INTRODUCTION OF TEN RESEARCH ARTICLES RELATED TO ENGLISH

LITERATURE
ARTICLE NO: 1
The Usage of Psychological Passives in Spoken and Written English: A Corpus-
based Analysis and Implications for English Language Teaching
By
Miharu Fuyuno Seinan Gakuin University, 6-2-92, Nishijin, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka 814-8511,
Japan
INTRODUCTION:
This paper aims to compare spoken and written corpus data of English regarding the usage of
psychological passives in order to examine pedagogical implications for the Japanese classroom.
In Japan, this construction has generally been taught in a confusing manner of sentence-based rote-
learning, despite a gradual shift in English education toward more communicative approach.
From our previous studies, it was confirmed that there are still many aspects of psy-passives that
are needed to be explored, especially the contrast between spoken and written English. Although
the attention on characteristics of spoken English has been increasing in the field, there has not
been enough debate on the passive construction so far.
Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to clarify differences between spoken and written
English in terms of psychological passives to apply what has been discovered into improving
learning outcomes in English Language Teaching (hence: ELT), especially for Japanese students.
ARTICLE NO: 2
High-frequency English Words in Spoken Learner Language: Actual, career and pretend as a
Case in Point
By
Mara Luisa Roca-Varela, University of Santiago de Compostela, Faculty of Philology, Avda
Castelao s/n 15782, Santiago, Spain
INTRODUCTION:
Scholars such as Meara (1995), Schmitt (2000) or Nation (2001) emphasize the importance of
high-frequency words in language learning. Although studies on high-frequency words are
relatively common in the scholarly literature, there is a need for research on the use of these key
words in spoken learner language. The present corpus-based study analyses three high-frequency
English words, namely actual, career and pretend, in the spoken production of Spanish learner with
a view of identifying students knowledge, difficulties and needs regarding these core terms. The
results of this survey reveal some linguistic problems which should be addressed in EFL contexts.
ARTICLE NO: 3
The frequency and functions of just in British academic spoken English
By
Lynn E. Grant,
INTRODUCTION:
This study investigates the frequency and functions of just in British academic spoken English.
It adopts the meanings of just established by Lindemann and Mauranen, 2001, taken from the
occurrences of just across five speech events in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
English (MICASE) to see if they also apply to occurrences of just in the British Academic Spoken
English (BASE) corpus. One fifth of the mostly monologic lecture data and one fifth of the more
interactive seminar data was examined across the four disciplines of the BASE corpus. Results
from corpus examples show that as in MICASE, just occurs most in academic spoken English as
a minimizer or mitigator, across all four disciplinary groupings, often in meta-discursive or
teacher talk frames. Although the highest frequency of just was in Physical Sciences, there is
little difference in the function of just among the different disciplinary groupings. There is,
however, some difference between student and lecturer use of just, showing that there is a place
for the teaching of just in English for academic purposes (EAP) classes for students preparing
for university study.
ARTICLE NO: 4
Identity and the spoken grammar dilemma
By
Adem Soru Carol Griffiths
INTRODUCTION:
This article reports on a study that investigated issues involved with the teaching of features of
spoken English, sometimes called spoken grammar, including the use of vague language,
placeholders, lexico-grammatical units and ellipsis. Materials focusing on four spoken features
were prepared and presented over a period of two months to 19 students aged 18 to 20 preparing
to enter a private university in Istanbul, Turkey. Of these students, nine were female and 10 male.
It was found that although some initial uptake of these features was evident at the time of the post-
test, little had been maintained by the time of the delayed post-test three weeks later. During focus
group interviews, students attributed this attrition to the fact that spoken grammar norms conflicted
with their own sense of identity, making them feel fake, artificial and embarrassed. The
dilemma regarding the perceived pedagogical need to teach natural English by native speaker
norms, versus students need to adopt features with which they feel comfortable according to their
own sense of identity is discussed. It is suggested that teaching spoken grammar should be seen as
offering learners choices which they are free to adopt or not according to their own identities.
ARTICLE NO: 5
The social weight of spoken words
By
Meghan Sumner, Department of Linguistics, Margaret Jacks Hall, Bldg 460, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA
INTRODUCTION:
Speech serves a linguistic function, cueing sounds and words, and a social function, cueing talkers
and their social attributes. Listeners readily map sound patterns in speech to social representations.
This mapping introduces social biases on the recognition and encoding of sound patterns produced
by different groups and individuals. tension of auditory information.
Much work in speech perception and spoken word recognition over the past 30 years has centered
on the linguistic function of speech, investigating how listeners map a variable speech signal to
(seemingly) discrete linguistics categories such as sounds and words.
ARTICLE NO: 6
A Case Study of Implementing an English-Speaking Course in China
By
Wenjie Chena *, Warren Yu , College of Urban Railway Transportation, Shanghai University of
Engineering Science, 333 Longteng Rd, Shanghai, 200333, China
INTRODUCTION:
This article aims to investigate the degree of success of an English-speaking engineering course
taught in China by comparing the students perceptions at the beginning and the end of the course.
One of the main purposes of the course is to help the students prepare for the growing trend of
globalization. The authors collected data from questionnaires and interviews, and analyzed the
results in four aspects: reading, writing, listening and speaking. The teaching methodology and
experiences results described in this article can be of useful references to other English-speaking
courses in a non-native English-speaking country for quality improvement.
A revolutionary improvement will take a long time due to the constraints of the educational and
social systems and bureaucracy (Nunan, 2003). Comparing with the tremendous number of
students in China, the limited education resources tend to trade educational inflexibility for relative
social education fairness. This inflexibility is defined as lowering the English-learning cost by
congesting more students in one classroom, standardizing English exam as the only way of
measuring students English level and cutting the subsidy budget of exchanging and visiting
programs. The backlash of this inflexibility unconsciously leads students to passively accepting
knowledge and information and only caring for exam grades.
ARTICLE NO: 7
Non-native English-speaking teachers, context and English language teaching
By
David Hayes
INTRODUCTION:
This article contends that, in spite of a recent upsurge in writing on non-native English-speaking
teachers (NNESTs) in the global discourse of English language teaching (ELT), the experiences
of NNESTSs working within their own state educational systems remain seriously under-
investigated. To help to redress this, the article explores, from their own perspectives, how a group
of NNESTs experience English teaching in Thailand, where English is taught as a foreign
language. Though the article only has space to consider two aspects of the teachers lives and
careers classroom methods and commitment to teaching it is hoped that it will contribute to an
understanding of the many and varied locally-based practices of ELT, as well as helping to correct
a monolithic view of ELT based on western conceptions of practice. The importance of NNESTs
of English being native in terms of their situational teaching competence is, accordingly, given
due weight.
ARTICLE NO: 8
Non-native English Speaking Students in an English-mediated Program: Another Path of
Education
By
Prapai Jantrasakul
INTRODUCTION:
English-mediated programs have appeared an authoritative discourse of current education situation
worldwide. Drawn on Bourdieu's cultural capital (1986), this qualitative paper uncovered the
interconnected landscape between cultural capital successful NNS students have possessed and
academic achievements of non-native English speaking (NNS) students in a local English-
mediated curriculum. Semi-structured interviews with ten students, together with document
collecting show that their academic outperformance has attributed to parental involvement before
the entry to the current school. Through the accumulation of embodied and institutionalized
cultural capital, they had been internalized confidence and entitlement in academic standardization
on how to learn effectively and successfully.
Globalization, telecommunication technology advancement, and several free trade agreements,
especially ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Thailand has made with several countries have
resulted in considerable English-mediated programs as a response to accommodate the increasing
importance of English as a global working language.
ARTICLE NO: 9
Lecturing undergraduate science in Danish and in English: A comparison of speaking rate and
rhetorical style
by
Jacob Thgersen, John Airey
INTRODUCTION:
This paper investigates the consequences of L2 use in university lectures. Data in the study stem
from parallel lectures held by the same experienced lecturer in Danish (L1) and English (L2). It is
found that the lecturer takes 22% longer to present the same content in L2 compared to L1, and
that the lecturer speaks 23% more slowly in L2 than in L1.
In the second part of the paper these differences are investigated through a qualitative analysis of
parallel extracts from the same data set. Here it is found that when teaching in English the lecturer
uses a higher degree of repetition and adopts a more formal and condensed style as compared to
the rhetorical style in L1. Finally, the potential consequences of these quantitative and qualitative
differences for student learning are discussed.
ARTICLE NO: 10
Effects of Reflectivity/Impulsivity on IELTS Candidates Band Scores in the Speaking Module
of the Test
By
Esmaeel Morovat
INTRODUCTION:
Among the four skills assessed in proficiency exams speaking is said to be one of the most difficult
ones. Due to the significance of this skill, all the factors affecting the candidates success should
be taken into account. Of these factors learning styles seem to play a major role in candidates
performance. This study, therefore, was conducted to examine whether there is any relationship
between Reflectivity and Impulsivity as two learning styles in cognitive domain and IELTS
candidates band scores in the speaking module. To fulfill the goal of the study, 52 IELTS
candidates from two institutes in Shiraz were chosen. The two instruments used in this study
consisted of Yando and Kagans (1965) adult /adolescent version of MFFT to divide the
participants into reflectives and impulsives and the test of speaking. After analyzing the data it was
found that there is no relationship between the dimensions of Reflectivity and Impulsivity and
IELTS candidates band scores, nor between the components of these dimensions. Findings also
indicated that there is no difference between R/I in achieving a higher band score.