Business English Certificate (here in after called BEC) test is becoming increasingly heated, but many candidates were perplexed by the listening part. The author gives a brief introduction to the BEC test, analyzes the testing type, the emphasis and the listening parts between BEC test and the College English Test 6 (here in after called CET6) comparatively; then, the existing problems will be pointed out and suggestions will be put forward for teaching reform of Business English's listening course based on the BEC Test to improve the teaching quality. KEYWORD: BEC test; listening comprehension; CET6; Contrastive Analysis

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Teaching Reform of Business English’s Listening Course Based on the BEC Test

Although the significant influence of lecturers’ beliefs on their practices in the classroom is well known, not much is known about teachers’ beliefs and the extent to which they influence reading instructional techniques (Woods, 2006). Furthermore, no comprehensive studies have been carried out in the context of Libyan universities, where lecturers in English are non-native speakers of the language and have only minimal resources and limited access to published research and scholarship regarding this topic. 

The present qualitative study aims to fill this gap in knowledge, considering contextual factors such as limited access to expert knowledge, a fixed curriculum, time restrictions and the isolation of lecturers, in an analysis of the beliefs that lecturers in English hold and the correspondence between these beliefs and their teaching practices. The study explores the factors that shape lecturers’ beliefs and examines the relationship between their beliefs and practices. Twenty-three unstructured observation sessions were conducted with male and female lecturers teaching English reading. Each class was observed 3 times, giving a total of 69 classes. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty male and female lecturers. The observation and interview data were analysed inspired by grounded theory. The findings revealed that lecturers held a variety of beliefs, and these did not always inform their practices in the classroom.

This study provides a more in-depth understanding of the multifaceted relationship between what lecturers believe and what they practise regarding the teaching of English reading. The study acknowledges the themes of the differences and similarities between lecturers’ beliefs and practices, with observations such as ‘lecturers knew, but did not do’; ‘lecturers did, but were not aware that they did’; and ‘lecturers did, and they knew’. In addition, the study demonstrates that correspondence between beliefs and practices does not necessarily result in positive pedagogical consequences, while a lack of such correspondence may not have negative results. The research also reveals that, irrespective of the relationships between beliefs and practices, the underpinning rationales are linked to the complex relationship between lecturers’ beliefs and practices and a range of other factors. The findings of this study could be of benefit to both current and future EFL lecturers of reading and should also provide directions for further research in this field.

An investigation of the relationships between Libyan EFL lecturers' beliefs about the teaching and learning of reading in English and their classroom practices in Libyan universities

Figurative language is a general literal word or sentence that uses equations or comparisons to produce an emotional and dramatic feeling. The purpose of figurative language is to enable the reader or listener to re-explain the meaning in context because figurative language uses imaginative ways. This study presents research problems there are: how the figurative languages are expressed in Disney’s movie soundtracks and how the figurative languages expressed in Disney’s movie soundtracks are integrated into a listening class. The researcher used descriptive qualitative research design because it dealt with description and cannot produce research data in the form of numbers. From the research findings, there were twenty-two figurative language verses in the Disney's movie soundtracks namely ‘A Whole New World’ and ‘Speechless’. Based on twenty-two verses, there are seven types of figurative language found specifically Paronomasia, Personification, Satire, Metaphor, Simile, Antonomasia, and Allegory. The research findings are used as learning material in the listening activities and also from the implementation, it went well. Therefore, introducing figurative languages to the listening class using songs is a suitable blend of learning material. The class implementation was conducted online due to a pandemic Covid-19 situation.

Integrating figurative language in disney's movie soundtracks into listening class

The Theory and Practice of English Language Teaching

This study explored the interplay between teacher mindsets and grit levels of Turkish pre-service teachers taking their year of study into account (i.e., first-year vs the fourth year), gender, and the subject taught in a Turkish higher education setting. Student teachers from various programmes at a public university in Turkey participated in the study (N = 321). The participants completed the Teacher Mindset Scale and Grit Scale online after receiving the approval of the university’s ethics committee and signing the consent forms. The correlations between the components of teacher mindset and grit demonstrated that as growth teacher mindset scores increased, and effort scores also increased significantly. Furthermore, as fixed teacher mindset scores increased, interest scores decreased. First-year pre-service teachers had significantly higher fixed teacher mindset scores than the fourth year. In terms of grit, fourth-year pre-service teachers showed greater effort than the first year. There was no difference between female and male pre-service teachers regarding fixed teacher mindset. However, female pre-service teachers scored significantly higher on growth teacher mindset, interest, and effort scales. As for the subject taught, the Mathematics Education programme showed higher levels of fixed teacher mindset and the English Language Teaching programme showed lower levels of grit. Practical implications of our findings and limitations of the study are shared accordingly.

https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/2278860

Doğan Yüksel

Papers

The Theory and Practice of English Language Teaching

Teacher Mindset and Grit: How do They Change by Teacher Training, Gender, and Subject Taught?