Education Commons^™

Using Technology In The Efl Classroom In Saudi Arabia, Neil Oby Morris

MA TESOL Collection

This paper explores the ways that technology, specifically the use of laptop computers and cellular phones, may be incorporated in the EFL classroom to enhance learning and lower the affective filter of male Saudi Arabian university students.

Saudi Arabia presents the EFL teacher with many challenges that are unique to this gender-segregated Islamic kingdom. Meeting these challenges and turning them into learning opportunities that other EFL teachers may find useful within their teaching contexts is the purpose of this paper.

The appendix includes a writing rubric and a 40-day materials introduction calendar. The calendar illustrates the day-by-day introduction of material …

Using Technology In The Efl Classroom In Saudi Arabia, Neil Oby Morris

MA TESOL Collection

This paper explores the ways that technology, specifically the use of laptop computers and cellular phones, may be incorporated in the EFL classroom to enhance learning and lower the affective filter of male Saudi Arabian university students.

Saudi Arabia presents the EFL teacher with many challenges that are unique to this gender-segregated Islamic kingdom. Meeting these challenges and turning them into learning opportunities that other EFL teachers may find useful within their teaching contexts is the purpose of this paper.

The appendix includes a writing rubric and a 40-day materials introduction calendar. The calendar illustrates the day-by-day introduction of material …

Cognitive Load And Its Major Pedagogical Implications, Focus On Education In Jordan, Bassam Kutkut

MA TESOL Collection

Through my teaching experience in Jordan, I noticed the amount of work students had to do. I noticed the tremendous amount information they received from their teachers on a daily basis. I also noticed that students forgot most of the information they learned in class right after their exams. I was wondering if that’s the right way of teaching. Then, after my study at SIT, I learned that this is a cognitive overload that can impair the learning process.

Cognitive load refers to the information processing abilities in the human memory system which has limitations. When these limitations are exceeded, …

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 …

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 …

It’S All About M.E. (Motivation Through (Self) Evaluation), Wendy Pillars

MA TESOL Collection

Middle school is a paradox. Students want nothing more than autonomy, while classrooms become more structured and demanding. With the increased structure, however, are increased expectations for the students to determine what to do and when to do it, on their own. This rapid increase in personal responsibility creates confusion in an already tumultuous time in their lives, and a common retaliation, out of fear, apathy, or simply not knowing, is to do nothing. It is a given that students differ in their motivation to learn, and tapping each one of those sources becomes, in effect, a quest for the …

Improving Teacher Effectiveness In Implementing Comprehensive Health Education, Janet L. Kehoe

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

Comprehensive Health Education/Growing Healthy (GH) was not being taught for the required number of hours as was indicated in the pupil progression plan for this community. The objectives of the practicum were to increase the number of trained teachers by 60 percent; thereby increasing the instructional time GH was taught, and to place, and organize all commercial instructional-support materials within the elementary school. The author designed a six-week long training program, conducted an inventory of all GH materials, and color coded all commercial instructional-support materials by phase and grade level. The researcher received administrative support from the school's administration to …

Strategic Teaching For Adult Learners: Cognitive Instruction For Critical Thinking Skills, Marie M. Agner

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

The purpose of this research was to develop a plan to facilitate the adult student in successful mastery of the five content areas tested by the 1988 General Education Development Test (GED). Pretest results for students given tested over a six month period using those revised tests showed a 95 percent failure rate, and official GED tests results showed a failure rate of 93 percent for students who had received instruction for test preparation. The writer addressed the problem by implementing a six month program of specialized instruction designed to assist adult students in improving their critical thinking skills. The …