e-Teals: an e-journal of Teacher Education and Applied Language Studies

Assessment for Learning as a Means to Promote Students’ Writing Proficiency

Paula Katchi Cravo — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The present study, conducted as part of the practicum during my master’s degree in teaching English in the third cycle of basic education and secondary schooling, aimed to enhance students’ writing through formative assessment tools and practices. This entailed the use of rubrics, success criteria checklists, students’ self-assessment using rubrics, and teacher feedback through error correction codes, comments, and the writing of a second draft by students. The study was conducted during a 6 month period, and involved 21 eleventh-graders. As my research methodology, a small scale classroom-based action research study was implemented, which entailed a qualitative and quantitative approach to data collection. The data collection tools consisted of a teaching journal, questionnaires, and teacher and student assessment of the written tasks through the use of rubrics. The written tasks were an opinion essay and a letter of application. Results showed that students felt motivated to use the formative assessment tools implemented in class. They revealed an ability in self-assessing their work through the use of rubrics, and a capacity to correct their mistakes. The practices implemented in class promoted students’ writing proficiency of specific written tasks.

The Filmic text in the English Foreign Language classroom

Inês R.G. de Paiva Couceiro — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyses how an approach centred on the filmic text in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom contributes to the learners’ linguistic and cultural knowledge, as part of an action-research project carried out during the 2021/2022 school year in Sintra, Portugal. For the 8th and 10th grades, lessons were created to include the use of a film, which dealt with the topic of the unit. Each lesson worked on different skills, with a wide range of activities that aimed at developing students’ language and culture. At the end of each course unit, focus groups were conducted and written assignments were submitted. This facilitated the development of further lesson plans which catered for students’ needs and promoted language learning. Results show that learners’ participation in class increased both in quantity and in quality, as their discussions became more detail-oriented and included film analysis vocabulary and cultural meaning construction, thus revealing a growing cultural awareness when linking or contrasting the different cultures shown on screen with their own. All in all, the use of film in these EFL classrooms contributed to the learners’ linguistic and cultural learning process.

Dialogic literary gatherings in EFL

Pedro M. Lopes — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dialogic literary gatherings (DLGs) are inclusive dialogic whole-class interaction activities that have proven to contribute to improving students’ academic achievement, as well as inclusion and social cohesion, and which can be transferred to any context (Flecha & INCLUD-ED, 2015). By stressing oral interaction as a means to learning and as learning itself, this short study investigates if the implementation of DLGs in a lower secondary EFL classroom in Portugal fosters the emergence of learning opportunities for quality language learning. A classroom observation method was applied, with data being analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results show that DLGs provide a number of varied learning opportunities which seem to increase with regular exposure to DLGs, and when a student plays the role of moderator. Further investigation is required on the impact of implementing DLGs in the EFL classroom.

Reforming Teacher Education in Portugal

Carlos Ceia — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Carolyn E. Leslie, Rima J. Prakash — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Número completo

CETAPS — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000