Teaching Pronunciation to Young Learners in an ELF context : An Analysis of Pronunciation Activities in English Coursebooks for the Primary School

This paper deals with the teaching of English pronunciation in the primary classroom. It starts from two major premises. First, the Lingua Franca status of English (ELF), which has prompted a shift in pronunciation teaching from the attainment of a native accent to the achievement of mutual intelligibility. Second, the features of today’s primary classroom, which is de facto an ELF context, the school population being characterised by a growing number of multilingual pupils and of non-native teachers of English. Three English coursebooks for the primary school are analysed to investigate: 1) if and which pronunciation-focussed activities are suggested; 2) if and what support is provided to the primary teacher to make the most of the activities; 3) whether any of such activities/support show a trend towards an early inclusion of ELF-aware pronunciation pedagogy

Building rapport in BELF communication : solidarity strategies in business emails

In the globalized market, business professionals use emails to communicate with customers, suppliers, and even colleagues who may be based in any part of the world, employing English as a business lingua franca (BELF). Despite the goal-oriented nature of business communication, rapport is “an essential element in the building and maintenance of strong work relations” (Pullin 2010, 456), and the achievement of business goals may be “dependent to some extent on the establishment of relations” (Pullin 2010, 458). However, nurturing interpersonal relationships may be difficult in intercultural business interactions (Spencer-Oatey and Xing 2003), especially in the case of business emailing, whose main aim is the rapid fulfillment of the task at hand. Based on a corpus of business email exchanges amongst BELF users of different L1s, this paper proposes a classification of ‘solidarity strategies’ (Köster 2006) aimed at building and nurturing rapport in email communication despite the pressure of getting the job done. It is argued that being less concerned with issues of accuracy in the target language, BELF email writers seem to pay more attention to the pragmatic needs of business communication, including that of building trust and common ground

The Training of Business Professionals in ELT Materials: A Focus on Email Writing

Nowadays, business organizations are faced with the challenge to operate in a global, informational, and highly networked context. The globalization of business and the fast growth in digital technology are having a massive impact both on business structures, with a proliferation of international mergers and acquisitions, and on corporate communication, with most business transactions being carried out via digital media. In this context, corporate communication needs are rapidly changing too: not only is a common working language required (Galloway and Rose 2015), but there is also the necessity for business professionals to acquire the communicative competence that will enable them to communicate efficiently, effectively and rapidly. As for the language, although “[i]t is undeniable that English […] has now come to represent the main common contact language and lingua franca in an interconnected globalized world” (Vettorel 2014: 1), it is also true that in the field of business there has been a shift from a focus on ‘Business English as a Lingua Franca’ to ‘English as Business Lingua Franca’ (Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen 2013): This means that English is the main, but not the only component of a ‘Business Lingua Franca’ that caters to the ‘super-diversity’ (Cogo 2012) of today’s business contexts. On the communicative competence side, professionals need to acquire the ability to quickly adjust to the immediacy of the communicative event and to adapt to the variable and unpredictable circumstances of business transactions worldwide. This calls to the fore the deployment of a vast array of pragmatic and interactional skills, which until recently have mainly been investigated in spoken interactions (e.g. Firth, 1996; Bjőrkman, 2011) However, in business contexts transactions are also and more often conducted via written interactions, where the lack of social context cues such as certain body messages may pose a barrier to effective communication (Murphy and Levy 2006). This diachronic study of a set of ten Business-English email writing textbooks published between 2004 and 2017 focuses on the tasks and guidelines provided for the development of email writing skills. By drawing on Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta’s (2011) notion of ‘Global Communicative Competence’, the analysis tries to establish whether ELT materials for the training of business professionals make provisions for the development of pragmatic and interactional skills, and can therefore effectively assist business professionals when attending to the everyday tasks connected with their jobs. Preliminary findings highlight the need for a less prescriptive approach which moves away from single lexico-grammatical elements and incorporates communicative strategies

OVERVIEWING RESEARCH ON BELF COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES From professional practice to ELT materials

The present paper focuses on the use of English in BELF contexts, bearing in mind both teaching and practice in the professional field. After an overview of the state of the art in ELF and BELF research over the last twenty years, the topic is tackled from three different perspectives, which mirror the studies carried out by the unit of the University of Verona in a three-year-long nationally funded research. Firstly, we will address BELF in professional settings, to shed light on what facilitates success in online interactions, with a special focus on e-mail exchanges. Secondly, still addressing e-mail exchanges, we will suggest a broadening of the notion of BELF communication strategies that goes beyond sheer successful, mutual understanding in the professional field. Finally, bearing the first two steps of our research in mind, we will turn to the teaching environment, overviewing if and to what extent international business ELT coursebooks deal with BELF communication strategies at different levels of competence, so as to provide hints and suggestions for more effective materials in this field

A Comparison between EFL Writing Errors in Computer-Based and Paper-Based Assignments

Advances in writing technologies have fostered the gradual move from PaperBased (PB) to Computer-Based (CB) writing assessment in foreign language (FL) education. The trend was further boosted by the outburst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to drastic changes in teaching and assessment practices. In higher education (HE) contexts, writing assessment in English as a foreign language (EFL) is more and more often managed by means of online learning platforms, where students create and submit written assignments on the computer. This paper examines a sample of 100 EFL exam essays completed by 100 Italian university students. Half of the essays were computer-typed on Moodle from home during the Covid-19 lockdown, whereas the other half were handwritten on paper during a face-to-face exam session after the Covid-19 emergency. The study presented herein compares the amount and types of formal errors in the CB and PB written assignments respectively. The results of the comparison may be useful to suggest hypotheses on the impact that both writing modality and environment can have on the quality of EFL writing in assessment contexts. Keywords: computer-based writing; EFL writing errors; higher education; paper-based writing; writing assessment; writing technologies

Recensione a Brian Tomlinson (ed.) (2013). Applied linguistics and materials development London, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing

Applied linguists and language educators are well aware of the big gap between applied linguistics research and language classroom practice. They are therefore likely to welcome Applied Linguistics and Materials Developments, a volume that is aimed at helping bridge the gap between theory and practice by proposing materials developers as a vehicle for a more concrete cooperation between researchers and practitioners

Brian Tomlinson (ed.), Applied Linguistics and Materials Developments ; recensione

Book revie

Recensione a Bednarek, M. & Caple, H. (2017). The discourse of news values. How news organizations create newsworthiness. New York: Oxford University Press.

The reviewed volume focuses on the role of newswriters in the construction of newsworthiness based on a redefinition of news values

Communication strategies in BELF e-mailing: ‘Only’ a matter of shared understanding?

Research in BELF (English as a Business Lingua Franca) has increasingly focused on pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of business communication (Kecskes 2019). In particular, a number of studies has explored the employment of Communication Strategies (CSs) in interactions in the workplace, both in oral communication (Franceschi 2019; Haegeman 2002; Poncini 2004) and in digital written exchanges (Incelli 2013; Ren 2018; Zummo 2018). CSs have mainly been analysed from a perspective of ‘problematicity’ (Bialystok 1990), in that they are usually presented as moves undertaken to repair (Watterson 2008), signal (Cogo, Pitzl 2016), or pre-empt (Mauranen 2006) problems of understanding, with the aim of achieving successful communication (Pitzl 2010). This paper suggests a broadening of the notion of communication strategy in the domain of BELF that includes the achievement of goals other than, or at least complementary to, shared understanding. It does so by analysing some examples from a collection of business e-mails which seem to suggest that there may be other reasons, besides mutual intelligibility, for business partners to employ certain communication strategies. The pedagogical implications of this broadening are also considered, with reference to the findings of current research concerning Business English (BE) teaching material (Vettorel, Franceschi 2020)

English in Italian higher education: Does writing (still) matter?

Prendendo le mosse dalla denuncia di una generale situazione di criticità concernente le competenze di scrittura degli studenti universitari, sia in Italia (Sobrero 1991; Battaggion and Salvi 2003; Simone 2009; Cacchione 2011; Novello 2012) che all’estero (Bok 2006; Lillis and Scott 2007; Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley 2009), e nel contesto degli importanti cambiamenti strutturali che hanno interessato il sistema universitario a livello europeo in attuazione delle indicazioni fornite dal Processo di Bologna, la presente tesi si interroga su quale sia il ruolo della scrittura nell’università ‘internazionalizzata’ del XXI secolo, sull’importanza attribuita alla scrittura in ambito accademico, e sulle responsabilità dell’istruzione universitaria per ciò che concerne lo sviluppo dello studente-scrittore. In particolare, viene preso in esame l’approccio didattico adottato dall’università italiana per contribuire allo sviluppo delle abilità di scrittura in una lingua seconda, specificamente la lingua inglese, nel primo ciclo di istruzione universitaria (corso di laurea), partendo dal presupposto che interventi e attività volti al consolidamento delle competenze di scrittura debbano interessare innanzi tutto questo stadio. L’argomento viene affrontato da molteplici prospettive. In primo luogo si intende fornire un esempio delle attività di insegnamento e supporto delle competenze di scrittura in lingua inglese offerte dall’università italiana partendo dalle informazioni fornite direttamente dagli studenti. A tale scopo sono stati analizzati i dati raccolti attraverso un questionario rivolto a studenti universitari del primo ciclo provenienti da tre diversi istituti italiani di istruzione terziaria, e frequentanti corsi di laurea in ambito linguistico, specificamente Lingue e Letterature Straniere, e Mediazione Linguistica e Culturale. Per questi corsi di laurea, una buona padronanza delle competenze di scrittura, sia nella lingua madre che in altre lingue, è di importanza fondamentale non solo ai fini prettamente accademici, ma anche in funzione dei profili formativi, attinenti in questi casi a professioni richiedenti un alto livello di competenza linguistico-comunicativa. La seconda prospettiva di analisi è di tipo pedagogico. Prendendo come riferimento da un lato il quadro teorico noto come Academic Literacies (Lea and Street 1998; Lillis and Scott 2007) e dall’altro l’approccio pedagogico noto come Writing Across the Curriculum (Bazerman, Little, Bethel, Chavkin, Fouquette and Garufis 2005), viene avanzata la proposta di una integrazione dell’insegnamento della scrittura in lingua straniera nel contesto dell’insegnamento delle singole discipline, anche non linguistiche, sfruttando le potenzialità dell’approccio CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning (Costa 2016). In particolare, si suggerisce un approccio all’insegnamento della scrittura in lingua inglese che esca dagli schemi generali e generalizzanti della classe di lingua, o da quelli dei tradizionali corsi di Academic Writing o English for Academic Purposes, e che tenga conto dell’inscindibilità di lingua e contenuto, guardando alla scrittura come processo e non semplicemente come prodotto. Infine, una terza prospettiva è di tipo speculativo. Si propone una riflessione sul significato della scrittura, sul valore intrinseco della scrittura come strumento fondamentale per lo sviluppo del pensiero critico, ed in particolare sulla necessità di sviluppare abilità di ‘scrittura multilingue’ (Gustafsson and Ganobcsik-Williams 2016) come risorsa indispensabile cui l’individuo del ventunesimo secolo deve poter attingere. In tal senso questa tesi intende incoraggiare una rivalutazione delle effettive opportunità di pratica e sviluppo della scrittura, sia nella lingua madre che in lingua seconda, che l’università italiana offre alla propria popolazione studentesca, nonché della loro adeguatezza alle esigenze delle nuove generazioni di studenti.Within the debate concerning the claimed decline in the writing skills of university students, both in Italy (Sobrero 1991; Battaggion and Salvi 2003; Simone 2009; Cacchione 2011; Novello 2012) and abroad (Bok 2006; Lillis and Scott 2007; Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley 2009), and against the background of the major structural changes that have interested European higher education systems following the implementation of the Bologna Process, this thesis interrogates the role of writing in ‘internationalised’ twenty-first century higher education, the importance attached to writing within the academic setting, and the responsibilities of higher education in developing student writers. In particular, this doctoral thesis focuses on the approach to the teaching of writing adopted by the Italian university to contribute to the development of student writing in a second language, specifically English, in the first cycle of higher education (Bachelor’s degree), based on the assumption that any initiatives or activities aimed at consolidating students’ writing skills should be undertaken at this very stage of the university experience. The issue of writing in higher education is dealt with from several perspectives. The first is of an informative-diagnostic nature. Based on the information gathered directly from students, the study presented in the thesis provides an example of the kind of activities and practices for the teaching and support of English writing offered by the Italian university. The study has analysed the data collected through a questionnaire targeted to undergraduate students coming from three different higher education institutions, and majoring in foreign languages. Specifically, the questionnaire was designed for undergraduates on BA programmes in Foreign Languages and Literatures, and Linguistic and Cultural Mediation. For these degrees, good writing skills, both in the mother tongue and in a second language, are fundamental not only for academic purposes, but also in relation to the type of employment that graduates in these areas are expected to fill, which rely heavily on good written communication skills. The second perspective is of a pedagogical nature. Drawing on the insights provided by the Academic Literacies theoretical framework (Lea and Street 1998; Lillis and Scott 2007) on the one hand, and on the pedagogical approach referred to as Writing Across the Curriculum (Bazerman, Little, Bethel, Chavkin, Fouquette and Garufis 2005) on the other hand, the suggestion is made that the teaching of writing in a second language should be integrated into the teaching of curricular disciplines, including non-language-related ones, exploiting all the potentials of the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach (Costa 2016). In particular, it is claimed that the teaching of writing in English should be dealt with outside the general and generalising format of language classes, or outside traditional text-based courses in Academic Writing or English for Academic Purposes. A different approach is suggested, one that takes into account the inseparability of language and content, and that looks at writing as a process, rather than a product. Finally, the third perspective is speculative in nature. It proposes a reflection on the significance of writing, on the intrinsic value of writing as a fundamental tool for the development of critical thinking, and on the necessity to develop “multilingual and multiliteracy writing” skills (Gustafsson and Ganobcsik-Williams 2016) as an indispensable resource on which the twenty-first century individual must be able to draw. In this sense, this thesis aims to encourage a reconsideration of the actual opportunities to practise and develop writing, both in the first and in a second language, that the Italian university offers to its student population, as well as a reassessment of the suitability of such opportunities for the needs of the new generations of students