The use of media in English teaching and learning has received much attention from educators and second/foreign language educators. The use of media includes the use of movies, music, films, and other types of entertainment-related learning resources. However, little has been done to understand the adult language learners’ perceptions toward the benefits and challenges of using English movies to learn English. This qualitative research study explored English learners’ perceptions regarding the use of movies as English teaching and learning tools. The study focused on what language learners believe are the benefits and challenges of relying on English movies to develop their language competency. The study’s results indicated that language learners believed that movies are authentic sources of language learning and can be used effectively to improve language skills including speaking, listening, reading, vocabulary, and writing. Findings also revealed that according to language learners, movies are beneficial in terms of increasing students’ cultural awareness.

Learning English through Movies: Adult English Language Learners’ Perceptions

The current situation of teaching and learning process has undergone a drastic change during the COVID-19 outbreak. The conventional classroom meeting is no longer available because of the pandemic. As a result, the classroom interaction is blended with the online learning model until the end of the semester. In a blended learning setting, teachers are forced to be innovative to reach the instructional objectives. As most learning is done online, the use of authentic materials is considered relevant to the current situation. Many authentic materials are available online. Yet, there is no sufficient information on whether the authentic materials can improve college students’ ability in writing essays in a blended learning setting. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of literary genre as authentic materials on students’ writing performance. As such, this research uses an experimental design. The target population of the study was all fourth-year students of the English Education Study Program, Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology, University of PGRI Wiranegara, Pasuruan, East Java, Indonesia. Samples were employed using a systematic random design. The treatment was conducted in 14 meetings between March and June 2020. The main instruments used to collect data were pre-test and post-test. The students’ writing was rated by two ratings using the Jacobs ESL-Composition Profile. The result of the one-sample t-test computation using the IBM SPSS 25 showed that there is a significant difference in the students’ writing performance before and after the treatment (α = 0.00 < 0.05). Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of authentic materials in literary genre can improve the student’s ability in writing essays.
Keywords: authentic materials, literature, essay, effect

/pdf/the-effect-of-literature-as-authentic-materials-for-writing-sw8mj0ug3h.pdf

The Effect of Literature As Authentic Materials for Writing Essays in A Blended Learning Setting

This quasi-experimental study examined whether TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks could improve the listening skills of Iranian EFL learners. The study also explored whether the different media of instruction could have differing impacts on the students’ learning. Sixty intermediate level male learners aged between 18 and 20 in three intact classes (n1=n2=n3=20) were the participants selected through convenience sampling. The groups were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group after ensuring that they were at the same level of language proficiency. One of the experimental groups watched TED talks via mobile devices, another group watched them through laptops, and the control group practiced listening through DVDs and CDs of the course textbook (American File 2) for ten sessions. It is worth mentioning that the mobile group watched the videos outside of the class, whereas the laptop and control groups practiced listening in the class. Every session, the participants answered some comprehension questions to enable the researchers to measure their development. The repeated measures ANOVA showed the improvement of the listening skills of all participants in the three groups during the treatment. The results of the one-way ANOVA and post hoc comparison revealed statistically significant differences between the mobile group watching the TED talks and the control group, but no differences were found between the mobile group and the laptop group or between the control and the laptop groups. The researchers inferred that the observed difference was due to using TED talks via mobile devices in the study. They could also conclude that TED talks are useful sources of practicing listening skills. The study shows the efficacy of self-directed learning via mobile devices and has implications for teachers and practitioners who are seeking ways to extend language learning beyond the confinements of the classroom.

/pdf/exploring-iranian-efl-learners-listening-skills-via-ted-zsi074yerl.pdf

Exploring Iranian EFL learners’ listening skills via TED talks: does medium make a difference?

This study aimed to investigate the effect of using news as authentic materials for essay writing skills. This experimental study employed the one-group pre-test and post-test design to 18  fourth-semester students who joined the Essay Writing Course in one of the universities in Indonesia. These students were selected through systematic random sampling and went through treatments for 12 meetings where they were taught in a hybrid learning setting. The first four meetings used the conventional face-to-face classroom interaction. The rest of the meetings were done online because of the outbreak of COVID 19. The instruments to collect data were tests and documentation. Before they were given to the students, the teaching materials, pre-test, and post-test designs were tested and validated. The authentic materials were news texts about global issues such as poverty, environmental protection, gender, race and ethnicities, and diseases. Two raters scored the students’ writing by using Jacobs ESL Composition Profile. The researchers used IBM SPSS 25 software to analyze the data. The results of a paired sample t-test analysis showed that there was no significant difference in the students’ writing scores before and after using news as authentic materials (p = .959 > α = 0.05). The paper further discusses the implications of this study for theoretical and practical use.

/pdf/news-as-authentic-materials-to-improve-essay-writing-in-a-2r7hyegxyc.pdf

News as authentic materials to improve essay writing in a hybrid learning setting

Comprehension of Academic Communication Among Indonesian Students at a Public University in Malaysia

It is commonly acknowledged that listening plays an important role in language learning. Researchers at home and abroad have been diligently pursuing various approaches on teaching listening to improve students’ listening proficiency. Among them, teaching English listening through movies is regarded as one of the effective ways to fulfill the need. However, most of the studies on teaching listening through English movies are theory recounting. What's more, researchers just consider the change of listening achievement in their experimental studies, almost pay no attention to anxiety and motivation, which are believed to be two important determinants of second language learning achievement. The present study explored the effects of utilizing English movies on teaching college English listening with considering anxiety, motivation and achievement.

The Effect of English Movies on College English Listening Teaching

With the rapid development of educational informationization, Internet of Things, and other technologies, English education has been paid special attention to, and all aspects such as educational model, learning behavior, teaching philosophy, and teaching evaluation have been greatly influenced by educational informationization. Based on the experience of practical education, this paper explores and studies the connotation and characteristics of English test questions and its influence and application on modern English test questions. This paper constructs a systematic method to extract keywords from English test questions. It perfects the fair and reasonable index of English keywords, establishes the weight system, discusses the relationship of keywords, and conducts academic research on vocabulary, word frequency and word position, emphatically adopts BayesNet algorithm to extract keywords, and realizes the evaluation system of English test keywords based on intelligent analysis and weight relationship. The results show that (1) selecting the calculation method and weight relationship suitable for the text system to carry out intelligent analysis, the weight ratio exceeds 65%; that is, the text keyword retrieval is successful. (2) The average accuracy (%), average recall (%) and average 
 
 F
 
 -measure (%) in weighted names are almost less than 70%. Only the BayesNet algorithm has 72.3% weight analysis in keyword extraction in reading comprehension. (3) KEA algorithm, PAT TERR algorithm, and BayesNet algorithm take 0-2.8 s, 0-2.6 s, and 0-2.1 s, respectively, and the BayesNet algorithm takes the shortest time. The calculation time of users is greatly saved. (4) According to the calculation results of CPT model, the sum of the weights of the three algorithms is equal to 1, and the BayesNet algorithm is dominant in extracting keywords with a weight analysis of 0.529 in verb translation.

/pdf/research-on-the-relationship-between-intelligent-analysis-ttp7ntlx.pdf

Jiaosheng Qiu

Papers

The Effect of English Movies on College English Listening Teaching

Research on the Relationship between Intelligent Analysis and Weight of Keywords in English Test Questions