Learning Strategy Training in English Teaching

Vol. 6  Issue 1
Year:2016
Issue:Jan-Mar
Title:Learning Strategy Training in English Teaching
Author Name:Evangelin Arulselvi M.
Synopsis:
The fundamental task of schools is to endow students with strategies, which enable them to elaborate, transform, contrast and critically rebuild knowledge, that develops strategic knowledge. Learning strategy is the specific action to make the students better in learning a second language. Learning Strategy Training is based on problems the students encounter in the process of learning target language. These problems are needed to be solved for an effective learning. Learning Strategy Training focuses on learner training as much as language teaching. Students should be responsible for their own learning. The teacher helps them to facilitate their learning and to be more effective in learning the target language. Students should be aware of the use of strategies useful for language learning.

Acquisition of English as a Second language at College Level – An empirical study

Vol. 5  Issue 4
Year: 2015
Issue:Oct-Dec
Title:Acquisition of English as a Second language at College Level – An empirical study
Author Name:Beena Anil
Synopsis:
English has a universal appeal and in India, English is associated with modernity and progress sometimes with the ideology of its cultural values. The economic value of English is very high in India as even a layman uses English words in his/her 'native' communication. The second language acquisition happens for learners at various domains like home, education, religion, society domains. It is noticed that even English illiterates give importance to English and want their children to learn English for their 'bright' future. Presently, many families use English as first language in home domain. Second language acquisition and learning is gaining momentum in all the educational institutions. More than a language English is considered as a tool and a passport to settle in a good job. In academic settings, teachers should motivate students to learn, engage their attention, present an intellectual and linguistic challenge and allow them to develop language as effectively as possible.

The Effects of Explicit and Implicit Pragmatic Instruction on the Development of Compliments and Compliment Responses

Vol. 5  Issue 4
Year: 2015
Issue:Oct-Dec
Title:The Effects of Explicit and Implicit Pragmatic Instruction on the Development of Compliments and Compliment Responses
Author Name:Saman Ebadi and Mahsa Pourzandi
Synopsis:
This study explored the effects of explicit and implicit instructions in the development of EFL learners' speech acts of complimenting (Cs) and complimenting response (CRs). The participants in this research were 56 intermediate EFL learners from a language center, participating as members of intact classes that were divided into three groups of control, explicit instruction, and implicit instruction. They were asked to answer an open-ended Discourse Completion Test (DCT) to collect the primary data in the pre-test and post-test sessions. The items in the DCT included 12 situations based on which the participants were required to give or respond to compliments to evaluate their knowledge of Cs and CRs. Then their responses were collected, tabulated, and analyzed. The treatment including explicit and implicit instructions on pragmatic competence lasted for three weeks after which all groups were given the DCT in post-test to measure their pragmatic competence. The results of the study highlighted the effectiveness of both implicit and explicit instructions in developing EFL learners' speech acts of Cs and CRs. It seems that pragmatic instruction regardless of type speeds up the process of learning through consciousness rising and should be considered by language teachers as one of the ways in which EFL learners can most efficiently develop pragmatic competence.

Research Methodology: A Practitioner Approach

Vol. 5  Issue 4
Year: 2015
Issue:Oct-Dec
Title:Language Learning by dint of Social Cognitive Advancement
Author Name:Sukhpal Singh, Inderveer Chana and Maninder Singh
Synopsis:
The ultimate goal of scientific research is publication so as to showcase the research outcomes. Scientists, starting as graduate students, are measured primarily not by their dexterity in laboratory manipulations, not by their innate knowledge of either broad or narrow scientific subjects, and certainly not by their wit or charm; they are measured, and become known by their publications. A scientific experiment, no matter how spectacular the results, is not completed until the results are published. In fact, the cornerstone of the philosophy of science is based on the fundamental assumption that original research must be published; only thus can new scientific knowledge be authenticated and then added to the existing databases. In this paper, a practitioners approach to write an effective paper is presented in a chronological order. Further, writing style of effective research paper, a review technique to conduct a methodical survey in a systematic manner and finally an effective research plan for forthcoming research scholars is discussed. This research work provides an effective direction to write, submit and publish the effort put into doing research into a published form.

Language Learning by dint of Social Cognitive Advancement

Vol. 5  Issue 4
Year: 2015
Issue:Oct-Dec
Title:Language Learning by dint of Social Cognitive Advancement
Author Name:Bincy Mathew and B. William Dharma Raja
Synopsis:
Language is of vital importance to human beings. It is a means of communication and it has specific cognitive links. Advanced social cognition is necessary for children to acquire language, and sophisticated mind-reading abilities to assume word meanings and communicate pragmatically. Language can be defined as a bi-directional system that permits the expression of arbitrary thoughts as signals and the reverse interpretation of those signals as thoughts. Although language appears as a seamless whole, with phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatic processes working together, many dissociable mechanisms underlie linguistic competence. Language allows forms of social understanding that would otherwise be impossible. Both language and social cognition are complex constructs, involving many independent cognitive mechanisms, and the comparative approach provides a powerful route to understanding the evolution of such mechanisms. Social Cognition (SC) encompasses a number of distinctive capacities, including social learning, imitation, gaze following, and Theory of Mind (ToM). Social cognition involves a set of interacting but separable mechanisms, and the language has led to an extensive dissection of social cognition and a correspondingly daunting profusion of terms. The most important way in which social cognitive linguistics differs from other approaches, is that language is assumed to reflect certain primary sources and design features of the human mind.

Pleasure reading cures readicide and facilitates academic reading

Vol. 5  Issue 4
Year: 2015
Issue:Oct-Dec
Title:Pleasure reading cures readicide and facilitates academic reading
Author Name:J. Mary Jennifer and R. Joseph Ponniah 
Synopsis:
Pleasure reading is an absolute choice to eradicate readicide, a systematic killing of the love for reading. This paper encompasses the different forms and consequences of readicide which will have negative impact not only on comprehension but also on the prior knowledge of a reader. Reading to score well on tests impedes the desire for reading but in fact it causes the fear of failure, and anxiety towards reading. In order to eradicate readicide, pleasure reading is suggested as a powerful tool because it has the potential to instill love for books by providing pleasant input. Interestingly, pleasure reading promotes both practical and linguistic knowledge and, in fact, it helps readers score high on tests and upholds a lifelong reading habit that will enable them to become literate and well-informed adults.

Second/Foreign Language Lexical Competence: Its Dimensions and Ways of Measuring it

Vol. 5  Issue 3
Year: 2015
Issue:Jul-Sep
Title:Second/Foreign Language Lexical Competence: Its Dimensions and Ways of Measuring it
Author Name:Anindya Syam Choudhury
Synopsis:
Although it is a core component of a language user's overall linguistic competence, vocabulary has traditionally not received the kind of attention it deserved, being usually lumped with other kinds of competence till 1980s and 1990s when researchers started focusing on it with great interest. The present paper discusses what the notion of lexical competence entails, and also attempts to look at how vocabulary researchers have conceptualized its dimensions, especially the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. The paper also discusses the different ways in which these dimensions of lexical competence can possibly be measured, drawing data from an ongoing cross-sectional study on lexical competence in Assam University.