http://hdl.handle.net/11089/17454 2026-04-05T16:49:14Z 2026-04-05T16:49:14Z Alghazo, Sharif http://hdl.handle.net/11089/17460 2019-03-20T08:21:42Z 2016-03-10T00:00:00Z

The Role of Curriculum Design and Teaching Materials in Pronunciation Learning Alghazo, Sharif This paper aims to provide insights into the role of curriculum design and teaching materials in the development of English pronunciation skills in EFL contexts. One of the main contextual factors negatively affecting the development of pronunciation abilities of EFL learners relates to the ‘often-unchanging’ curriculum design and the ‘blind’ choice of teaching materials without regard to students’ needs and goals. This study utilises structured interviews and focus group discussions (N=2 sessions) to elicit the views of a group (N=71) of third- and fourth-year English-major students at a university college in Saudi Arabia on the appropriateness of the curriculum design and teaching materials to their learning expectations in the area of English pronunciation. The results show that the great majority of students spoke unfavourably about the overall curriculum and teaching materials and considered those to be among the obstacles that they encounter in their learning of English pronunciation. This finding raises the question of curriculum design of English language teaching programs and the extent to which these curricula meet the needs of learners. The study suggests that a reformation of the structure of the curriculum in the study context is urgently needed and that more involvement of students’ perspectives on the design of curricula is of major importance.

2016-03-10T00:00:00Z Mompean, Jose A. http://hdl.handle.net/11089/17458 2019-03-20T08:21:30Z 2016-03-10T00:00:00Z

Phonetic Notation in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning: Potential Advantages and Learners’ Views Mompean, Jose A. This paper focuses on the use of phonetic notation in foreign language teaching and learning. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, we review some of the potential advantages that the use of phonetic notation seems to have in language teaching and learning; and secondly, the paper reports on learner views obtained with a questionnaire anonymously filled in by EFL (English as a foreign language) learners in tertiary education who followed an English course where an extensive use of phonetic symbols was made for pronunciation work in Finland, France and Spain. The results suggest that learners were relatively familiar with phonetic notation prior to their course although there were differences between countries. Phonetic notation was perceived positively by a majority of learners, particularly in terms of its perceived potential for raising awareness of the target language’s pronunciation features and its potential to visually represent sounds. Learners’ answers were also mostly positive regarding the potential of phonetic notation for autonomous learning, as well as the perceived ease and usefulness of phonetic notation.

2016-03-10T00:00:00Z White, Jonathan http://hdl.handle.net/11089/17459 2019-03-20T08:21:53Z 2016-03-10T00:00:00Z

Topic- and Mode-Sensitive Interaction Strategies: Functions of Ellipsis in Oral Communication White, Jonathan In this article, we discuss ellipsis as an interactive strategy by analysing the author’s textchat corpus and the VOICE corpus of English as a Lingua Franca. It is found that there were fewer repetitions in the textchat data, and this is explained as a consequence of the textchat mode. Textchat contributions are preserved as long as the chat is active or has been saved, and therefore users can scroll through and review the discussion, compared to the more fleeting nature of oral conversation. As a result, repetition is less necessary. The frequency of other functions identified could be attributed to the topic of discourse. Discussions involve much ellipsis used to develop discourse, although some were self-presentations with repetition used to confirm details. Back-channel support and comments were often low because speakers instead used forms like yeah as supportive utterances.

2016-03-10T00:00:00Z Grabowski, Łukasz http://hdl.handle.net/11089/17457 2019-03-20T08:21:17Z 2016-03-10T00:00:00Z

Phrase Frames in English Pharmaceutical Discourse: A Corpus-Driven Study of Intradisciplinary Register Variation Grabowski, Łukasz Focusing on the exploration of intra-disciplinary register variation in the pharmaceutical domain, this corpus-driven study attempts to describe the use, composition and discourse functions of phrase frames, that is, contiguous sequences of words identical except for one (Fletcher, 2002-2007), found in samples of four English pharmaceutical text types, such as patient information leaflets, summaries of product characteristics, clinical trial protocols and chapters/sections from academic textbooks on pharmacology. The study deals with a specific sub-type of phrase frames, that is, 4-word units with a variable slot in the medial position, e.g. be * with caution, to take * medicine. The results showed, among others, that the use and discourse functions of phrase frames vary across pharmaceutical text types, that the correlation between the frequency of phrase frames and their pattern variability may depend on a register or genre, and that it is justified to treat the discourse functions of phrase frames as distinct from those of their textual variants.

2016-03-10T00:00:00Z