Dòng Nội dung
1
EFL young learners: their imagined communities and language learning / Su Yon Yim. // ELT journal. 2016, Vol. 70, No. 1.
2016.
p. 57-65.

This study explored how South Korean primary school students approach learning English, using the notion of an ‘imagined community’. Twenty students from two primary schools were selected for semi-structured interviews. The data analysis shows that the construction of South Korean students’ imagined communities seems to be influenced mainly by their learning experiences outside school which involve private lessons, English test systems, and parental attitudes towards English, and an emphasis on grammar teaching and learning. The students’ imagined communities are far from the one presented in the national primary curriculum, which focuses on communicative language teaching (CLT). This gap results in students’ poor engagement in the classroom when taking English lessons at state schools. This indicates that educational reform such as CLT needs to be implemented with recognition of students’ learning outside school and the imagined communities envisioned by students.
2
Out of many, one: challenges in teaching multilingual Kenyan primary students in English / Ching-Ni Hsieh, Marcel Ionescu, Tsung Han Ho. // Language, Culture and Curriculum Volume 31, 2018 - Issue 2
2018
p. 199-213

Using a large-scale, standardised English language proficiency test (TOEFL® PrimaryTM), this study examined Kenyan primary school students’ English reading and listening proficiency and explored challenges primary school teachers face in using English as the medium of instruction (EMI) to teach their multilingual students. The test was taken by 4768 students in Standards 3–7 from 51 primary schools across the country in Kenya. Seventeen primary school teachers, representing six major geographical regions, participated in semi-structured interviews to explore their teaching challenges. Results show that, regardless of standard/grade level, the majority of the participating students were beginner-level English language users, which suggests that they may not have the language skills needed to understand classroom instruction and learn the subject matter content effectively in English. Interview findings indicate that, as they implement the EMI policy, teachers encounter five major challenges: (1) mother tongue interference, (2) students’ attitudes toward English, (3) lack of usefulness of English language in the community, (4) resource constraints and (5) diverse student backgrounds. The results have pedagogical implications for EMI implementation in similar multilingual contexts.