•Assessment of digital multimodal composing is an underresearched area.•Teachers were interviewed about their perceptions of the assessment process.•Teachers attended to semiotic harmony in assessing ...digital multimodal composing.•A process-based model for assessment of digital multimodal composing is proposed.
Research into digital multimodal composing highlights its potential effectiveness as an engaging, motivating, autonomy-enhancing, voice-enhancing and authentic activity for L2 writers. While considerable work has gone into developing and evaluating pedagogies for digital multimodal composing, one underresearched area is that of assessment. Given that the primary goal of digital multimodal composing is to develop competencies in multiple modes (including language) the question here is how to reflect this goal in the design of appropriate assessment criteria. In particular, teachers and researchers need to establish what dimensions of multimodal communicative competence to assess and how. In this paper, we present a case study of a university English for science course in which one of the assignments is a digital video scientific documentary. The study draws on interviews with teachers in order to determine how they conceive of the multimodal assessment task, including practical issues as well as challenges faced. The article proposes a process-based model for the assessment of digital multimodal composing, which shows how processes of instruction, design activity and assessment interact. Assessment can be planned at different stages of the design activity, draw on formative and summative strategies, and must take into account the orchestration of multimodal affordances.
This commentary on "Just wanna give you guys a bit of an update": Insider perspectives on business presentations in Hong Kong (2013) explores the significance of the paper written by Stephen Evans, ...its influence on the study of business English, and its main contributions to business communication and presentations, including a number of highlights for future research projects.
•This is a researcher's commentary on Evans (2013).•It tries to highlight research interest in business English oral interactions.•The research on business presentations has multiple aspects to be studied.
The field of education has greatly benefited from the advancements in technology, resulting in more efficacious, interactive, comprehensive, and non-classroom-bound learning experiences. One such ...application is web-based learning, which employs the Internet as a means to facilitate the educational process. This modality of instruction addresses various challenges that are inherent in traditional pedagogical approaches, such as the limited time allocated for lecturers and students in classroom settings. Despite an abundance of literature that has investigated the incorporation of technology in the teaching of spoken English, there is a scarcity of studies that specifically examine the utilization of the website, TalkEnglish.com.Specifically, in the context of teaching English for Business, which necessitates students to develop proficient and precise oral proficiency in the language, the present study aims to investigate the students' perception of the efficacy of TalkEnglish.com in honing their speaking skills. This study employed a descriptive qualitative design, where ten students from the Economic Faculty at Universitas Pandanaran were selected as participants. These participants utilized the website TalkEnglish.com to improve their speaking skills. Data was collected through a semi-interview approach and documentation method. The findings of the study indicate that the majority of the participants held a positive perception of TalkEnglish.com.
This article explores the relationship between course performance, English language proficiency, motivation, and academic language skills in an English medium instruction (EMI) university context. It ...analyses test and questionnaire data from 146 students from an EMI business program at a Japanese university, and follow-up interviews with seven students. Proficiency test and subject exam scores revealed that knowledge of English language and academic English skill were statistically significant predictors of success in EMI, suggesting that lower proficiency students require more targeted language support in order to increase their likelihood of success. A motivation measure did not correlate with higher grades, contradicting research in language learning contexts. Interview data uncovered the multi-faceted nature of 'success in EMI' suggesting that students see success as a combination of final grades, lecture comprehension, English language proficiency gains, and long-term career advancement.
The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences, including those within the realm of higher education. The flipped classroom method was adopted as an innovative teaching ...tool and creative approach within English for specific purposes classes at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Antanas Gustaitis’ Aviation Institute to increase student motivation and enhance the teaching and learning process. The study’s results demonstrated that the flipped classroom method yielded both positive and negative outcomes, including more efficient mastery of learning material, improved planning of in-class and out-of-class activities, opportunities for additional research on covered topics, increased workload and time consumption, and other.
Leveraging state-of-the-art scientometric and analytical techniques, this paper provides a diachronic, quantitative, systematic overview of English-for-specific-purposes (ESP) research, as ...represented by the publications cited in two flagship journals of the field from 1980 to 2018. A co-citation analysis of 1092 main articles and their 25,147 unique references have identified 11 major clusters of co-cited references, representing the field's major areas of research. These clusters are mapped onto three evolutionary stages of the field, namely the initial conceptualizing stage (1970s–1990s) centering on needs analysis, the maturing stage (1990s–2000s) characterized by the development of major methodological approaches (e.g., genre-based, corpus-based, contextual, and critical approaches), and the flourishing stage (2000s-) ushering in a diversity of research interests (e.g., move analysis, cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic variation, lexical bundles, vocabulary lists, metadiscourse, and academic writing in a global context). The co-citation analysis has also identified 52 landmark studies, 11 of which experienced recent citation bursts, indicating current research interests of the field. Thus, this scientometric review provides a systematic account that complements existing narrative reviews.
•We report a diachronic systematic review of English for specific purposes as a field.•We conducted a co-citation analysis of articles published in ESPJ &JEAP (1980–2018).•We generated 11 clusters of co-cited references representing major research areas.•We mapped these clusters onto three stages of the field's evolution.•We identified landmark publications associated with the clusters and the stages.
Evaluating the learning outcomes of a certain course implementation can improve the quality of education. This study is focused on Indonesian EFL undergraduates’ perceptions of the relationships ...between teacher performance, technological resources, online project-based learning (OPJBL), and ESP learning outcomes. Participants of the study have attended English for specific purposes (ESP) online courses during school closures due to Covid-19. A survey was addressed to 350 undergraduates after a one-semester implementation of the OPJBL. The students were requested to rate their perceptions on validated items using a 7-point Likert-type scale for the data collection. The data were modelled and computed through partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The main findings of the study revealed that teacher performance and technological resources were significant in predicting OPJBL. Similarly, OPJBL was found to play a significant role in affecting ESP learning outcomes. Teacher performance and technological resources were also correlated to ESP learning outcomes. Significant differences were found among students’ locations for all variables. The findings highlight the benefits of the SEM approach for establishing the proposed framework and assessing the links between variables concerning the OPJBL and learning outcomes.
With the developments of technology, writing evaluation and feedback are supported by Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). The immersion of NLP and LSA in Writing ...contributes to the development of Automatic Writing Evaluation (AWE), a system that compares a text to a large database of the writing of the same genre and supports an evaluation process that is independent of the human rater. The potential of T.E.R.A's reach in evaluation became one of the bases of this research. This research intends to compare the evaluation process of human raters to T.E.R.A. and find out; a) the figuration of assessment criteria used in the evaluation process, and b) which elements rates are higher, the same, or lower. The result of this study shall be a point of departure to establish AWE which is suitable to the context of English as a Foreign Language being taught as a compulsory course at Bina Nusantara University.
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