5 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
Item Open Access EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF STRATEGIES TO FOSTER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN ONLINE EDUCATION(Suleyman Demirel University, 2020) Junisbayeva S.; Smakova K.The significance of critical thinking skills is highly recognized in foreign language teaching worldwide and in the Kazakhstani state curriculum of secondary education as well. However, the COVID-19 crisis obliged most educational institutions to adopt an online form of instruction, which is new for most teachers. Thus, this study analyses the Kazakhstani EFL teachers’ perceptions of fostering critical thinking strategies in online teaching during the pandemics with the aim of investigating how EFL teachers view the core concepts of critical thinking skills and the strategies implemented during online lessons. Employing semi-structured interviews, qualitative data were collected from ten non randomly selected EFL teachers. The findings reveal that teachers are aware of the core concepts of critical thinking skills and the strategies that can be adapted and implemented online. However, while using certain strategies to develop critical thinking skills, teachers encounter challenges that require greater support to overcome.Item Open Access THE ROLE OF READING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ WRITING SKILLS(2020) Shakerbekova Aigerim; Tulepova SauleThe aim of the article is to describe the role of reading in improving the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ writing skills. The attempt is made to analyze the relationship between writing and reading in the process of learning a foreign language and particularly to highlight the importance of reading in the development of writing skills. The article suggests a systematic review of the scientific literature related to incorporating reading into the process of writing skills development. Additionally, the paper identifies strengths and weaknesses of this approach that should be taken into consideration y teachers in their writing classrooms.Item Open Access TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAKATON IN A NURSERY CLASSROOM(Suleyman Demirel University, 2020) Anna SinThe present study examined teachers’ perspectives of a visual support based language teaching tool ‘Makaton’ for preschool students in early years classrooms. Despite being used worldwide, only a few studies on Makaton as a tool to support spoken English in preschool education were conducted. This paper focuses on a study of Makaton being used at a school in the capital of Kazakhstan where students learn English as a foreign language. The qualitative case study drawing on data from class observations and interviews with teachers focused on the extent to which teachers believe this tool facilitates the development of basic functional English for EY learners. This paper will share results which reveal teacher perceptions of the positive benefits Makaton has on the development of language for ESL students and challenges in using this tool in an EY environment. The results are useful for EY pedagogues who are interested in exploring alternative methods to support preschool English learners. It is also a novelty study as Makaton is not widely used and there has not been any research done on Makaton as an ESL teaching tool in the context of Kazakhstani EY education. Therefore, this paper aims to stimulate dialogue on the use of Makaton in the local context.Item Open Access L1 LITERACY IN KAZAKHSTAN AND ITS EFFECT ON L2 ENGLISH ACADEMIC LITERACY(Suleyman Demirel University, 2020) Dimitriou K.K.; Omurzakova D.; Narymbetova K.As foreign language universities are becoming ever-more common, the issue of second language tertiary literacy has come to the forefront. The linguistic demands of such universities on new students are very challenging. Though freshmen can pass international language exams in English, the literacy skills that are most important to tertiary success are those developed in their first language. However, it is becoming more widely known that most Central Asian post-Soviet education systems do little to develop such literacy. It would be of great interest to understand the experiences of students who were going through this difficult tertiary literacy process. Our exploratory ethnographic study investigated students’ linguistic and schooling backgrounds, their development of writing skills, and their literacy metalanguage, to try and ascertain the effect of their first-language literacy on their progress. Therefore, we investigated a Foundation level English-language writing class, the experiences of its teacher, and six of its students, in a Kazakhstan university. Our findings show that literacy practices in the high schools of Central Asia seem to be deficient both in the quality of literacy teaching and in the culture of literacy, namely critical thinking and metacognition. These have had demonstrable effects on students’ literacy acquisition.Item Open Access BUILDING CULTURAL BRIDGES THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS: A CASE STUDY(Suleyman Demirel University, 2020) Reima Al-JarfAn English teacher uses Skype to connect his high school students in an Indian village with international teachers to help them interact and converse with them in English. Each international teacher interacts with the students in English once for 40 minutes. The teacher does that daily, and each day an international guest teacher is from a different country. The aims of this study are to report the effects of this kind of intercultural exchange on students’ English language skill development and cultural and global awareness. Results showed many benefits for the students: Listening and speaking skill enhancement, getting used to different native and non-native accents, improved pronunciation, and learning new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The students also learn names of countries, their location, flags, currency, cities, people, and exchange information and pictures about the local and target cultures. They learn about the foreign country’s educational system, history, antiquities, food, art, traditions, and costumes. They are taken on virtual field trips to some historical places and museums. They learn about natural phenomena such as the northern lights. Sometimes they receive books, T-shirts and pens as gifts from foreign teachers. Shortcomings of such intercultural exchange and suggestions for improvement are given.