The problem of mastering English does not involve students alone. The English language teachers, policy makers and curriculum developers are also affected. Thus, teachers have resorted to using higher order thinking skills (HOT) as a means to teach writing to weak ESL learners. The study aimed at developing and validating a higher order thinking skills module for teaching writing to weak ESL learners. It employed a qualitative research paradigm using documents analysis, interviews, observations and validation form. It was conducted in two phases. The first phase was completed with needs analysis specifically identifying problems teachers faced in teaching writing using higher order thinking skills in six selected secondary schools. The ADDIE model approach was used by the ESL teachers and experts in HOTs to create the module content. In the second phase, the teachers were observed ten times to investigate the effectiveness of using the HOTs module developed for teaching writing. The findings revealed that the HOTs module served as a guideline for the teachers in applying and integrating thinking skills in the process of teaching writing. These findings were used to guide decisions on implementing the appropriate teaching pedagogy to apply HOTS for teaching writing.
Over the past 20 years, there has been increasing interest in exploring what language teachers believe (Borg, 2006). Often these beliefs are expressed in terms of metaphors (Richards, 1998; Woodward, 1991), but there has been little recent research connecting the two strands. The present study is based on the personal reflections of a group of 72 trainee teachers in a Malaysian University after a three-month practicum in local high schools. In these reflections, as well as currently fashionable constructs such as facilitator and motivator, these students often described their perceptions of the role of the language teacher using various metaphors. The wide range of metaphors volunteered by these trainee teachers were coded into various categories, such as terms relating to facilitating, mentorship, entertaining and kinship. This presentation will discuss a number of these, and also quote some of the trainees' comments in support of their chosen metaphor, which thereby reveals their underlying beliefs about teaching and learning. Relating their professional activity to other roles illuminates not only what teachers themselves believe, but also reinvigorates notions of (language) teaching itself. One of the implications of this study is that teacher educators, both in the specific setting and in relatable contexts elsewhere, can incorporate such metaphors into their programmes and in this way reimagine, refine and redefine the role of the language teacher for the benefit of their students, and themselves.
This study examined the test taking strategies of weak ESL students of an English language proficiency course. Test taking strategies are known as the methods that test takers use as an alternative aimed at attaining correct answers on a specified form of language assessment. The study adopted a qualitative study. The participants in this study were forty-four learners from the Bachelor of Arts Program. The learners were asked to think aloud while reading an assigned text to answer the questions. Four learners’ thinking aloud recordings were transcribed and analysed. Focus group interviews were carried out for triangulation purposes. Data collected were analysed manually. The ESL learners implemented many test taking strategies as they coped with the reading comprehension test. The findings of the study show how ESL students used cognitive, metacognitive, compensating, and social strategies. Participants expressed that understanding and reading the passage allowed them to draw conclusions better in answering the multiple choice questions. The findings revealed that they used a compensation strategy whereby they tried guessing the answers on a number of occasions. The findings of the study implicate teachers’ roles in L2 reading and also to guide the ESL learners in the process of answering reading passage and answer the comprehension questions.
Researches on flipped learning have mostly focused on generic subjects and classroom setting. Not many researchers have been carried out on Second Language Learners or in the English Second Language (ESL) setting in the higher education. Most flipped learning studies are carried out on subject matters such as Mathematics and Biology. As such the effectiveness in language learning is yet to be investigated. With large numbers of TVET trainees in lecture sessions, effective lecturing on communication learning such as public speaking, presentations skills and other verbal communication skills are some of the challenges faced by ESL lecturers. With these factors in mind, flipped learning may be the answer to this predicament. Therefore, this research aims at investigating the effectiveness of flipped leaning in communication skills among the SLL in the TVET education setting. This research introduces a flipped classroom approach to the TVET Food and Beverage trainees in their ESL classroom. It is believed with planned lesson plans; flipped learning will provide a positive enrichment and learning environment to the trainees. The Flipped Classroom is an instructional strategy that can provide educators with a way of minimizing the amount of direct-instruction in their teaching practice while maximizing one-to-one interaction as well improves the TVET trainees in Food and Beverage course in communication skills. This strategy leverages technology providing additional supporting instructional material for trainees that can be accessed through YouTube. This frees up classroom time that had previously been used for lecturing. This research has implications for instructional delivery in 21st century classrooms. Additionally, the use of Flipped Classroom approach can be added elements like assessment for learning, problembased inquiry, strategies for differentiation, and an environment for instruction that is more flexible than traditional classroom settings. There are five journal articles discussed in this research as to fill the gaps.
The present study investigated the beliefs and efficacy of a teacher teaching English to students who were weak at the language. The objective of the study was mainly to investigate the beliefs and efficacy of the ESL teacher for teaching writing to weak learners. The research was a case study of the English Language teacher teaching Form Three class of students whose English proficiency was very low. An interview was conducted with the teacher to further probe the instructional strategies applied to enhance her beliefs and efficacy in her own capabilities to make learning happen in her classroom. Observations were made to investigate the teacher's efficacy in teaching and the performance of the students specifically for writing. Results show the teacher's beliefs of her students' capabilities and their language needs helped shape the teacher's instructional strategies. The teacher's efficacy enabled her to decide to undertake the task of teaching writing to her students because she was confident in her ability. The teacher provided clues to the students to facilitate their learning. This kind of feedback from the teacher indirectly motivated them to learn. The teacher's beliefs and efficacy contributed to her teaching practice and the instructional strategies that she used in turn enhanced her beliefs and efficacy. The study implicates that teacher's beliefs and efficacy can assist the weak learners in improving their writing skills and also facilitate language learning.
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