Personality types and languages learning strategies: chameleons changing colours

This exploration of associations between the reported Language Learning Strategy (LLS) preferences of learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) and their personality types is positioned within the contention that the two are generally related. Our findings unequivocally support the existence of this relationship. Moreover, they also provide a platform from which to understand the contribution to learning a second language of two very commonly cited personality traits, introversion/extroversion and neuroticism. However, they also provide the basis for the important caution that the association between personality types and LLS is quite volatile. We have found that it is variation rather than unwavering stability that features in how personality traits apply as predictive of ESL learners' specific LLS preferences. Such prediction is specified even further by the particular contexts of ESL learning where the LLS are applied, for example for listening or speaking and whether this occurs inside or outside a classroom. The implications of these findings for ESL teaching and learning are discussed as is the explanatory power of the chameleon metaphor.

Deep ecology and Australian suburbia: learning from Aboriginal Australia philosophy

Naess’ Deep Ecology [50] represents a fundamental philosophical and conceptual shift from the dominant Western thinking that can be traced back to the Greek and Roman Empires. Like all philosophy, Naess’ Deep Ecology was born of and is most relevant to a specific time and place being northern Europe. Although the fundamentals of the Deep Ecology philosophy were new to modern Western thinking, it is not new to traditional Indigenous cultures, including the world’s oldest culture, that of Aboriginal Australia. While the past four decades has seen an increasing recognition of Aboriginal philosophical approaches, there is very little understanding of what this philosophical approach is and means for the management of the Australian environment in which humans are a central part. Since European arrival, Australia has been one of the world’s most urban societies. Unlike northern Europe, urban Australia is low density and suburban, a legacy of British and North American influences. Nearly 90% of Australians live in detached houses surrounded by gardens. Managed by individual residents, this land use accounts for about 70% of the total area of cities like Melbourne. Deeply culturally embedded, the Australian desire for living in low-density suburbs is unlikely to change soon. Contemporary cities are widely recognized as causing severe environmental degradation and are not sustainable. Yet in Australia introduced philosophical and design approaches are still used to address the unsustainable impacts of urban forms introduced from another time and place. While impractical to remove the existing suburban form in Australian cities, there is a significant opportunity to retrofit them using Australian Aboriginal philosophical and land management understandings developed and tested over tens of thousands of years. This paper establishes a contemporary Australian Deep Ecology philosophical approach to sustainably living in the suburbs that recognizes and works with the legacies of Australian Aboriginal, English, North American and contemporary Australian influences.

Managerialist vis-à-vis learning and development goals for EAL teachers: A case study of an in-service professional development provider

Under current Western neoliberal philosophy, promotion of efficiency and resolution of issues are typically expected to result from effective management. The education sector, too, has responded well to these expectations. Amongst such expectations, engagement in professional development activities (PDAs) by teachers of English as an additional language (EAL) is widely encouraged, considered to be essential, and usually conducted with a view to facilitate effective and effortless administration. As such, institutional offerings of PDAs driven by managerialist agendas generally tend to be ad hoc attempts to facilitate administrative decisions rather than opportunities for teachers’ lifelong learning and development. Under such circumstances, providers of in-service PDAs are faced with a conflicting dilemma – that of facilitating an effortless flow of administration and, at the same time, promoting teacher learning and development. We foreground one case of such dilemma surrounding the offering of PDAs derived as interview data from an experienced provider of in-service PDAs for EAL teachers.

Uncertainty and reluctance in teaching taboo language: a case study of an experienced teacher of English as an additional language

Despite its ubiquitous employment by users of English to achieve authentic communicative goals, taboo language has received little attention in the education literature. Even less focus has been placed on such language in English language teaching - specifically, in teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL). Given the multiplicity of communicative struggles experienced by EAL learners surrounding the use of taboo language in authentic communication, meaningful consideration of this aspect can be seen as crucial in EAL instruction. Classroom learning could prepare learners for navigation and negotiation of taboo language use they will inevitably encounter in social interactions in target language communities of practice. However, EAL teachers' uncertainty or reluctance to introduce taboo language in classroom instruction is a key impediment in developing learners' sociocultural knowledge regarding such language use. We foreground one case of such uncertainty and reluctance surrounding the introduction of taboo language in EAL instruction derived as interview data from an experienced EAL teacher.

English as an additional language teachers, policy enactments and intercultural understanding

The literature on policy enactment identifies the pivotal role played by school leaders and classroom teachers in response to attempts to implement reforms of current practices. An intersection of teachers’ personal and professional domains, such as enactment of National Curriculum priorities that identify intercultural understanding as a cross-curricular general capability embedded across learning areas, invests individual teachers’ attitudes and beliefs with additional significance. As local policy actors at the centre of this policy mix, teachers of EAL are presented with opportunities to play important roles in reconceptualising understandings of difference that resist categorisation and promote intercultural understanding. We argue that teachers’ beliefs and their attitudes to classroom linguistic and cultural diversity may be shaped significantly by their interaction with broader policy discourses, and that these are reflected in enactments—as opposed to implementations—of intercultural understanding policy in classrooms.

Lost (and found) in translation: learning from German language educators

This essay introduces two presentations (or Vorträge) by Ulf Abraham and Thomas Zabka that were originally published in the German journal, Didaktik Deutsch. I reflect on the complexities of translation and intercultural communication, and ask how we might meaningfully compare the policy environment of one country with that of another. In this era of globalisation and standards-based reforms it is easy to suppose that those reforms are the same everywhere. The essays by Abraham and Zabka, however, provide insights into a policy environment where debates about the importance of language and literature are being played out differently vis-à-vis standards-based reforms than is the case in the Anglophone world. I ask what we can learn from these essays, and how the insights they provide might be applied in an Anglophone context.

English revisited: Sucker punch, moffatt, avatars and forensic evidence

Contemporary curriculum guidelines, such as those provided in the incoming Australian curriculum, call for English to attend to multimodal forms of text and literacy as well as more traditional forms. Students are expected to become capable and critical readers, users and creators of texts and forms of literacy that span everything from newspapers to classic texts to visual art to computer games. How to do so, and what this means for English, is often less clear. In this paper, we describe an English curriculum that was at once literary and multimodal, analytic and creative, and embraced a range of opportunities for students to study and create literary and aesthetic texts in many forms. We discuss the opportunities this presented to connect with the excitement of the contemporary world, and the ways in which longstanding principles and philosophies of good teaching and learning, and the central concerns of English curriculum across time, might be understood and reconstituted in the digital age.

Reduced vowel production in American English among Spanish-English bilinguals

Prominent views in second language acquisition suggest that the age of L2 learning is inversely correlated with native-like pronunciation (Scovel, 1988; Birdsong, 1999). The relationship has been defined in terms of the Critical Period Hypothesis, whereby various aspects of neural cognition simultaneously occur near the onset of puberty, thus inhibiting L2 phonological acquisition. The current study tests this claim of a chronological decline in pronunciation aptitude through the examination of a key trait of American English – reduced vowels, or “schwas.” Groups of monolingual, early bilingual, and late bilingual participants were directly compared across a variety of environments phonologically conditioned for vowel reduction. Results indicate that late bilinguals have greater degrees of difficulty in producing schwas, as expected. Results further suggest that the degree of differentiation between schwa is larger than previously identified and that these subtle differences may likely be a contributive factor to the perception of a foreign accent in bilingual speakers.

A Comparison of the Effects of Classroom and Multi-User Virtual Environments on the Perceived Speaking Anxiety of Adult Post-Secondary English Language Learners

The population of English Language Learners (ELLs) globally has been increasing substantially every year. In the United States alone, adult ELLs are the fastest growing portion of learners in adult education programs (Yang, 2005). There is a significant need to improve the teaching of English to ELLs in the United States and other English-speaking dominant countries. However, for many ELLs, speaking, especially to Native English Speakers (NESs), causes considerable language anxiety, which in turn plays a vital role in hindering their language development and academic progress (Pichette, 2009; Woodrow, 2006). Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT), such as simulation activities, has long been viewed as an effective approach for second-language development. The current advances in technology and rapid emergence of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) have provided an opportunity for educators to consider conducting simulations online for ELLs to practice speaking English to NESs. Yet to date, empirical research on the effects of MUVEs on ELLs’ language development and speaking is limited (Garcia-Ruiz, Edwards, & Aquino-Santos, 2007). This study used a true experimental treatment control group repeated measures design to compare the perceived speaking anxiety levels (as measured by an anxiety scale administered per simulation activity) of 11 ELLs (5 in the control group, 6 in the experimental group) when speaking to Native English Speakers (NESs) during 10 simulation activities. Simulations in the control group were done face-to-face, while those in the experimental group were done in the MUVE of Second Life. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA revealed after the Huynh-Feldt epsilon correction, demonstrated for both groups a significant decrease in anxiety levels over time from the first simulation to the tenth and final simulation. When comparing the two groups, the results revealed a statistically significant difference, with the experimental group demonstrating a greater anxiety reduction. These results suggests that language instructors should consider including face-to-face and MUVE simulations with ELLs paired with NESs as part of their language instruction. Future investigations should investigate the use of other multi-user virtual environments and/or measure other dimensions of the ELL/NES interactions.

Educational software in english to the awareness in a preschool education supervised context

Information and communication technologies play an increasingly important role in society, in the sense that all areas and professions make use of digital resources. The school can not be brushed off this reality, aim to create full subjects and integrated in society today. Educational software can be used very early in the education of children, but they must be carefully and monitoring. This article aims to present the results of the use of educational software in English to the awareness of context with children of pre-school education in kindergarten, nursery center Redemptorist Fathers - The smallest fox in White Castle, a 21 group children under 5 years. Early awareness of foreign language such as English can be started with digital multimedia capabilities and various software available on the market. However, the small study described the case reveals some resistance from parents and educators, in the preparation of these to choose and monitor the use of ICT by children, in addition to also highlight the self-interest of the children involved and their learning a few words in English language in different contexts of daily worked. The study opens perspectives on close monitoring needs of such uses and training of educators in the field of use of resources multilingual awareness in pre-school education.

A literary approach to teaching english language in a multicultural classroom

Literature is not generally considered as a coherent branch of the curriculum in relation to language development in either native or foreign language teaching. As teachers of English in multicultural Indian classrooms, we come across students with varying degrees of competence in English language learning. Although language learning is a natural process for natives, students of other languages put in colossal efforts to learn it. Despite their sincere efforts, they face challenges regarding pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. Indian classrooms are a microcosm of the larger society, so teaching English language in a manner that equips the students to face the cutthroat competition has become a necessity and a challenge for English language teachers. English today has become the key determinant for being successful in their careers. The hackneyed and stereotypical methods of teaching are not acceptable now. Teachers are no longer arbitrary dispensers of knowledge, but they are playing the role of a guide and facilitator for the students. Teachers of English are using innovative ideas to make English language teaching and learning interesting and simple. Teachers have started using literary texts and their analyses to explore and ignite the imagination and creative skills of the students. One needs to think and rethink the contribution of literature to intelligent thinking as well as its role in the process of teaching/learning. This article is, therefore, an attempt at exploring the nature of the literary experience in the present-day classrooms and the broader role of literature in life.

Digital literacy matters. Increasing workforce productivity through blended English language programmes

Current workplace demands newer forms of literacies that go beyond the ability to decode print. These involve not only competence to operate digital tools, but also the ability to create, represent, and share meaning in different modes and formats; ability to interact, collaborate and communicate effectively using digital tools, and engage critically with technology for developing one’s knowledge, skills, and full participation in civic, economic, and personal matters. This essay examines the application of the ecology of resources (EoR) model for delivering language learning outcomes (in this case, English) through blended classroom environments that use contextually available resources. The author proposes the implementation of the EoR model in blended learning environments to create authentic and sustainable learning environments for skilling courses. Applying the EoR model to Indian skilling instruction contexts, the article discusses how English language and technology literacy can be delivered using contextually available resources through a blended classroom environment. This would facilitate not only acquisition of language and digital literacy outcomes, but also consequent content literacy gain to a certain extent. This would ensure satisfactory achievement of not only communication/language literacy and technological literacy, but also active social participation, lifelong learning, and learner autonomy.

Exploring implementation of dialogical inquiry into a Korean English classroom

An alternative approach to the teaching and learning of spoken English in Korea was investigated to maximise students’ collaborative meaning-making through dialogical inquiry. It was concluded that oral proficiency of foreign language could be facilitated by a learning environment that is oriented to student interaction and is responsive to social and cultural identities of students.

Literature review for senior syllabus revisions: English

The review began with a survey of recent issues of nine key English education journals widely recognised as influential within the field, and reflective of current practice and debates about future directions in Australia and internationally.Common areas of focus and concern were identified within this literature scan, including:• definitions of ‘English’ in current times, and their implications• the nature of literacy — which literacies?• English for students from multiple linguistic backgrounds, and how this might best beconceived and organised• text selection and related issues — canonicity, choice, genre, prescription, analytic frameworks etc.• digital texts and technologies• English as a vehicle for the discussion of themes, issues and social concerns• assessment — policies, practices and effects.This research formed a background against which subjects in the Queensland English subject group were examined.A close reading of the Queensland syllabuses under review, and the construction of an overview of the teaching, learning and assessment focuses followed the literature scan.English literature reviewSenior syllabus redevelopmentQueensland Curriculum & Assessment AuthorityPage 1 of 25February 2016The four syllabuses were mapped against each other for similarities and differences. Connections between these syllabuses and the Australian Curriculum, and Queensland F–10 curriculum were identified.Then, after gathering documentation, a close reading of similar syllabuses from Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, New York State, the International Baccalaureate (IB), and England’s A-levels was undertaken, and an overview of the teaching, learning and assessment focuses, the scope of learning, and how learning is organised and described within these syllabuses developed. In the course of this process, reflections on the relevance of these syllabuses from other jurisdictions for the Queensland syllabuses were noted.Finally, the Queensland English senior syllabuses were reviewed against six areas identified by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) as 21st century skills reflecting current educational trends.

The role of play in teaching English as foreign language in early childhood settings in Indonesia.

This research highlights a teacher’s transformative thinking which has profound implications on how teachers conceptualise child play and learning, thus leads to a way of thinking about English as a foreign language (EFL) could better be supported through the use of play-based pedagogies, especially dramatic play in Indonesian context.