Current TESL issues (Teaching English as a Second Language) in an interactive fashion enriched with distinctive keywords and tags and comment forms to discuss the issues
Literature Review Literature Review You should always take a notebook to collect citations and quotations from as many sources as you can in support of the validity of your project. The more you have references, the more credit you give to your work. In this regard, it is imperative to keep a record of the…
Results Results Section Start chapter 4 with restatement of the problem Use past tense to record what you found. The results are a straightforward description of your statistical or qualitative analyses and findings. In this stage, you should not elaborate on findings. Later on, (in Discussion section), you can go into the details. In Results…
Instrumentation Instrumentation or the methods of data collection: Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Type the words ‘Instrument and Data Collection Procedure’ flush with the left margin and italicize them. For a qualitative study to be successful and effective, it should achieve the following three elements: (1) internal validity or credibility,…
Activity Theory Activity Theory was developed by a group of Russian psychologists called the Kharkovites, of which the best known is A. N. Leont’ev. This theory was a development of Vygotskian theory. Lantolf (2000) described it as “a unified account of Vygotsky’s original proposals on the nature and development of human behavior” (p. 8). Leontiev…
Chaos Theory Chaos theory was developed from the 1960s work of the meteorologist, Edward Lorenz. Lorenz discovered that a very small difference (less than one part in one thousand) in the initial conditions led to large changes in the weather predicted by his model over time. A chaos is included in a larger phenomenon, that…
Complexity Theory Complexity theory is closely linked to chaos theory. Complex systems are random, nonlinear, unpredictable, self-organising, and subject to ‘strange attractor’, (i.e. they home in on a pattern that determines the boundaries of the phenomenon). Larsen-Freeman (1997) proposed that language and L2 acquisition are best viewed as complex systems. She identified a number of…
Cortex Cortex or cerebral cortex covers the surface of the brain and is only 2-4 mm (0.08-0.16 inches) thick. It plays a central role in such functions as memory, attention, perceptual awareness, language, and consciousness. The outermost part of the cortex is grey in color, hence the common term ‘grey matter’. The inner layers are…
/əˈfeɪ.ʒə/ (noun) Aphasia Aphasia refers to any damage to the left hemisphere that often provokes aphasia (dysfunction in, or loss of, language due to neurological damage. This damage results in a loss of procedural ability to use the L2 (i.e. learners cannot automatically and accurately access all aspects of their implicit knowledge of the L2…
Dyslexia Dyslexia or (word blindness) is a general term sometimes used to describe any continuing problem in learning to read, such as difficulty in distinguishing letter shapes and words. Reading specialists do not agree on the nature or causes of such reading problems, however, and both medical and psychological explanations have been made. Because of…
Case Study Case study research involves the study of an issue explored through one or more cases within a bounded system (a setting or context). Case study research is a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a bounded system (case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple…