Developing Effective TEFL Course with WebCT

One of the commonly used learning management systems that can facilitate the teaching-learning process is the WebCT (Web Course Tool). The WebCT has several tools (such as email, discussion board and links). This paper discusses how different WebCT tools can be used to develop an effective TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course for fourth-level students specialized in English. A questionnaire was used to explore the participants’ interest in using WebCT; to identify the main technical difficulties facing participants using WebCT and to investigate how WebCT can influence affective and pedagogical factors that play a key role in learning efficiently and effectively

A Model Course for Using Technology in Developing In-Service English Language teachers’ Proficiency and Competence.

This paper discusses how a variety of educational technologies can be used to develop pre-service English language teachers’ linguistic proficiency and teaching competence. The discussion is based on a 16-week academic course entitled “Technology for Teaching English”. The course included 81 Palestinian participants who are 3rd-year university students specialised in teaching English as a foreign language at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). These students were divided into 3 groups where training was delivered in a computer lab and in a discussion room. The course aimed at empowering the participants to develop a wide variety of computer and internet skills and to use these skills in enhancing their language learning and teaching skills. The results of such course included empowering the participants to develop their language proficiency and their teaching competence and the skills necessary for continuing professional self-development at language learning and teaching levels. Acquiring these skills developed positive attitude towards the importance of using technologies in advancing pre-service English language teachers’ proficiency and competence

Research Methods for Applied Linguists and Translators

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Investigating EAST: A Scotland-Gaza English for Academic Study Telecollaboration between SET Students

How can technology be best-harnessed to innovate pedagogical approaches to curriculum design and delivery in order to enhance university students’ learning experience? This article looks at this question from the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) perspective and reports on a number of technology-enabled interventions to the design and teaching methods used on a Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) pre-sessional course. Every summer the University of Glasgow (UK) runs an intensive ESP course for incoming international postgraduate students wanting to study SET-related disciplines. In previous years, in order to progress onto their Master’s or PhD programmes, the students had to produce a written assignment and an oral presentation which investigates an engineering problem of their choosing and a range of solutions. In August 2015 an online collaboration with a partner university in Palestine was piloted, which allowed several significant developments. During the project, 20 Palestinian students and 37 UK-based students, divided into small groups, worked together on authentic and highly contextualised SET-related scenarios from the Gaza Strip, devised by the Palestinian students. Their role was to act as critical friends, and provide content-oriented comments throughout the project, which they had been trained in on an intensive online preparatory course in constructive feedback. Based on the guidance from their peer mentors, the students in the UK analysed and evaluated possible solutions. At the end of the project, they delivered presentations to the audience in Gaza via a videoconference link. The course was

English for Specific Academic Purposes Student Partnerships Across Borders

Students coming to the UK frequently join their chosen university via a pre-sessional English language course, but organisers of such courses often struggle to find staff on campus in the summer months to provide the necessary content input. This paper presents an attempt to overcome this shortfall, describing two parallel English for Specific Academic Purpose telecollaboration projects between universities in Scotland and Gaza, one involving Engineering, the other Biomedical students. We outline how the projects were organised, offer our findings, and provide a set of guidelines that may encourage similar cross-continent link-ups between universities

Investigating EAST: A Scotland-Gaza English for Academic Study Telecollaboration between SET Students

How can technology be best-harnessed to innovate pedagogical approaches to curriculum design and delivery in order to enhance university students’ learning experience? This article looks at this question from the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) perspective and reports on a number of technology-enabled interventions to the design and teaching methods used on a Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) pre-sessional course. Every summer the University of Glasgow (UK) runs an intensive ESP course for incoming international postgraduate students wanting to study SET-related disciplines. In previous years, in order to progress onto their Master’s or PhD programmes, the students had to produce a written assignment and an oral presentation which investigates an engineering problem of their choosing and a range of solutions. In August 2015 an online collaboration with a partner university in Palestine was piloted, which allowed several significant developments. During the project, 20 Palestinian students and 37 UK-based students, divided into small groups, worked together on authentic and highly contextualised SET-related scenarios from the Gaza Strip, devised by the Palestinian students. Their role was to act as critical friends, and provide content-oriented comments throughout the project, which they had been trained in on an intensive online preparatory course in constructive feedback. Based on the guidance from their peer mentors, the students in the UK analysed and evaluated possible solutions. At the end of the project, they delivered presentations to the audience in Gaza via a videoconference link. The course was

Constructive content-based feedback in EAP contexts: lessons from a cross-border engineering-related pre-sessional course

This paper investigates a small-scale project concerned with establishing and sustaining an e-partnership between international students in the UK and engineering students in Palestine. It focuses on the value of peer teaching and learning as an attempt to ensure a greater balance between knowledge and language on a UK pre-sessional English language course, by involving more able peers from a Gazan student body. At the same time, it was hoped that such an arrangement would enable the Gazan students to develop a range of transferable skills, of use in accessing employment at a distance. The article initially outlines the wider context to the Project, discussing the issues related to instituting peer learning/teaching schemes in an HE setting. At its centre though is the presentation and evaluation of a constructive feedback course, whose design and delivery aimed at facilitating the development of skills needed to perform as a peer mentor. It demonstrates students’ attitudes towards feedback and the strategies they use when asked to provide their peers with content feedback in an e-partnership. In this way, it provides food for thought to educators interested in developing similar cross-border schemes. Though the potential issues that emerge in terms of First World/Global South imbalance are very considerable, the paper suggests that telecollaboration projects of this nature may help overseas students start interrogating discipline-specific literacies, thus preventing the decontextualisation of the learner, including those unable to pay to study at a prestigious HE institution

English for Specific Academic Purposes Student Partnerships Across Borders

Students coming to the UK frequently join their chosen university via a pre-sessional English language course, but organisers of such courses often struggle to find staff on campus in the summer months to provide the necessary content input. This paper presents an attempt to overcome this shortfall, describing two parallel English for Specific Academic Purpose telecollaboration projects between universities in Scotland and Gaza, one involving Engineering, the other Biomedical students. We outline how the projects were organised, offer our findings, and provide a set of guidelines that may encourage similar cross-continent link-ups between universities

Construction of Teaching and Learning Cultures in Transnational Pedagogical Development: Discourses Among Palestinian University Instructors

This qualitative study explores teaching and learning cultures in the context of a community-oriented pedagogical development process initiated during Finnish–Palestinian transnational cooperation. Research data include focus group interviews and texts produced during a pedagogical training program with Palestinian university instructors. The study examines teaching and learning cultures as constructed by discourses in and around the Palestinian university. A poststructuralist discourse analysis identified five discourses of teaching and learning: disciplinary differences, traditional and modern education, improving education, sociocultural and religious context, and political and economic circumstances. The study shows that teaching and learning cultures are dynamic and fragmented as they are constructed by the contrasting discourses. The findings suggest that pedagogical development initiatives need to provide spaces for discursive transformation, especially in the transnational context that introduces additional alternative discourses into the institutional cultural meaning-making