The Impact of Peer Observation and Feedback on Technical Seminar Presentations: A Constructive Model

Vol. 5  Issue 3
Year: 2015
Issue:Jul-Sep
Title:The Impact of Peer Observation and Feedback on Technical Seminar Presentations: A Constructive Model
Author Name:V. Vijaya Vani 
Synopsis:
The present paper attempts to showcase the need and importance of peer observation and feedback in developing technical seminar presentation skills of the students at tertiary level. The paper endeavors to know whether a structured format will help students to know what they have to observe in the seminar presentations to give constructive feedback. Further, the study examines whether peer feedback ensures more involvement of target group in teaching/learning process or not.

A Study on the Developmental Characteristics of Adverbial Conjuncts by Chinese Non-English Majors

Vol. 5  Issue 3
Year: 2015
Issue:Jul-Sep
Title:A Study on the Developmental Characteristics of Adverbial Conjuncts by Chinese Non-English Majors
Author Name:Jiang Junmei
Synopsis:
Based on the Chinese Learner English Corpus, the present study seeks to investigate the developmental characteristics of the use of adverbial conjuncts. And the results show that at different learning stages Non-English majors use all kinds of adverbial conjuncts, but their occurrence frequencies are quite different, the enumerative adverbials are most frequently used, resultative and deductive adverbials come second, transitional adverbials are least used. Chinese learners, especially high school students rely heavily on a small number of adverbial conjuncts, and the use of adverbials lacks diversity. Secondly, the distribution of different semantic categories is roughly the same in the three corpora. In addition, as students learn English more, the use of adverbial conjuncts presents different developmental trends or characteristics, there is an increasing tendency of summative, appositive, contrastive and corroborative adverbials, but the use of resultative and transitional adverbials increases first and then decreases, and it is quite contrary to the use of enumerative adverbials. There is significant difference in the use of adverbial conjuncts between ST2 and ST3, but no significant difference between ST3 and St4

Using Concept Mapping and Paraphrasing for Reading Comprehension

Vol. 5  Issue 3
Year: 2015
Issue:Jul-Sep
Title:Using Concept Mapping and Paraphrasing for Reading Comprehension
Author Name:Hamid Marashi and Nazanin Bagheri
Synopsis:
This study investigated the comparative impact of two types of teaching techniques, namely concept mapping and paraphrasing, on the reading comprehension of EFL learners. For this purpose, 60 learners of a total number of 90 intermediate learners studying at a language school in Karaj, Iran, were chosen through taking a piloted PET for homogenization prior to the study. They were then randomly put into two experimental groups: 30 learners undergoing the concept map teaching, and 30 learners experiencing the paraphrasing teaching treatment. A piloted reading comprehension test was administered as the post-test of the study after each group was exposed to the treatment for 10 sessions in five weeks. The mean scores of the two groups on this post-test were computed through an independent samples of t-test to test the hypothesis raised in the study. The results showed that neither group outperformed the other significantly.

The Role of Language Proficiency in Self-related Personality Traits

Vol. 5  Issue 3
Year: 2015
Issue:Jul-Sep
Title:The Role of Language Proficiency in Self-related Personality Traits
Author Name:Abbas Ali Zarei and Nasrin Zarei 
Synopsis:
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of Iranian EFL learners' proficiency level on their self-related personality traits (self-esteem and self-efficacy). To this end, 141 English major students, male and female, studying at Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU) and Kar Non-profit University in Qazvin, Iran were asked to respond to the Rosenberg Self-esteem Test, the General Self-efficacy Scale, the Academic Self-efficacy Scale, and the Self-efficacy for Self-regulated learning Scale. Also, the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) was administered to determine their language proficiency level. Kruskal-Wallis procedure was used to analyze the data. Based on the findings, no significant difference was found in the participants' self-esteem and self-efficacy across proficiency levels. The results of this study may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for teachers, learners and syllabus designers.

Unleashing Creativity in Linguistic Discourses through Advertising Skills

Vol. 5  Issue 2
Year: 2015
Issue:Apr-Jun
Title:Unleashing Creativity in Linguistic Discourses through Advertising Skills
Author Name:Y. Suneetha 
Synopsis:
Creative fluency is positively correlated with the quantity and quality of talk as well. The fluency gives an indication of the learner's ability to cope with real-time communication. This paper makes a correlative study on nurturing narrative tasks through advertising skills. English advertising exploits from the high adaptability of the English language. English enables the creators of advertisements to use word puns, figurative language, and to mix individual styles and types of texts. The aim of this paper is to explore what is linguistically creative in everyday interactions by analyzing advertising language. The present study has been done by comparing 100 advertising slogans of Indian Brands and International Brands to analyze language of advertising from linguistic aspects. Further, it provides examples to describe the most commonly used linguistic devices and figures of speech in advertising as a base for creative discourses.

Students’ attitudes towards the use of poetry in second language classrooms

Vol. 5  Issue 2
Year: 2015
Issue:Apr-Jun
Title:Students’ attitudes towards the use of poetry in second language classrooms
Author Name:Ardeshir Danesh and Servat Shirkhani
Synopsis:
This study investigates learners' attitudes towards poetry in foreign language learning. 63 Engineering Students at Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch attended the study. The instrument used in the study was a questionnaire designed by the researchers for the purpose of this study. The questionnaire consisted of 12 questions regarding the subjects' attitudes towards poetry. The analysis of the data revealed that while the students are mostly interested in Persian poetry, only about one third are interested in English poetry. Therefore, their lack of interest in English poetry can be due to their problem in reading English poetry which has been confirmed by the analysis of their answers to a related item on the questionnaire. Based on the results of the study, the subjects do not strongly relate their inability in understanding English poetry to any of the reasons referred to in the questionnaire, i.e. containing a lot of new words, being based on a different culture, and not understanding Persian poetry. Despite their lack of interest and understanding in English poetry, a considerable percent of the students believe that English poetry helps the development of various aspects of the foreign language.

Indranath and Giribala - The young adult dystopian characters in The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker

Vol. 5  Issue 2
Year: 2015
Issue:Apr-Jun
Title:Indranath and Giribala - The young adult dystopian characters in The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker
Author Name:Malavika Sharma
Synopsis:
Indian women have always been viewed as the object of desire. In the advent of Technological Advancement women are still thought of as inferior to men. Though there is an increase in the literacy rate of the girl child, it does not imply the emancipation of the girl child. Women are bound by the social customs and traditions. In this sense women are not empowered. The word empowerment is misrepresented as the increase in working women. In such a scenario Indian women writers in English have portrayed the challenges women confront at home, in the workplace as well as in their social interactions. Indira Goswami in her Novel The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker boldly describes the plight of the women especially the widows and hopes to instill change in the minds of the society. The present paper aims to analyse the characters of Indranath and Giribala from the perspective of Young Adult Dystopian protagonist.