Are you an effective teacher of reading?

Reading occurs in our lives on a constant basis. Nevertheless, defining reading is not easy. Different people use the term reading for different purposes, which can cause much confusion. For the context of the language classroom this article will concern itself with the notion of reading as the extraction of meaning from a written text . In other words, the text is viewed as a vehicle of communication from the writer to the reader; Aebersold and Field (1997) acknowledge this by stating that it is the interaction between the text and reader that constitutes actual reading. However, simply stating that this is what constitutes reading is to risk forgetting that, in the reading class, the most important thing is that both the teacher and the student should understand the reading process

A corpus-based analysis of eponyms originating from public figures and fiction characters used to describe attitudes or actions

Treballs Finals del Grau d'Estudis Anglesos, Facultat de Filologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2019-2020, Tutora: Natàlia Judith Laso Martín[eng] Eponyms are words that enter a language lexicon by applying the name of a person or a place to a common noun and are a feasible proof of the growth of the English vocabulary. The goal of this paper is creating a corpus-based analysis of eight eponyms adjectives coming from historical figures and literary characters (Sadistic, Masochistic, Kafkaesque, Machiavellian, Thatcherite, Herculean, Platonic, Quixotic) taken from the British National Corpus (BNC) that describe human behaviours, and analysing aspects such as their origin, semantic aspect, lexicalization, collocations, position in the clause and the genre of the media they appear. 579 samples from the British National Corpus (BNC) have been analysed and interpreted thoroughly, assisted by graphics and statistics in order to facilitate their comprehension.[spa] Els epònims són paraules que entren al vocabulari d’una llengua quan s’agafa el nom d’una persona o d’un lloc per crear un nou substantiu i són una mostra irrefutable de com creix el vocabulari de la llengua anglesa. L’objectiu d’aquest treball és crear una anàlisi basada en un corpus lingüístic de vuit epònims que són adjectius derivats de figures històriques i personatges literaris (Sadistic –Sàdic–, Masochistic –Masoquista–, Kafkaesque –Kafkià–, Machiavellian –Maquiavèl·lic–, Thatcherite –Thatcherista–, Herculean –Herculi–, Platonic –Platònic–, Quixotic –Quixotesc–) agafats del British National Corpus (BNC) que descriuen comportaments humans, i analitzar característiques com el seu origen, aspecte semàntic, lexicalització, els substantius que els acompanyen, la ubicació a la frase i a quin tipus de mitjà apareixen. S’han agafat 579 mostres del British National Corpus (BNC) i s’han analitzat i interpretat amb profunditat, amb l’ajuda de gràfiques i estadístiques per facilitar la seva comprensió

Wykorzystanie przekładu w nauczaniu języka angielskiego studentów archeologii i teologii

This article shares some practical experience of teaching English to students of archaeology and theology at the University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Drawing on this experience, a case is made for actively employing translation as a language-teaching tool in an academic setting. A number of effective teaching strategies are suggested aimed at extending the students' knowledge of the specialised English vocabulary (terminology) of their chosen discipline; sensitizing them to the concept of collocation as a key factor in producing natural sounding speech and writing; students becoming aware of the crucial importance of context when working with (English) texts; gaining confidence in identifying and using complex grammatical structures as they work with authentic material; mastering their speaking skills with plenty of opportunity to debate and deliver talks on topics covered in the texts set for translation; and, finally, students developing essential translation skills, as translation, far from being a relic of the past, is one of the most important and relevant practical applications of foreign language competenc

A Discourse Stylistics Analysis on the Regularities in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code

The aim of this study was to identify the regularities of Dan Brown’s novel: The Da Vinci Code based on stylistic and narratological approach. To attain the regularities/irregularities that occurred in the novel and to frame the style of the novelist, a qualitative research design was employed. The data were gathered from the novel; The Da Vinci Code, by taking into account of stylistic categories. The results of the study revealed the occurrences and the forms of regularities in the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown which mirrored the style of the novelist. Dan Brown's powerful style is evident in the large number of noun phrases used in this novel. In every case, he uses noun phrases repeatedly and consistently. When describing a person's traits, he employs the noun phrase to point to occupations, specific names, locations, and items, and to designate personal pronoun

Reviewing Figurative Chunks

In the field of second language learning, L2 learners always encounter situations where they can’t understand the meanings of sentences, although every word in the sentences is familiar to them. There are two known problems L2 learners of English have which exacerbates this, language fluency and native-like word selection (Pawley & Syder, 1983). This article summarizes the connotation of figurative chunks that can be considered as prefabricated strings of coherent or incoherent non-literal language structures that are stored in memory as a whole and extracted directly. By reviewing the concepts and classification of chunks and figurative language, combined with the research on the application of corpus linguistics, we can see that studying figurative chunks is necessary because figurative chunks are very common and occupy a very important place in English language use. The review of the literature indicates that there has been research into metaphors, idioms, and figurative language, but there has not been a lot of research that examines such language from the perspective of lexical chunks, and also very few studies combined pragmatics. L2 learners have great difficulties with comprehension and the use of figurative chunks. Translanguaging practices in teaching can help students develop effective learning strategies, which can improve their figurative chunks comprehension competence and communication skills

Polysemous English phrasal verbs: EFL textbook distribution, students' receptive and productive knowledge and teachers' beliefs in the Greek Cypriot context

Formulaic sequences such as idioms, collocations and phrasal verbs constitute an essential part of English vocabulary and a crucial element of foreign language learners’ communicative competence. While substantial research has been carried out on idioms and collocations comparatively fewer studies have focused on phrasal verbs despite the great difficulty, they possess to foreign language learners and although phrasal verbs are considered necessary for native-like fluency. This thesis aims to fill in this gap by exploring, i) phrasal verb distribution in English foreign language textbooks, ii) English language learners’ knowledge of phrasal verbs and iii) English foreign language teachers’ beliefs about phrasal verb learning and teaching. This first study examined the occurrence and recurrence of phrasal verbs in six English foreign language textbooks in order to shed some light in what seems to be an under-researched area. Research has shown that phrasal verbs are polysemous and can have more than one meaning sense. Gardner and Davies (2007) estimated that each of the 100 most frequently used phrasal verbs in the British National Corpus has on average 5.6 meaning senses, while, Garnier and Schmitt (2015) concluded that each of the 150 most frequently used phrasal verbs in the Corpus of Contemporary American English has on average two meaning senses. Nonetheless, no research, so far, explored the way the various phrasal verb meaning senses are treated in contemporary English foreign language textbooks. To fill in this gap, the first study, explored the distribution of phrasal verbs and their frequently used meaning senses (based on native speakers’ corpus indications) in the textbooks. The results of this study highlight the need for textbook writers to i) adopt a more scientific based and systematic selection process, taking into consideration the polysemous nature of phrasal verbs and ii) provide more opportunities for repetition, an essential component of vocabulary acquisition. The second study explored 100 English foreign language learners’ productive and receptive knowledge of a sample of high frequency phrasal verbs and phrasal verb meaning senses. Participants were tested at form-recall and form-recognition level of mastery and the effect of frequency (based on textbooks and corpus indications) and a number of language engagement factors on knowledge were examined. Twenty participants also took part in an interview to validate the form-recall test items. Results showed that participants had a rather weak knowledge of phrasal verbs. Consistent with previous findings the robust effect of frequency and engagement in leisure activities, such as reading and watching English films, was further supported. The third study investigated English foreign language teachers’ beliefs about phrasal verb teaching and learning. Following a qualitative approach, twenty teachers took part in semi-structured interviews in order to gain insights into their beliefs about phrasal verbs. Analysis of the results indicated that all teachers considered phrasal verbs to be one of the most challenging feature of English vocabulary. Nonetheless, conflicting results about phrasal verb importance were found, as non-native speaker teachers seemed to consider phrasal verbs a less important element of English vocabulary, while all native-speaker teachers stressed the importance of learning phrasal verbs. This study concluded that teachers’ beliefs about phrasal verbs were differentially affected by the numbers of teaching experience, L1 background and students’ proficiency level. Overall, the results of these studies stress the lack of foreign language learners’ phrasal verb knowledge and highlight the need for better treatment of this word combination in foreign language teaching contexts. My research results may prove useful, to second language researchers, textbook writers, and material designers as well as to foreign language teachers. It is hoped that polysemous phrasal verbs will receive more attention in the field of Applied Linguistics and future efforts will try to improve the quality of textbooks and provide foreign language teachers with the necessary support for phrasal verb teaching

The role of corpus linguistics in a lexical approach to college level English-as-a-foreign-language pedagogy

This project offers methods for English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) undergraduate students to improve their English skills following a lexical approach to language incorporating the methodology of corpus linguistics research