Language learning and language acquisition in online forums

Innovations in computer technology have made possible new platforms for supporting and building shared knowledge in meaningful and creative ways to enhance language learning and acquisition. Platforms like web forums, webinars, and bulletin boards in most Learner Management Systems (LMS) provide the additional platform for learning but are seldom utilized effectively to promote student interaction in language learning and acquisition. This paper reports on English Language Studies (ELS) students’ voices of how they participated and benefitted in online forums (OLFs) during their language courses. Findings from the focus group interviews with undergraduate students showed that they are more than ready to adopt OLFs as a learning platform in addition to classroom interactions. However, better effort on the part of the instructors is needed for OLFs to be beneficial. The issues that emerged in the utilization of these forums will propose future directions in the implementation of OLFs to enhance learning and acquisition among ESL students

Some Considerations In Investigating Synchronous Online Delivery Of English Courses: Interfacing Qualitative And Quantitative Paradigms

Abstract E-learning is not just another add-on to the existing system of learning. It is a technology that is transforming our educational institutions and how we conceptualise and experience teaching and learning. Teaching online is becoming more flexible and innovative in its preparation and delivery, as content and activities can be placed on websites for students both as supplement to lectures or as replacement for them. This paper discusses how a doctoral dissertation was designed to gather information on three areas related to the synchronous online delivery of English courses namely teaching and learning, technology, and management in a virtual institution of higher learning. It explains the design of the study and its rationale within the qualitative and quantitative paradigms. The discussion in this paper also attempts to highlight plausible issues that researchers may encounter when conducting research in a technology enhanced context and suggests practical way to consider. Keywords: synchronous online delivery, English language, quantitative and qualitative research method

Enhancing EFL Writing Instruction through Technology in Iran

The application of technology in English language classrooms has recently become a common practice around the world. However, Iranian EFL teachers are not very experienced in dealing with technology. By the same token, understanding teachers’ attitude and their real experience of technology in EFL context is important .The aims of the study are to find out EFL teachers’ belief of using technology in teaching of writing after integration and ways to improve teaching practice with help of blogging through the theory of community of practice. A total of 7 EFL teachers from two different universities participated in this study. They have experienced an online environment as a means to share their knowledge of teaching of writing to improve students’ writing skill. The results from the interviews indicated that the online environment helped students to grow positive attitudes toward writing skills and it improved their writing. They also considered online technology as an effective teaching tool that can change the way they deliver their teaching of writing. Keywords: technology, teacher perception, community of practice, writing, blogging

Gender-specific English language use of Malaysian blog authors

Gender-based research on the language use in blogs has its roots in the long-standing notion that men and women speak and write differently. This paper reports an empirical study on the use of English in a blog context involving Malaysian blog authors. Specifically, the study aimed to identify gender-specific English use among Malaysian blog authors and determine the differences in the language use. Using an ensemble text analysis approach, Malaysian female blog authors are more inclined towards using more verbs, adverbs and pronouns than their male counterpart, with a significant difference, while the males are inclined towards using more adjectives, nouns, determiners and prepositions/subordinating conjunctions than the females, with a significant difference. There are also differences between females and males in terms of the function words, neologisms/blog words as well as use of tag questions and adverbs initiating sentences. However, there are minimal differences between the females and males in terms of length of sentences and that the use of intensifiers, hedges, empty adjectives and emotions, thus concluding that they are not necessarily gender-specific differences. The findings can serve as useful language markers that can benefit the applied linguistics and particularly gender-based and forensic linguistic research

Engaging postgraduate students in preparing research proposals

Both foreign and local postgraduate candidates of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. These students face several problems especially in writing the research proposals. Hence, to facilitate the process of writing a proposal, they are required to enrol in Research Methodology, a course that is made compulsory for all postgraduate students. This article presents a report on an action research that investigates the research skills of English as a Second Language postgraduates and their research journey while undergoing the Research Methodology course. Data was collected from their weekly journal entries and the interviews conducted on them. This data is also supported with the feedback by the Research Methodology course instructors during the proposal defense sessions. The findings suggest that although the students seemed enthusiastic when writing their proposals, they were not ready when faced with questions about research problems and approaches. It is found that these students did not read extensively to identify the gaps in their research and this hence, resulted in them facing difficulties to write a clear statement of the problem. This also led to poor formulation of their research questions. The findings will be beneficial for instructors and potential supervisors who aim to be better at teaching and supervising potential postgraduate students

Accented Spatial Representations in the Internal Exilic Eelam-Tamil Film Viduthalai Moochu

Studies have shown that accented filmmaking features and strategies are indeed appearing in wide-ranging films of contemporary cinemas. The main focus of this paper is to analyze Viduthalai Moochu, an internal exilic Eelam-Tamil film from Sri Lanka, using a concept derived from Hamid Naficy’s theorization of An Accented Cinema known as the “preoccupation with the place.” The concept is cinematically expressed through the open, closed, and third spacetime cinematic formations. It needs to be noted here that Naficy’s theory offers a range of accented cinematic features that express accent in the film. However, the paper will only focus on the film’s spatial representations that are configured according to the space-time formations. Space-time formations are cinematic features that are employed to produce and reproduce the “accent” through cinematic representations of spaces and places rendered in the film. The configurations of the space-time formations will be used as the basis to examine Viduthalai Moochu, a film that does not seem to demonstrate the familiar conventions of filmmaking. The film mainly grapples with themes that enunciate the Eelam-Tamil displacement and deterritorialization in the internal exilic situation. The analysis shows how a particular version of alternative filmmaking strategy exclusively uses spatial representations to render themes of displacement and deterritorialization. The findings prove that the makers of Viduthalai Moochu have indeed employed the space-time formations to highlight the displacement and the deterritorialization of the Eelam-Tamil community through cinematic spatial representations

Teacher Professional Development through Blogging: Some Preliminary Findings

AbstractThe emerging trend of the use of innovative technologies to support teachers’ teaching and learning is indicative of the increasing dominance of technology in educational environments. One aspect of the use of technology is the developing online technologies where teachers are in an online interactive platform to share knowledge on their teaching practice. Blog is one of the online interactive platforms, commonly used by teachers to interact with their peers which not only makes them cognizant of the usefulness of technology but also helps them to learn how to integrate the technology to support teaching. Utilizing the theory of community of practice and through observing blog activities of teachers, this paper attempts to present some preliminary findings to show that teachers’ sharing of their practices within the communities facilitates collaboration and sharing of knowledge that benefits both the teachers and their students. It is based on a study involving 7 Iranian EFL teachers who shared their experiences and knowledge within the community through blogging for one semester. The initial findings suggest that blogging has a positive effect on teacher learning within a community of practice

Augmenting communicative and collaborative skills in an ESP online group project

Rapid technological advancements have resulted in a more user-friendly conducive virtual learning environment. Despite a vast corpus of research on online learning utilising an asynchronous online forum (OF) to improve English, studies on OF to improve English and develop 21st-century skills of communication and collaboration at the university level in Malaysia are still limited. This paper reports the use of OF via a learning management system (LMS) as a platform for teaching and learning in an English for Specific Purpose (ESP) course. This study comprised 26 participants from a public university to look at how OF was implemented in an ESP course to enhance communication and collaboration. Data from interviews and reflective journals were obtained from the participants during their involvement in OF. The findings of this study demonstrate that using OF helps students enhance their 21st century skills like communication and collaboration. It is evident that OF can become a recommended platform for enhancing students to improve 21st century skills based on the promising responses received from the participants in this study. The findings also suggest that OF is relevant for engagement of the language learners and may be worthy to be implemented in English courses or other courses tertiary level

Interpersonal communication motives used by Malaysian teenagers on flirting via the social media

The medium of communication is rapidly shifting from face-to-face to the faceless communication. Today, people choose to send messages using technology to communicate with their family members, friends, colleagues, or even with strangers. This study focused on text communication via Twitter and the Facebook and it attempts to examine the types of motives in Interpersonal Communication Motives (ICM) used by Malaysian teenagers with particular focus on flirting. This study employed a qualitative approach where the data was collected from tweets and Facebook posts by Malaysian teenagers for a period of five months. This study employed the framework by Rubin, Perse and Barbato (1988) to study the six motives namely pleasure, affection, inclusion, escape, relaxation, and control using content analysis. The study suggests that both genders have specific interpersonal communication motives and their chosen lexical to fulfill their motives for flirting. In analyzing the motives, the choice of words used by these teenagers also plays a role. The data exhibits that both genders were likely use inclusion and pleasure motives for flirting through faceless communication. By using faceless communication through the selected social media, both genders managed to develop their close interpersonal relationships easily by expressing their feelings and less damaging, as they can escape rejection, injury or humiliation if their motives for flirting were not accepted

Space-time Formations In The South Indian Tamil Popular Film Kannathil Muthamittal

In tandem with the current development of flm scholarships in the area of the world and national cinemas, the paper seeks to examine four scenes from the South Indian Tamil popular flm “Kannathil Muthamittal” (English: A Peck on the Cheek) using a concept derived from Hamid Nafcy’s theorisation of an accented cinema known as the flmmakers’ “preoccupation with the place.” The conception is cinematically expressed through spatial representations of the open, closed and the third spacetime formations. In the accented cinema, space-time formations are cinematic spatial aspects that are employed to produce or reproduce the fundamental “accent” of displacement and deterritorialisation. According to Nafcy, the accent predominantly originates from the flmmakers’ experiences and their artisanal productions and not so much from their accented lingo