Artículos de revistas sobre el tema "Czech language – Textbooks for foreign speakers – English"

Two major objectives were set for the present study: to provide reference data for the description of Czech and English F0 contours, and to investigate the limits of the ‘interference hypothesis’ on Czech English data. Altogether, the production of 40 speakers in 2392 breath-group F0 contours was analyzed. The speech of 32 professional speakers of English and Czech provides reference values for various acoustic correlates of pitch level, pitch span and downtrend gradient. These values were subsequently used as a benchmark for a confirmation of the interference hypothesis through comparison with a further sample of 8 non-professional speakers of English and Czech-accented English. The native English speakers of both genders produced significantly higher pitch level indicators, wider pitch span and a steeper downtrend gradient than the reference native speakers of Czech. Although the pitch level of the Czech-accented material lies in between the two reference groups, the pitch span of this group is the narrowest, which indicates that factors of foreign-accentedness other than simply interference are in effect.

Czech and English are languages which differ with respect to the implementation of voicing. Unlike in English, there is a considerable agreement between phonological (systemic) and phonetic (actual) voicing in Czech, and, more importantly, the two languages have different strategies for the assimilation of voicing across the word boundary. The present study investigates the voicing in word-final obstruents in Czech speakers of English with the specific aim of ascertaining whether the degree of the speakers’ foreign accent correlates with the way they treat English obstruents in assimilatory contexts. L2 speakers, divided into three groups of varying accentedness, were examined employing categorization and a voicing profile method for establishing the presence/absence of voicing. The results suggest that speakers with a different degree of Czech accent do differ in their realization of voicing in the way predicted by a negative transfer of assimilatory habits from Czech.

This article explores the timing of phonetic voicing in plosive-sonorant clusters in English. VOT was measured in two groups of Czech learners with different proficiency levels and a native English control group. The hypothesis was that cross-language differences in the implementation of the voicing contrast would be reflected in lower devoicing by the non-native speakers, modulated by proficiency. 24 participants read a text with plosive-sonorant clusters (such as in plan or troops). The study found that less proficient speakers exhibited smaller degrees of devoicing compared to more proficient speakers, who however did not differ from the native controls. In line with the absence of devoicing in Czech secondary-school textbooks, the results provide insight into the interplay between language proficiency and pronunciation details in L2 acquisition. The research was supported by the European Regional Development Fund-Project ‘Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World’ (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734). The study was created within the Charles University programme ‘Cooperatio’, scientific field Linguistics.

Due to the clear interference of their mother tongue prosody, many Czech learners produce their English with a conspicuous foreign accent. The goal of the present study is to investigate the acoustic cues that differentiate stressed and unstressed syllabic nuclei and identify individual details concerning their contribution to the specific sound of Czech English. Speech production of sixteen female non-professional Czech and British speakers was analysed with the sounds segmented on a word and phone level and with both canonical and actual stress positions manually marked. Prior to analyses the strength of the foreign accent was assessed in a perception test. Subsequently, stressed and unstressed vowels were measured with respect to their duration, amplitude, fundamental frequency and spectral slope. Our results show that, in general, Czech speakers use much less acoustic marking of stress than the British subjects. The difference is most prominent in the domains of fundamental frequency and amplitude. The Czech speakers also deviate from the canonical placement of stress, shifting it frequently to the first syllable. On the other hand, they seem to approximate the needed durational difference quite successfully. These outcomes support the concept of language interference since they correspond with the existing linguistic knowledge about Czech and English word stress. The study adds specific details concerning the extent of this interference in four acoustic dimensions.

The English central mid lax vowel (i.e., schwa) often contributes considerably to the sound differences between native and non-native speech. Many foreign speakers of English fail to reduce certain underlying vowels to schwa, which, on the suprasegmental level of description, affects the perceived rhythm of their speech. However, the problem of capturing quantitatively the differences between native and non-native schwa poses difficulties that, to this day, have been tackled only partially. We offer a technique of measurement in the acoustic domain that has not been probed properly as yet: the distribution of acoustic energy in the vowel spectrum. Our results show that spectral slope features measured in weak vowels discriminate between Czech and British speakers of English quite reliably. Moreover, the measurements of formant bandwidths turned out to be useful for the same task, albeit less direct.

A comparative perceptual study involving two experimental groups with different native languages (Russian and Czech) shows that phonologically trained non-native speakers of English are good at identifying basic suprasegmental features of the English language, namely prominence (sentence stress) and accent types, which potentially makes it possible to use their prosodic annotations when validating cross-language intonation research. The occasional failure of both experimental groups to identify certain accent types is explained in the study by the annotators’ mother tongue’s prosodic interference: Czech and Russian speakers rely on different acoustic cues when identifying prosodic features in their native languages and transfer this habit to the discrimination of English prosodic characteristics. The study demonstrates that when a prosodic cue is not marked in the speaker’s mother tongue, it will likely be ignored in the foreign language.

As the demand for English language skills among non-native speakers globally has grown steadily so too has the number of ‘global textbooks’ for ELT aimed at a world market. Concurrently, critical perspectives of the expansion of English have begun to challenge the view that native speaker contexts ‘own’ English. Based on the aforementioned, and on reflective approaches to culture, our objective is to analyze critically the representations of speakers of English as a second or foreign language offered by two global ELT textbooks, to discuss the issues of essentialization and reproduction of stereotypes about the “non-native” speakers of English and their sociocultural characteristics in the constructed image. To achieve this purpose, we apply a methodology based on a sociocognitive approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Van Dijk, 2013), the concept of sociocultural knowledge as stated by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and critical perspectives of culture according to Holliday, Kullman, and Hyde (2004). Our findings indicate that, though the books include ‘non-native’ speakers in an attempt to address multiculturalism, their representation is generic, portraying a reified image of their sociocultural traits and presenting diversity mostly through national labels.

The improvement of second language learners' linguistic performance seems a tortuous process especially for the advanced English learners in China. Although native speakers give their witty sayings and sparkling comments, the majority of Chinese students could only rigidly apply English phrases they have learned from the textbooks very passively. Guided by foreign monographs in English language acquisition, a learner-centred second language teaching material is designed, underpinning the principles of providing authentic input for learners, drawing learners' attention to the linguistic features of input, providing opportunities for learners to communicate in target language, fostering learners' autonomy and offering guidance for autonomic learning. The activities designed in this teaching material have especially catered to the needs of advanced English learners, by providing them with more input resources, more feedback as well as more guidance in self-evaluation and self-learning after class for their further improvement. The material design would enlighten modern textbook compilers in guiding advanced second language learners' autonomic learning.

Learning a foreign language implies a lot more than learning grammar and vocabulary. Language learners should also acquire the necessary social and cultural skills that would allow them to interact within the context where the target language is expected to be used. As a result, EFL teachers face the challenge of selecting and explaining the cultural contents that their students could employ when communicating with other English speakers. Especially the speakers from those countries where EFL learners would more likely travel to either for academic or working purposes. In the case of Spanish EFL learners, the United States of America is among the most popular destinations in this regard. Therefore, exploring to what extend the American Culture is being addressed in EFL textbooks might help educators to improve their own teaching approach. This paper addresses research into the presence of American culture in textbooks used in Spain. The results indicate the limited importance of American Culture in the ELT books used in Spain.. The paper concludes by including some suggestions to address American Culture in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language in Spanish EFL Classrooms.

This study aims to suggest a checklist for teachers and researchers to analyze English as a second or foreign language textbooks from a sociolinguistic perspective. In the literature there is not a checklist or framework by which English textbooks can be evaluated considering the sociolinguistics issues raised in this study. After obtaining expert opinion and a piloting on 8 textbooks used in state schools in Turkey, a checklist consisting 6 criteria was suggested. Then, the check list was applied on the 9th grade English book ReLearn (Karamil & Birincioglu Kaldar, 2019) used in state schools in Turkey to demonstrate how the checklist can be utilized. The findings suggest that from a sociolinguistic perspective, the book in focus occasionally conforms to the sociolinguistic concerns while it needs some qualitative improvements. Improvements in providing genuine speakers of non-native and non-standard accents of English rather than using standard accent vocalizations for the speakers that are depicted as non-natives can be a primary suggestion and at the same time, the textbook should focus on different ways of life and perspectives instead of mostly providing intercultural knowledge such as cities or historic places. Finally, the textbook should pay more attention to the linguistic ecology in Turkey and adjust its contents so as to compensate for the foreign language status of English in Turkey. Accordingly, this study contributes to the literature by providing a checklist to evaluate textbooks systematically with regard to essential sociolinguistic issues and it demonstrates the application of the checklist.

<span lang="EN-US">Teaching compliment expression might be challenging for Indonesian EFL teacher, especially presenting compliment responses in some certain context of situation. The present study aims at investigating the compliment response strategies in some learning resources used by English teachers in Indonesia. The subjects of this study are the two EFL textbooks written by non-native English speakers and the supplementary materials derived from two Youtube channels and two materials from online learning websites created by native English speakers</span><span lang="IN">.</span><span lang="EN-US">The findings revealed accepting was the common compliment response strategy represented in all learning resources. it is also noted that the supplementary materials have various compliment response strategies completed with the meta-pragmatic information on each dialogue. The study implied that the EFL students should be equipped with pragmatic and sociolinguistic information in order to achieve the successful communication. </span>

<span lang="EN-US">Teaching compliment expression might be challenging for Indonesian EFL teacher, especially presenting compliment responses in some certain context of situation. The present study aims at investigating the compliment response strategies in some learning resources used by English teachers in Indonesia. The subjects of this study are the two EFL textbooks written by non-native English speakers and the supplementary materials derived from two Youtube channels and two materials from online learning websites created by native English speakers</span><span lang="IN">.</span><span lang="EN-US">The findings revealed accepting was the common compliment response strategy represented in all learning resources. it is also noted that the supplementary materials have various compliment response strategies completed with the meta-pragmatic information on each dialogue. The study implied that the EFL students should be equipped with pragmatic and sociolinguistic information in order to achieve the successful communication. </span>

This research adopts the methodology of corpus-based analysis and contrastive interlanguage analysis (CIA), using three corpora as the data source to analyze the adverbial connectors used by Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners (i.e., university students in Guangzhou, China) in their written English. Major findings show that Chinese EFL learners have displayed a general tendency to overuse English adverbial connectors in terms of total tokens when compared with native speakers of English, and Chinese EFL learners deviate notably from the native speakers of English in the use of some individual English adverbial connectors. The research explores that Chinese EFL learners’ use of English adverbial connectors might be influenced by L1 transfer, writing handbooks’ and teachers’ instruction, learners’ lack of audience awareness, and lack of stylistic awareness. The research has some implications for language learning: a large collection of learner corpora, a target language's native speakers corpus, a learner's mother language corpus, and corpus software AntConc can complement textbooks in language learners’ deep learning process, constituting a language-based learning environment for human languages with reduced perplexity and increased accuracy.

This study focuses on voicing assimilation across word boundaries in the speech of second language (L2) users. We compare native speakers of British English to speakers of two West Slavic languages, Czech and Slovak, which, despite their many similarities, differ with respect to voicing assimilation rules. Word-final voicing was analysed in 30 speakers, using the static value of voicing percentage and the voicing profile method. The results of linear mixed-effects modelling suggest an effect of first language (L1) transfer in all L2 English speaker groups, with the tendency to assimilate being correlated with the strength of foreign accent. Importantly, the two language groups differed in assimilation strategies before sonorant consonants, as a clear effect of L1-based phonetic influence.

Grammar rule-based learning is frequently emphasized in traditional English classes in Indonesian primary, middle, and high schools. The test-based education system creates classes that produce a type of English that does not appear to be spoken outside of the classroom. As a result, the students struggle to adjust to English by native speakers in the real world. Those who connect with native speakers must constantly alter their linguistic behavior in areas of language where suitable instruction was not provided. To address this phenomenon, it is important to build a self-created "English Environment" by exposing students to authentic material that is set at their natural level and interest, which will raise their sensitivity and proficiency in the target language. Authentic materials such as writing, essays, short stories, and song lyrics in realistic language can be used in class and English teachers should ideally use a variety of authentic materials in addition to English textbooks to stimulate the natural language learning process, allowing for effective English as a foreign language class. Thus, the article discusses how teachers can use authentic materials effectively in English as a foreign language classes and how authentic materials can help students learn the real context of English.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the understandability of an accounting textbooks written in English and the language learning motivation of international students. Previous research assumed that native speakers of a language and second-language speakers would understand a given accounting text similarly and little attempt has been made to ascertain any individual differences in users’ capacity to read and understand a foreign language. Design/methodology/approach The 107 participants in this study comprised of full-time English as a Second Language postgraduate commerce students studying at a major Australian university. The authors used two-part questionnaire to examine the motivation of participants and the understandability of an accounting textbook using the Cloze test. Findings The results suggest that most international students have difficulty in understanding the textbook narratives used in this study. Furthermore, the results show that students’ motivation to learn a foreign language impacts on the understandability of an accounting textbook. Practical implications This study will help the educators, textbook publishers and students to understand the needs of ESL students. It is expected to provide guidance for authors and instructors to enhance the effectiveness of the accounting courses. Originality/value The accounting literature shows that there have been efforts by accounting researchers to measure the understandability of accounting texts or narratives. This research provided valuable insights of the learning challenges of international students and valuable recommendations to educators and publishers to enhance the delivery.

First language attrition has been shown to affect many areas of linguistic performance in immigrants to other countries. In phonetics, there is often a shift towards the majority language phonetic features, and, in some cases, the speakers may cease to be perceived as native altogether. This article presents the results of a foreign accent rating study, showing that even Anglophone expatriates are not immune to L1 attrition despite the (relative) lack of pressure to linguistically assimilate due to the status of their mother tongue as a prestigious and desirable-to-master language. The quantitative results are augmented by personal narratives of the expatriate informants, showing that what is often dismissed as mere anecdotal evidence may in fact bear a strong correspondence to the quantitative data.

Textbooks play a crucial role in language teaching particularly in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms since they are considered as an important and primary source of linguistic input. EFL textbooks are expected to develop EFL students’ knowledge, no difference in linguistic or pragmatic competences (Gholami & Mahboobrezaei, 2011). As some scholars believed pragmatics is the fifth skill in language learning, then, it is essential to incorporate it like an integral component of EFL textbooks. However, there exists little knowledge on how well pragmatic perspectives of language are taken into consideration in expanding EFL textbooks generally and Iranian English for specific purposes (ESP) textbooks particularly. In fact, ESP textbooks are written by non-native authors and are considered as unauthentic textbooks. This study, therefore, attempted to explore pragmatic knowledge incorporation into ESP textbooks that have been published for computer engineers by SAMT publication as university textbooks. This study was also an attempt to investigate the frequency and rate of ‘politeness principle’ and ‘irony principle’ from the subcategories of inter-personal rhetoric as the umbrella term in two textbooks in the field of psychology. Book A was an authentic book written by natives for native speakers; however, book B was written by Iranians writers for Iranian university students (SAMT book). This paper then presented some results abstracted from the whole research project. EFL teachers and researchers whose professional and academic interests lie in syllabus design and ESP field may benefit from the findings of the study.

Abstract : This study investigates the use of the sociolinguistic variation in classroom discourse by learners of English as a foreign language. By using qualitative descriptive method, this study finds out that (a) sociolinguistic variation tends to be used more in informal speech than in formal settings; (b) higher English proficiency and frequent interaction with peers in the classroom and with native speakers of English promote the appropriate contextual usage of sociolinguistic variation; and (c) females tend to adopt more formal language style than males. This study also finds that learners’ patterns of sociolinguistic variation closely follow those of their teachers and textbooks, suggesting the necessity of explicit instruction in sociolinguistic variants in classrooms.Keywords : sociolinguistics; sociolinguistic variation; inter-language; language acquisition.

The article considers the mechanism ofrepresenting the hidden curriculum in the discourse of EFL textbooks, i.e. the transmission ofsociocultural norms and values of native speakers to foreign students. To do this the authors make a brieftheoretical review of this problem and demonstrate the results of the comparative discourse analysis of two popular textbooks, the one of the pre-globalization age and the present-day one. The authors provide evidence for their idea of the dual role, which English plays today being simultaneously a national language of different English-speaking societies and the global lingua franca. The conducted discourse analysis is based on the analysis of semiotic means, which are used to nominate concepts basic to any society and culture. In the article, the authors demonstrate their own plan of analysis by the example of the "gender" concept. The gender concept shows social and cultural conditionality of distinctions in behavior and the identity of men and women. The comparative analysis of gender markers in the discourse of EFL textbooks reveals a global vector of transformation and distribution ofsociocultural values. Authors state that cultural expansion through English teaching is an instrument of smart power. It is suggested using the mechanism of transmission ofsociocultural norms and values, which is analyzed in the research, to create Russian textbooks for foreign students.

The choice of what materials to use in the language classroom is perhaps one of the most fundamentally important and difficult decisions teachers and those responsible for choosing textbooks are faced with. Authenticity is often seen as a desirable component in the content we select and adapt for our language learners, and it has been shown that authentic materials are more motivating, even for low-level learners (Peacock, 1997). The term authentic is often used to describe materials which were not originally designed for the purpose of language learning, but that were designed to have some purpose within the target language culture, such as a newspaper or novel. An unfortunate consequence of this is that authenticity is still often defined in reference to the target language's ‘native speakers’ or L1 community, particularly in EFL contexts, or what Kachru (1985) would label the Outer Circle communities. In other words, where English is taught as a foreign language, both teachers and students often regard ‘native-speakers’ as being the ideal model and therefore an example of authenticity. For example, Tan (2005) criticises corpora investigations of learner English for holding the view that authentic language use is equivalent to ‘native-speaker’ usages. She goes on to criticise not only corpus research but also textbook publishers for still not taking into account ‘the inextricable link between language and culture’ (2005: 127). In the academic world, culturally embedded notions of authenticity relating to ‘native-speakers’ have been challenged for decades (Smith, 1976). And yet I would argue that in mainstream textbooks and in most EFL language classrooms the native speaker still retains a ‘privileged position’ (Clark & Paran, 2007: 407). As Widdowson (1996: 68) puts it:Authenticity concerns the reality of native-speaker language use: in our case, the communication in English which is realized by an English-speaking community. But the language which is real for native speakers is not likely to be real for learners […] They belong to another community and do not have the necessary knowledge of the contextual conditions which would enable them to authenticate English in native-speaker terms. Their reality is quite different.

This study aims to investigate Kuwaiti parents' views and opinions towards introducing native speakers' and international cultures into their children's' EFL textbooks in public schools in the light of recent debates that discuss the relationship between culture and English language teaching. It also intends to explore and discover their perceptions towards the current cultural content being taught in Kuwait public elementary schools. For this purpose, questionnaires were distributed among Kuwaiti parents whom their children study in the government public schools followed by semi-structured interviews to get more detailed and in-depth information about the topic discussed. The findings of this study show that the vast majority had negative opinions and views towards exposing their children to native speaker's cultures for social and religious reasons. One of which is their underlying concern about the negative impacts of native speakers' content on their children's cultural and national identity. However, most of them agreed their children learn EFL through the prism of the international multicultural cultural content to prepare them use the language in different cultural contexts when they grow up. The results also showed that most of them preferred to keep the current ELT syllabus which uses the host cultural content rather than replacing it with the native speakers' one for the same reasons and also in view of growing awareness of the role played by culture in the EFL classroom which propound the nature of the Kuwaiti society of being conservative and cautious.

It is well known that native speakers of English around the globe are by far outnumbered today by speakers of English as a second or as a foreign language (Crystal, 2008). English is thus regularly used as a lingua franca, i.e. an intermediary language used between speakers of various linguistic backgrounds, for transnational and intercultural communication in many domains of life (such as business, diplomacy, higher education, tourism, etc.). The study of conditions of using ‘English as a Lingua Franca’ (ELF), intrinsically connected to the fields of World Englishes and Second Language Acquisition (Schneider, 2012), has come to be a booming sub-field and topic of research in English linguistics over the past few years, as is indicated by the publication of a few textbooks, the establishment of a conference series, and the launch of a scholarly journal (JELF). The focus of these approaches has been on the functions, usage conditions, and practical applications of ELF (Seidlhofer, 2011), and also, though to a lesser extent, on any characteristic structural properties (Dewey, 2007; Jenkins, Cogo & Dewey, 2011; Cogo & Dewey, 2012). Clearly, ELF can be found in a wide range of possible applications and contexts, as Cogo & Dewey (2012: 31) have stated: ‘As a natural phenomenon of sociolinguistic variation, ELF includes all types of communicative events, from the transactional to the interactional, and various possible settings, such as the institutional and the casual.’ It is considered to be independent of the interactants' native-speaker status: prototypically ELF involves communication between non-native speakers of English, but sometimes native speakers participate in such encounters as well. It centrally involves accommodation, negotiation and adjustment of forms to achieve successful communication.

Bearing in mind the enormous importance teaching materials have in the language classroom, the paper deals with the analysis of modern approaches to creating foreign language textbooks at the university level. Considering the influence of the English language as a world language in which almost all the latest research and achievements in the field of technical sciences and geology are published, this textbook example is thus based on English as the common language of the largest number of speakers. We believe, however, that it can be further translated into other languages, thus providing students with the opportunity to study the same material in two or more languages, with more success and less cognitive load. Also, it is of great importance that language textbooks go through such academic and practical adjustments that will replace the essential shortcomings of traditional teaching with useful and applicable educational models. Following such goals, the paper tries to: 1) present the importance of developing teaching materials through the principles of visual values, authenticity and scaffolding; 2) clarify and shed light on the essential shortcomings of traditional teaching materials by comparing ESP and CLIL methods, and 3) present practical suggestions for practicing and acquiring the language through three activities adapted to the stated principles.

The article deals with one of the most important aspects of translators’ linguistic competence - their phonetics, since interpreters’ good pronunciation is of great practical value, including enunciation of phonemes, lexemes, intonation, articulation, stress placement, and even voice timbre. The novelty of this research consists in the fact that it is one of the few works analyzing typical pronouncing errors of Russian learners of English - mainly interpreters, but also teachers and other students of English - who use their English for various pragmatic purposes. Linguistic literature is replete with textbooks and teaching aids in theoretical and practical phonetics of the English language highlighting theoretical and practical aspects of forming correct pronunciation habits; however, they do not pay sufficient attention to most common pronouncing errors, i.e. stress misplacement, wrong articulation of vowels, diphthongs, consonants, etc., enforced by the interference of Russian phonetic system. The writer of this article analyses most common errors gleaned in the course of his career of a professional interpreter and university lecturer by drawing on his own experience and that of his colleagues - teachers and interpreters. This research seems topical due to the fact that audiences form their first impression of an English teacher or an interpreter by the proximity of his/her pronunciation to that of native speakers. The writer of this article holds an opinion that an interpreter’s pronunciation is his/her “business card,” allowing for the fact, however, that an interpreter does not have to speak without any foreign accent at all, but if the accent is still there it must not jar on native speakers’ ear; the enunciation has to be clear, distinct, pleasant, without obvious phonetic errors affected by the phonetics of the Russian language. Hopefully this article will help some Russian learners of English correct their pronunciation errors in their mastery of the English language, should those errors be taken notice of

The complex and varied sociolinguistic reality of World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has important implications for English Language Teaching (ELT). Besides questioning the validity of the ‘native speaker model’, the complexity of Global Englishes raises several issues, both at a theoretical and at an applied level, particularly for teaching. A plurilithic rather than a monolithic (monolingual/monocultural) perspective is called for, one that can make learners aware of the different roles, contexts, linguistic and functional varieties of English, so that they can be prepared to effectively interact with speakers of different Englishes and in English as a Lingua Franca contexts. Communication strategies have been shown to have a particularly significant role in English as a Lingua Franca communication, that is characterized by negotiation and co-construction of meaning; in these encounters, where different linguacultures meet, ELF speakers employ a range of pragmatic strategies to solve, or pre-empt, (potential) non-understandings often drawing on their plurilingual repertoires, too. Communication strategies can thus be said to play a fundamental role in effective communication, particularly in contexts where English is used as an international Lingua Franca. In this light, it would seem important for ELT materials to include activities aimed at raising awareness and promoting practice of communication strategies, so that they can become an integral part of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom practices towards the development of communicative ‘capability’. This article will illustrate a study investigating whether ELT materials addressed at Italian upper secondary school students include activities and tasks related to communication strategies. The examination of textbooks published by Italian and international publishers from the 1990s to 2015 shows that, apart from a few interesting cases, consistent attention has not been given to this important area. Implications for further research on the inclusion of communication strategies in ELT will also be set forward.

Soviet textbooks of foreign languages, in particular English, very accurately reflect those tendencies which affected the evolution of the approach to teaching and its goals, from exchanging information to unidirectional (“addresseeless”) communication that was thematically limited by the realities of a closed society. The material of textbooks changed from original works slightly colored ideologically in the late-1920s towards texts that were completely removed from the realities of countries of the studied languages in the 1930s — 80s. The practice based on “word-for-word translation” methodology resulted in (a) entire lexical spheres having no equivalents in the English-speaking world (e. g. The Moscow News lexicon), (b) incorrect designations of borrowed notions (“currency exchange office” instead of Foreign Exchange), and (c) “reification,” creating notions based on reinterpreted borrowings. All this is fundamentally different from borrowing words together with respective notions under natural conditions (e. g. in émigré communities). Later on, the method of direct borrowing began to be used in Russia and as a result, a significant layer of neologisms was formed in the vocabulary of the modern Russian language. A large portion of the neologisms had equivalents (some of them previously borrowed) and this resulted in a new synonymy with further ousting of one of the synonyms (e. g. tendencija → trend, specialist → ekspert, etc.), or a division of meanings, includ- ing even the formation of words in their own right (messač’< message), etc. An alternative to this tendency can be a conscious attitude to language processes (native speakers’ control of borrowings), which in turn, depend on competence in both contacting languages and, in the last analysis, the organization of education in the country.

The unique aspect of studying other languages is not only the acquisition of basic information, but also the development of communicative competency abilities, which are practical skills required in everyday practice or communication with representatives of foreign-speaking societies. Our present research focuses on the devlopment and implementation of a mixed method of learning for teaching grammatical material in English and German in Bukovyna schools during the first half of the twentieth century. The purpose of our research is to compare the prerequisites for the development and formation of the methodology of teaching English and German grammatical competence in Bukovyna schools between 1932 and 1940, as well as to reveal the peculiarities of the formation of reproductive and receptive grammatical skills in the specified territory and within the defined time for further study of listening, reading, and speaking. Consequently, instructional tactics demonstrated the right selection and organization limits. The development of fundamental grammar abilities is seen as critical in teaching foreign language grammar, since it serves as a foundation of grammatical information. The explanation of grammatical phenomena in German and English was given in the original language, supported by examples from the texts, and strengthened by the completion of exercises. The structure of the grammar appendices, which included extra exercises to reinforce grammatical constructions and the authors' personal explanations of the textbooks in addition to rules and tables, also made a difference in the way the grammatical material of the languages mentioned was taught. The most recent strategy in textbooks at the time was to promote communicating with native speakers (for example, via correspondence), which improved grammatical and lexical mastery of a foreign language. It came to light that acquiring grammatical content using a mixed technique was an approach for producing grammatically and lexically correct spoken speech. Practical application (speaking) demonstrates comprehension of the fundamental principles of grammar and their proper application. Authentic literary reading was essential for developing grammatical knowledge. Translation exercises examined different languages' grammatical structures, with the goal of improving the capacity to use them in context and accurately acquire them when speaking.

Learning grammar of a foreign language was perceived differently by different methodologists at different times. For a long time, the grammar-translation method used to prevail, when learning a foreign language was reduced almost exclusively to mechanical translation of sentences. Proponents of the communicative approach very often give up grammar altogether, replacing the study of rules with the training of several widespread speech patterns. The article is aimed to suggesting some methods of teaching English grammar at the advanced level as a selected subject for one or two terms. The paper partly uses the method of experimental survey and the descriptive method. The experience of teaching grammar of contemporary English at different levels and constant considerations on this issue allow us to conclude that a certain number of students are interested and motivated to study this aspect of a foreign language. Focusing on the unambiguous strategy of teaching this selective discipline – achieving an advanced level of grammar mastering, there is a need to use different tactics according to the level of different groups. The need to organize distance learning in modern conditions, which has arisen objectively and does not depend on the wishes of the teacher or university, nevertheless allows the teacher to use the advantages and opportunities of contemporary information technologies – videos, audio files, online exercises, online testing and many others. The selection of topics for study is carried out taking into consideration such criteria as the results of the student survey, the performance of the entrance test and the teacher's own experience. In the conditions of distance learning, it is possible to choose a variety of modern English grammar textbooks, videos of native speakers with explanations of grammatical phenomena with or without Ukrainian translation, online grammar exercises, etc. The availability of technological support does not exclude work with a teacher and choice of relevant exercises. These exercises can be divided into combined (to establish ties between theory and practice), basic and recreational. The combination of live communication between students and the teacher with the possibilities of contemporary information technologies makes it possible to achieve the strategic goal of providing motivated students with a high level of English grammar knowledge. Key words. Grammar, advanced study, exercise, strategy, tactics, distant learning.

Received Pronunciation (RP) is often studied as the pronunciation model in Great Britain and non-English-speaking countries separately. What my paper focuses on is the duality with which RP is essentially endowed: the role(s) in which it has to satisfy the needs of both native and non-native speakers of English. Whilst the claim that RP has changed recently goes unchallenged, the issue of reflecting these changes in the preferred transcription models is hotly debated. Upton’s model of RP is one that does include several new symbols, motivated by an attempt to ‘ensure that the description of a late twentieth century version the accent […] looks forward to the new millennium rather than back at increasingly outmoded forms’ (2001:352). I discuss the feasibility of adopting Upton’s model of RP as the pronunciation model in non-English speaking countries, where it is desirable to resolve the paradox that ‘most of our teaching is aimed at young people, but the model we provide is that of middle-aged or old speakers’ (Roach 2005: 394). The observations I make are largely based on my MA research, which is now being modified for the purposes of my Ph.D. I asked undergraduate students of English in England and the Czech Republic to evaluate seven voices ranging from the clearly regional to the unquestionably RP. The objective was to discover which sounds are considered to fall within the scope of RP by students in both countries, which approach avoids treating RP as though it were to include only the sounds ‘allowed by a preconceived model’ (Upton 2000: 78). Further, the respondents were asked to comment on the most salient features in the recordings: what they opted to comment on reveals a marked difference in the role of RP as a model accent in the given countries. Societies which lack a prestigious non-regional accent are often oblivious to the social connotations RP carries. Whilst it seems technically impossible to replace the model accent in all teaching materials all over the world, creating awareness of the fact that a rather outmoded model of RP found in many textbooks may not always be the best option is a necessary step towards ensuring that non-English speaking students are not only understood but that their speech will attract no adverse judgements.

Abstract English tense presents second/foreign language learners with considerable cognitive challenges and, it will be argued, grammars and textbooks are generally inadequate sources of knowledge of the tense system as system. A modified version of Reichenbach's (1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: Macmillan) tense model is then presented. The original model has been criticized for its inability to deal with temporal relationships in natural text (e. g. Declerck, R. 1986. From Reichenbach (1947) to Comrie (1985) and beyond. Towards a theory of tense. Lingua 70. 305–364; Declerck, R. 2015. Tense in English. Its structure and use in discourse. London: Routledge; Carroll, M., C. Von Stutterheim & W. Klein. 2003. Two ways of construing complex temporal structures. In F. Lenz (ed.), Deictic Conceptualisation of Time, Space and Person, 97–134. Amsterdam: Benjamins). It is argued here instead that speakers employ the limited choices the system provides creatively, to express a wide range of temporal and interpersonal relations in the real world. The tense - aspect and tense - modality interfaces are briefly discussed. A pedagogical Language Awareness approach (Svalberg, A. M-L. 2007. Language Awareness and Language Learning. Language Teaching 40(4). 287–308) is then illustrated, with the theoretical model as mediating artefact providing visual and metalinguistic scaffolding, allowing learners to investigate tense use in context while drawing on both intuitive understanding and conscious knowledge.

The article investigates the use of various technologies for the educational purposes in the process of language teaching by future teachers. Language is the most important means of communication, the existence and development of human society is impossible without it. The current changes in social relations, communication means (the use of new information technologies) require increasing the communicative competence of students, improving their philological preparation. In order they could exchange their thoughts in different situations in the process of interaction with other communicators, using the system of language and speech norms and choosing communicative behavior adequate to the authentic situation of communication. In other words, the main purpose of a foreign language is to form a communicative competence, that is, the ability to carry out interpersonal and intercultural communication between a foreigner to one and native speakers. Educational aspect is an integral part of the educational process. Modern educational technologies that are used to form the communicative competence of a schoolchild in learning another language are the most productive for creating an educational environment that provides a person-oriented interaction of all participants in the educational process. The main aspects of expanding the use of new technologies of productivity and creativity of learning a foreign language(English) by future teachers are identified. The use of technologies in teaching and learning a foreign language by future teachers is seen as a means of clarity and demonstration, of a communicative component of foreign language learning, a means of acquiring and maintaining cultural knowledge, as well as a means of monitoring knowledge and establishing further professional growth. An important role is played by the creation of new products, electronic textbooks and more. The broad perspectives of media technologies in programmed learning as a way of obtaining education in the future are noted.

The article highlights the requirements for the professional competencies of English teachers in EU countries. It is emphasized that one of the most important legal documents, which determines the requirements for competency and professional training of English teachers, is the Guidelines for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The requirements for an English teacher in EU countries are: compliance with the recommendations and guidelines of the educational programme from top to bottom; use of recommended textbooks and teaching materials, but in fact, teachers can independently develop their own textbooks and manuals, as well as supplement existing ones; development and administering of tests; preparing students for exams. The development of requirements for an English teacher provides a detailed discussion of competencies, in particular: ability to plan educational activities specifically and to perform them in the classroom in accordance with the previously prepared programme; proficiency in flexible adaptation to students’ questions and answers; ability to control the work of students; competency to recognize, analyse and enable students to overcome difficulties in the learning process and to develop their individual abilities. The assessment of English teachers’ competencies in EU countries proves that they must be clearly defined and agreed in a professional standard. It is generalized that in European countries there are different social needs and requirements for an English teacher that is why it is impossible to determine one «ideal set of requirements» for the professional competencies of an English teacher. However, the above mentioned competencies are certainly a guarantee of a positive learning experience and will increase the chances of an English teacher to become successful in professional career. The analyzed requirements for the professional competencies of English teachers, in our opinion, are an attempt to respond to the challenges of modern globalized society in the need for international integration and free communication. We believe that it is advisable for our state to take these requirements into account developing the national professional standards for foreign language teachers

The article is devoted to the didactic potential of mobile applications for learning English as a foreign language by students of non-philology specialities. Since mobile learning acquires complex and systemic features, it is extremely important to investigate specific means that contribute to the implementation of educational tasks and the acquisition of necessary competencies by students getting higher education. The purpose of the article is to review existing mobile applications designed for learning English as a foreign language by Ukrainian students in order to determine their didactic potential. Research methods: the analysis of sources on the topic of research made it possible to understand the state of development of the topic, the main directions of domestic and foreign research on mobile learning; descriptive provided an opportunity to generalize the experience gained during reconnaissance; synthesis of the obtained data contributed to the conclusion of the research concept and its implementation. The didactic potential of mobile applications in learning English as a foreign language is considered. A number of mobile applications offered by Google Play were analyzed, and it was determined that they can be typologically classified according to various characteristics (age of the target audience, level of foreign language proficiency, developer expertise, amount of processed material, number of downloads and the score with which users rated a certain application). The applications that can be logically and naturally introduced into the educational process of students of the 1st year of the elementary and pre-intermediate levels were analyzed. 8 applications were considered. As a result of the research, it was found out that despite the considerable diversity of the analyzed applications, their common feature is the implementation of the “edutainment” concept, in which educational goals are achieved by combining the game form and the educational component of the material under consideration. Application developers pay the most attention to grammatical material and thematic vocabulary. Learned topics can be consolidated with the help of tests, often presented in a game form. An indisputable positive point is that the studied lexemes, grammatical constructions and whole sentences are voiced by native English speakers. Based on the concept of interval repetition, the developers include tools in the applications that allow students to memorize the material as easily and naturally as possible. These can be, for example: a repetition calendar, a reminder system, associative pictures, quizzes, the ability to create word cards by your own, transcription of words in English, examples of the use of polysemantic lexemes in different meanings, accompanied by translation and voiceover in a male or female voice. Both individual and group work is provided in the applications. The function of group English learning can be easily used during classroom classes. Mobile applications are a powerful resource that a teacher can refer to when dealing with specific topics. It is convenient for the student to use mobile applications outside of class time, consolidating information learned from textbooks and expanding it with the help of material provided in the course. However, mobile applications in no way replace the main textbook, being only one of the varieties of didactic material which is modern, relevant and understandable for a modern student of higher education.

In this article, the degree of representativeness of the examples (pairs of lexical units) which illustrate antonymous relations in the English language has been determined, utilizing the method of linguistic interviewing. The article presents the procedure and the results of the psycholinguistic experiment conducted. The peculiarities of the method of linguistic interviewing as a type of psycholinguistic experiment have been defined. A selection of antonymous pairs provided by leading linguists in the area of lexical semantics as illustrative examples in thirteen English-language linguistic works (monographs, textbooks and linguistic encyclopaedias) serves as the material for the experiment. All of the 101 respondents are scholars in the field of linguistics (Candidates and Doctors of Philological Sciences, as well as postgraduate students from the higher educational establishments of Ukraine), and are native speakers of Ukrainian, English being their first foreign language. In the experiment, the respondents were to identify which pairs of lexical items given in the list illustrate the relation of antonymy. Analyzing the results of linguistic interviewing, we were able to determine the pairs of antonyms with the highest and the lowest degrees of representativeness. The research demonstrated that gradable and complementary antonyms, mainly adjectives, have the highest degree of representativeness. In addition, we identified certain correlations with the results of linguistic interviewing conducted earlier, the respondents being linguistics scholars, including university and college professors, who are native speakers of English from five English-speaking countries. References Bruner, J. S., Goodnow, J. J. and Austin, G. A. (1986). A Study of Thinking. NewBrunswick; New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Cruse, D. A. (1987). Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kotys, O. (2014). Psykholinhvistychnyi esperyment yak metod doslidzhennia pryrodnoiyikatehorii [Psycholinguistic experiment as a method of investigating a natural category].East European Journal of Psycholinguistics, 1(1), 114–121. Levytskyi, V. V. and Sternin, I. A. (1989). Eskperimentalnyie Metody v Semasiologii[Experimental Methods in Semasiology]. Voronezh: Voronezh University Publishers. Lytvyn, O. L. (2014). Leksychne napovnennia katehorii antonimii (za danymyanhlomovnykh linhvistychnykh prats) [Lexical content of the category of antonymy(based on a selection of English-language linguistic works)]. Nova Filolohiya, 64, 49–54. Lytvyn, O. L. (2015). Doslidzhennia antonimichnykh vindoshen u psykholinhvistychnomueksperymenti [A study of antonymic relations as evidenced in a psycholinguisticexperiment]. Naukovyi Visnyk Skhidnoievropeiskoho Natsionalnoho Universytetu imeniLesi Ukrainky: Filolohichni Nauky: Movoznavstvo, 4(305), 71–75. Rosch, E. H. (1973). Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 4(3), 328–350. Rosch, E. H. (1975). Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: General, 104(3), 192–233.

With rapid globalization, local languages give way to English as the only international language. Despite the principles of multilingualism and multiculturalism declared by all members of the European Union, the number of people speaking minority languages is decreasing. National languages also become affected. This applies fully to what is happening in Russia, including Udmurtia. The section of the paper “Journey to multilingualism (from the Udmurt language to multilingual education at Udmurt State University)” describes how research in network interaction associated with the promotion of multilingualism in the education system developed. Long practical experience shows that a serious problem for teaching native and foreign languages is the lack of integration, which serves as the basis for multilingual education. With integration, it takes less time to learn a new language compared to the previous one. Researchers believe linguistics to be the weakest link in the resource provision of multilingual education (co-learning of languages and related cultures). To resolve this issue, Udmurt State University conducts innovative practice- oriented typological studies of multi-system languages: local (Udmurt, Tatar and Russian) and foreign (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Hungarian, Chinese, Serbian, Polish and Czech). The research resulted in theses and monographs investigating ancient and modern languages, as well as multilingual dictionaries and textbooks focused on multilingualism, which are used to teach languages and cultures. Journey to multilingualism involves reflection about the life of people and languages in different eras. What does „mother tongue‟ mean? Which language to choose? Why learn languages? Should we purify languages? And so on. Many questions do not have the right answer. Nowadays, it is especially important to be aware of the rapidly changing language situation in the world. Not only the future of minority languages in Russia, but also the future of the Russian language itself, the language that unites both different ethnic groups living the country and the peoples of the neighboring states is giving serious cause for concern. One thing is definitely clear: the diversity of languages and cultures is the only way for the intellectual and emotional development of humanity.

The paper focuses on the description of strategies for improving the communicative skill of listening at the independent user of English level. One of the key competencies of a modern person is the ability to listen carefully, analyze both surface information and deep implications, perceive a message critically, assess it, and understand the speaker’s intentions and purpose. Depth and completeness of oral speech perception and comprehension depend primarily on the level of communicative skills of listening as a complex of speech, intellectual and compensatory skills. We understand listening skill as a multi-componential skill, the recipient’s ability to consciously and purposefully perceive an oral message with subsequent reproduction and interpretation of it. The communicative strategy in listening is the optimal realization of the speaker’s intentions to perceive, decode and comprehend an oral message through disclosing and understanding its meaningful connections. Learning and communicative strategies are closely connected, because the purpose of teaching a foreign language is forming communicative competence in a foreign language. With the purpose of deep and complete comprehension of oral speech it is worth using strategies aimed at training certain communicative skills of listening. In the process of active listening the independent user of English is supposed to make use of the following strategies: 1) the strategy of identifying the context of conversation; 2) the strategy of recognizing speakers’ intentions; 3) the strategy of clarifying the theme of the message and giving a possible variant of the title to it; 4) the strategy of identifying the genre of the text and its style; 5) the strategy of separating facts and opinions; 6) the strategy of recognizing thoughts and opinions of several members of the discussion, finding common ideas; 7) the strategy of determining the organization of information (chronological, thematic, etc) and finding logical connections between parts of the text; 8) the strategy of identifying details; 9) the strategy of working out the meaning of unknown words from context. The article demonstrates how these learning and communicative strategies are used in the teaching process on the example of exercises in the English textbooks of B1-B2 levels: Choices Upper-Intermediate, Get 200 and Pioneer B2.

This article focuses on the communicative skills of learners in ESL classes. English conversation plays a crucial role in understanding each other and dealing with different kinds of uncovered problems. This means that not only do the soldiers that I teach need English for communication abroad, but Czech teachers also need English to communicate with them. It is always valuable to have a chat with them and ask questions to make sure our judgement colleagues are native speakers. At my work, I have an opportunity to encounter people from various parts of the world, and I am very interested in the way they use English as their mother tongue. These co-workers have a greater supporting role in our teaching process and were right. Even if they come from America, England, or Australia, and their accents differ, it is just a question of time for teachers and students to adjust to their speech and distinguish differences in pronunciation. Being able to keep a fluent conversation with a native speaker is viewed as the main goal of my students, which underlines the importance of speaking skills from a student´s point of view. Therefore, in my thesis, I decided to concentrate on communicative activities that might be helpful for English teachers and enhance their students´ communicative skills. My thesis is divided into two parts – theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part, I deal with the difference between speaking and conversation and explain its practical use in everyday life. I also aim to highlight the importance of motivation in teaching practice and the techniques and approaches used to enhance students´ desire to speak a foreign language. While dealing with communicative activities, I focused on distinguishing them either as accuracy or fluency activities and provided definitions of these terms. The role of a teacher is also discussed, and useful ideas are suggested to make the speaking lesson as effective as possible. The practical part consists of a set of pre-taught communicative activities described minutely and their evaluation for other teachers who would like to apply them in their speaking lessons.

Increasing preoccupations and interest manifested for the Romanian language as a foreign language compose a focused and clear expression in the volume “Romanian as a foreign language. Methodology and cultural applicability”, launched at the Turku University publishing house, Finland (2018). The editors, Paul Nanu (Department of Romanian Language and Culture, University of Turku, Finland) and Emilia Ivancu (Department of Romanian Studies of the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland) with this volume, continue a series of activities dedicated to the promotion of the Romanian language and culture outside the country borders. This volume brings together a collection of articles, previously announced and briefly presented at a round table organized by the two Romanian lectors, as a section of the International Conference “Dialogue of cultures between tradition and modernity”, (Philological Research and Multicultural Dialogue Centre, Department of Philology, Faculty of History and Philology, “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia). The thirteen authors who sign the articles are teachers of Romanian as a foreign language, either in the country or abroad. The challenge launched by the organisers pointed both at the teaching methods of Romanian as a foreign language – including the authors’ reflections upon the available textbooks (Romanian language textbooks) and the cultural implications of this perspective on the Romanian language. It is probably no accident that the first article of the aforementioned volume – “Particularities of teaching Romanian as a foreign language for the preparatory year. In quest of “the ideal textbook’’ (Cristina Sicoe, University of the West, Timișoara) – brings a strict perspective upon that what should be, from the author’s point of view, “the ideal textbook”. The fact that it does not exist, and has little chances ever to exist, could maybe be explained by the multitude of variables which appear in practice, within the didactic triangle composed by teacher – student – textbook. The character of the variables is the result of particular interactions established between the components of the triad. A concurrent direction is pointed out by the considerations that make the object of the second article, “To a new textbook of Romanian language as a foreign language’’ (Ana-Maria Radu-Pop, University of the West, Timișoara). While the previous article was about an ideal textbook for foreign students in the preparatory year of Romanian, this time, the textbook in question has another target group, namely Erasmus students and students from Centres of foreign languages. Considering that this kind of target group “forms a distinct category”, the author pleads for the necessity of editing adequate textbooks with a part made of themes, vocabulary, grammar and a part made of culture and civilization – the separation into parts belongs to the author – that should consider the needs of this target group, their short stay in Romania (three months to one year) and, last but not least, the students’ poor motivation. These distinctive notes turn the existent RFL textbooks[1] in that which the author calls “level crossings”, which she explains in a humorous manner[2]. Since the ideal manual seems to be in no hurry to appear, the administrative-logistic implications of teaching Romanian as a foreign language (for the preparatory year) should be easier to align with the standards of efficiency. This matter is addressed by Mihaela Badea and Cristina Iridon from the Oil & Gas University of Ploiești, in the article “Administrative/logistic difficulties of teaching RFL. Case study”. Starting from a series of practical experiences, the authors are purposing to suggest “several ideas to improve existent methodologies of admitting foreign students and to review the ARACIS criteria from March 2017, regarding external evaluation of the ‘Romanian as a foreign language’ study programme”. Among other things, an external difficulty is highlighted (common to all universities in the country), namely the permission to register foreign students until the end of the first semester of the academic year, meaning around the middle of February. The authors punctually describe the unfortunate implications of this legal aspect and the regrettable consequences upon the quality of the educational act. They suggest that the deadline for admitting foreign students not exceed the 1st of December of every academic year. The list of difficulties in teaching Romanian as a foreign language is extremely long, reaching sensitive aspects from an ethical perspective of multiculturalism. This approach belongs to Constantin Mladin from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, who writes about “The role of the ethical component in the learning process of a foreign language and culture. The Macedonian experience”. Therefore, we are moving towards the intercultural competences which, as the author states, are meant to “adequately and efficiently round the acquired language competences”. In today’s Macedonian society, that which the author refers to, a society claimed to be multiethnic, multilingual and pluriconfessional, the emotional component of an intercultural approach needs a particular attention. Thus, reconfigurations of the current didactic model are necessary. The solution proposed and successfully applied by Professor Constantin Mladin is that of shaking the natural directions in which a foreign language and culture is acquired: from the source language/culture towards the target language/culture. All this is proposed in the context in which the target group is extremely heterogeneous and its “emotional capacity of letting go of the ethnocentric attitudes and perceptions upon otherness” seem to lack. When speaking about ‘barriers’, we often mean ‘difficulty’. The article written by Silvia Kried Stoian and Loredana Netedu from the Oil & Gas University of Ploiești, called “Barriers in the intercultural communication of foreign students in the preparatory year”, is the result of a micro-research done upon a group of 37 foreign students from 10 different countries/cultural spaces, belonging to different religions (plus atheists), speakers of different languages. From the start, there are many differences to be reconciled in a way reasonable enough to reduce most barriers that appear in their intercultural communication. Beneficial and obstructive factors – namely communication barriers – coexist in a complex communicational environment, which supposes identifying and solving the latter, in the aim of softening the cultural shock experienced within linguistic and cultural immersion. Several solutions are recommended by the two authors. An optimistic conclusion emerges in the end, namely the possibility that the initial inconvenient of the ethnical, linguistic and cultural heterogeneity become “an advantage in learning the Romanian language and acquiring intercultural communication”. Total immersion (linguistic and cultural), as well as the advantage it represents as far as exposure to language is concerned, is the subject of the article entitled “Cultural immersion and exposure to language”, written by Adina Curta (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia). Considered to be a factor of rapid progress and effectiveness of acquisition, exposure to language that arises from the force of circumstances could be extended to that what may be named orchestrated exposure to language. This phrase is consented to reunite two types of resources, “a category of statutory resources, which are the CEFRL suggestions, and a category of particular resources, which should be the activities proposed by the organizers of the preparatory year of RFL”. In this respect, we are dealing with several alternating roles of the teacher who, besides being an expert, animator, facilitator of the learning process or technician, also becomes a cultural and linguistic coach, sending to the group of immersed students a beneficial message of professional and human polyvalence. A particular experience is represented by teaching the Romanian language at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. This experience is presented by Nicoleta Neșu in the article “The Romanian language, between mother tongue and ethnic language. Case study”. The particular situation is generated by the nature of the target group, a group of students coming, on the one hand, from Romanian families, who, having lived in Italy since early childhood, have studied in the Italian language and are now studying the Romanian language (mother tongue, then ethnic language) as L1, and, on the other hand, Italian mother tongue students who study the Romanian language as a foreign language. The strategies that are used and the didactic approach are constantly in need of particularization, depending on the statute that the studied language, namely the Romanian language, has in each case. In the area of teaching methodology for Romanian as a foreign language, suggestions and analyses come from four authors, namely Eliana-Alina Popeți (West University of Timișoara), “Teaching the Romanian language to students from Romanian communities from Serbia. Vocabulary exercise”, Georgeta Orian (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia) “The Romanian language in the rhythm of dance and hip-hop music”, Coralia Telea (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia), “Explanation during the class of Romanian as a foreign language” and Emilia Ivancu (Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland), “Romanian (auto)biographic discourse or the effect of literature upon learning RFL”. The vocabulary exercise proposed to the students by Eliana-Alina Popeți is a didactic experiment through which the author checked the hypothesis according to which a visual didactic material eases the development of vocabulary, especially since the textual productions of the students, done through the technique that didactics calls “reading images”, were video recorded and submitted to mutual evaluation as well as to self-evaluation of grammar, coherence and pronunciation. The role of the authentic iconographic document is attested in the didactics of modern languages, as the aforementioned experiment confirms once again the high coefficient of interest and attention of the students, as well as the vitality and authenticity of interaction within the work groups. It is worth mentioning that these students come from the Serbian Republic and are registered in the preparatory year at the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology of the West University of Timișoara. Most of them are speakers of different Romanian patois, only found on the territory of Serbia. The activity consisted of elaborating written texts starting from an image (a postcard reproducing a portrait of the Egyptian artist Eman Osama), imagining a possible biography of the character. In the series of successful authentic documents in teaching-learning foreign languages, there is also the song. The activities described by Georgeta Orian were undertaken either with Erasmus students from the preparatory year at the “1 Decembrie 1989” University of Alba Iulia, or with Polish students (within the Department of Romanian Studies in Poznań), having high communication competences (B1-B2, or even more). There were five activities triggered by Romanian songs, chosen by criteria of sympathy with the interests of the target group: youngsters, late teenagers. The stake was “a more pleasant and, sometimes, a more useful learning process”, mostly through discovery, through recourse to musical language, which has the advantage of breaking linguistic barriers in the aim of creating a common space in which the target language, a language of “the other”, becomes the instrument of speaking about what connects us. The didactic approach, when it comes to Romanian as a foreign language taught to students of the preparatory year cannot avoid the extremely popular method of the explanation. Its story is told by Coralia Telea. With a use of high scope, the explanation steps in in various moments and contexts: for transmitting new information, for underlining mechanisms generating new rules, in evaluation activities (result appreciation, progress measurements). Still, the limits of this method are not left out, among which the risk of the teachers to annoy their audience if overbidding this method. Addressing (Polish) students from the Master’s Studies Program within the Romania Philology at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Emilia Ivancu crosses, through her article, the methodological dimensions of teaching Romanian as a foreign language, entering the curricular territory of the problematics in question by proposing an optional course entitled Romanian (auto)biographic discourse”. Approaching contact with the Romanian language as a foreign language at an advanced level, the stakes of the approach and the proposed contents differ, obviously, from the ones only regarding the creation and development of the competence of communication in the Romanian Language. The studied texts have been grouped into correspondence/epistolary discourse, diaries, memoires and (auto)biography as fiction. Vasile Alecsandri, Sanda Stolojan, Paul Goma, Neagoe Basarab, Norman Manea, Mircea Eliade are just a few of the writers concerned, submitted to discussions with the help of a theoretical toolbox, offered to the students as recordings of cultural broadcasts, like Profesioniștii or Rezistența prin cultură etc. The consequences of this complex approach consisted, on the one hand, of the expansion of the readings for the students and, on the other hand, in choosing to write dissertations on these topics. A “tangible” result of Emilia Ivancu’s course is the elaboration of a volume entitled România la persoana întâi, perspective la persoana a treia (Romania in the first person, perspectives in the third person), containing seven articles written by Polish Master’s students. Master’s theses, a PhD thesis, several translations into the Polish language are also “fruits” of the initiated course. Of all these, the author extracted several conclusions supporting the merits and usefulness of her initiative. The volume ends with a review signed by Adina Curta (1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia), “The Romanian language, a modern, wanted language. Iuliana Wainberg-Drăghiciu – Textbook of Romanian language as a foreign language”. The textbook elaborated by Iuliana Wainberg-Drăghiciu (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia) respects the CEFRL suggestions, points at the communicative competences (linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic) described for levels A1 and A2, has a high degree of accessibility through a trilingual dictionary (Romanian-English-French) which it offers to foreign students and through the phonetic transcription of new vocabulary units.

Prosodic patterning is known to affect the impression that speakers make on their listeners. This study explores prosodic phrasing in good public speakers of American English and Czech. Czech is a West Slavic language whose intonation is reported to be flatter and prosodic phrases longer than in English. We analyzed prosodic characteristics of 10 speakers of Czech and American English who appeared in TED Talks, assuming such appearance to be a mark of a “good speaker.” Our objective was to see whether prosodic phrasing will be more similar in these public speeches between the two languages. We measured the length of prosodic phrases, speech rate in each phrase, and pitch range and melodic variability in the entire phrase, as well as in its pre-nuclear and nuclear portion. The number of syllables per phrase was higher in Czech than in English, although phrases were generally very short in both languages. The melodic indicators confirm smaller melodic variability in Czech even in publicly performed TED Talks. Overall, our results show that there are differences between Czech and English prosodic phrasing in good public speakers but that the genre also affects phrasing. Prosodic rendition—especially prosodic phrase length and melodic variability—is therefore a vital, albeit somewhat language-specific aspect of speech performance which public speakers should pay close attention to, both in their native language and in foreign languages.

A society's language reflects its values, norms, and other characteristics and is considered an integral component of these traits. This would be an incomplete language education, despite the fact that it is possible to teach a language without addressing the cultural aspects of the society that speaks it. This study aims to highlight the predominance of inner circle cultural and societal traits in English language education. The evaluation of a global EFL textbook revealed that the majority of the content reflected inner circle cultural characteristics. The efficacy of this method of language instruction is a subject of debate among academics. Critics argue that this approach may perpetuate linguistic imperialism and hinder the development of intercultural communicative competence. However, proponents suggest that a standardised curriculum can provide learners with a solid foundation in the language and facilitate communication with speakers from different parts of the world.

The article contributes to the research field on the development of speaking in a foreign language. It presents the results of a survey conducted at the University of Defence in Brno. The survey was designed to identify differences between two groups of fifty students with different levels of their speaking sklil in English, corresponding to A1 and B1 levels in terms of the CEFR. The participants were interviewed in Czech about their previous language achievements, motivation to learn English and their experience of learning English. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using inferential and descriptive statistics. The outcomes have shown that the groups differed significantly in the type of school the students had studied at prior to the university, the grades they had achieved in their secondary school leaving examinations in English Language and Czech Language and Literature, and the degree of their motivation to learn English. Furthermore, the analysis of students’ opinions on the development of their speaking skill in English has revealed that successful foreign language speakers actively seek opportunities to speak in the foreign language, and attribute their success to factors within their control, which is not the case of the unsuccessful ones. The author proposes that undergraduates with low foreign language skills should be detected and interviewed in their native language when they enter university to reflect on their language learning experience, and encouraged to resume responsibility for their language skills development.

Word stress is demanding for non-native learners of English, partly because speakers from different backgrounds weight perceptual cues to stress like pitch, intensity, and duration differently. Slavic learners of English and particularly those with a fixed stress language background like Czech and Polish have been shown to be less sensitive to stress in their native and non-native languages. In contrast, German English learners are rarely discussed in a word stress context. A comparison of these varieties can reveal differences in the foreign language processing of speakers from two language families. We use electroencephalography (EEG) to explore group differences in word stress cue perception between Slavic and German learners of English. Slavic and German advanced English speakers were examined in passive multi-feature oddball experiments, where they were exposed to the word impact as an unstressed standard and as deviants stressed on the first or second syllable through higher pitch, intensity, or duration. The results revealed a robust Mismatch Negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potential (ERP) in both language groups in response to all conditions, demonstrating sensitivity to stress changes in a non-native language. While both groups showed higher MMN responses to stress changes to the second than the first syllable, this effect was more pronounced for German than for Slavic participants. Such group differences in non-native English word stress perception from the current and previous studies are argued to speak in favor of customizable language technologies and diversified English curricula compensating for non-native perceptual variation.

Abstract Nowadays, English has been considered as an International language or a Lingua Franca as a result of its widespread use among non-native speakers. English now is spoken by various people with different languages and diverse cultures. Thus, learners need to know the culture of different people of various countries. As stated by Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (1999). Cultural mirrors: Materials and methods in the EFL classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching (pp. 196–219). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, learners should have knowledge about source culture, target culture, and international culture. In this regard, teachers have a great responsibility in including cultural content in their English language classes. Therefore, the main purpose of this pilot study during Azimzadeh’s PhD journey (Azimzadeh, M. (Unpublished). Representation of cultural elements in EFL textbooks used in Iranian EFL high schools [PhD dissertation]. Adana, Turkey: Cukurova University) is to investigate Iranian and Turkish English language teachers’ views, perspectives, and experiences of teaching cultural content in their English language classes. This study was conducted as a mixed-method design. The data collection was done by using a questionnaire and an interview. The questionnaire which was used in this study adopted from CULTNET project (a network of researchers of inter-culture in foreign language education), Byram and Risager’s projects, and Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) three cultural sources. Participants of this study were 16 teachers who were teaching English language in high schools in Iran and Turkey. The data collected from questionnaires and interviews were analysed by using a series of descriptive statistics and interviews were analysed by using thematic analysis (Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. London: Sage Publications, Inc). The findings of this study have indicated that both Iranian and Turkish teachers were aware of the importance of teaching culture in their English language classes. They generally claimed that culture was important in language classes and the cultural subjects should be taught in English language classes.

06–01Akira, Mochida & Harrington, Michael (U Queensland, Australia), The Yes/No test as a measure of receptive vocabulary knowledge. Language Testing (Hodder Arnold) 23.1 (2006), 73–98.06–02Biddle, Rodney (Gunma Prefectural Women's U, Japan), What makes a good English class? Perceptions of individuality and the group among Japanese EFL students. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 29.8 (2005), 3–8.06–03Burden, Peter (Okayama Shoka U, Japan), The castor oil effect: Learner beliefs about the enjoyment and usefulness of classroom activities and the effects on student motivation. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 29.10 (2005), 3–9.06–04Corbeil, Giselle (Acadia U, Canada), Effectiveness of focus on forms instruction: Different outcomes on constrained and free production tasks?Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics (Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics) 8.1 (2005), 27–46.06–05Dastjerdi, Hossein Vahid, Talebinezhad & Mohammad Reza (U Isfahan, Iran), Chain-preserving deletion procedure in cloze: A discoursal perspective. Language Testing (Hodder Arnold) 23.1 (2006), 58–72.06–06Guan Eng Ho, Debbie (U Brunei Darussalam, Brunei; debbieho@fass.ubd.edu.bn), Why do teachers ask the questions they ask?RELC Journal (Sage) 36.3 (2005), 297–310.06–07Honna, Nobuyuki (Aoyama Gakuin U, Japan; honna@sipeb.aoyama.ac.jp) & Yuko Takeshita, English language teaching in Japan: Policy plans and their implementations. RELC Journal (Sage) 36.3 (2005), 363–383.06–08Jenkins, Jennifer (King's College, U London, UK), Implementing an international approach to English pronunciation: The role of teacher attitudes and identity. TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 39.3 (2005), 535–543.06–09Kato, Asako (Fudoka Seiwa High School, Japan), The visual text speaks louder than the written text: An examination of the revised Monkasho English I textbooks. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 29.5 (2005), 3–13.06–10Lazaraton, Anne (U Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA; lazaratn@umn.edu) & Noriko Ishihara, Understanding second language teacher practice using microanalysis and self-reflection: A collaborative case study. The Modern Language Journal (Blackwell) 89.4 (2005), 529–542.06–11Li, Defeng (Chinese U Hong Kong, China; defeng@cuhk.edu.hk), Teaching of specialized translation courses in Hong Kong: A curricular analysis. Babel (John Benjamins) 51.1 (2005), 62–77.06–12McCaughey, Kevin (California, USA; kevin@kevinmccaughey.com), Thekashasyndrome: English language teaching in Russia. World Englishes (Blackwell) 24.4 (2005), 455–459.06–13McEachron, Gail (College of William and Mary, VA, USA) & Ghazala Bhatti, Language support for immigrant children: A study of state schools in the UK and US. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.2 (2005), 164–180.06–14Reza Hashemi, Mohammad & Farah Gowdasiaei (Ferdowsi U Mashhad, Iran; smrh@ferdowsi.um.ac.ir), An attribute-treatment interaction study: Lexical-set versus semantically unrelated vocabulary instruction. RELC Journal (Sage) 36.3 (2005), 341–361.06–15Savickienė, Ineta & Violeta Kalėdaitė (Vytautas Magnus U, Kaunas, Lithuania), Cultural and linguistic diversity of the Baltic states in a new Europe. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Multilingual Matters) 26.5 (2005), 442–452.06–16Sercu, Lies (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium), María del Carmen Méndez García & Paloma Castro Prieto, Culture learning from a constructivist perspective: An investigation of Spanish foreign language teachers' views. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 483–495.06–17Stempleski, Susan (City U New York, USA), Developing fluency: Some suggestions for the classroom. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 29.6 (2005), 31–33.06–18Swan, Michael (Freelance), Legislation by hypothesis: The case of task-based instruction. Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press) 26.3 (2005), 376–401.06–19Ter-Minasova, Svetlana G. (Moscow State U, Russia; dean@ffl.msu.ru), Traditions and innovations: English language teaching in Russia. World Englishes (Blackwell) 24.4 (2005), 445–454.

Prosodic features are important in achieving intelligibility, comprehensibility, and fluency in a second or foreign language (L2). However, research on the assessment of prosody as part of oral proficiency remains scarce. Moreover, the acoustic analysis of L2 prosody has often focused on fluency-related temporal measures, neglecting language-dependent stress features that can be quantified in terms of syllable prominence. Introducing the evaluation of prominence-related measures can be of use in developing both teaching and assessment of L2 speaking skills. In this study we compare temporal measures and syllable prominence estimates as predictors of prosodic proficiency in non-native speakers of English with respect to the speaker’s native language (L1). The predictive power of temporal and prominence measures was evaluated for utterance-sized samples produced by language learners from four different L1 backgrounds: Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian. Firstly, the speech samples were assessed using the revised Common European Framework of Reference scale for prosodic features. The assessed speech samples were then analyzed to derive articulation rate and three fluency measures. Syllable-level prominence was estimated by a continuous wavelet transform analysis using combinations of F0, energy, and syllable duration. The results show that the temporal measures serve as reliable predictors of prosodic proficiency in the L2, with prominence measures providing a small but significant improvement to prosodic proficiency predictions. The predictive power of the individual measures varies both quantitatively and qualitatively depending on the L1 of the speaker. We conclude that the possible effects of the speaker’s L1 on the production of L2 prosody in terms of temporal features as well as syllable prominence deserve more attention in applied research and developing teaching and assessment methods for spoken L2.

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TESL Canada Journal (BC, Canada), 20, 2 (2003), 52–64.03–410 Ko, Jungmin, Schallert Diane L., Walters, Keith (University of Texas). Rethinking scaffolding: examining negotiation of meaning in an ESL storytelling task. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 2 (2003), 303–336.03–411 Lazaraton, Anne (University of Minnesota, USA). Incidental displays of cultural knowledge in Nonnative-English-Speaking Teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 2 (2003), 213–245.03–412 Lehtonen, Tuija (University of Jyväskylä, Finland; Email: tuijunt@cc.jyu.fi) and Tuomainen, Sirpa. CSCL – A Tool to Motivate Foreign Language Learners: The Finnish Application. ReCALL, 15, 1 (2003), 51–67.03–413 Lycakis, Françoise (Lycée Galilée, Cergy, France). Les TPE et l'enseignement de l'anglais. [Supervised individual projects and English teaching.] Les langues modernes, 97, 2 (2003), 20–26.03–414 Lyster, Roy and Rebuffot, Jacques (McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Email: roy.lister@mcgill.ca). Acquisition des pronoms d'allocution en classe de français immersif. [The acquisition of pronouns of address in the French immersion class.] Aile, 17 (2002), 51–71.03–415 Macdonald, Shem (La Trobe U., Australia). Pronunciation – views and practices of reluctant teachers. Prospect (NSW, Australia) 17, 3 (2002), 3–15.03–416 Miccoli, L. (The Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil; Email: lmiccoli@dedalus.lcc.ufmg.br). English through drama for oral skills development. ELT Journal, 57, 2 (2003), 122–129.03–417 Mitchell, R. (University of Southampton), and Lee, J.H-W. Sameness and difference in classroom learning cultures: interpretations of communicative pedagogy in the UK and Korea. Language teaching research (London, UK), 7, 1 (2003), 35–63.03–418 Moore, Daniele (Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Lyon, France; Email: yanmoore@aol.com). Code-switching and learning in the classroom. 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Where Are We With Technology?: What Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Have to Say About the Presence of Technology in Their Teaching. Hispania (Los Angeles, USA), 86, 1 (2003), 88–96.03–426 Reza Kiany, G. and Shiramiry, Ebrahim (U. Essex, UK). The effect of frequent dictation on the listening comprehension ability of elementary EFL learners. TESL Canada Journal (BC, Canada), 20, 1 (2002), 57–63.03–427 Rifkin, Benjamin (U. Wisconsin, Madison, USA). A case study of the acquisition of narration in Russian: at the intersection of foreign language education, applied linguistics, and second language acquisition. Slavic and East European Journal (Tucson, AZ, USA), 46, 3 (2002), 465–481.03–428 Rosch, Jörg (Universität München, Germany). Plädoyer für ein theoriebasiertes Verfahren von Software-Design und Software-Evaluation. [Plea for a theoretically-based procedure for software design and evaluation.] Deutsch als Fremdsprache (Berlin, Germany), 40, 2 (2003), 94–103.03–429 Ross, Stephen J. (Kwansei Gakuin U., Japan). A diachronic coherence model for language program evaluation. Language learning (Oxford, UK), 53, 1 (2003), 1–33.03–430 Shei, Chi-Chiang (Chang Jung U., Taiwan; Email: shei@mail.cju.edu.tw) and Pain, Helen. Computer-Assisted Teaching of Translation Methods. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford, UK), 17, 3 (2002), 323–343.03–431 Solfjeld, Kåre. Zum Thema authentische Übersetzungen im DaF-Unterricht: Überlegungen, ausgehend von Sachprosaübersetzungen aus dem Deutschen ins Norwegische. [The use of authentic translations in the Teaching of German as a Foreign Language: considerations arising from some Norwegian translations of German non-fiction texts.] Info DaF (Munich, Germany), 29, 6 (2002), 489–504.03–432 Slatyer, Helen (Macquarie U., Australia). Responding to change in immigrant English language assessment. Prospect (NSW, Australia), 18, 1 (2003), 42–52.03–433 Stockwell, Glenn R. (Ritsumeikan Univeristy, Japan; Email: gstock@ec.ritsumei.ac.jp). Effects of topic threads on sustainability of email interactions between native speakers and nonnative speakers. ReCALL, 15, 1 (2003), 37–50.03–434 Tang, E. (City University of Hong Kong), and Nesi H. Teaching vocabulary in two Chinese classrooms: schoolchildren's exposure to English words in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Language teaching research (London, UK), 7,1 (2003), 65–97.03–435 Thomas, Alain (U. of Guelph, Canada; Email: Thomas@uoguelph.ca). La variation phonétique en français langue seconde au niveau universitaire avancé. [Phonetic variation in French as a foreign language at advanced university level.] Aile, 17 (2002), 101–121.03–436 Tudor, Ian (U. Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; Email: itudor@ulb.ac.be). Learning to live with complexity: towards an ecological perspective on language teaching. System (Oxford, UK), 31, 1 (2003), 1–12.03–437 Wolff, Dieter (Bergische Universität, Wuppertal, Germany). 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