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
Innate 1100 Words You Need Innate 1100 Words You Need /ɪˈneɪt/ (adj) an innate quality or ability is one that you are born with and you don’t learn it from the environment, inborn, distinctive, native, characteristic, essential, natural, inherent, instinctive, internal: In addition to this language processing part of the brain we also know that…
Acculturation Model Acculturation model is one of the aspects of ‘language-culture connection. Schumann’s Acculturation Model was established to account for the acquisition of L2 by immigrants in majority language settings. It specifically excludes learners who receive formal instruction. In this response, Schumann (1978) states, “… second language acquisition is just one aspect of acculturation and…
Impact factor (IF) of an academic journal is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower…
Structure Dependency Structure dependency is one of the properties of human language. Furthermore, it is one of the principles of Universal Grammar (UG), which is common to the syntax of all languages. Knowledge of language relies on the structural relationship in the sentences rather than on the sequence of words. This structural relationship in the…
Transformational Generative Grammar Transformational Generative Grammar In the late 1960s, Noam Chomsky replaced behaviorism with cognitive psychology. Based on thinking, comprehension, memory, and uniqueness of language learning to the human species. Chomsky claims that the history of linguistics shows a move from an E-language to an I-language approach; “the shift of focus from the dubious…
Good Language Learner Good Language Learner Early research on language learning strategies took the form of ‘good language learner studies’. One of the best-known and frequently cited of these studies is Naiman (1978, 1996). This was a double-barrelled study of highly successful adult L2 learners and adolescent classroom learners of L2 French, using intensive face-to-face…
Foreigner Talk Foreigner Talk The three functions of foreigner talk can be identified: It promotes communication through simplifying utterances and making them easier to process or clarifying what has been said (Hatch, 1983). It signals, implicitly or explicitly, speakers’ attitudes towards their interlocutors. It can create an affective bond between the native speaker and non-native…
L2 = L1 Hypothesis L2 = L1 Hypothesis (also known as the ‘identity hypothesis’) has received considerable attention in SLA research as it raises a number of important theoretical issues (Clahsen, 1990). These concern whether the language acquisition device which mentalists claim is responsible for L1 acquisition is available to L2 learners. The similarities in…
Traditional Instructional Theory Traditional instructional theory assumes that knowledge and skill can be analysed into component parts that function in the same way no matter where they are used (Resnick, 1989). Psychological theories of the 1920s assumed that learning of complex competencies could be broken down into discrete skills learnt separately, through developing individual stimulus-response…
Criterion-referenced Testing Criterion-referenced Testing Also known as ‘domain-referenced tests’ They are devised before the instruction itself is designed. The test must match teaching objectives perfectly, so that any tendency of the teacher to “teach to the test” would be permissible in that attaining objectives would thereby be assured. A criterion or ‘cut-off’ score is set…