English grammar games in primary education

The purpose of this study was to analyse pupils’ English grammar acquisition from competitive and cooperative approaches. After searching a wide range of authors’ contribution to English language learning, grammar acquisition, classroom environment and language games. A hundred and twenty pupils from three schools; two from Ripoll and one from Campdevànol were enrolled in a specific grammar games intervention. This was imparted in three different phases: first of all, I interviewed the three teachers from the three schools, then I put into practice my competitive and cooperative games which I designed especially for this study (all the sessions were carried, assessed and registered by myself); finally, all pupils answered a questionnaire related to their experiences in my grammar games intervention. Analysis of teaching interventions showed that, in terms of English language acquisition, pupils used different strategies to show up understanding and achieve the objective of the game such as: recalling their background knowledge, expressing sentences influenced by their internal language and their mother tongue. Data collected revealed that most difficulties were founded in team work, even more in competitive games. The results also showed that team work is something which has to be developed step by step in order to achieve language learning and all pupils’ active participation successfully.

Materials and supplementary materials used to teach vocabulary in the English class

This study is based on the analysis of the use of supplementary materials to teach vocabulary by second language teachers in Primary Education. The study consists of two analyses: the first one is a quantitative analysis based on 33 questionnaires answered by different second language teachers of Primary Education. The other, is a qualitative analysis in which the teacher’s subjective opinion on vocabulary learning techniques is presented. The study covers these main aspects: material use, effectiveness, children’s motivation, main criteria to teach vocabulary and the children’s role in their vocabulary learning.

Speaking in the CLIL classroom: to what extent do teachers and students use english in the classroom?

L'objectiu principal d'aquesta investigació va ser determinar els efectes del CLIL en els professors i estudiants en les seves produccions orals. El punt de partida de la meva investigació era de la teoria de Dalton-Puffer (2007), que estableix que la funció de parlar en les classes CLIL és mínima, la meva recerca s'ha basat en la recopilació recollir informació des de diferents fonts, amb la finalitat de veure si aquest fet també passa a les nostres escoles. Eventualment, he planejat algunes estratègies i activitats per incrementar la quantitat d’oportunitats per parlar en llengua anglesa els alumnes.

Oral English in different school settings

Hi ha molts tipus d’escoles diferents, i fins i tot, podem constatar que cada escola és diferent de les altres. Per aquesta raó, quan parlem sobre l’aprenentatge de l’anglès, no podem generalitzar una manera de fer-ho, perquè cada una d’elles tracta aquesta llengua de manera diferent. A més, pel que fa a l’aprenentatge d’una llengua, hi ha diferents habilitats involucrades, i entre totes aquestes, he centrat aquest projecte en l’habilitat oral. Aquesta recerca esta basada en l’observació de tres exemples de tipus d’escoles, i per ser més precisos, té l’objectiu d’aprofundir com tracten l’Anglès. D’aquesta manera, el principal objectiu d’aquest projecte és comparar l’habilitat oral dels alumnes d’aquestes escoles, tot considerant les seves diferències. Així doncs, amb el desenvolupament d’aquesta recerca, vaig voler descobrir si hi havien alguns alumnes amb millors habilitats orals que d’altres, i trobar-ne la possible raó.

Do real books help the learning of english in P4?

The purpose of this study is to answer the principal question, Do Real Books help the learning of English in P4?, and create a useful document to English teachers in Infant Education that are interested in working through stories. Previous to the development of the work, it has been necessary a research work and a theoretical documentation, performed using a literature review. This process has served to establish the basis of the study and to develop the subsequent didactic intervention. This second part of the study, the didactic intervention, contains all the information about how it was planned, carried to term and evaluated. There are three different ‘real books’ used as a reference in which the reader can see how to choose the correct story, how to adapt the text to the children, the daily planning, and how to evaluate the activities.

Postmodifying prepositional phrases in English and Spanish (with special reference to locative postmodifiers)

Prepositional phrases are the commonest kind of postmodification in all registers of English (Biber et al. 1999: 634). The locative ones that can be expanded into a defining relative clause (the books [which are] on the table) are usually expressed by such a construction in Spanish (los libros que están encima de la mesa) or by a phrase introduced by de (los libros de encima de la mesa). Wonder (1979) argues that Spanish allows locative phrases with prepositions other than de in the case of"situaciones"activas"" (el aterrizaje en pleno campo) as against"situaciones estáticas" (*el sofá en la sala), and if the phrase can be given an adverbial rather than, or in addition to, an adjectival interpretation (el ruido en la calle), especially if that phrase implies an alternative location for an object or contrast with another similar object (el sofá en la sala contigua). This paper further investigates this claim and looks at Spanish equivalents of English postmodifying prepositional phrases in general, while proposing an explanation for the choice of these different structures in Spanish based on considerations of lexical density. Resumen: Las frases preposicionales constituyen el tipo más frecuente de posmodificación en todos los registros del inglés (Biber et a. 1999: 634). En el español, las expresiones locativas suelen incorporar un pronombre relativo y un verbo (the books [which are] on the table > los libros que están encima de la mesa), o bien expresarse mediante una frase introducida por la preposición de (los libros de encima de la mesa). Wonder (1979) sostiene que el español permite el uso de preposiciones que no sean de en las frases locativas en el caso de"situaciones"activas"" (el aterrizaje en pleno campo) frente a"situaciones estáticas" (*el sofá en la sala), y también si la frase puede tener una función adverbial antes que, o además de, una interpretación adjetiva (el ruido en la calle), sobre todo si dicha frase encierra la idea de una posición alternativa para un objeto, o bien un contraste con otro objeto similar (el sofá en la sala contigua). El presente estudio pretende examinar este argumento y, además, explorar la posmodificación preposicional en español de un modo más general, a la par que propone una explicación sobre la elección de estructura en español que se basa en el criterio de la densidad léxica.

Competing linguae france: the place of english and spanish for chinese students

This research project focuses on the role of English and Spanish as linguae francae. More specifically, the research attempts to answer the following questions: (i) What is the place of English and Spanish as linguae francae in the world, in general, and in China, in particular? (ii) What kinds of foreign language teaching/learning attitudes and practices are characteristic of the Chinese educational system? (iii) What are the motivations, expectations and experience of Chinese students in study abroad programmes, in general, and in the programme of the University of Lleida, in particular? The study constitutes an attempt to answer each of these questions in two ways: a review of the literature and a pilot study with 26 Chinese students at UdL. The research reveals that even though English is a very dominant foreign language in China, Spanish is a language on the rise and mainly for economic reasons. The results of the study also point at the impact of the dominance of the grammar-translation method in the perspective of Chinese students about language learning. Finally, the study shows the relevance of taking part in a SA programme for Chinese students as well as their experience of them.

The Coverage of the European independence movements from a Canadian perspective: Comparisons of the francophone online press in Quebec with the English Canadian press on the independence movements in Scotland and Catalonia

This research paper provides the basis of a future doctoral thesison the construction of foreign news. We aim to highlight similarities and differences in the online news coverage of the nationalist movments in Scotland and Catalonia in the Canadian Anglophone and Francophone press. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of The Montreal Gazette, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, Le Devoir and La Presse, we attempt to show the frames used in the coverage of the political developments in both “stateless regions” from January 2011 to September 2014, when a referendum on the constitutional status of Scotland has beenagreed on. In parallel to the analysis of daily online newspapers, we will use semi-structured interviews of journalists from each news organization to obtain more in-depth knowledge of the factors influencing the construction of news. Lastly, we want to find out to the extent to which the coverage on the nationalist movements in Scotland and Catalonia serve to revive the debate on the independence question of Québec

U.S.English is a salad bowl. The Representation of Regionalisms in Standard American English

American English exhibits a great dialectal diversity, easily perceived in lexicon; so that questions are raised about which regionalisms are part of the mythical SAE and which are not. A small sample of regionalisms is checked against three standard dictionaries in order to determine the role regionalisms play in SAE.

The representation of EFL teachers’ views on the role of English as a Lingua Franca

El creciente número de hablantes no nativos de inglés en el mundo constituye la base a partir de la cual se han hecho recientes afirmaciones alrededor de la necesidad de enfatizar el papel del inglés como lingua franca en las clases de inglés. Este artículo investiga la visión de los profesores catalanes de inglés al respecto mediante un cuestionario centrado en aspectos como la preferencia de profesores nativos o no nativos, el conocimiento cultural idóneo para el profeso- rado de inglés, y la variedad de inglés escogida. Los resultados indican que el profesorado está influido por la supremacía del hablante nativo y una visión del inglés todavía restringida a las comunidades de hablantes nativos, con algunas diferencias significativas encontradas entre distintos grupos de profesores.

Non-native English-speaking English language teachers: history and research

Although the majority of English language teachers worldwide are non-native English speakers, no research was conducted on these teachers until recently. After the pioneering work of Robert Phillipson in 1992 and Peter Medgyes in 1994, nearly a decade had to elapse for more research to emerge on the issues relating to non-native English teachers. The publication in 1999 of George Braine's book Nonnative educators in English language teaching appears to have encouraged a number of graduate students and scholars to research this issue, with topics ranging from teachers' perceptions of their own identity to students' views and aspects of teacher education. This article compiles, classifies, and examines research conducted in the last two decades on this topic, placing a special emphasis on World Englishes concerns, methods of investigation, and areas in need of further attention.

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics

La reseña presenta el libro que K. Allan ha editado, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics (2013), en la colección de la Oxford University Press sobre Lingüística. En la obra participan más de treinta especialistas, que tratan de la historia en Occidente y, en menor medida, en Oriente. Los ámbitos de estudio respetan un orden tradicional: el sonido, la sintaxis y el significado y, como relativa novedad, la lingüística aplicada. Un interés complementario de la obra es su articulacíón en la amplia colección de manuales de lingüística.

More evidence concerning the aspect hypothesis: The acquisition of English progressive aspect by Catalan-Spanish instructed learners

A robust finding of studies investigating the Aspect Hypothesis is that learners at early stages of acquisition show a strong preference for using the progressive aspect as associated with activity verbs. As they advance in their acquisition of the second or foreign language, learners move from this prototypical association to associations traditionally considered to be more peripheral (e.g.-ing with accomplishments or achievements). Within this framework, the goal of this paper is to provide further evidence from groups of learners with different proficiency levels with regard to the acquisition of progressive aspect by tutored learners of English who are bilingual Catalan-Spanish. This is done by eliciting data by means of two different task types and by looking at both tokens and types. Our results are consistent with previous research according to which-ing morphology is closely associated with durative lexical aspect, although not necessarily with activity predicates. The study also shows that the type of task has an influence on the frequency and the distribution of learners" progressive forms.

Building Partnerships and Fostering Activities to Promote English Outside the Classroom

Becoming proficient in at least one foreign language is a target for educational authorities throughout Europe. The question is how we can improve our students’ command of English without increasing the workload on teachers and without much funding. In El Prat de Llobregat, a city located in the vicinity of Barcelona, we have addressed that issue by creating a group of teachers, educational advisors and city council administrators, who have been acting in a coordinated way to enhance English language exposure beyond the classroom. Our interest in promoting English stems from our location: our municipality is situated next to an international airport where finding a job is bound to be dependent on English fluency. We aim to show that, through a network of members at school and administrative levels, an array of meaningful and empowering initiatives can be implemented in a city where resources are scarce and cultural backgrounds diverse.