, both in terms of language use and communication inside each other's cultures and globally. We'll research how these changes affect social relations and cultural identity, as well as how they might affect the future of these languages.

Keywords: linguistic and cultural analysis, historical factors, cultural factors, vocabulary, syntax, significance

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Authors: Wujian Han

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In the process of human interaction and communication, speech act verbs are considered to be the most active component and the main means for information transmission, and are also taken as an indication of the structure of linguistic behavior. The theoretical value and practical significance of such everyday built-in metalanguage have long been recognized. This paper, which is part of a bigger study, is aimed to provide useful insights for a more precise and systematic application to speech act verbs translation between English and Chinese, especially with regard to the degree to which generic integrity is maintained in the practice of translation of legal documents. In this study, the corpus, i.e. Chinese legal texts and their English translations, English legal texts, ordinary Chinese texts, and ordinary English texts, serve as a testing ground for examining contrastively the usage of English and Chinese directive speech act verbs in legal genre. The scope of this paper is relatively wide and essentially covers all directive speech act verbs which are used in ordinary English and Chinese, such as order, command, request, prohibit, threat, advice, warn and permit. The researcher, by combining the corpus methodology with a contrastive perspective, explored a range of characteristics of English and Chinese directive speech act verbs including their semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features, and then contrasted them in a structured way. It has been found that there are similarities between English and Chinese directive speech act verbs in legal genre, such as similar semantic components between English speech act verbs and their translation equivalents in Chinese, formal and accurate usage of English and Chinese directive speech act verbs in legal contexts. But notable differences have been identified in areas of difference between their usage in the original Chinese and English legal texts such as valency patterns and frequency of occurrences. For example, the subjects of some directive speech act verbs are very frequently omitted in Chinese legal texts, but this is not the case in English legal texts. One of the practicable methods to achieve adequacy and conciseness in speech act verb translation from Chinese into English in legal genre is to repeat the subjects or the message with discrepancy, and vice versa. In addition, translation effects such as overuse and underuse of certain directive speech act verbs are also found in the translated English texts compared to the original English texts. Legal texts constitute a particularly valuable material for speech act verb study. Building up such a contrastive picture of the Chinese and English speech act verbs in legal language would yield results of value and interest to legal translators and students of language for legal purposes and have practical application to legal translation between English and Chinese.

Keywords: contrastive analysis, corpus-based, directive speech act verbs, legal texts, translation between English and Chinese

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Authors: Xueying Li

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Different from English, it is common to observe Chinese clauses logically related in an implicit way without any conjunctions. This typological difference has posed a great challenge for Chinese-English translators, as 1) translators may interpret logical meaning in different ways when there are no conjunctions in Chinese Source Text (ST); 2) translators may have questions whether to make Chinese implicit logical meaning explicit or to remain implicit in Target Text (TT), and whether other dimensions of logical meaning (e.g., type of logical meaning) should be shifted or not. Against this background, this study examines a comprehensive arrange of Chinese-English translation choices of logical meaning to deal with this challenge in a systematic way. It compiles several ST-TT passages from a set of translation textbooks in a corpus, namely Ying Yu Bi Yi Shi Wu (Er Ji)) [Translation Practice between Chinese and English: Intermediate Level] and its supportive training book, analyzes how logical meaning in ST are translated in TT in texts across different text types with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the theoretical framework, and finally draws a system network of translation choices of logical meaning from Chinese into English. Since translators may probably think about semantic meaning rather than lexico-grammatical resources in translation, this study goes away from traditional lexico-grammatical choices, but rather describing translation choices from the semantic level. The findings in this study can provide some help and support for translation practitioners so that they can understand that besides explicitation, there are a variety of possible linguistic choices available for making informed decisions when translating Chinese logical meaning into English.

Keywords: Chinese-English translation, logical meaning, systemic functional linguistics, translation choices

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Authors: Sumayyah Qaed J. Alsulami

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English as a foreign language (EFL) in Saudi Arabia is still new and evolving. Recently, many of the university language centres that provide intensive and mandatory English courses for the preparatory-year students have been working to develop English teaching. These centres emphasise teaching using 'special editions' textbooks for Saudi students. While the government has been working to provide social and economic policies that intend to open up and communicate widely with the world, there is a need to educate Saudi citizens to be aware and understand others in order to promote tolerance and accept others, especially in a conservative culture like Saudi Arabia. In this study, the data will be English teachers’ views on teaching culture using the special edition textbooks that will be conducted by semi-structured interviews. Teachers’ views will manifest to what extent these textbooks are used interculturally to teach the students.

Keywords: EFL, intercultural teaching, teachers' views, textbooks

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Authors: Patrycja Pichnicka

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Anime is the Japanese art of animation and a kind of Japanese animated movie, different from the Western ones by its specific features. In the world dominated by live action movies, mostly the ones produced in the United States, Japanese animated movies, which constitute a large part of the Japanese movie industry, play the role of the Other. They adapt elements of Western culture and technology to create something that resists global Western domination. This phenomenon is particularly interesting to observe in the case of narration borrowed from the Western culture, yet transformed in a specific manner: such as Vampire Narration. The phenomenon should be examined using the theory of cultural adaptation of Siergiei Arutiunow, as well as theory of cultural hegemony and postcolonial theories, including the theory of the discourse of resistance. Relations of cultural hegemony and resistance have been mentioned in works of Susan Napier, however they are worth to be fully developed. Anime relations to globally dominating culture reveal tension between submission and resistance in which non-Western identity is constructed and performed. Nonetheless, the tension between the Global/Western and the Japanese is not the only one existing in contemporaneous Japanese society and culture. Sexual, gender, class, and ethnic issues are also expressed in and through pop culture narrations. Using the basic division of the types of cultural adaptation we can trace the line of the evolution of the Japanese cultural attitude towards the West, expressed in the Vampire Narration from the time of American occupation till now. These attitudes changed from the submissive assimilation or reproduction of cultural models, through the simple opposition, to the more nuanced attitude of nowadays. However, according to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional theory, there is no one category of discrimination or submission. There are individuals or groups existing on the cross of two or more categories of emancipation. If the Japanese were culturally subdued to the Westerner, the Japanese woman was doubly subdued: as a woman and as a Japanese. The emancipation of one group can deepen the submission of another one, of internal Other, of the group in which two or more categories of domination/submission intersect. That is why some Japanese female authors enthusiastically reproduce the Western cultural models, even if this means a cultural hegemony of the West over the Japanese. They see, as women, more liberal attitudes towards their gender in the Western culture than in the Japanese culture, as it is constructed and produced by Japanese men. The Japanese anime is the realm in which sophisticated art meets social tendencies and cultural attitudes. Anime examination permits to study of the composed contemporaneous Japanese identity, as well as general rules of cultural relations.

Keywords: anime, cultural hegemony, intercultural relations, resistance, vampire narration

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Authors: Yuh-Jen Wu, Chun-Min Lin

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Homophonic words are common in Mandarin Chinese which belongs to the tonal language family. Using homophonic cues to study foreign languages is one of the learning techniques of mnemonics that can aid the retention and retrieval of information in the human memory. When learning difficult foreign words, some learners transpose them with words in a language they are familiar with to build an association and strengthen working memory. These phonological clues are beneficial means for novice language learners. In the classroom, if mnemonic skills are used at the appropriate time in the instructional sequence, it may achieve their maximum effectiveness. For Chinese-speaking students, proper use of Chinese-English homophonic word pairs may help them learn difficult vocabulary. In this study, a database program is developed by employing Visual Basic. The database contains two corpora, one with Chinese lexical items and the other with English ones. The Chinese corpus contains 59,053 Chinese words that were collected by a web crawler. The pronunciations of this group of words are compared with words in an English corpus based on WordNet, a lexical database for the English language. Words in both databases with similar pronunciation chunks and batches are detected. A total of approximately 1,000 Chinese lexical items are located in the preliminary comparison. These homophonic word pairs can serve as a valuable tool to assist Chinese-speaking students in learning and memorizing new English vocabulary.

Keywords: Chinese, corpus, English, homophonic words, vocabulary

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Authors: Suwaree Yordchim, Toby J. Gibbs

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The linguistic competence of Thai university students majoring in Business English was examined in the context of knowledge of English language inflection, and also various linguistic elements. Errors analysis was applied to the results of the testing. Levels of errors in inflection, tense and linguistic elements were shown to be significantly high for all noun, verb and adjective inflections. Findings suggest that students do not gain linguistic competence in their use of English language inflection, because of interlanguage interference. Implications for curriculum reform and treatment of errors in the classroom are discussed.

Keywords: interlanguage, error analysis, inflection, second language acquisition, Thai students

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Authors: Marwa A. Nasser

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This is an empirical study that provides an investigation of the most significant errors of Egyptian learners in producing English consonants and Arabic consonants, and advice on how these can be remedied. The study adopts a descriptive approach and the analysis is based on audio recordings of two groups of people. The first group includes six volunteers of Egyptian learners belonging to the English Department at Faculty of Women who learn English as a foreign language. The other group includes six Egyptian learners who are studying Tajweed (how to recite Quran correctly). The audio recordings were examined, and sounds were analyzed in an attempt to highlight the most common error done by the learners while reading English or reading (or reciting) Quran. Results show that the two groups of learners have problems with certain phonemic contrasts. Both groups share common errors although both languages are different and not related (e.g. pre-aspiration of fortis stops, incorrect articulation of consonants and velarization of certain sounds).

Keywords: consonant articulations, Egyptian learners of English, Egyptian learners of Quran, empirical study, error analysis, pronunciation problems

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Authors: Md. Mizanoor Rahman, Md. Zakir Hossain Talukder, M. Mahruf C. Shohel, Prithvi Shrestha

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In Bangladesh, classroom practice and English Learning (EL) competencies acquired both by the teacher and learner in primary and secondary schools are still very weak. Therefore, English is the most commonly failed examination subject at the school level; in addition, there are severe problems in communicative English by the Bangladeshi nationals– this has been characterized as a constraint to economic development. Job applicants and employees often lack English language skills necessary to work effectively. As a result; both government and its international development partners such as DFID, UNESCO, and CIDA have been very active to uplift the quality of the English language learning and implementing projects with innovative approaches. Recently; the economy has been increasing and in line with this, the technology has been deployed in English learning to improve reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Young Bangladeshi creative, from a variety of backgrounds including film, animation, photography, and digital media are being trained to develop ideas for English Language Teaching (ELT) media. They are being motivated to develop a wide range of ideas for low cost English learning media products. English Language education policy in Bangladesh supports communicative language teaching practices and accordingly, actors have been influencing curriculum, textbook, deployment of technology and assessment changes supporting communicative ELT. The various projects are also being implemented to reform the curriculum, revise the textbook and adjust the assessment mechanism so that the country can increase in proficiency in communicative English among the population. At present; the numbers of teachers, students and adult learners classified at higher levels of proficiency because of deployment of technology and motivation for learning and using English among school population of Bangladesh. The current paper discusses the various interventions in Bangladesh with appropriate media to improve the competencies of the ELT among population.

Keywords: English learning, technology, education, psychological sciences

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Authors: Cheyne Kirkpatrick

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In an attempt to make the university intensive English program more worthwhile for students, many English language programs are redesigning curriculum to offer for-credit English for Academic Purposes classes, sometimes marketed as “bridge” courses. These programs are designed to be accredited to national language standards, provide communicative language learning, and give students the opportunity to simultaneously earn university language credit while becoming proficient in academic English. This presentation will discuss the curriculum design of one such program in the United States at a large private university that created its own for-credit “bridge” program. The planning, development, piloting, teaching, and challenges of designing this type of curriculum will be presented along with the aspects of accreditation, communicative language learning, and integration within various university programs. Attendees will learn about how such programs are created and what types of objectives and outcomes are included in American EAP classes.

Keywords: IEP, AEP, Curriculum, CEFR, University Credit, Bridge

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Authors: Nkereke Mfon Essien

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In an ambisyllabic environment, one consonant sound simultaneously assumes both the coda and onset positions of a word due to its structural proclivity to affect two phonological processes or repair two ill-formed sequences in those syllable positions at the same time. This study sets out to examine the structural conditions that trigger this not-so-common phonological privilege for consonant sounds in the English language and Nigerian English and if such constraints could have any correspondence in the language studied. Data for the study were obtained from a native speaker of English who was the control and twenty (20) educated Nigerian speakers of English from the three ethnic/linguistic groups in Nigeria. Preliminary findings from the data show that ambisyllabicity in English is triggered mainly by stress, a condition which causes a consonant in a stressed syllable to become glottalised and simultaneously devoices the nearest voiced consonant in the next syllable. For example, in the word coupler,/'kʌplɜr/ is realized as ['kʌˀpl̥ɜr]. In some Nigerian English, preliminary findings show that ambisyllabicity is triggered by a sequence of intervocalic short, high central vowels and a coda nasal. Since the short vowel may not occur in an open syllable, the nasal serves to close the impermissible open syllable. However, since the Nigerian English foot structure does not permit a CVC.V syllable, the same coda nasal simultaneously repairs the impermissible syllable foot to (CV.CV) by applying the Maximal Onset Principle since this is a preliminary investigation, a conclusion would not suffice yet.

Keywords: ambisyllabicity, nasal, coda, stress, phonological process, syllable, foot

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Authors: Ali A. Alshahrani

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This study aims to identify Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' perspectives towards using the English language in their studies. The study explores students' self-confident and its association with students' actual performance in English courses in their different academic programs. A multimodal methodology was used to fulfill the research purpose and answer the research questions. A 25-item survey questionnaire and final examination grades were used to collect data. Two hundred forty-one students agreed to participate in the study. They completed the questionnaire and agreed to release their final grades to be a part of the collected data. The data were coded and analyzed by SPSS software. The findings indicated a significant difference in students' performance in English courses between participants' academic programs on the one hand. Students' self-confidence in their English language skills, on the other hand, was not significantly different between participants' academic programs. Data analysis also revealed no correlational relationship between students' self-confidence level and their language skills and their performance. The study raises more questions about other vital factors such as course instructors' views of the materials, faculty members of the target department, family belief in the usefulness of the program, potential employers. These views and beliefs shape the student's preparation process and, therefore, should be explored further.

Keywords: English language intensive program, language proficiency, performance, self-confidence

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Authors: Amr Anany

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This study offers a corpus-based analysis of the conceptual metaphors of RESPONSIBILITY inherent in the Arabic political speeches of King Abdulla II and their English translations rendered by the translators of the Royal Hashemite Court ("RHC translators"). In view of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), the current study aims to uncover the extent to which the dominant ideology in the source Arabic speeches of King Abdulla II is conveyed into the target English translation. The study explores a bilingual corpus, including eleven authentic Arabic speeches delivered by King Abdulla II and their English translations. The study finds that both Arabic and English share several metaphorical expressions of RESPONSIBILITY that are based on bodily experience such as RESPONSIBILITY IS UP, RESPONSIBILITY IS AN OBJECT, and RESPONSIBILITY IS AN HONOR. Apparently, the study concludes that RHC translators succeed to convey the dominant ideology from the source Arabic speeches to the English ones using specific translation strategies.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, CDA, conceptual metaphor theory, ideology, responsibility

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Authors: Mohamad Abdullah

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Recent Advancements in technology have stimulated deep change in the language learning classroom. Flipped classroom as a new pedagogical method is at the center of this change. It turns the classroom into a student-centered environment and promotes interactive and autonomous learning. The present study is an attempt to examine the effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom Model (FCM) on students’ motivation level in English speaking performance. This study was carried out with 27 undergraduate female English majors who enrolled in the course of Advanced Communication Skills (ENGL 154) at Buraimi University College (BUC). Data was collected through Motivation in English Speaking Performance Questionnaire (MESPQ) which has been distributed among the participants of this study pre and post the implementation of FCM. SPSS was used for analyzing data. The Paired T-Test which was carried out on the pre-post of (MESPQ) showed a significant difference between them (p < .009) that revealed participants’ tendency to increase their motivation level in English speaking performance after the application of FCM. In addition, respondents of the current study reported positive views about the implementation of FCM.

Keywords: english speaking performance, motivation, flipped classroom model, learner-contentedness

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Authors: Sender Dovchin

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The recent bi/multilingual scholarship shows that the knowledge of ‘translingual English’ is understood in terms of transcultural flows of linguistic, semiotic and cultural resources, where these resources re-transform and are recontextualised to form new specific languages and perform new identities in diverse societal contexts. Drawing on linguistic ethnographic data from contemporary popular music artist in Mongolia, this paper addresses two main critical questions: (1) how new forms of specific languages are created when English becomes translingual English in local contexts; and (2) how new varieties of local identities are constructed and performed when English transforms into translingual English. The paper argues that popular music artists in post-socialist Mongolia should better be understood as active cultural producers, contrary to those dominant discourses which position artists in the periphery as passive recipients of popular culture. Positioned within the creative nature of the global digital resources and the increasing transcultural spread of linguistic and cultural modes and features, these young Mongolian popular music artists produce not only new forms of linguistic practices in the local contexts but also create varied new forms of identities of what it means to be a young Mongolian person in the modern society.

Keywords: multilingualism, translingualism, mongolia, english

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Authors: Iti Roychowdhury

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India to the Colonial mind was a crazy quilt of multicoloured patchwork- a land of untold wealth and bejewelled maharajas, of snake charmers and tight rope walkers. India was also the land that offered unparalled game. Indeed Shikar (hunting) was de rigueur for the Raj experience. Tales of shootings and trophies were told and retold in clubs and in company. Foremost among the writers of this genre is Jim Corbett – tracker, hunter, writer, conservationist. Corbett is best known for the killing of man eating tigers and his best known books are Man eaters of Kumaon, The Temple Tiger, Man eating Leopard of Rudraprayag etc. The stories of Jim Corbett are stories of hunting, with no palpable design, no subtext of hegemony, or white man’s burden. The protagonists are the cats. Nevertheless from his writings emerge a vibrant picture of Indian villages, of men, women and children toiling for a livelihood under the constant shadow of the man eaters. Corbett shared a symbiotic relationship with the villagers. They needed him to kill the predators while Corbett needed the support of the locals as drum beaters, coolies and runners to accomplish his tasks. The aim of the present paper is to study the image of Indians in the writings of Jim Corbett and to examine them in the light of colonial perception of Indians.

Keywords: hegemony, orientalism, Shikar literature, White Man's Burden

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Authors: Rendani Mercy Makhwathana

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This paper intends to explore teachers' encounters when teaching English First Additional Language in rural public schools. Teachers are pillars of any education system around the globe. Educational transformations hinge on them as critical role players in the education system. Thus, teachers' encounters are worth consideration, for they impact learners' learning and the well-being of education in general. An exploratory qualitative approach was used in this paper. The population for this paper comprised all Foundation Phase teachers in the district. A purposive sample of 15 Foundation Phase teachers from five rural-based schools was used. Data were collected through classroom observation and individual face-to-face interviews. Data were categorized, analyzed, and interpreted. Amongst the revealed teachers' encounters are learners' inability to read and write and learners' lack of English language background and learners' lack of the vocabulary to express themselves. This paper recommends the provision of relevant resources and support to effectively teach English First Additional Language to enable learners' engagement and effective use of the English language.

Keywords: first additional language, english second language, medium of instruction, teacher professional development

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Authors: Ashmita Bhattacharya

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This study aims to investigate whether the English immersion experience offered by Kolkata’s high-cost private English-medium schools lead to additive or subtractive language learning outcomes for students. In India, English has increasingly become associated with power, social status, and socio-economic mobility. As a result, a proliferation of English-medium schools has emerged across Kolkata and the wider Indian context. While in some contexts, English language learning can be an additive experience, in others, it can be subtractive where proficiency in English is developed at the expense of students’ native language proficiency development. Subtractive educational experiences can potentially have severe implications, including heritage language loss, detachment from cultural roots, and a diminished sense of national identity. Thus, with the use of semi-structured interviews, the language practices and lived experiences of 12 former students who attended high-cost private English-medium schools in Kolkata were thoroughly explored. The data collected was thematically coded and analysis was conducted using the Thematic Analysis approach. The findings indicate that the English immersion experience at Kolkata’s high-cost private English-medium schools provide a subtractive language learning experience to students. Additionally, this study suggests that robust home-based support for native languages might be crucial for mitigating the effects of subtractive English education. Furthermore, the study underscores the importance of integrating opportunities within schools that promote Indian languages and cultures as it can create a more positive, inclusive, and culturally responsive environment. Finally, although subject to further evaluation, the study recommends the implementation of bilingual and multilingual educational systems and provides suggestions for future research in this area.

Keywords: bilingual education, English immersion, language loss, multilingual education, subtractive language learning

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Authors: Irina A. Martynenko, Viktoriia V. Pikalova

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At the moment, there are more than a thousand law schools in Russia. The program of preparation in each of them without exception includes English language course. It is believed that lawyers in Russia are best trained at the MGIMO University, the All-Russian State University of Justice, Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Lomonosov Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, Diplomatic Academy of Russian Foreign Ministry and some others. Currently, the overwhelming majority of universities operate using the two-level system of education: bachelor's plus master's degree. Foreign languages are taught at both levels. The main example of consideration used throughout this paper is Kutafin Moscow State Law University being one of the best law schools in the country. The article examines traditions of teaching legal English in Russia and highlights problem arising in this process. The authors suggest ways of solving them in the scope of modern views and practice of teaching English for specific purposes.

Keywords: Kutafin Moscow State Law University, legal English, Russia, teaching

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Authors: Chaiwat Tantarangsee

Abstract:

The purposes of this study are: 1) to study the frequent English writing errors of students registering the course: Reading and Writing English for Academic Purposes II, and 2) to find out the results of writing error correction by using coded indirect corrective feedback and writing error treatments. Samples include 28 2nd year English Major students, Faculty of Education, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. Tool for experimental study includes the lesson plan of the course; Reading and Writing English for Academic Purposes II, and tool for data collection includes 4 writing tests of short texts. The research findings disclose that frequent English writing errors found in this course comprise 7 types of grammatical errors, namely Fragment sentence, Subject-verb agreement, Wrong form of verb tense, Singular or plural noun endings, Run-ons sentence, Wrong form of verb pattern and Lack of parallel structure. Moreover, it is found that the results of writing error correction by using coded indirect corrective feedback and error treatment reveal the overall reduction of the frequent English writing errors and the increase of students’ achievement in the writing of short texts with the significance at .05.

Keywords: coded indirect corrective feedback, error correction, error treatment, frequent English writing errors

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Authors: Manthekeleng Linake, Fesi Liziwe

Abstract:

The ongoing argument over the use of English as a learning and teaching language in schools was examined in this study. The nature of the language proficiency gap is particularly relevant in light of the present emphasis on learning and educational quality in contemporary debates, as well as the education sustainable development goal. As a result, an interpretivist paradigm, a qualitative technique, and a case study-based research design were used in the work. Two school principals, two teachers, two members of the School Governing Body (SGB), and four learners were chosen using purposive sampling from two schools in the Amathole West Education District. The researchers were able to acquire in-depth information on the disputes surrounding the use of English as a language of learning and teaching by using semi-structured interview questions and focus groups. Despite knowing that they do not have the potential to do well in English, teachers found that despite appreciating the value of mother tongue and cultural identity, they prefer to use English as the language of teaching in schools. The findings, on the other hand, revealed that proponents of mother-language-based education argue that learning one's mother tongue is a human right.

Keywords: English first additional language learners, social justice, human capabilities, language proficiency

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: Fang Tan

Abstract:

This research focuses on the appropriate use of lexical bundles in spoken discourse, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in Northeast China. While previous studies have mainly examined lexical bundles in written discourse, there is a need to investigate their usage in spoken discourse due to the limited availability of spoken discourse corpora. English teachers’ use of lexical bundles is crucial for effective teaching and communication in the EFL classroom. The aim of this study is to investigate the functions of four-word lexical bundles in native English teachers’ EFL oral English classes in Northeast China. Specifically, the research focuses on the usage of stance bundles, which were found to be the most significant type of bundle in the analyzed corpus. By comparing the self-built university spoken English classroom discourse corpus with the other self-built university English for General Purposes (EGP) corpus, the study aims to highlight the difference in bundle usage between native and non-native teachers in EFL classrooms. The research employs a corpus-based study. The observed corpus consists of more than 300,000 tokens, in which the data has been collected in the past five years. The reference corpus is composed of over 800,000 tokens, in which the data has been collected over 12 years. All the primary data collection involved transcribing and annotating spoken English classes taught by native English teachers. The analysis procedures included identifying and categorizing four-word lexical bundles, with specific emphasis on stance bundles. Frequency counts, and comparisons with the Chinese English teachers’ corpus were conducted to identify patterns and differences in bundle usage. The research addresses the following questions: 1) What are the functions of four-word lexical bundles in native English teachers’ EFL oral English classes? 2) How do stance bundles differ in usage between native and non-native English teachers’ classes? 3) What implications can be drawn for English teachers’ professional development based on the findings? In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the usage of four-word lexical bundles, particularly stance bundles, in native English teachers’ EFL oral English classes in Northeast China. The research highlights the difference in bundle usage between native and non-native English teachers’ classes and provides implications for English teachers’ professional development. The findings contribute to the understanding of lexical bundle usage in EFL classroom discourse and have theoretical importance for language teaching methodologies. The self-built university English classroom discourse corpus used in this research is a valuable resource for future studies in this field.

Keywords: EFL classroom discourse, four-word lexical bundles, stance, implication

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Authors: Jawharah Alasmari

Abstract:

In verb inflection, tense marks past/present/future action, and aspect marks progressive/continues perfect/completed actions. This usage and meaning of tense and aspect differ in Arabic and English. In this research, we applied data mining methods to test the predictive function of candidate features by using our dataset of Arabic verbs in-context, and their 7 translations. Weka machine learning classifiers is used in this experiment in order to examine the key features that can be used to provide guidance to enable a translator’s appropriate English translation of the Arabic verb tense and aspect.

Keywords: Arabic verb, English translations, mining methods, Weka software

Procedia PDF Downloads 272