Vignette

A first grade of thirty-two students sitting in groups of four. The English lesson is about healthy food. The teacher, Mrs Smith introduces the new vocabulary using flashcards. All the students pay attention to her and repeat the words. Mrs Smith wants to continue the lesson with an online video of a song in order for the students to get more familiar with the pronunciation of the words. However, she has some problems as regards a correct use of the laptop computer. The laptop computer in the classroom is a very old one and there are no inscriptions on the keyboard. Mrs Smith made a big effort in order to run the video but she couldn’t. It soon became evident for the children that the teacher was not familiar with the use of online videos in the classroom. The students complained and Mrs Smith decided to move on to another activity. She went to the front of the class and taught the students how to write the words which she had previously introduced. Then, the students worked on their activity books as passive learners.

Classroom Activities and Problems in English Lessons in Turkey’s Primary Schools

In the article ¨A Small-Scale Study of Primary School English Language Teachers’ Classroom Activities and Problems¨, Arikan (2011) aims to identify the types of English language activities used in Turkey’s primary school and the problems that English language teachers face while teaching. Not only does Arikan highlight the fact that learners appear to be passive, but also affirms that vocabulary, speaking and pronunciation are considered the most important skills for learners to acquire while knowledge of culture, writing and grammar are of less importance.

                Arikan (2011) sent a link to sixty teachers with a set of questions to be answered. Forty-six teachers returned the link and their answers were used in the final analysis. The questions focused on which activities were frequent in the classrooms, what needs teachers have in order to improve their teaching and what are their views about what their learners’ needs in order to be considered successful learners.

Arikan (2011) analyzed the results and stated that the use of technology in the classroom was low, there were poor physical conditions which reduced the quality of classroom teaching and teachers did not consider the culture of the language being taught or grammar important. Furthermore, learners have a passive role because most of the activities are teacher-centered in spite of the teachers’ desire of making them competent in vocabulary and speaking. The author states ¨Students cannot be competent users of a foreign language by learning vocabulary and speaking as passive learners”(pp.5 and 6).

Arikan (2011) stated that English is growing in Turkey and a better quality of language teaching is needed. Teachers suggested that smaller classrooms, newer technologies and a variety of materials could help them to improve their language teaching.

References

Arikan, A. (2011). A Small-Case Study of Primary School English Language Teachers’ Classroom activities and Problems. International Conference on New Trends in Education and their Implications. 

Academic literacy skills in Wikipedia writing project – A summary

Integrative Assignment - Ciampichini Garcete

In the article ‘Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing’, Tardy (2010) describes  the process of composing an article for the website Wikipedia as an approach to introduce the literacy skills that students must master in formal academic writing. Among such skills, the author states “They [students] must conduct research, summarize and paraphrase, cite sources, adopt genre conventions that meet audience expectations, and select words and grammatical patterns” (p.12). Not only, does Tardy highlight the fact that such requirements can represent a challenge to novice writers at the beginning, but also affirms that classrooms are the main source of knowledge and practice students can have. Therefore, the article also delineates the steps for carrying out a Wikipedia writing project. 

     The author explains that the origin of the name Wikipedia lies on fact that it is a wiki in which any person can write about a certain topic and another person may edit that content. It is the most popular online encyclopedia with numerous contributorsand administrators who check the content. In order to write an article in Wikipedia, a  contributor does not need previous experience but the article needs to comply with certain requirements such as: be clear, supported by reliable sources,  footnotes and general references and it has to follow Wikipedia's guidelines.

     Tardy (2010) lists  eight steps in the project she designed to guide students through the process of composing an article for Wikipedia. The first step is to examine Wikipedia and understand how it works and the guidelines it has. Then, students are encouraged to research a topic which has not been approached in the Wikipedia English version yet and in the third step they organize that information and create a detailed outline. Steps four and are devoted to drafting and revising. After that, students have to format sources and then polish all their work. Lastly, students publish the article. 

     The Wikipedia-writing project introduces students to many skills of academic research writing in an appealing approach. Almost everyone recognizes Wikipedia nowadays and a lot of people use it as the main source of information. Therefore, students obtain a very realistic access to the audience and enjoy having their work published in a great source of information.

References

Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp. 12-19, 27. 

Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students – A Critique

Integrative Assignment - Ciampichini Garcete    

According to Bailey (2006) “those students who are not native speakers often find the written demands of their courses very challenging” (p. vii). In his book, the author aims to provide students with plenty of practice in certain genres that could help them to self-acquire competence in academic writing skills to be part of an academic writing community and also, to assist teachers who are concerned about their students’ writing progress.  

            Teachers in charge of students at beginner levels in Academic writing may find the book extremely useful. Not only has the author presented the information in a clear way,  but he also has provided new and valuable information for students who have to start writing academically. The book is comprehensibly organized in four parts each of which deals with certain writing skills.   For instance, “part 1: The Writing Process” (p. 3-60) tackles the issue of plagiarism and logical development and organization in essays. In “Part 2: Elements of writing” (p.65-114) the author approaches the need to use an argument style of writing, the use of paraphrasing and referencing. “Part 3: Accuracy in writing” (p. 119-182) provides practice on inaccuracies of verbs and vocabulary. Finally, “Part 4: Writing models” (p. 185-199) offers some models on certain basic writings. 

However, although the book would be suitable for secondary students or higher education beginners, it might fail to fulfill the requirements of teachers and students in the last years of college. The handbook would have been more useful at advanced levels if it had contained more complex genre writings and samples to be analyzed. All the above mentioned topics are comprehensibly introduced but they are vaguely delved into in the book. There is a considerable amount of practice but there are few references. In the “Avoiding Plagiarism” section (p.7) for example, the author should have included a clear guide with strategies for plagiarism avoidance so that students can use it when writing their own productions. They may also find it difficult to correct mistaken exercises because, although answers are provided in the book (p. 204-258) there are no clear explanations. The same may happen when students are doing the tests in the “Writing Tests” section (p.201-203). 

Bailey’s book would have been more accurate if it had targeted a smaller range of audience. The author argues that the book “is a flexible course that allows students of all subjects and levels, from foundation to PhD, to practice those aspects of writing which are most important for their studies” (p. 6). However, different disciplines often have different writing requirements and this entails a more complex degree of knowledge and handling of writing skills that comprises a wide range of academic genres. 

             All in all, it can be stated that the handbook should be considered as a useful tool for students and teachers who are interested in polishing their academic writing performance at the beginning of higher education. However, a student that is in the last years of university would not find this book useful because it vaguely delves into practical writing skills and common difficulties in writing. 

References

Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international students (2nd ed.). Retrieved November 2013 from

 http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf

Documenting Sources –American Psychological Association (APA) Style: a Deep Analysis of In-text Citation, Signal Phrases and Reference List

Documenting Sources –American Psychological Association (APA) Style: a Deep Analysis of In-text Citation, Signal Phrases and Reference List

Garcete Marisol 

Ciampichini Carolina

Academic writing is not an easy task; not only do writers have to clearly display cohesive and coherent pieces of writing but they also have to follow certain writing standards established and regulated by the American Psychological Association (APA). It is the purpose of this paper to analyze and examine the use of in-text citation, signal phrases and the reference list that are cited in the article written by Dalvit, Murray and Terzoli (2005).  

As regards the use of in-text citations, the authors make use of paraphrasing. Examples of indirect quotations with parenthetical citation can be found as well. They can be divided into one work by one author such as (Boughey, 2002), (Sweetnam-Evans, 2001), (Barkhuizen, 2001), (Martindale, 2002); and groups as authors like Department of Education and Department of communication (2001), Council on Higher Education (2001) and Rhodes University-Information Technology Division (2004). The writers also cite specific sources such as Webster's online dictionary (2005) and High Tech Dictionary (2005).  

Examples of indirect quotation with author/s as part of the narrative (University of Minnesota, n.d.) can be observed as well. They can be divided into one work by one author such as Heugh (2002) and one work by two authors like Halliday and Martin (1993). 

Concerning signal phrases, it can be stated that there is a very limited use of them in the whole article since only two clear-cut examples are used to integrate quotations: according to Heugh (2002), according to Halliday and Martin (1993). It can be seen that there is not a variety of them to alert the reader that the information being mentioned is from an acknowledged source.

Dalvit et al. include a Reference List arranged in alphabetical order directly at the end of the article and not on a separate sheet of paper. The word reference is not correctly typed; it should not be in bold and it should be centered in the page. All in all, the general structure of the reference list included is: author's surname, author's initial, publication year, title of work and publisher. The writers include different types of sources in the reference list like books, reports, journals and websites. The latter includes retrieval month (day), year, from http://Web address.  For example: Boughey, C. (2002). Naming Students’ “Problems”: An Analysis of Language-Related Discourses at a South African University. Teaching in Higher Education,7, 295-307.  The entries are not double-spaced but the reference list includes all the necessary information. 

To conclude, it could be stated that the authors show some attachment to the APA reference style, avoiding plagiarism and acknowledging the sources though they do not fully follow all the established requirements in the analyzed article. 

References

American Physiological Association. (2010) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and Terzoli, A. (2005). Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US-China: education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9)