Investigating Direct Speaking Strategies of Non-English-Majored Students at a University in Dong Nai Province

English communication skills are now considered a passport-like requirement for students seeking a secure profession with a higher wage. Additionally, English proficiency is considered one of the variables affecting the success of foreign businesses investing in Vietnam and Vietnamese businesses looking to collaborate internationally to develop their brands into new markets abroad. The integration of various linguistic skills demonstrates the value of speaking. The main objective of this study was to investigate the frequency and importance of using direct speaking strategies by non-English-majored students at Dong Nai Technology University. The study involved 90 second-year undergraduate students at Dong Nai Technology University in Bien Hoa city, Dong Nai province. At the time of the study, the participants were 18-19 and had already attained elementary level. This research uses questionnaires and interviews using the SPSS application to analyze the main points relating to the research questions. According to research, direct speaking strategies significantly affect the English speaking skills of Dong Nai Technology University students. At the same time, the difficulties and orientations when learning speaking skills using direct speaking strategies were revealed in the study's conclusion. To maximize direct speaking strategies and advance the field of study, recommendations have been made for non-English-majored students

Generic structures and linguistic features of TESOL master’s thesis acknowledgements written by Vietnamese postgraduates

Acknowledgements are a widely used genre in academic discourse to express gratitude towards various types of assistance and contribution of individuals and institutions, and they have been reported to be contextually and culturally interwoven. Despite a number of acknowledgement studies in various settings, little is known of how these texts are composed by EFL writers in Vietnam and whether or not the culture has any influence on the composition of acknowledgements as reported in previous studies of acknowledgements. Following Hyland’s (2004) and Hyland and Tse’s (2004) frameworks, this study investigates the generic structures and linguistic elements of acknowledgements in 202 TESOL master’s theses written by Vietnamese postgraduates. The findings were compared with those in the literature to explore cross-cultural variations in acknowledgement writing. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with actual thesis writers. The results revealed that these writers generally followed Hyland’s (2004) three-tier structure of writing thesis acknowledgements, but they were frank and less reserved in expressing their gratitude than their Chinese-speaking counterparts. Moreover, socio-cultural expectations, personal dispositions, and individual writing styles mainly affected their move constructions, inclusions of acknowledgees and linguistic choices

Selection of Research Paradigms in English Language Teaching: Personal Reflections and Future Directions

Learning and teaching English in the age of globalization, digitalization and diversifications has constantly challenged our current understanding about the learners. In order to maximize the effectiveness of education, we need to continuously innovate our curriculum, pedagogy, assessments and evaluation. Research has helped this continuous innovation by providing key insights about students and teachers’ demands and needs and then shaping the strategies, policies and innovations in education. This paper attempts to explain this phenomenon from my perspective. First, I will provide a brief review of research paradigms and dominant research paradigms in English Language Teaching (ELT), followed by my personal reflections on what research approaches I followed, why I selected them and what procedures I followed. The discussion on my selected approaches and what I learned from my research will also be shared together with my opinion on the possible directions for future research in ELT.   Keywords: research paradigms; mixed methods; methodologies; English Language Teaching; multilingual writers, pre-service teacher

A CASE STUDY OF COMBINED PEER-TEACHER FEEDBACK ON PARAGRAPH WRITING AT A UNIVERSITY IN THAILAND

Writing in English is challenging for ESL writers, so feedback is crucial in assisting them. Although several studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of peer and teacher-feedback in ESL writing, studies on the combined peer-teacher feedback model tend to be scarce. This study thus reported on the combined feedback model in two paragraph-writing classes of sixty students at a university in Thailand where English is taught as a foreign language, students are reported to be passive in class activities and most writing programs are still taught using the traditional method. Students’ peer comments (both valid and invalid ones), their revisions based on both their peers’ and teacher’s feedback (correct and incorrect revisions) and their grades on each paragraph were recorded, and a five-point Likert scale survey and a focus group interview were conducted. The findings indicated its success in terms of students’ positive attitudes towards this feedback model, the usefulness of peer comments, high percentages of feedback incorporations and the high overall writing scores. This paper is thus expected to shed some light on how Thai university students with their passive style of learning English positively react to this interactive activity and partly reflect how in-service teachers adjust feedback strategies in their actual teaching situations

INFLUENCE OF GROWING MEDIA AND VARIETIES ON GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF MOKARA IN TAM KY, QUANG NAM PROVINCE

Abstract: Mokara Orchid is a trigeneric hybrid between the Ascocentrum, Vanda and Arachnis Orchids and was created in Singapore in 1969. Mokara is now popularly grown in Vietnam; however, research on variety or growing medium for Mokara orchid in Quang Nam has not been reported yet. The objective of this study is to identify adapted Moraka varieties and suitable growing media for the cultivation of Mokara orchids under the local conditions. The experiment was conducted from June 2016 to December 2017 at Truong Xuan Ward, Tam Ky City, Quang Nam province using a subplot design, where the growing medium is the main plot and Mokara orchid varietyis the split-plot. The experiment includes three Mokara varieties belonging to genus Mokara with 3 colors: yellow, lime, and pink spotand four growing media with different ratios of peanut shell, charcoal, and coir. The results show that the growing media significantly affect the plant height and flower yield, but they do not affect the leaf number, leaf length, leaf width, root number, and flower quality of the Mokara varieties. The varieties affect the growth and development, flower quality, and yield of Mokara. Using the same media, the pink spot Mokara variety gains the best growth and development, and the yellow Mokara variety provides the highest yield. These Mokara varieties gain the best flower quality. The growing medium with 50% coir and 50% peanut shell can be used to plant yellow Mokara (or pink spot Mokara) under the local conditions.Keywords: Mokara orchid varieties, growing medium, coir, peanut shell, yellow Mokara, pink spot Mokar

The application of green YF3:Er3+,Yb3+ and red MgSr3Si2O8:Eu2+,Mn2+ layers to remote phosphor LED

White light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) with quantum dots (QDs) and phosphor have pulled in huge consideration because of their incredible shading rendering capacity. In the bundling procedure, a QDs film and a phosphor silicone layer will in general be isolated for lessening the reabsorption misfortunes and keeping the QDs surface molecules in a good condition. This examination explored the bundling succession of QDs and phosphor layers to the optical and warm exhibitions of WLEDs. The emitted optical power and PL spectra were estimated and dissected, while an infrared warm imager was utilized to reenact and approve tentatively the temperature fields. The results reveal that at 60 mA, WLEDs with green QDs-on-phosphor type accomplished lumen output (LO) of 1578 lm, with shading rendering record (CRI) of Ra = 60, while the red QDs-on-phosphor type WLEDs exhibited lower LO of 1000 lm, with Ra = 82. In addition, the QDs-onphosphor type WLEDs generated less warmth than the other, and as a result, the most noteworthy temperature in this packaged type was lower than the other. Additionally, its temperature contrast can arrive at 12.3°C. Along these lines, regarding bundling arrangement, the QDs-on-phosphor type is an ideal bundling design to better the optical productivity and shading rendering capacity, as well as lower gadget temperature

The application of green YPO4:Ce3+,Tb3+ and red LiLaO2:Eu3+ layers to remote phosphor LED

Remote phosphor structure is commonly limited in color quality, but has greater luminous flux when comparing to structures with in-cup or conformal coating. From this dilemma, various researches with advance modifications have been proposed to perfect the chromatic performance of remote structure. In this research, we reach higher color quality by obtaining better values in quality indcators such as color rendering index (CRI) and color quality scale (CQS) with the dual-layer phosphor in our remote white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). The idea is to ultize WLEDs with 7000 K correlated color temperature (CCT) and create dual-layer configuration with yellow phosphor YAG:Ce3+ under green phosphor YPO4:Ce3+,Tb3+ or red phosphor LiLaO2:Eu3+. After that, we search for suitable concentration of LiLaO2:Eu3+ for addition in order to acquire the finest color quality. The result shows that WLED with LiLaO2:Eu3+ has better CRI and CQS as the higher the concentration of LiLaO2:Eu3+, the larger CRI and CQS due to increased light scattered in WLEDs. Meanwhile, the green phosphor layer YPO4:Ce3+,Tb3+ give advantages to luminous flux. However, the reduction in luminous flux and color quality occurs when the concentration of LiLaO2:Eu3+ and YPO4:Ce3+,Tb3+ over increase. Results are verified by Mie theory and Beer’s Law and can be applied to practical manufacturing of high quality WLEDs

Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates

Citing other works poses difficulties for novice writers, especially the non-native English speaking students in their first experience of writing for academic purposes; the master’s (M.A.) thesis. However, few studies were conducted on these students’ citations in their M.A. theses. This paper, therefore, presents the study of in-text citations in 24 literature review (LR) chapters of TESOL M.A. theses written by Vietnamese students. Employing the Antconc software, Thompson and Tribble’s (2001) framework for citation types and functions, and discourse-based interviews with the actual thesis writers and their thesis supervisors, the study confirmed the claim that non-native novice writers cannot fully learn crucial citation practices from mere reading of the guidelines. Besides these writers’ preference for integral citations and a very limited number of citation functions used in their LR chapters, this study also identified the presence of several secondary citations, the students’ “invented” ways of citing previous researchers, grammatical mistakes and the absence of further discussions of the cited works. These findings tend to render the students’ LR chapters as ineffective, in terms of grammar and the rhetorical functions of LR chapters in synthesizing, arguing and indicating the relevancy of the reviewed literature for the niche of their research to be established. Furthermore, these findings indicate a need for an increased amount of formal instruction in academic writing courses which aims at equipping novice writers with the means to successfully acknowledge the sources and at raising their awareness about the various functions and rhetorical effects of the students’ citations in their academic writing