The New English Teacher: Vol. 10. No. 1, (January 2016)
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ItemAn evaluation of cultural contents and activities in the general English textbook(Assumption University Press, 2016)This is an evaluation of cultural contents and activities in the textbook, General English, published by the Curriculum Project, Thabyay Education Foundation, used in the migrant learning centers in the Thailand-Myanmar border. The evaluation was done to support Thabyay Education Foundation, a non-profit organization. General English has been adapted from Language in Use (1991) and developed for the post-secondary who are between the age of 16 to 25. This research was conducted to find out whether the materials were appropriate with regard to the social lives of the refugee students. The evaluation was done in four categories: topics, illustrations and activities. To evaluate these four categories, the researcher analyzed the textbook and interviewed the participants. The interviews were conducted with 15 participants from three different learning centers in three different refugee camps. The findings reveal that the subject content of the material is generally appropriate and potentially engaging to the young adult Myanmar migrant learners.
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ItemA critical discourse analysis of news reports on "occupy central" campaign from China daily and the New York times(Assumption University Press, 2016)News language is not value-free reflection of the facts and news discourse is always endowed with ideological power. This study involves a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the news reports on "Occupy Central" Campaign from China Daily and The New York Times, employing Fairclough's Three-dimensional model as framework and Haliidya's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), the Theory of Appraisal of Martin and Rose as analytical tools in the analysis. The analysis found various attitudes through language use. In addition, language use in news discourse is not value-free, but it is an ideological investment with reporter's own view and attitude towards the reported issues and people involved with. Those ideological differences determine how the news media produce different news reports while narrating the same event.
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ItemStudents' reactions to teacher written feedback in their compositions at an Giang University, Vietnam(Assumption University Press, 2016)This research looks at students' reactions to teacher written feedback in their writing at writing classes of the second year, in the School of Education, An Giang University, Vietnam. Interview and questionnaires were used to collect data. The findings indicate that the teachers' written feedback is legible, understandable and useful. In addition, most of the students desire their teachers to resort to correction codes because they are able to understand them. The students also have some preferences for feedback regarding the types of feedback including grades, error feedback and written comments. Finally, this study also gives some suggestions to help students play an active role in error correction in their writing.
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ItemWhat do they think of me? a semi-ethnographic investigation into student stereotypes and biases towards teachers(Assumption University Press, 2016)This study investigates the stereotypes and biases held by students at an international university in Thailand towards teachers in terms of race, accent and native speakerness within the context of the internationalization of higher education. It takes a semi-ethnographic approach, interviewing and staying in contact with the participants over a period of about three months. The data were transcribed, coded and organized into themes as they emerged. The findings showed that native and non-native English speaking teachers were stereotyped differently. That certain accents were highly stigmatized and that this stigmatization resulted in the perception of the accents being harder to understand, and furthermore that the blame for misunderstanding was put onto the speaker of the stigmatized accent; whereas with an accent perceived to be native speaker the participant (as listener) would put the blame on themselves. Race was found to be an issue only in the implication that a White identity was associated with native speakerness, and that a non-native accent was sometimes not stigmatized if it came from a White teacher. Another finding was the perceived marginalization of international students. The findings are integrated into existing theories of social connotations (Trudgill & Giles, 1978) and communicative burden (Lippi-Green, 2012), and through these it is discussed how the stigmatization of an accent might affect intelligibility. Finally, implications are looked at and recommendations made in consideration of the findings.
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ItemBeing an English language teacher: a narrative analysis of ten foreign teachers in Thailand(Assumption University Press, 2016)This study reflects upon the common narratives of ten foreign teachers relating their teaching experiences in Thailand. Thailand is often admired for its culture, people, environment and many can regard it as their second home. However, there are issues and challenges which they have to face such as, racial discrimination and prejudice, foreign teachers' high expectation toward students, teaching materials and the long teaching hours and the remunerations that they encounter. Although foreign teachers can settle happily in Thailand, there are real challenges that make up their day to day existence. In addition to those already mentioned there are problems with their visas and of course the language barrier. The complexity of involvement in the education processes in Thailand has other aspects that can be identified through the narratives in this study such as the attitude towards native and non-native teachers and perhaps more subtly the color of a teacher's skin.