Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Case For An Ecological Approach And Against Language Commodification In Elt, Vinicius O. Souza

MA TESOL Collection

This paper aims to provide an alternative approach to the English language education practiced in many developing countries which can help reverse their current low-proficiency status, as revealed by standard international examinations such as the PISA scores and others. The author argues that this can be best accomplished by adopting an ecological approach to teaching which promotes language learning as emergent and socially situated phenomena, two concepts largely neglected by current teaching methods. In fact, many of these countries have long been dominated by an extremely commodified and cognitivist ELT market, where business interests have taken precedence over pedagogical considerations. …

Academic Discourse And Self-Efficacy In Diverse Settings, Beata Malczewska-Webb

Beata Webb

This paper examines the students' studying at an Australian university and

their self-efficacy associated to academic discourse. Further, it investigates

the relationship between self-efficacy and students' linguistic and cultural

backgrounds. The paper introduces the background concepts of self-efficacy

and of the internationalisation of the Australian education. Next, the paper

describes the research project, presents and discusses the results. The paper

ends with conclusions and recommendations for teachers working with

diverse classes.