In Ethiopia, English plays a crucial role in education, business, and government communication, serving as a compulsory subject and the medium of instruction from the ninth grade onwards. Despite its importance, English proficiency remains a significant challenge among both students and teachers, particularly in secondary schools. This study…

Today, the Common European Framework of Reference (2009), and with it the action-based approach, underlies English Language Teaching (ELT) curricula throughout Europe. However, actual teaching practices are likely to vary according to factors such as the educational level and supra-national differences, including legal guidelines and the level of…

Through this descriptive qualitative case study of three native speaking Arabic teachers in an L2 Arabic classroom in a private school setting in the U.S., this study presented a four-stage multi-layered analytical approach demonstrating functional, interactional and pedagogical analyses of the uses of Arabic Arabic pragmatic markers (PMs) in…

Underpinned by a postmodern perspective of (teacher) identity, which characterizes it as unstable, multifaceted, unfinished, complex, dynamic, fluid, constructed in relation with others (Bauman, 2005; Bohn, 2005; Hall, 2006; Beijaard et al., 2011 among others), this qualitative research aims at exploring English language teachers' identities…

This study compares the language proficiency gains of two groups of students taking a business English course module in a bilingual university in Catalonia (Spain). Whereas one of these groups followed a 'translanguaging' or 'plurilingual' pedagogy, the other followed a strictly monolingual approach. Participants were 54 mostly Catalan/Spanish…

This study investigates how the use of discourse markers reflects speaking fluency in Chinese learners. In this study, 220 min of online Chinese courses were transcribed, with 17 Chinese learners and 5 native Chinese teachers as participants. Half of the transcribed data were drawn from students living in Taipei, Taiwan, a Chinese-speaking…

As task-based language teaching focuses on real word tasks and the learners need to complete these tasks in the process of learning a foreign or second language, it helps target language fluency and student confidence. That is why second and foreign language teachers and researchers have shown interest in TBLT. This study attempts to investigate…

This study aims to design and implement a speaking task model following the principles of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Critical Thinking (CT). The study mainly investigated to what extent the use of critical thinking standards had an impact on the students' oral performance with respect to the linguistic trilogy of fluency, accuracy,…

The study aims to explore English as a foreign language (EFL) pre-service teachers' conceptions of the characteristics of an effective EFL teacher. Additionally, the study attempts to evaluate the role of EFL teacher education programs on EFL PTs' perceptions of being an effective EFL teacher. The data were collected through concept maps from a…

This dissertation investigates L2 student language production, task-based instruction, and teachers' scaffolding strategies in two special EFL classes in a Vietnamese university. Two English teachers and 73 students were studied as they participated in a nationwide educational project known as the Advanced Curriculum (AC), an initiative launched…

This study draws from a cultural-historical perspective to explore the experiences of two pre-­service ESL teachers in terms of their efforts to maximize the use of the target language during a school practicum. Both student teachers were fluent in English, had received training in maximizing target language use during their university studies,…

A major issue that continues to challenge language teachers is how to ensure that learners develop accuracy and complexity in their speaking, as well as fluency. Teachers know that too much corrective feedback (CF) can make learners reluctant to speak, while not enough may allow their errors to become entrenched. Furthermore, there is controversy…

The current government in Korea, in order to encourage more fluent use of English, has shifted the focus of the English curriculum from language accuracy to language fluency by encouraging English teachers to use English as a classroom language. However, many English teachers in Korea feel burdened by this policy, mainly because they themselves…

A course given to help German teachers of English master English phrases used frequently in the classroom is described. It was found that initial contextualization followed by language laboratory work enabled teachers to assimilate phrases best. (CHK)