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| The Journal of Asia TEFL |
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  Current Issue |
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Go List
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| Volume 7 Number 1, Spring 2010, Pages 1-393 |
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From the Editor-in-Chief
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Bernard Spolsky
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Another fine collection of papers, covering a wide range of topics and from a wide range of Asia TESL countries! All are carefully planned and executed, pursuing hypotheses derived from the current literature of the field and applied to specifically Asian settings.
Fei-Wen Cheng of National Chiayi University Taiwan taught a composition class at National Taiwan university stasis theory distinguishing five types of argument: fact, definition, cause, value and proposal, and found it led to the presentation of stronger arguments. In a second paper on rhetoric, Deron Walker of California Baptist University, U.S.A., carries on Robert Kaplan's work on contrastive rhetoric to analyze Edward Said's theory of Orientalism and postmodernism and show how it helps writing pedagogy in Asia. Alireza Karbalaei of Mysore University, India and Mohammad Golshan of Maybod Azad University, Iran compare the reading strategies of 96 Iranian students and 93 Indian students, and find a similar coverage of reported strategies but more reports of use among the Indian students. Donghong Liu of Huazhong Normal University, China studies anaphora as a method of achieving coherence in over 200 student essays, and show its development as students become more competent.
Working with volunteers recruited on the Internet and paid to participate, Masahiro Takimoto of Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan studied the effectiveness of referential and affective oriented activities in improving pragmatic competence. Ai-hua Chen of Chinmin Institute of Technology, Taiwan trained two more or less matched classes of Taiwanese business students and noted the effects of specific training in listening strategies. Azadeh Nemati of Jahrom Azad University, Iran studied 300 Indian high school students and found evidence of inaccuracy in self-reports, but is still in favor of teaching memory strategies.
Christina Gitsaki of Sharjah Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates and Naif Althobaiti studying at The University of Queensland, Australia studied two teachers' selection of corrective feedback and the effects on their students. Is'haaq Akbarian of University of Qom, Iran suggests teaching proverbs in English classes. Lourdes S. Abad of Miriam College, Philippines analyzes the effect of codeswitching in teaching chemistry and geometry in a high school class. Sng Bee Bee, an independent researcher from Singapore, and Anil Pathak of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore used a biographical approach to analyze the beliefs about language learning of some nursing students as they move into an environment where English is a second language.
Wilairat Kirin of Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University, Thailand found that extensive reading helped the writing of better students but not of a weaker group. Zahra Shahsavar and Tan Bee Hoon of Universiti Putra Malaysia found that a group of bloggers who received feedback improved in writing ability. Kamrul Hasan of United International University, Bangladesh reported high correlations between socio-economic status, school quality and English learning. Eoin Jordan of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan, studied responses of Japanese students to a Japanese movie star Ken Watanabe as an English pronunciation role model; the students found his English less attractive if more comprehensible and achievable.
Again, I congratulate the authors and their institutions on producing research studies on an international standard, and thank the editorial team for their invaluable contributions to the journal.
Jerusalem, December 2010
Bernard Spolsky,
Editor-in-chief and Asia TEFL Publications Executive Director |
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The Journal of Asia TEFL
