Cultural Issues
"The term Intercultural Rhetoric (IR) which is widely accepted was later proposed by Connor (2008) to replace Contrastive Rhetoric with the explanation that what exists among rhetorical styles across cultures are similarities and differences and “no rhetorical tradition is pure but that everything exists between cultures” (p. 26). So, the field of IR started as a result of the writing needs of students studying in the United States of America; the need for them to acquire the discourse conventions of English academic writing; their need to write term papers, concept papers, dissertations and thesis that conform to the academic requirements of American universities. Most studies in IR research compared ESL/EFL writings with native English pieces of writing to find out how ESL/EFL writings differ from native English writing. The aim of the comparison is to understand the differences and to explain why the differences arise in order to devise pedagogical strategies to help learners to acquire English rhetorical norms."
"As part of teaching writing, IR researchers suggest that learners should be made aware of the formats of different genres with a focus on academic genres such as essays, term papers, concept papers, empirical research papers and thesis and dissertations. Reid (1984, 1989) recommends that learners should be asked to examine formats for various academic assignments. Learners should be asked to pay attention to lexical and morphological structures of edited texts. They should also discuss rhetorical differences between English academic prose and students’ first language prose and chronological and logical sequence of developing ideas should also be explained to students."
"The pedagogical recommendations of IR researchers promote second language socialization which is key to intercultural communication. Duff (2001, 2004) conducted studies on the experiences of Asian ESL students’ participation in class discussions in a Canadian school and found out that the participation of the ESL students was hindered because of their lack of knowledge about Canadian pop culture and their lack of linguistic skills. This finding shows the importance of creating awareness about cultural differences between the first language culture and English cultural norms for ESL/EFL learners. It also shows the importance of equipping ESL/EFL learners with the linguistic and text organization skills that they need to be able to become members of the school discourse communities in which they find themselves. These are the two things necessary for language socialization and attainment of communicative competence for intercultural communication."
Blog and Intercultural Grouping Effect on Learners’ Perceptions of Intercultural Communication Projects
"Accordingly, this study assumes that integrating BALL along with small culturally -mixed group work might improve the university students’ perceptions of both intercultural communication and writing research projects. The study rationale emerges from the meta-analysis of the literature, which asserted that the current technological developments require intercultural communication skills (Salazar and Agüero 2016) that can take place within the framework of at least two distinct cultures. Intercultural communication can be considered a major component of the digital age and one of the twenty-first century skills that should be viewed within different contexts. The study rationale also builds on the findings of Fall et al. (2013) which indicated that a blog could improve intergroup communication; this in turn would develop learners’ intercultural communication skills and improve their perceptions of intercultural communication. It also builds on the findings of Chong (2010) which asserted that a blog develops learners’ research skills and on the findings of Liu and Dall'Alba (2012) who found that group-based projects completed using blogs may immerse learners in the process of vigorous knowledge building. Accordingly, this study hypothesizes that integrating blog-mediated instruction and small culturally mixed group work might improve the perceptions of university learners who have different cultural backgrounds of intercultural communication and writing research projects."
" Hence, the blog model along with the small culturally mixed groups’ tool could also be used to expedite collaboration among learners. Also, it is recommended also to investigate the effectiveness of the treatment on decreasing anxiety and increasing the students’ sense of belonging. Another recommendation is to investigate the effectiveness of the blog model in providing feedback and exchanging ideas among teachers in an attempt to enrich the instructors’ experiences and to enable them to provide students with the 21 century skills needed to achieve objectives."
"After analyzing the curriculum of the English Language Course at this University and after observing teachers’ and students’ behavior in class, we came to the conclusion that despite the great progress achieved, the teaching of both macroskills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) and microskills (vocabulary and grammar) is usually given more emphasis than the development of intercultural communicative competence.
Therefore, we considered it necessary to design a set of tasks to improve the students’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in order to prepare students for a better interaction or communication with people from other cultural backgrounds, taking into account that achieving an effective communication through language teaching is more than a matter of language proficiency and enhancing communicative competence, but also enhancing intercultural communicative competence (ICC), which offers a way of enriching the language learning experience and contributing to the wider educational goals of better understanding one’s own community as well as those of others."
"After analyzing the Curriculum of the English Language Course, it was found that it is well defined in its objectives of bringing students to become professionals of English. However, it projects cultural aspects in the course of studies in many subjects in a superficial way and in a closed circle. Also, more emphasis is made on Communicative Competence (CC) than on Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)."
"The tasks presented in this article are designed in a flexible way, suitable for different contexts and regarding students’ needs and interests in order to enhance students’ intercultural communicative competence. They can be regarded as a useful gate to the attainment of such mentioned goals, which bring learning, motivation, enjoyment and growing professional perspectives altogether."
"Intercultural understanding encompasses both cognitive and affective domains (Hill 2006). The cognitive aspect of intercultural understanding comprises knowledge about one’s own as well as other cultures (Hill 2006). It also includes knowledge about the similarities and differences between cultures. While knowledge is an important component, it is not enough for intercultural understanding (Hill 2006; Pusch 2004). Positive attitudes towards other cultures are also necessary, such as empathy, curiosity and respect (Arasaratnam and Doerfel 2005; Deardorff 2006b; Heyward 2002; Hill 2006; Matveev and Nelson 2004).
A person’s affective response to intercultural difference has been called ‘intercultural sensitivity’ (Straffon 2003, 488). Intercultural sensitivity has been conceptualised in two ways: (1) as the affective aspect of intercultural communication competence (Chen and Starosta 2000) and (2) developmentally as the subjective (phenomenological) experience of cultural difference (M.J. Bennett 1993). It is conceptualised as an important element of intercultural competence (Hammer, Bennett, and Wiseman 2003) wherein increased intercultural sensitivity leads to increased intercultural competence."
"Intercultural competence is the most commonly used term in the literature. While it has been used and defined by various scholars over the last 30 years, no single definition has been agreed upon (Deardorff 2006a). All definitions and conceptualisations acknowledge, however, that intercultural competence involves the ability to interact effectively and appropriately with people from other cultures. Interaction is commonly taken to include both behaviour and communication. Intercultural competence is generally related to four dimensions: knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviours. Beyond these commonalities a number of differences exist among the models and conceptions."
"An advantage of portfolios is that they ‘better represent the complexity of the cross-cultural experience’ (Ingulsrud et al. 2002, 476), capturing aspects of intercultural learning that are argued to be lost using other measurement instruments (Jacobson, Sleicher, and Burke 1999). A major advantage of portfolios is that they can be used to collect rich and detailed evidence of learning over time. They also encourage students to reflect on their experiences, which can promote learning (Jacobson, Sleicher, and Burke 1999). The main disadvantage of portfolios is that they are time consuming to construct and difficult to assess (Jacobson, Sleicher, and Burke 1999). Ingulstrud and associates (2002) found that assessing instances of cross-cultural recognition and reflection within the portfolio, in combination with impressionistic marking, was reliable between scorers. While portfolio methods of assessment may be familiar to many school teachers, the time demands for assessing them may limit their usefulness."
"Conceptualising, developing and assessing intercultural competence continue to be topical as our world becomes more interconnected and our societies more multicultural. Corporations and other employers, universities, international education providers such as the IB, and even national educational systems (see, e.g. Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority 2010
) are increasingly calling for the development of intercultural competence as a desirable outcome. Yet, we have limited understanding about the ways in which intercultural competence can be developed. The literature about intercultural competence and similar constructs is vast and crosses many disciplines, making navigation through it demanding and complex."
“This study addressed the following research questions:
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What are the challenges that international students face during their studies in English‐language postsecondary institutions?
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What are the differences in perceptions of these challenges among professors, international students, and domestic students?
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What can professors, institutions, and students themselves do to promote the academic success of international students?”
“A key finding is that the lack of clarity of academic expectations of assessments and participation hinder IS success (Table 16). IS input suggests professors could respond by providing clear guidelines for task expectations, aims, and instructions in multisensory formats (simplify the message without changing the material), clarifying content/format expectations with exemplars, and collecting exemplars of outstanding student work and substandard student work from past terms and using them as examples to clarify expectations (Table 22).”
“Additionally, curricula should be internationalized with content and topics, material with international perspectives, and activities that require interaction with students from diverse backgrounds. When it comes to references and lexicon, culturally aware teachers are conscious of the amount of North American context, local issues, slang, and colloquialisms in their delivery and make an effort to provide clear guidelines, being realistic when it comes to expectations...” “Posting assignments, readings, and technical vocabulary ahead of time (e.g., at least 2 days prior to class) and providing sample assignments completed by past students to clarify content/format expectations proves to be of great value for ISs. In addition, a successful lecture is one delivered at a clear and normal pace with clear articulation, in which the presenter uses visual aids such as board, pictures, diagrams, video, bullets, numbering, and highlighting. ISs benefit greatly from instructors’ additional assistance with organizational formats and practical demonstrations and examples (Bossio & Bylyna, 2006a). “
“. Teachers can also engage in self-reflection by carefully documenting their work and analyzing their practices—how they plan the lessons, what materials and activities to use, what the classroom implementation process is, and what works and what does not. If time allows, teachers can practice first by microteaching in class and get peer feedback and then apply the lesson with real students. Teachers can also engage in lesson planning and collaborate with peers. Moreover, teachers can present their pedagogical practices to their teacher education class after completion through formal class presentations, an informal show and tell, a gallery walk, or poster presentations.” “Becoming a competent user in the increasing complexity of inter and intra-cultural communications is about gaining border crossing communicative competence rather than mastery of one “standard” English and its particular cultural norms. EIL users’ intercultural competence, their ability to understand and communicate their own culture in relation to that of others, becomes essential. To help users acquire such intercultural communicative competence, “the role of English educators becomes, more so than ever, a multifaceted affair” (Friedrich, 2012, p. 45). As Friedrich (2012) notes, such a role includes the task of facilitating communication “not only as far as linguistic forms are concerned, but also in terms of intercultural awareness building and communicative strategy development” (p. 45).”
Developing TESOL teacher intercultural identity: An intercultural communication competence approach “Identity is not static but dynamic and may vary from one context to another. It is socially and culturally constructed based on the immediate sociocultural environment in which a person has lived for a period of time.” “Intercultural identity is multidimensional. It involves ethnicity, race, color, class, and gender, with some of these dimensions more salient than others and varying with each individual (Y.‐W. Chen, 2014).” “ESL teachers in their study develop their identity through intercultural learning and are more locally oriented than peers who are more globally oriented, depending on professional development and learning experience.”
“Given that most TESOL teachers are able to speak more than one language, they are ready to develop intercultural identity but need to meet the challenges ahead. People from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds participate in intercultural communication in a way that makes their cultural identity too complex to categorize into specific cultural groups (Holliday, 2010). It is such cultural diversity that makes the world's cultural heritage rich and keeps intercultural communicators interested in exploring its far‐reaching dimensions. However, because they are working with a variety of stakeholders, especially students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds on a daily basis, TESOL teachers must develop an intercultural identity.”
Are They Really “Two Different Species”? Implicitly Elicited Student Perceptions About NESTs and NNESTs “the present study explores whether there are significant differences in students’ perceptions of NESTs and NNESTs when students are not prompted by these dichotomous terms. How ESL students implicitly perceive their NESTs and NNESTs with respect to their attitudes toward students, teaching style, and personality, without taking into consideration their nativeness, is what the present study aims to explore.” “For instance, teachers can discuss together the myths and misconceptions about language learning. In addition, it would be beneficial for teachers to conduct informal surveys in the classroom to elicit student perceptions about language learning in order to identify any misconstrued beliefs or assumptions students might have.”
Qualities and Qualifications of EFL Professionals: What Do Intensive English Program Administrators Think? “Our thematic analysis of the data revealed elements related to four themes: (1) language proficiency, (2) openness for professional development and self-reflection, (3) character, and (4) pedagogical knowledge.”
What are the challenges that international students face during their studies in English‐language postsecondary institutions?
What are the differences in perceptions of these challenges among professors, international students, and domestic students?
What can professors, institutions, and students themselves do to promote the academic success of international students?”
Writing:
“On the one hand, spotting grammatical mistakes only is not sufficient, but on the other hand, giving more focus to the content and meaning only will lead to a good content but inaccurate product. Therefore, feedback approach should be flexible according to the students’ needs and weaknesses.” “More focus on the editing process is recommended in which the role of the teacher should be teaching students how to edit not asking them to self/ peer edit because the students show a big gap between knowing the error and identifying the error type. Once the students are trained how to edit, self or peer editing become very useful.”
Writing Conferences in a Second Language Writing Classroom: Instructor and Student Perspectives “Research on writing conferences has mostly focused on their use in first language (L1) composition courses or writing centers. Teacher–student conferences, a well‐established pedagogical practice in composition, made their way into second language (L2) writing courses following the paradigm shift from a product‐centered teaching approach to a process approach, which introduced the multiple‐draft approach to writing” “The results provide some insights into the structure and advantages of conference‐based writing courses for L2 writers. Despite the variations in attitudes and perspectives of the students and instructors surveyed, writing conferences overall were recognized as an effective component of the writing course. Instructors also believed that writing conferences aid the revision process that students are required to undertake after each meeting. For the students, conferences served the purpose of discussing feedback and revisions with the instructors and obtaining individualized help with writing. However, further research is needed to establish what cultural and linguistic needs L2 writers face in individual and group writing conferences and what training instructors should receive prior to teaching such a course. Systematic analysis of writing conferences by instructors is likely to promote reflective teaching practices that resonate with the needs of L2 writers.”
Preparing Diverse Learners for University: A Strategy for Teaching EAP Students “EAP is not limited to only teaching English (i.e., the language); it is much more than that. For instance, one of the mandates of most EAP programs is to introduce students to various study skills such as library research, taking lecture notes, and participating in group discussions. It also helps students understand how to operate efficiently in a new academic culture.” “One implication of the five‐prong strategy for teaching is the awareness of how the five principles relate to each other. We envisage the five components to complement each other and connect as a coherent whole. Thus, when this teaching strategy is implemented, one component may complement one or more components, promoting both teaching and learning in a variety of ways. Students’ academic culture acclimatization, for example, should promote student voice, because when students are familiar with the target academic culture they are able to negotiate meaning and knowledge independently. Similarly, when students are able to express themselves, it makes them more autonomous. This means that the five components should not be construed as mutually exclusive. In fact, we believe that these components are inherent in many of the activities and tasks students are asked to do in the EAP classroom. For example, Leki and Carson (1997) remind us that the purpose of an EAP writing class is to prepare students for writing in the academy, which involves students learning about academic cultures, using their own voices in their coursework, and becoming autonomous and reflective.”
They do regarding content and organization - global level.
Where’s Your Thesis Statement and What Happened to Your Topic Sentences? Identifying Organizational Challenges in Undergraduate Student Argumentative Writing . “In this method, teachers present to their class samples of a genre (such as a historical argument) and deconstruct the sample with their students while drawing students’ attention to specific features. Once these desired features have been made explicit to students, the teacher and student can engage in joint construction, during which they, together, construct a new text incorporating the features.“
Improving the ESL Graduate Writing Classroom Using Socrative: (Re)Considering Exit Tickets “Utilizing student response systems (SRS) may be one way to help provide timid students a voice in the language learning classroom. These exit tickets may ask students to rank how well they understood the material for the day, list issues they had with a lecture, or even list concepts they would like to review again in the next class.”
Providing Guided Practice in Discourse Synthesis “Clearly, the difficulty of the source materials they work with (length, genre, complexity) will affect L2 learners’ level of comprehension. Moreover, even if they are able to comprehend English texts effectively, the strength of the connection between and among the chosen source texts can affect students’ ability to execute effective synthesizing skills. It may also be the case that L2 learners lack practice in manipulating source documents to construct a new text, even in their ESL classes (Leki & Carson, 1997).” “Without classroom guidance and practice, ESL students may be particularly challenged to succeed in writing synthesis papers for their academic coursework.”
Critical Thinking Instruction in English for Academic Purposes Writing Courses: A Dialectical Thinking Approach “English for academic purposes (EAP) writing instruction includes rigorous discussion of multiple viewpoints so students can produce well-reasoned and expansive ideas.” “ freshman English classes that taught four critical thinking skills: metacognition, logically evaluating information sources, problem solving, and selecting strategies or solutions (Yang & Gamble, 2013)” “We call this approach to CTI CT skills because it uses language tasks to improve targeted critical thinking (CT) skills. Two further studies taking a CT skills approach have also demonstrated benefits for L2 learning, even with lower proficiency learners.” “ Most also perceived improved language proficiency, but said that the curriculum was more challenging linguistically. They noted that the difficulty of the content and thinking skills required more time spent on the lessons than was offered. Several students perceived their general thinking skills to have improved as well.” “who mentioned, “I love to think in English” (p. 71). “These data also emphasize a well-known issue in second language writing: that teaching writing through the basic structure of paragraphs and essays may not prepare EAP students for the scholarship they aspire to as students and researchers (Hinkel, 2015). High-quality thinking is necessary for high-quality writing. The students recognized that the CTI approach made their writing processes more difficult, but also that their writing became richer as a result. With this improved writing ability, they felt they would be better prepared for university academic work, including the tasks that Jia had found daunting in her previous attempt at a master’s degree.”
The Contribution of Lexical Diversity to College-Level Writing “Explicit vocabulary instruction for ML academic writers should consider not only focusing on expanding lexicons, but also how to strategically diversify those words when writing. Instructional techniques such as analyzing model texts for lexical diversity or employing teacher and student think-alouds to vocalize the metacognitive process of selecting and/or revising words to increase lexical diversity during the writing process can help student writers increase their written lexical proficiency. The ability to suitably diversify words during the composition and revision processes could be a hidden skill that may not be outright noticeable to learners without direct practice and attention.” “ Consequently, L2 writing instructors are charged with making word choice a focus area of process writing as well as teasing out and defining the individual components that comprise word choice, range, and control. Moreover, L2 writing instructors may elect then to make word choice an integral part of writing assessments in conjunction with specific feedback targeting how word choice relates to lexical diversity and provide practice tasks and textual examples in how it is achieved. Awareness of lexical diversity as a benchmark for writing proficiency is especially vital for advanced ML learners on the cusp of entering the mainstream college classroom where they will perform and be assessed alongside MES students.”
An Approach for Embedding Critical Thinking in Second Language Paragraph Writing “TBSIR: TOPIC, BRIDGE, SUPPORT, INTERPRETATION, RETURN TBSIR is an approach to paragraph organization that can be adapted for teaching academic writing for intermediate to advanced students” “Although some would critique guided composition for being too static or prescriptive (see Ferris & Hedgcock, 2013, p. 75), we have found that language learners appear to benefit from the scaffolding and support” “Each paragraph written according to the TBSIR framework includes a topic sentence (T), major and minor support (S), and a return (concluding)2 sentence (R). In addition to these conventional elements, the bridge sentence (B) and the interpretation sentence (I) are added; these promote critical thinking about the topic and richer development of supporting details. The bridge sentence follows the topic sentence and creates a connection between the (general) topic sentence and (more specific) supporting sentences. The interpretation sentence follows the supporting sentences and states the writer’s assessment of the significance of the supporting information. Students benefit from using this approach because doing so requires them to write about the topic at a deeper level.” “Furthermore, a rubric that incorporates critical thinking elements can be consistently used to both assess students’ production and guide teachers with regard to the writing priorities for further development.” “Our study results indicate that students who participated in TBSIR instruction as part of their ESL writing courses improved their writing proficiency”
Writing for an audience: Inciting creativity among young English language bloggers through scaffolded comments “This classroom exploration reports on a 1‐year longitudinal blogging project conducted by the first author (henceforth referred to as the teacher) with his class of fifth‐grade (aged 10; N = 34) EL learners” “Once the students’ work was published, they were encouraged to go on the blog, read each other's final copies and make comments. To facilitate commenting for these young EL learners, the teacher provided mini‐lessons that explicitly broke down how to comment on blogs into smaller components (e.g., share your feelings, give an example of something you liked, be specific about what the writer did well). Scaffolding this experience, the class collectively created model sentences and sentence starters that incorporated the commenting components from the mini‐lesson. These sentence structure scaffolds were important in this classroom because they allowed students to focus more on what they wanted to say about their peers’ posts (in English) rather than how they should say it (in English).” “When children in this classroom had a purpose for writing that extended beyond receiving a grade or comment from a teacher, they became motivated to write better (Ryan, 2014). Putting student work on a digital platform and working with students to engage with one another in purposeful commenting allowed the children to develop an awareness of audience. Through the evidence provided in student comments and survey findings, we argue that this heightened sense of audience within an authentic digital writing experience increased student motivation to write creatively and engage readers with their writing.”
“CURRENT BEST PRACTICES FOR TEACHING WRITING TO ENGLISH LEARNERS
Accepted best practices for English learners include providing clear instructions; offering explicit modeling through the use of mentor texts, student samples, and teacher models; providing specific strategies and procedures; designing writing activities that ensure student engagement; and creating opportunities for effective teacher feedback as well as focused, meaningful interaction with peers (Goldenberg, 2013; Olson et al., 2015). Scaffolding reading and writing instruction through the use of graphic organizers and meaningful visuals is also recognized as a best practice for teaching writing to English learners (Olson et al., 2015). Best practices encourage teachers in the multilingual classroom to use culturally responsive curricula and instruction (Meltzer & Hamann, 2005).” “Following the four‐step Artists/Writers Workshop format, the Picturing Writing process addresses all five strands of the English Language Arts Core Standards (reading, writing, listening, speaking, and language) while being easily integrated into the science and social studies curriculum. Students create their own quality books (visual and written texts) on topics tied to their grade‐level curriculum.” STORYBIRD
Notetaking in English language teaching: Highlighting contrasts “The pedagogic gap between teaching and practicing notetaking represents but one of the important contrasts that exists when attempting to teach notetaking in ELT. “ “In Tsai and Wu's (2010) study, Taiwanese university students in a treatment group received training in the Cornell notetaking method and outperformed their counterparts in a control group on a lecture comprehension test.” “These notetaking textbooks do not provide any type of practice or advice for taking notes with computers or tablets, which many learners are using these days. The ELT teacher needs to decide if they will promote notes by hand or with technology and may need to consider how to involve technology in their pedagogic practices.”
Reading and Vocabulary
Reading and Writing Together: A Critical Component of English for Academic Purposes Teaching and Learning “Reading/writing integration is an area that is relatively underexplored even though it is commonplace in most academic contexts and critical for academic success (Ferris, 2009; Hirvela, 2004; Horning & Kraemer, in press).” “Learning to write from textual sources (e.g., integrating complementary sources of information, interpreting conceptually difficult information) is a challenging skill that even native‐speaking students have to work hard to master. Using textual resources in academic writing tasks also represents a major challenge for L2 students, especially when these tasks are not practiced sufficiently. Tasks that require reading/writing integration, such as summarizing, synthesizing information, critically responding to text input, or writing a research paper, require a great deal of practice. Unfortunately, opportunities to learn and practice reading/writing connections seldom happen in L2 settings (and often also not in first language [L1] settings; Hedgcock & Atkinson, 1993; Leki & Carson, 2007, 1994; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; Tardy, 2009).” “This study demonstrates that students can (a) be given explicit instruction in how to synthesize information from two different texts effectively, (b) be given sufficiently intense practice to greatly improve their synthesis writing skills, and (c) be made more aware of the task demands and the writing processes involved in synthesis writing. The study accomplished these goals while also carrying out almost all of the tasks in the standard reading and writing course curriculum. Additional training studies on reading/writing integration need to be carried out to strengthen the argument and implications for more effective reading/writing instruction.” “A further implication of this review is the recognition that a number of L2 students will have difficulties with the concept of plagiarism. With L2 students, instruction on plagiarism should focus more on proactive teaching that leads students toward the correct use of source texts than on postwriting punishment (Li & Casanave, 1997; Petrić, 2012). Efforts should be made to work explicitly on teaching paraphrasing skills to help L2 students use text information more appropriately.”
WHAT INSTRUCTIONAL APPLICATIONS WILL HELP STUDENTS CARRY OUT L2 READING/WRITING TASKS SUCCESSFULLY?
To help EAP students succeed in their acquisition of academic literacy (reading/writing together), we suggest a set of reading support activities, reading/writing support activities, and awareness‐raising activities:
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Use reading guides to facilitate students' reading comprehension. A reading guide might ask students to make a list of key ideas, identify the author's perspective or bias, offer an interpretation that requires “between the lines” thinking, identify the intended audience, and/or engage with a controversial issue that might also be a lead‐in to class discussion.
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Focus students' attention on text organization and the rhetorical patterns used in the text that signal main information.
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Focus some attention on key thematic vocabulary and unusual words or metaphoric uses in the form of a student activity (e.g., making glosses for key terms, underlining metaphoric forms in the text).
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Support L2 students' vocabulary development (e.g., locate and identify key words with students, preteach thematic words before writing responses).
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Encourage students to engage in extensive reading with texts that they would find interesting and that are related to course themes.
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Ask students to first generate a list of key ideas from a reading text and then write summaries to support students' reading/writing together (see also Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).
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Assign reading journals in which students write ideas from the text, respond to key information, reflect on issues in the text, or comment on ways to use text material in their writing.
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Analyze model writing assignments explicitly, especially in relation to teacher and task expectations.
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Model and scaffold integrated reading/writing tasks leading to the evaluation, selection, integration, and citation of information from (multiple) texts.
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Provide many opportunities for students to practice reading/writing tasks (even if short tasks) so that they (a) build confidence and fluency and (b) receive consistent feedback on their writing.
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Use peer feedback guidelines that have explicit directions for what, how, and how much to attend to (see Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, pp. 382–392, for various format options).
Writing teachers might justifiably say that teaching reading and writing together creates complexities in their classes. One of the most useful ways to address this problem is for groups of teachers to explore how to integrate reading/writing tasks with larger instructional goals. Teacher groups can begin with a set of teaching issues (such as those listed in Table 1) and prioritize which ones are most important to address. They can experiment in small ways with teaching ideas and report back to their group on difficulties and successes. Discussions among teachers, over time, are likely to lead to useful techniques and tasks that will make a difference for L2 students who are struggling with both reading and writing.
How effective is Thinking Maps® instruction in improving Jordanian EFL learners’ creative reading skills? “Critical reading goes beyond literal comprehension, because the reader is required to read for implied and inferred meanings, appreciative reactions, and critical evaluation to produce original ideas not explicitly stated in the text” “The findings suggest that Thinking Maps® instruction significantly affects students’ creative reading skills. Furthermore, the respondents reported positive views about the utility of Thinking Maps® in creative reading instruction.”
“Also assumed is that all students, including English language learners (ELLs), should struggle to comprehend at the same difficulty level. CCSS further reason that, by reading a complex text multiple times, students will comprehend successively more each time they read and will learn how to discuss texts in depth. Such sweeping rationalizations, however, disregard the differences in background knowledge, experiences, and language proficiency that exist among learners. Every ELL has diverse linguistic and academic needs that are different from their
native-English-speaking peers. Assuming that close reading can benefit all students fails to recognize this diversity among learners.” “Though this was a small-scale pilot study, several interesting findings emerged. First, background knowledge appeared to be critical for reading comprehension. Tackling complex texts without any prior knowledge proved challenging, if not impossible. Further, participants answered comprehension questions with a higher degree of accuracy when texts were closer to their instructional level as compared to grade level.” “The findings of the study showed numerous benefits of selfselected reading. Students became highly invested in reading and initiated more conversations about books with peers and adults, perceived themselves as readers, and improved their relationships with others.”
Lexical Coverage of TED Talks: Implications for Vocabulary Instruction “Previous studies on lexical coverage have consistently used figures of 95% and 98%. These coverage figures are based on empirical evidence that suggest that 95% is sufficient coverage for good/adequate listening comprehension, while 98% coverage may be essential for high-level listening comprehension (Stæhr, 2009; van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013).” “The second consideration in planning for a lexical coverage study is related to percentage of coverage. In line with the previous studies, the present study uses 95% and 98% as the benchmark for coverage of TED Talks presentations.” “The present study suggests that TED Talks require a large vocabulary load: 4,000 and 8,000 word families, including proper nouns and marginal words, for 95% and 98% coverage, respectively.” “TED Talks differ from university-based academic presentations in several ways. First, the language used in TED Talks is more accessible than the university-based lectures because TED Talks are designed for a more generally educated audience.” “This study suggests that TED Talks presentations could likely be used for higher intermediate and advanced learners of English at IEP, as well as EAP programs or with students enrolled in ESL service courses (e.g., learners of English who need some supplementary English courses at the university level).” “To ensure that learners know the most frequent 2,000-word families, mid-frequency words, or beyond, teachers can use the Vocabulary Size Test (VST), developed to “provide a reliable, accurate, and comprehensive measure of a learner’s vocabulary size from the 1st 1000 to the 14th 1,000-word families of English” (Nation & Beglar, 2007, p. 9). The VST is downloadable from two websites, Paul Nation’s at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/ staff/paul-nation and Tom Cobb’s at http://www.lextutor.ca/ tests/levels/recognition/1_14k/.” Identifying learners’ vocabulary size can help teachers determine their learners’ lexical readiness for TED Talks presentations.”
Use reading guides to facilitate students' reading comprehension. A reading guide might ask students to make a list of key ideas, identify the author's perspective or bias, offer an interpretation that requires “between the lines” thinking, identify the intended audience, and/or engage with a controversial issue that might also be a lead‐in to class discussion.
Focus students' attention on text organization and the rhetorical patterns used in the text that signal main information.
Focus some attention on key thematic vocabulary and unusual words or metaphoric uses in the form of a student activity (e.g., making glosses for key terms, underlining metaphoric forms in the text).
Support L2 students' vocabulary development (e.g., locate and identify key words with students, preteach thematic words before writing responses).
Encourage students to engage in extensive reading with texts that they would find interesting and that are related to course themes.
Ask students to first generate a list of key ideas from a reading text and then write summaries to support students' reading/writing together (see also Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).
Assign reading journals in which students write ideas from the text, respond to key information, reflect on issues in the text, or comment on ways to use text material in their writing.
Analyze model writing assignments explicitly, especially in relation to teacher and task expectations.
Model and scaffold integrated reading/writing tasks leading to the evaluation, selection, integration, and citation of information from (multiple) texts.
Provide many opportunities for students to practice reading/writing tasks (even if short tasks) so that they (a) build confidence and fluency and (b) receive consistent feedback on their writing.
Use peer feedback guidelines that have explicit directions for what, how, and how much to attend to (see Grabe & Kaplan, 1996, pp. 382–392, for various format options).
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