An Issue of Pedagogical Concern: Why does it Take So Long to Albanian Students to Develop English Communicative Fluency?

AbstractDespite the early launch of English language teaching, officially at the third grade of elementary public schooling in Albania upward till university studies, communicative fluency of spoken English remains a noticeable struggle to Albanian students conducting academic programs in English. This paper will examine the causal factors that negatively add to this situation arguing that it is related to the irrelevant pedagogic philosophy of English teachers. This teaching approach is mainly driven by teacher ⿿centred grammar translation method. Moreover, we argue that the most successful approach to be urgently pursued is the interactive communicative one. Once having ascertained and made the case of Albanian students finding hard to express themselves fluently and coherently in English, we emphasize and propose ways of utilizing interactive communicative approach in English language academic courses demonstrating that this is the sole approach to prioritize and fulfil effectively the students⿿ linguistic needs and English communicative potentials

Analysing perceptions of English in rural Bangladesh

Drawing on research analysing perceptions of English in rural Bangladesh, the paper explores the ideological and practical issues involved in the promotion of English in this context, with respect to the language's former and current associations with colonial and imperialist agendas, and the politico-cultural situation of present-day Bangladeshi society. The analysis – which is underpinned by a blending of world Englishes and postcolonial theory – reveals how dominant discourses of English as a language of global opportunity persist in these rural communities, despite the limited opportunities for using the language or developing proficiency in it. By representing these ‘subaltern’ views on English in what is an under-researched context, the paper offers critical insights into the impact of English-language education on rural Bangladeshis’ social prospects, communities and cultural identities

The death of the non-native speaker? English as a lingua franca in business communication: A research agenda

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015. The impact of globalisation in the last 20 years has led to an overwhelming increase in the use of English as the medium through which many business people get their work done. As a result, the linguistic landscape within which we now operate as researchers and teachers has changed both rapidly and beyond all recognition. In the discussion below, I will outline a research agenda for English as a lingua franca (ELF) in business communication of relevance for scholars and practitioners with an interest in teaching language. I will discuss three main areas of enquiry, which are: (1) the further development of the existing theory concerning the use of English in business and how this impacts language teaching, including the role played by native speakers of English, (2) the influence of culture and context on the production and interpretation of English in business contexts, and (3) the extension of our existing understanding of the use of English in business contexts in order to take increasingly advanced levels of proficiency into account, as well as developing an understanding of what constitutes professional communicative competence in business. For each of these key areas I will suggest a number of tasks which could help to give substance to our research in the future

A Bibliometric Analysis of the Health Field Regarding Social Networks and Young People

Social networks have historically been used to share information and support regarding health-related topics, and this usage has increased with the rise of online social media. Young people are high users of social media, both as passive listeners and as active contributors. This study aimed to map the trends in publications focused on social networks, health, and young people over the last 40 years. Scopus and the program VOSviewer were used to map the frequency of the publications, keywords, and clusters of researchers active in the field internationally. A structured keyword search using the Scopus database yielded 11,966 publications. The results reveal a long history of research on social networks, health, and young people. Research articles were the most common type of publication (68%), most of which described quantitative studies (82%). The main discipline represented in this literature was medicine, with 6062 documents. North American researchers dominate the field, both as authors and partners in international research collaborations. The present article adds to the literature by elucidating the growing importance of social networks in health research as a topic of study. This may help to inform future investments in public health research and surveillance using these novel data sources

Post-modern ‘languagers’: the effects of texting by university students on three South African languages

The present post-modern society has witnessed a growth spurt in technology, and with the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), mobile text messaging (texting) is now seen as the norm among the youth. For these late-modern languagers (Lytra and Jørgensen 2008: 5), it has become a common if not almost natural process to send and receive an SMS (Short Message Service) in different languages. Although some studies have examined the transformation and modification of the English language by mobile communication, hardly any, apart from Deumert and Masinyana (2008), have looked at how local South African languages are being reshaped and modified through this medium. Drawing on texting data from university undergraduate students, this paper examines the ways in which three South African languages – Afrikaans, isiXhosa and Setswana – are used, transformed and modified through this medium of communication. It is argued here that the intense creativity displayed by these young cell phone users as they play with the multilingual resources at their disposal may lead to some form of language revitalisation for these languages

A Design Framework for the ELTeach Program Assessments

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109937/1/ets212036.pd

Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: access, identity, autonomy

In this paper, I propose that we need to develop an appropriate set of conceptual tools for examining motivational issues pertaining to linguistic diversity, mobility and social integration in a rapidly changing and expanding Europe. I begin by drawing on research that has begun to reframe the concept of integrative motivation in the context of theories of self and identity. Expanding the notion of identity, I discuss the contribution of the Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio in promoting a view of motivation as the development of a plurilingual European identity and the enabling of access and mobility across a multilingual Europe. Next, I critically examine the assumption that the individual pursuit of a plurilingual identity is unproblematic, by highlighting the social context in which motivation and identity are constructed and embedded. To illuminate the role of this social context, I explore three inter-related theoretical frameworks: poststructuralist perspectives on language motivation as 'investment'; sociocultural theory; and theories of autonomy in language education. I conclude with the key message that, as with autonomy, language motivation today has an inescapably political dimension of which we need to take greater account in our research and pedagogical practice

Authenticity, Culture and Language Learning

In philosophy, authenticity has been used with two meanings: one entails the notion of correspondence; the other entails the notion of genesis (Cooper, 1983: 15). As in certain branches of philosophy, language teaching has perhaps clung too long to the first of these notions of authenticity at the expense of the other. This paper reviews four key conceptualisations of authenticity which have emerged in the field of applied linguistics: text authenticity, authenticity of language competence, learner authenticity and classroom authenticity. If any of these types of authenticity is couched exclusively in terms of one usage or the other, it can lead to an impoverishment and objectification of the experience of language learning. Text authenticity can lead to a poverty of language; authenticity of competence can lead to a poverty of performance; learner authenticity can lead to a poverty of interpretation; classroom authenticity can lead to a poverty of communication. This paper proposes that a pedagogy of intercultural communication be informed by a more hybrid view of authenticity as a process of subjectification, derived from the Heideggerian concept of self-concern