Education Commons^™

Dance Your Way Into Culture: A Teacher’S Experience Using Dance In The Foreign Language Classroom, Jannely Almonte Ortiz

MA TESOL Collection

Although dance is an expression of culture, it has seldom been used in the foreign language classroom as a teaching tool. Using Patrick Moran’s Cultural Knowings Framework as an organizational foundation throughout the paper, the author shares why this topic became of great interest to her. She also addresses research and perceptions on movement and dance in an educational environment, and attempts to describe benefits and ways of including movement and dance in any foreign language classroom. Though this paper focuses on the author’s experience using merengue music and dance in the teaching of Spanish, it is intended for any …

A Competency-Based Proficiency Framework For Ritsumeikan Secondary Schools, Ann Flanagan

MA TESOL Collection

This paper describes the research and development of a competency-based Proficiency Framework for Ritsumeikan Secondary Schools in Kyoto, Japan as part of curriculum renewal with the campus relocation. The author developed a six-year competency-based curriculum for the EFL classes. It is based on the Common European Framework of Reference. In addition to creating guiding principles and proficiency frameworks, the author has included suggested vocabulary and content, sample themes and topics, entry and exit profiles, and teacher competencies. Two programs, extensive reading and pen pals, have been integrated into the curriculum in order to offer more support for students’ second language …

How Esol Teachers Become Aware Of Communicative Peace, Josette Leblanc

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the implications that the relationship between teacher language awareness and communicative peace may have on educational programs for teachers of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). The evaluation begins by analyzing proposals set out by the applied peace linguist Francisco Gomes de Matos, who suggests that ESOL teachers should teach communicative peace as an element of communicative competence, and also that education programs should provide training to support this approach. By juxtaposing current literature on structural and linguistic violence with Gomes de Matos' classroom techniques, the hypothesis is made that teachers who would teach communicative peace …

Curriculum And Student Motivation, Jennifer Jones

MA TESOL Collection

This paper details the process and results of an experimental project-based curriculum for a college preparatory ESL course and its effects on student motivation. The course, designed to appeal to students’ desire for variety, community and self-expression, was divided into three modules, each with a different focus. Participants were international adults studying English at a private school in Austin, Texas. Results indicated that the course structure and content can play a large role in students’ motivation levels. Course documents are appended.

Imaginary Friends: Using Guided Imagery, Line Drawings And Webquests To Incorporate Culture Into The Foreign Language Curriculum, J.E. Buckingham

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the integration of authentic cultural experience into the foreign language curriculum through the use of guided imagery, line drawings, and a WebQuest designed to facilitate the creation of an imaginary friend living within a country where the target language is spoken. The student uses these techniques to vicariously communicate with and experience a proscribed facet of that imaginary friend’s life. Through the use of the guided imagery and web-based research, the student will breathe life into a black and white line drawing by coloring in an appropriate complexion and by giving the character a name which would …

Awakening The Muse In The Land Of The Morning Calm: Guidelines For New And Future Teachers Bound For South Korea, Lauren Jennifer Gerken

MA TESOL Collection

How is it to teach English in South Korea? What are the students like? How are the schools? What kind of education system do they have? How proficient are Korean students when speaking English? What types of learning styles do they have? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How can a new teacher prepare her/himself best for an English teaching position at a school or university in South Korea? Where is the best place to teach? What methods and strategies work best in the South Korean EFL classroom? Based on my experience of teaching English for thirteen years in the …

Exploratory Learning: The Digital Recorder Project: An Investigation Into A Student Designed Project For Finding And Addressing Esl Students’ Listening And Speaking Needs, Joel Cooke

MA TESOL Collection

The Digital Recorder Project was designed to present students with an opportunity to design and implement, as a class, a project that would address speaking and listening issues they experience as ESL students. Each student was required to observe their own speaking via a self-created digital recording and in conjunction with the class, design a unique, individualized method to work on issues he or she identified. This document will present the observations and conclusions about the nature of such a project from the teacher’s perspective. In addition, the paper will use transcripts of class recordings as a means of placing …

Balance In Language Teaching And Learning: Honoring Tradition And Celebrating Innovation, Natalia Tsarikova

MA TESOL Collection

This paper presents a study aimed at finding a flexible approach to teaching that is responsive to learner needs and preferences whilst at the same time utilizing communicative language teaching and form-focused instruction. In other words, the author aims to find a balance between CLT (learner centered approaches) advocated by many trainers and teachers in Uzbekistan and the Grammar Translation method (teacher centered approaches) that has been widely practiced as well. The author’s primary purpose is to find an approach which is centered principally on learning rather than on the teacher or the learner. The author maintains that teaching is …

Peer Interaction In The Haitian Public School Context, Fenel Pierre

MA TESOL Collection

The purpose of this paper is to define peer interaction and its major components. It identifies and examines the major challenges that language teachers in Haiti will face in incorporating peer interaction within the Haitian public school context. It explains the advantages of using peer interaction as a way to generate knowledge. The author concludes by providing practical guidelines and strategies of how to cope with these challenges and describing what he has learned from his research.

Since language is learned mainly through interaction with other learners and speakers of that language, this paper aims at persuading Haitian language teachers …

Mending The Broken Windows: A Curriculum Development Project Using Cooperative Learning Methods To Teach The Concepts Of Short Stories While Building A Community In The Classroom, Nicole Meltzer

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the purpose, process and results of using Cooperative Learning methods to study the elements of short stories in an intermediate English as a Second or Other Language high school class. The goal of this project was to create and build community in the classroom to alleviate the pressures felt by at-risk and immigrant students, while also meeting their academic needs. The project was conducted over three months time and was assessed through qualitative and quantitative methods.

A Framework For Teaching A Foreign Language Class Based On The Principles Of Chaos/Complexity Theory, Michael Kozden

MA TESOL Collection

Chaos/complexity theory first emerged in the study of the natural sciences over thirty years ago. Through the years, experts from a variety of fields have held this theory up as a new way in which to view the world around us, including its applications to the study of second language acquisition. The language classroom, like the natural world, can also be observed from this perspective because it exhibits many features of chaotic/complex systems. Language instruction in a classroom setting not only produces strange attractors and fractals, but is dynamic, complex, nonlinear, chaotic, self-organizing, unpredictable, sensitive to initial conditions, open, feedback …

Using Music And Song In The Second Language Classroom: A Description Of The Many Ways Music And Song Can Enhance The Teaching Of French, Christine Geueke

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

Tasks In Tbl: What Kinds Of Tasks Promote Meaningful Communication?, Anna Fatneva

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the process of developing and implementing TBL tasks in the EFL classroom. A title page is included. A non-specific abstract was created and included. The structure of this IPP is outlined in the Table of Contents. Teaching context as well as the reasons for my choice of the topic are described in the introduction. Research into ESL/EFL source literature on the topic is illuminated in Chapter 1. Classroom Observations based on the teaching journal kept throughout the project are depicted in Chapter 2. Implications for the use of this paper are considered in terms of advantages for …

Integrating Writing Within The Foreign Language Classroom: Shifting Dynamics, Not The Task, Patricia Ann Evans

MA TESOL Collection

This classroom based research project considers the following questions: Why should my foreign language students write? From Pedagogy to Purpose; what happens when students use technology with their writing; what transitions take place with regard to the role as teacher when integrating writing into the Spanish language classroom? This project follows the shift from writing , disconnected activities to writing. How a student-centered writing process and technology support the shift away from the perception that good writing is voiceless and mechanical. It traces the shift from learning to write to writing to learn. The project studies the shift that occurs …

Exploring The Teen Efl Classroom: The Students, Their Teachers, And The Tangles Of Dealing With Discipline And Motivation, Anna Burbridge

MA TESOL Collection

This paper discusses specific elements of teaching teens in an EFL context, in particular the areas of teen motivation and discipline. This was a teacher’s development project involving six teachers (including the writer), and lasting for one semester in a Brazilian bi-national language institute. The project was built on videotaped class observations, readings, group meetings, and journal writings. The result was a deeper reflection into the developmental stage dubbed “teenhood”, followed by subsequent considerations of motivation and discipline of teen groups, the role of the teen teacher, the importance of knowing and connecting with the inner teacher, and practical implications …

Maintaining And Nurturing The Language And Culture Of Heritage Spanish-Speakers At The Elementary Level, Amanda Amarotico

MA TESOL Collection

In many schools across the United States native Spanish-speakers are enrolled in Spanish foreign language classes in order to fulfill a foreign language requirement. The Spanish foreign language class is inappropriate for the native Spanish-speaker’s needs. It is essential that these students be given opportunities to expand their linguistic skills to become fully bilingual and biliterate. Spanish classes for native Spanish-speakers exist at the high school level in many parts of the country, but elementary students are rarely given such opportunities.

The author of this professional paper and report on the creation of an after school Spanish Club discusses the …

The Role Of Identity In Language Acquisition: A Cross- Generational Perspective., Darlene Annette Snider

MA TESOL Collection

In this paper I will reflect on the role of identity as it relates to second language acquisition. My hypothesis is that second language acquisition can be slowed or even halted when students cannot adapt to the culture of the language they are studying. Student’s facing cultural conflict tend to distance themselves from the community thereby creating barriers in the learning process. This hypothesis is based upon my own experience as a third generation Canadian. I believe the effective classroom will work to reduce cultural conflict by affirming the learner’s cultural identity and sense of self as they explore the …

A Teacher’S Journal: An Account Of My Choice And Implementation Of Total Physical Response Storytelling As An Approach To Teaching Beginning Level French, Melinda Heins

MA TESOL Collection

This paper is about choosing an approach to teaching a foreign language that is appropriate for me in my teaching context – public high school French classes – and my attempts to become as proficient as possible in the approach I chose called Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS). For eighteen weeks I taught French I grades nine through twelve and kept a detailed teacher’s journal of the experience.

Integrating The Six Skills In Every Esl/ Efl Class, Monica M. Catramado

MA TESOL Collection

The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of integrating listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammaring and vocabulary in the ESL/EFL classroom.

Through this paper, not only will the reader gain an understanding of how to design a theme or content-based syllabus, which integrates all six skills, but also he/she will find numerous activities that will help develop those skills in every student.

Readers will also be shown how students can learn another language and develop these skills through practical every day topics and different materials, which depend on the students’ developmental stage of learning, stage of knowledge …

Promoting Language And Culture Learning In An Efl Context, Laura Anne Battles

MA TESOL Collection

This Independent Professional Paper (IPP) describes the intercultural communication project I undertook during my Interim Year Teaching Practicum (IYTP) in Granada, Spain. Throughout the academic year of 1998-1999, English-speaking students enrolled in the University of Granada’s Spanish Language and Culture Courses were invited to participate as volunteer language and culture exchange partners with my Spanish-speaking, intermediate-level English as a Foreign Language students. These classroom experiences, designed to enrich the course’s speaking, reading, writing, and listening curriculum, were intended to stimulate authentic communication and to heighten personal and intercultural awareness among the participants.

The argument presented in this paper is that …

The Din Theory Revealed: Theoretical, Professional, And Personal Reflections Concerning The Socialization Of Language, Dana Elise Arends

MA TESOL Collection

This paper is a written analysis of my personal experience with the "din in the head" theory proposed by Dr. Elizabeth Barber and Dr. Stephen Krashen (Barber 1980; Krashen 1981). I experienced this din firsthand during a three day trip to Montreal, Quebec in Canada and a subsequent three day trip to Roma, in Italia. I will propose that the language din suggested by professors Barber and Krashen does exist. Furthermore, I will show how the Spanish din with which I had become familiar with from my classes at the School for International Training hindered, and at times prohibited, my …

Teachable Articles: A Practical Approach To Teaching English Articles To Japanese Learners, Kayo Fujito

MA TESOL Collection

This dissertation is about English articles and specifically the difficulties that non-native speakers, particularly Japanese learners, face in mastering their use. In this dissertation, I will mainly focus on;

1. An investigation on teaching articles and the use of articles including a survey completed by teachers of English

2. Two charts for determining articles and categories with examples including my adaptation of the chart

3. Some ideas and practical suggestions for teaching articles

The findings from this study have led me to a belief that there are ways for Japanese learners to improve their ability to use articles and by …

Making Connections With Dialogue Journals, Catherine Elliott

MA TESOL Collection

This paper makes a case for the use of dialogue journals in the second language classroom. In Part One the author examines the research of experts in the fields of second language acquisition and writing instruction and presents their findings as a rationale which supports the use of dialogue journals. In Part Two the author draws from her own experience in the classroom to illustrate how dialogue journals can be used effectively with second language learners.

Praxis: Do I Practice What I Believe? A Course In Research In The Language Classroom For The English Language Teacher Education Program At Universidad Centroamericana, Nicaragua, Sarah Renata Wright

MA TESOL Collection

I have asked myself to describe my teaching beliefs and analyze my teaching practice in order to see if the two are congruent and if in fact I do have a teaching praxis. This is a professional paper about course development based on a classroom research project. First, through a discussion of theories, experiences, and observations I describe my teaching beliefs. Second, I describe the Research in English Language Teaching course that I designed and taught to a group fourth year student teachers at the Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua. This description is based on a selection of student writings, lesson …

Let’S Play Cards. Grammar Is Fun. (How And Why I Have Taught English To My Students), Tomi Yukimune

MA TESOL Collection

In Japan, most students have to memorize grammar rules to pass entrance examinations to high schools as well as universities. As speaking skills are not required in those exams, many students regard grammar as nothing but rote learning. However, grammar is not dried bones but a vivid creature, which can be formed by students. Grammar can be learned with the four skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing), which is addressing diverse learning styles. It can be taught with stories, poems, plays, songs, games, puppets, picture books, and playing cards. Once students learn the rules of grammar, they will be able to …

Multiple Intelligences In The Efl Classroom: A Perspective In Context, Irena Vodopija- Krstanoviæ

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the implication of Multiple Intelligences Theory for learning styles in the EFL classroom. The multiple intelligence profiles of students and teachers at two secondary schools were obtained in order to determine their strengths and weaknesses in the different intelligences. In addition, the teachers’ and learner’s preferences for EFL activities catering for the intelligences were defined. Furthermore, the frequency of use of the EFL activities was examined in order to determine how the various intelligences were actually addressed in the teaching and learning processes. The research was conducted in Rijeka, Croatia, thus providing insights into a specific cultural …

Designing And Teaching A Culture Course In Korea: Developing Cultural Awareness In The Korean University Classroom, Melanie Van Den Hoven

MA TESOL Collection

This Independent Professional Project outlines my process of becoming aware of the interrelationship of language and culture in the Korean University language classroom and the issues surrounding teaching culture in Korea at the turn of the millenium. My decisions, reflections and realizations made as an expatriate EFL teacher based in Seoul, Korea, which helped to address these concerns, are fully presented. This paper reflects on the “culture bumps” inherent in my living and teaching context, and the cultural adjustments made both in the classroom and out. It also explores the major theoretical influences that have been helpful in designing a …

Promoting Student Self-Evaluation Of Their Learning Process, Diane Steigerwald

MA TESOL Collection

This paper describes classroom research on promoting student initiative through self and peer correction, record keeping, goal setting and evaluation. Promoting Student Self-Evaluation of Their Learning Process starts with a look at the author’s experience of self-initiative and authentic interaction among her students which sparked her awareness and began the transformation of her teaching beliefs and approaches. The old belief centered on the need to be the authority in control. The new belief focuses on empowering the students to see themselves as authorities. The paper then describes the forms and activities used in an adult high-intermediate English as a Second …

The Effects Of Acculturation On The L2 Learner, Raya C. Longto

MA TESOL Collection

This paper deals with the deconstruction of a novel (A Sprig of Lemon Blossom) written on the subject of Acculturation. Since the latter half of the twentieth century the world has traveled at an incredible speed towards globalization. Given this reality the number of people who constantly travel abroad for a variety of career and work related purposes is growing by the hour. Under the circumstances the theme of acculturation has become crucial as without an adequate form of this phenomenon people cannot function to the best of their abilities. The deconstruction of this novel addresses the three-fold process of …

Two-Week Training Course For English Language Teachers In The Ukraine, Maryna Gayduchenko

MA TESOL Collection

This is a two week teacher training course for Ukrainian secondary school EFL teachers. What is innovative about this particular course is that it was designed and written by a non-native EFL teacher and trainer for non-native EFL trainees. The following advantages make its importance particularly relevant: a non-native trainer is a role model for trainees – living proof that it IS possible to master new approaches and techniques; a non-native trainer is intimately acquainted with the challenges trainees and learners face and the strategies for dealing with them. The main objective of the course is to help trainees develop …