The current study aimed at using a deliberation-based strategy for enhancing the 21 st century skills of EFL pre-master candidates (n=6), since such participants can contribute much to their teaching career. Besides, they are more able to disseminate the 21 st century culture among their learners. The study was quasi-experimental of pre/post one group design. The literature review presented a theoretical background on deliberation, the relationship between deliberation, the 21 st century skills and EFL education, and why deliberation is specifically for developing the 4 C's: communication, critical thinking, collaborative dialog and creativity. This helped to identify the rationale of the study and its aims. Besides, it helped to well select the issues/problems for practicing deliberation, and the activities to be used and above all the sequence of the strategy proposed. The study instruments were 4 tests for the 4C's, which were pre/post administered to the study participants. Means, standard deviations, T-tests, and effect sizes were computed to verify whether the study questions were answered. The study results indicate that the deliberation-based strategy was effective in developing the participants' 21 st century skills. The results seem trustworthy and generalizable due to the close relationship discovered in the result interpretation between deliberation and the 21 st century skills.
This study aimed to assess the impact of critical reflective thinking (CRT)-based workshops in developing EFL teachers' teaching and language testing skills. Subsidiary aims of the study include: ascertaining EFL teachers' perceptions of their own teaching and language testing skills both before and after CRT-based workshops. The study made use of both the interpretive constructivist mode of inquiry and the quasi-experimental research design. Data were collected using three instruments: (1) Teacher Self-Appraisal Form; (2) Language Tests Checklist; and (3) Semistructured Focus-group Interviews. Participants were 12 EFL university teachers working in the English department at College of Arts, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia. They belonged to a variety of academic, social and cultural backgrounds. The CRT-based workshops addressed three components: cooperative learning, thinking maps and language testing. Analysis of data indicated a positive impact of the CRT-based workshops on developing trainee teachers' perceptions of their own teaching and language testing skills. Findings also indicated a positive impact of the CRT-based workshops on developing trainee teachers' language testing and language test-items development skills. Findings of the study were discussed and a set of implications and recommendations were highlighted.
he purpose of this study was to identify and develop some English oral expression skills for secondary school students using a scenario-based program (SBP) in order to investigate its effectiveness in developing theirskills. The participants of the study were 30 EFL students from Al Zohour Secondary School for girls in Ismailia. The study design was quasi-experimental of one group pre-posttest. The study participants were taught the SBP which included eleven sessions developed and taught by the researcher. Data were obtained from applying an oral expression test that was administered pre and post applying the SBP. Data were then collected and analyzed statistically using t-test for paired samples, and the effect size (ES). The results of the oral expression skills test were fairly highly significant. This revealed that the developed SBP had a significantly positive effect on developing the English oral expression skills for secondary school students.
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