RELC Journal

The argument put forward here is that we are witnessing the emergence of a concept of English as a lingua franca, which creates a set of attitudes about correctness and in particular ‘grammatical correctness’. The traditional ‘nativespeaker’ as final arbiter can only apply to English as a national language. It is the non-native speaker who is becoming the model for English as a global language.

In order to motivate university students to improve their English profi-ciency, the Hong Kong government decided to adopt a common exit English language test for all graduating students. In the process of selecting a suitable measure for this purpose, an empirical study with a sample of over 240 students was conducted to compare two English proficiency tests, the English Test of the Graduating Students' Language Proficiency Assessment (GSLPA) and the Academic Version of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The comparisons covered both speaking and writing components of the two tests, based on information provided by the two tests as well as performances of the participating candidates on the components under study. Results indicate: (1) that GSLPA writing and speaking scores distinguish candidates' abilities more clearly than the corresponding scores on the IELTS but IELTS overall scores, generated from writing, speaking, reading and listening sub-scores, have a discriminating power similar to that of GSLPA; (2) that the GSLPA and IELTS writing subtests basically measure different skills; and (3) that the constructs of the GSLPA and IELTS speaking subtests, while having their own distinctive features, overlap by about 48%. This paper recommends options for improving the current assessment framework for graduating university students and discusses the possible impact of such a test on English language teaching and learning.

This study aims to explore students' attitudes toward teacher feedback. The study used a triangulation of participants and methods in which the practice of feedback was seen from the perspectives of students and teachers collected from the quantitative data (questionnaires) and qualitative data (open-ended items in questionnaires and interviews). A total of 100 students participated in filling in the questionnaires and 21 of them were interviewed using a semi-structured format. In addition, there were 20 teachers who completed the questionnaires and 10 of them were interviewed using the same semi-structured format. The findings show that generally teachers and students have a marked preference for teacher feedback. The high preference for teacher feedback was mainly the result of the respondents' positive attitudes towards teacher feedback. Interestingly, student preferences for teacher feedback also stemmed from their awareness that teachers control grades. The data collected from the questionnaires and interviews indicated that students preferred teacher feedback that was specific since this kind of feedback would facilitate students in the revision process. Students also show a high preference for feedback which focused on language. Compared to feedback on content, feedback on form was considered to be more helpful. Students often complained that teacher feedback on content tended to be general and sometimes, contradictory to student ideas. Moreover, the interview data illustrated that teacher feedback contributed greatly to students' emotional states particularly their motivation and attitudes towards writing.

Previous research has found that native English speakers can judge, with a relatively high degree of accuracy, the frequency of words in the English language. However, there has been little investigation of the ability to judge the frequency of high and middle frequency words. Similarly, the accuracy of EFL teachers' frequency judgements remains largely unstudied. This study required two groups of native English speakers (English teaching professionals and undergraduate university students) to judge the frequency of words by ranking two lists of 24 words in order of frequency. The first list covered a wide range of frequency levels and the second list covered words in the middle frequency range. The results from this study indicate that the English teaching professionals' accuracy judgments do not seem to be signifi-cantly better than university undergraduates. Furthermore, both groups of native English speakers had difficulty judging the frequency of words in the middle frequency range. These results indicate the need for teachers to consult frequency lists rather than rely solely on their intuitions.

Academic writing competence comprises attitudes, knowledge, skills, and strategies that enable one to produce writing in accordance with the expectations of the academic discourse community. This paper introduces an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course developed to help students from China acquire an adequate level of academic writing competence in English so that they can successfully handle the academic writing tasks that they will need to undertake in their undergraduate studies. It describes: (1) the curricular objectives that the writing course aims to accomplish; (2) the pedagogy that is adopted in the course; (3) the course materials that are used; (4) the ways in which the students' progress in academic writing is assessed; and (5) the gains in writing proficiency that the students have experienced, as well as the feedback that they have given on the course. It is believed that sharing curriculum development efforts provides a valuable opportunity for EAP practitioners, course developers, and materials writers to engage in healthy exchanges of effective curricular practices and constructive criticisms. Exchanges of this nature can contribute to the development of EAP curriculums that better cater for the academic writing needs of second language students in institutions of higher education.

This paper reports the findings of a study examining classroom questioning behavior and its impacts on students' development. A triangulation was conducted to collect data: observations of nine university English lessons, semi-structured interviews with six teachers and focus group discussions with three groups of students.

The data showed that many of the questions asked were lower cognitive questions and that they were mostly answered in chorus or by teacher nomination. The findings revealed that questioning was employed by the teachers to check text comprehension, hold the students' attention on the texts, to enhance and protect teacher's and students' face, to maintain classroom discipline, to establish teacher authority, and to gain student respect and acceptance.

The results indicate that the questioning behavior identified is likely to have potential negative impact on the students. Tentative suggestions are made for improving questioning style to fit the Chinese educational reform agenda.

Research on pre-task planning has shown that planning has beneficial effects on learners' subsequent language output. However, to date most of this research has focused on solitary rather than group planning. Furthermore, very few studies have investigated what actually happens during the planning time. This study, conducted in an EFL class in Vietnam, investigated the nature and impact of group planning on learners' subsequent individual oral presentations. The learners (n=17) worked in small groups preparing for oral presentations. At the end of the planning session, two learners from each group were randomly selected to give presentations. All group work and individual presentations were audio recorded and teacher observation notes were collected. Transcribed oral data were coded for idea units and language related episodes as well as salient features of group interaction. The study found that group planning dealt with the content rather than the language of presentations. Using a matching procedure, the study found that most of the ideas presented were generated during the planning time. However, there were variations between the groups. The group that seemed to be the most interactive and that focused on both content and language was a group composed of mixed proficiency learners.