Earticle

This paper attempts to examine the current situation of college English teachers’ professional development in China and to offer some tentative suggestions for college English teachers to be better prepared for the changes and the challenges they encounter in their career. To these ends, a survey was carried out based on a professional development model by means of questionnaire, providing detailed information of college English teachers including their pre-service learning and preparation, working environment, professional development and perceptions of professional development. The results show that a large number of participants hadn’t had any practice teaching before they were employed as college English teachers and that more than half of them have never participated in any formal in-service professional programs related to English teaching. However, most teachers indicated that they had involved themselves in different types of informal professional development activities. On the whole their ways of professional learning are rather limited and not very effective. Besides, there is a lack of institutional support for college English teachers in their ongoing professional development. In view of these problems and obstacles, this paper reinforces the significance of teacher’s awareness of their own professional growth and suggests a variety of job-embedded collaborative learning activities for teachers. It also appeals for tangible support from university administrators.

This study investigated teachers’ choice and students’ preference of corrective feedback by 24 native English teachers and 51 university students taking English conversation in the EFL context of Korea, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data. The results of the quantitative data analysis were: 1) all of the groups―teachers, students, the high proficient students (HPSs), and the low proficient students (LPSs)―preferred recast the most out of the five approaches of corrective feedback proposed by Lyster and Ranta (1997) and 2) the explicit correction approach was the only statistically significant variable in the comparison between groups: teachers versus students and the HPSs versus the LPSs. The results of the qualitative data analysis were: 1) both teachers and students showed individual differences as well as group differences of corrective feedback, which might result in statistical insignificance in the overall group comparison in the quantitative data and 2) some of the teachers and students perceived clarification request, elicitation, and repetition as measuring the same construct of implicit correction. This study concludes with teaching implications and future study areas for corrective feedback.

This study identified the preferred professional competences and characteristics of kindergarten non-native English-speaking EFL/ESL teachers (NNESTs) in Taiwan. A total of 394 kindergarten faculty and 67 teacher educators in Taiwan participated in this study. The results indicated that professional competences such as good English oral skills are preferred. EFL teaching and fundamental early childhood education courses are both required to complete a kindergarten NNEST training program. However, teacher educators tend to include more theoretical courses, while kindergarten faculty tends to prefer more practical ones. In addition, kindergarten faculty finds teachers with degrees in EFL teaching or early childhood education less desirable than teachers with teaching experience who value professional development. This paper offers a brief but broad overview of the qualifications of Kindergarten NNESTs in Taiwan, contributes to an understanding of the locally based practices of EFL teaching, and provides suggestions on related areas for further study.

This study was conducted to compare the language learning strategies used by bilingual (Arab-Persian) and monolingual (Persian) EFL learners in Iran. Among a pool of more than 650 students studying in grade one in two high schools located in Ahvaz city, 200 learners (100 monolingual and 100 bilingual) were randomly selected as the research participants. The prime data collection instrument utilized in this study was SILL questionnaire. An oral interview was also designed after SILL questionnaire administration to check the written and oral responses. The results of the study revealed the superiority of bilingual learners on four strategy categories. Bilingual learners tended to use social and compensation strategies most frequently while monolinguals preferred social and affective strategies.

There is a reported substantial increase in academic misconduct by students in Chinese universities. This study explores the processes involved in EFL students’ academic writing, in particular how they incorporate source material in their English academic writing. Their perceptions of plagiarism and the factors influencing the EFL writing process are also investigated. The study draws on semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys triangulated with the students’ academic papers. The student group was found to know very little about academic writing conventions though they used summarising and rewriting strategies in drawing on source texts. Their inappropriate use of text is attributed to their limited training and experience in academic writing and their lack of understanding of accepted academic conduct.