Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemConcept of spoken English( 2007)The study presented here examines the concept of spoken English held by tertiary teachers of English as a Foreign Language in China. The objective was to discover this knowledge so as to inform the design of professional development programs aiming to raise the standards of spoken English teaching in order to meet new government policy objectives. A college in South China was chosen as the research site and 17 EFL teachers participated in the study. Data were collected through the teachers' written responses to samples of spoken English, answers to a questionnaire, and focus group discussions. The findings of the study provide a 'map', showing both the range and the focus of how the teachers conceive of the features of spoken English across its different domains, and the gaps between these concepts of spoken English and those in contemporary theories. Although a wide range of features covering all domains of spoken English are included by the teachers as a group, most of them focus more on the features of formal accuracy and fluency than on those in the domain of sociolinguistic and strategic language use. The findings also suggest a number of reasons for this imbalance. These include practical constraints, such as the national examination guides and big class size, and the teachers' lack of confidence and knowledge in certain domains of spoken language use. Considered in light of current theories of language teaching, these findings show the knowledge, beliefs and assumptions of a representative group of teachers which can be used to guide the design of on-going professional development programs for such teachers in the area of spoken English pedagogy.
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ItemA case study of Japanese students: e-mail exchange in English: feedback focusing on communicability( 2007)English education in Japan has been struggling to improve the communicative proficiency of students. Previous studies reveal that low motivation, a lack of confidence in using English and few opportunities to use English for communication are the factors that inhibit the communicative proficiency of Japanese students. Although writing has been gaining significance in communication in English in the era of the Internet, writing has been an area disregarded among the communication skills in classrooms in Japan. This study explores ways to improve Japanese students' motivation and confidence through writing by setting e-mail exchanges for Japanese students with Australian native English speakers. A discrepancy exists between the goal of writing and the feedback provided to students' written work in English classrooms in Japan. Great attention is still paid only to the grammatical accuracy while communication is emphasized as the goal of English learning. Excessive attention to grammatical accuracy is one of the factors inhibiting Japanese students in improving their confidence and motivation for learning English. In order to change that situation, this study compares specific feedback focusing on 'communicability', the intelligibility of writing for readers with the traditional error correction technique. The error correction type feedback has been shown to have a negative influence on students' motivation and confidence, and consequently their attitude towards English learning. On the other hand, the feedback focusing on communicability is found effective in improving students' motivation, confidence in English and attitude towards English learning. E-mail exchange has also been found to be effective in enhancing students' motivation. The study recommends incorporating e-mail writing and the feedback focusing on communicability into English classrooms in Japan. These can be positive means of improving students' communicative proficiency and willingness to communicate in English.
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ItemStudents' experiences of the transition from bilingual to mainstream instruction( 2007)The benefits and effectiveness of bilingual programs (immersion programs) have been widely recognized world-wide. Accordingly, the number of bilingual programs has been increasing, particularly in recent years. Although a number of researchers have reported positive outcomes from bilingual programs based on measurable evidence, evaluation of bilingual programs from the students' point of view has been very limited. This study aimed to provide a greater understanding of how the Japanese-English bilingual school graduates from different cultural and language backgrounds perceive their bilingual school experience and their present mainstream secondary school program. By comparing and contrasting these two programs, the students described what they appreciated and the advantages and disadvantages of the bilingual program for them. Moreover, they also expressed their experience of transition to a mainstream secondary school. This study has identified that the different cultural and language backgrounds of the students are not a big issue for the students and they described a number of advantages of bilingual schools. However, they also identified that sometimes the varied levels of Japanese competency among the students in the bilingual programs caused a lower motivation for some students. Although none of the students had any difficulty adapting to the mainstream secondary school, they are frustrated by their present LOTE classes as the content is not at an appropriate level for them and they are often treated as a "special" person in class due to their high level of Japanese skill.