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While English as a Foreign Language at Elementary Schools (EFLES) has gained popularity in many parts of the world including East Asia, we have relatively little understanding about evaluation and assessment practices at the elementary school level. The present study synthesizes the information currently available (typically only at the local level) on assessments that have been used for the evaluation of EFLES programs in three Asian countries: South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. By doing so, the study aims to identify what is known and what needs to be understood in order to advance our collective understanding of how EFLES may be more effectively implemented in East Asia. Previous research on EFLES has largely consisted of the following types of studies: (1) survey and interview studies that ask students, teachers and parents about their experiences with and/or their perceptions of the effectiveness of EFLES programs; (2) studies that use linguistic measures to compare the performance differences between those who have studied in EFLES programs and those who have not; and (3) studies evaluating students’ language attainment based on some form of criteria-based reference measures. The present paper concludes with a series of suggestions for the assessment and evaluation of EFLES programs in those countries that are the focus of this study.

Globalizing ESL classrooms simply means widening the access to the teaching and learning of the English language so that distance learners, who include local and foreign students, could find and share relevant information and resources easily through the web. According to Howell, William, and Lindsay (2003), on-line learning has become one of the new methods to disseminate information and education. In the era of technology advancement and democratization of education, there is a dire need to understand how best English language is taught via on-line. Hence, issues such as facilitation, motivation, and collaboration need serious considerations in developing any on-line materials (Nor Aziah, 2007). In this paper, reading is given prime importance and serves as the focus of the paper since it is a skill that is most basic in following any education (Pandian, 2006). Hence, readers need to know the reading strategies available and how to effectively use them in order to be able to do the various reading skills required in order to be proficient in reading. It is the aim of this paper to explore relevant theoretical background in the quest to develop academic reading strategies on-line instruction. This paper will scrutinize among others the theories of reading (Cohen, 1990) and adult learners (Knowles, 1990) in order to come up with the design principles. Additionally, three major researches conducted on adult learners’ reading strategies (Faizah, 2004), on-line language learning (Faizah et al, 2007), and scaffolding adult on-line learning (Nor Aziah, 2007) will be referred to in order to assist the identification of the design principles. This paper is expected to inform on- line material designers/developers, curriculum developers, adult learners and trainers. The added value of this paper is that the identified design principles could be made as the main reference as they are generalisable to other English subjects offered on-line besides reading.

Stories are a fundamental part of our lives. Connelly and Clandinin (1990, p. 4) suggest of stories and people: “People by nature lead storied lives and tell stories of those lives, whereas narrative researchers describe such lives, collect and tell stories of them and write narratives of experience.” Through the transaction of learning from each other, the researcher and participant can begin to understand specific experiences within the context of stories told and retold in community. New understandings about the content and context of a situation can begin to open up possible new imaginings for future stories to be lived. “A person is, at once, engaged in living, telling, retelling, and reliving stories” (Ibid, p. 4). This living of new stories can become an endless process, as differing perspectives continue to influence understanding. In this inquiry, Lucian, a recently appointed Department Head of English in a Primary school, recounts for us his journey through the Singapore School System from student to teacher, and into school administration. During his travels, he recalls difficulties he encountered along the road because of what he terms his ‘differences’. These ‘differences’ appear to have emerged from his earliest childhood English language learning experiences. They eventually begin to impact the relationships Lucian is attempting to negotiate with his colleagues and supervisors in the Singapore Primary Schools where he is assigned because his philosophical beliefs about the implementation of English pedagogy and practice begin to collide with the beliefs of others, and the policies that exist within his system. Within this inquiry, I explore the conflicts and tensions that arise out of Lucian’s story that require him to cross ‘borders of understanding’ with others in the teaching profession. Lucian’s story leaves me with many wonders about teaching and teacher leadership within the context of teaching English at the Primary level in Singapore.

In the twenty-first century, as the world has become more global, the English language has been considered a significant tool for communication. This study examines how to effectively teach English communicative skills to students in the Japanese setting. Based on the selected review of literature, this paper revisits concepts of communicative competence and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). It also examines the objectives of the English curriculum in Japan developed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [MEXT] and describes current situation of its implementation. Finally, this paper proposes some tips for Japanese English teachers. It is highly recommended for the teachers to understand and teach communicative competence within the frame of grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. Developing qualifications of the teachers and their inter-cultural awareness also contributes to a more adequate implementation of CLT in the Japanese context.

Genres are now generally considered to consist of a series of obligatory and optional moves, with each move contributing to the overall communicative purpose of the genre. One concept which has been found to be useful from a language teaching perspective is the notion of the ‘move register’- the list of lexico-grammatical features found in each move of a particular genre. This paper aims to review four ways in which move registers can be used in language teaching. Firstly, the paper looks at some early work in move register analysis which recommends teachers teach the language of the moves and not the language of the genre. Secondly, the paper explores the concept of language learners as ethnographers. By using the move as the main unit of analysis, learners can be made aware of the dynamic nature of genres by using move registers to track historical change in generic structure and in important linguistic features. Thirdly, the role move registers can play in identifying problems in cross-cultural communication is highlighted using examples of scientists in Asia applying for research positions in Britain. Finally, the paper looks at how the large amounts of data mined from move register analyses can be presented to learners meaningfully.

In order to understand the meaning of a written text, it is generally accepted that a reader should understand an average of nineteen out of twenty words, and this is referred to as “95% coverage.” Given the popularity and importance of proficiency tests in second language acquisition, this study explores how much vocabulary a learner needs to know in order to be able to read and understand TOEIC, TOEFL and EIKEN proficiency tests. The vocabulary from several retired tests was compared to the vocabulary on three criterion lists: a high-frequency word list from the British National Corpus, the Standard Vocabulary List, and Nation’s 14K word-family list. We were able to determine that in order to gain 95 percent coverage on TOEIC, a reader would need a minimum vocabulary size of 4,000 words, or 3,000 word families. TOEFL requires a 4,500-word vocabulary, or 3,500 word families, and a 5,500-word vocabulary, or 4,500 word families, is needed for EIKEN Pre-1st Grade. We also found that recent (2005/2006) versions of these tests require a smaller vocabulary compared to earlier versions. In addition, the SVL appears to provide a more accurate range of vocabulary for the lower level EIKEN tests but that a high correlation among results for the three criterion lists indicates these are stable and effective tools for determining text coverage vocabulary size.

This paper is aimed at capturing some fingerprints of possible Englishes at lexical and syntactical levels by Indonesian speakers. 16 written narratives of four male and four female pre-service teachers were selected in this study. Three American colleagues and the researcher intersubjectively identified and triangulated possible Englishes in the narratives of personal experiences of these pre-service teachers during their teaching practicum. The analyses show that the Standard English was deviated when Indonesian expressions were re-phrased (or are implied to have been stated) in English words/phrases/sentences which may inevitably still sound nonnative or erroneous for the American speakers. Despite the Americans’ conformity to their Standard English, the researcher contends that deviations from the American English are not to always be viewed negatively as being linguistically inferior. Rather, EFL educators are to explore how English nonnative speakers, especially those from Indonesia, use various possible Englishes and how these educators address the Englishes.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether language attrition in both short conversation and passage listening comprehension occurs among tertiary students. The number of the participants is 359, who are all from Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications. A test paper, adapted from China’s College English Test Band Six, was used as the instrument to measure participants’ short conversation and passage listening comprehension before and after the two-month holiday. The result indicates that participants’ short conversation listening comprehension improved significantly and obviously over the holiday. However, no statistical significance was found in passage listening comprehension. The reasons for the results were also analyzed and discussed.

This paper reports a study that examined Chinese college English language learners’ out-of-class computer-assisted autonomous language learning (ALL) by means of questionnaires and interviews. Data were collected from 345 students enrolled in college English courses at three levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced. Their computer-assisted ALL behaviors and the value they attached to computers and networks for ALL were identified. Descriptive statistics showed that they held favorable attitudes towards ALL assisted by computers and networks, but they did not show a high frequency of ALL behaviors. The correlation analysis yielded significant positive relationships between attitudes and behaviors. Repeated one-way ANOVAs revealed significant differences in both attitudes and behaviors among the students of the three levels. The advanced students showed the most favorable attitudes and the highest frequency of computer-assisted ALL behaviors while the basic-level students demonstrated a medium degree of support for computer-assisted ALL and the least frequency of ALL behaviors. Interview results indicated that the students’ attitudes towards computer-assisted ALL and the teachers’ positive intervention in the language classes might be two important factors contributing to the differences in ALL behaviors.