Linguistic Context as Explicators: A Study of ‘Fill in The Gaps’ Exercises in Selected Nigerian Senior Secondary English Textbooks (Published)
This study examines the ways in which the linguistic context helps the Senior Secondary School Students to unravel the missing words in the ‘fill up the gap’ exercises in their English textbooks. The aim of the study is to uncover the extent to which the linguistic context helps the students in arriving at the correct vocabulary to be used in the exercises. Applying the context theory as proposed by van Dijk (2008) as the theoretical framework, the study examined two Nigerian Senior Secondary English language textbooks namely The Intensive English for Senior Secondary Schools and Round up English. For the analysis, 10 different exercises were selected, 5 from each of the textbooks and used as data. At the end, the investigation reveals that apart from the knowledge of vocabularies which the students have, the other co-text words and/or phrases surrounding the gap to be filled in the incomplete sentences used as exercises in the textbooks play key roles in ensuring that students arrive at the correct answers. The study also reveals that the chances are high that the writers of these texts deliberately create enabling linguistic context in order to cushion the shock of the missing words in the exercise.
Keywords: Context, English textbooks, Linguistic, exercises, vocabularies
The Inclusion of Culture in Tesol Lessons: Three Case Studies On Teacher Cognitions And Context (Published)
This study explores the use of culture in TESOL lessons by investigating the cognitions of three teachers working in very different contexts: the United States, Central/Eastern Europe, and Saudi Arabia. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, the practices of the participants were examined to better understand the types of lessons in which they choose to include topics related to their own or their students’ cultures, their motivations for doing so, and any contextual factors which may influence their decisions. The results indicate that the teachers regularly include cultural topics in a variety of lesson types, but most often in speaking or reading activities. The participants are largely motivated to include such topics in order to engage their students, yet context can prove a limiting factor. Implications extend to teachers and teacher trainers, particularly in light of the teachers’ approaches to the intersection of cultures in their classrooms as a means to develop students’ language skills and their abilities to interact with the diverse population of English speakers.
Keywords: Context, Culture, Interculturality, TESOL, teacher cognition
The Inclusion of Culture in Tesol Lessons: Three Case Studies On Teacher Cognitions And Context (Published)
This study explores the use of culture in TESOL lessons by investigating the cognitions of three teachers working in very different contexts: the United States, Central/Eastern Europe, and Saudi Arabia. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, the practices of the participants were examined to better understand the types of lessons in which they choose to include topics related to their own or their students’ cultures, their motivations for doing so, and any contextual factors which may influence their decisions. The results indicate that the teachers regularly include cultural topics in a variety of lesson types, but most often in speaking or reading activities. The participants are largely motivated to include such topics in order to engage their students, yet context can prove a limiting factor. Implications extend to teachers and teacher trainers, particularly in light of the teachers’ approaches to the intersection of cultures in their classrooms as a means to develop students’ language skills and their abilities to interact with the diverse population of English speakers.
Keywords: Context, Culture, Interculturality, TESOL, teacher cognition
Do Teachers And Students Want CLT? A Study of Bangladeshi College Teachers’ and Students’ Perception of CLT (Published)
English is embedded, as a core and compulsory subject from years 1-12, in Bangladeshi education system. Keeping English in this position indicates that an increased emphasis is placed on learning English. In order to strengthen students’ communicative competence in English, moreover, the Government substituted CLT for GTM in 2001. However, many argued that, despite this change, most of the students are still unable to communicate in English effectively. This communicative inability of students generates a question that is whether or not students and teachers actually want CLT. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of whether they desire CLT or not, and of how they perceive CLT. To achieve this aim, nine participants (three teachers and six students) were selected to obtain data through conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews. Qualitative technique was followed to analyse the data. The results of this study indicated that the students and teachers desire CLT, and they also expect the problems with CLT to be resolved. Even, they also have drawn some recommendations for improving CLT in Bangladesh.
Keywords: Communicative Competence, Communicative Language Teaching, Context, college level, students' and teachers' perception