Suchergebnisse

In today's global environment, communication plays a crucial role since everyone cannot be separated with communication activity. Language is believed as a tool of communication. It provides the means to take the place in the society, to express and convey information, to learn about the people and the world around us. This qualitative case study is set to investigate the use of communication strategies on the perspective of language proficiency because the most significant predictor of specific communication strategy use is language proficiency. There are twelve students with high and low proficiency level as the subject of this study which is taken purposively. They are the second year students of English Education Department at one of the universities in Indonesia. In this study, the researcher used multiple data sources, namely observation, interview, and documentation. It is intended to address the research questions. The results showed that the students with high proficiency level used five (5) types and ten (10) sub-types of communication strategies. While the students with low proficiency level used four (4) types and nine (9) sub-types of communication strategies. It means that students with high proficiency level utilized more types and sub-types of communication strategies than the low proficient students did. The study provides valuable contribution in introducing communication strategies and raising students' awareness to actually use English in real-life communication.

This paper studies the English language proficiency levels of immigrants to the United States as determined from scores on a standardized test explicitly designed to measure reading proficiency. The data are disaggregated by area of origin and year of immigration. The connection between English deficiency levels and wages is then examined. In contrast to previous studies, it is found that English deficiency unambiguously depresses the wages of immigrants below what their other human capital characteristics suggest they should earn in the U.S. labor market. At the same time, the data show that, among the sample of young adults examined, there is a remarkable correlation between learning of English and time lived in the United States. The study indicates that policies encouraging the acquisition of English as a second language may provide a high dividend in the form of economic progress among immigrants.

In Indonesia, English teachers and lecturers have to pass specific number of TOEFL score as a passing card to carry out teaching activity. Yet, there is no further observation from researchers or government about how much the English teachers' proficiency affects the classroom instruction capability. Hence, this research is worth pursuing to reveal information for teachers' professional development. This study is a case study that aims to gather information about the relation between English teachers' proficiency and teaching skills. The data were obtained from semi-structured interview and class observation. To analyse the data, the researchers coded the data manually to eliminate errors. There are two English lecturers from one private University in Malang, East Java, Indonesia as the participants of this study. They were selected purposefully based on their level of general proficiency in English. This study revealed that high level of English proficiency alone cannot be a single indicator for conducting effective English teaching and learning process. Teachers need to obtain both high level of language proficiency and own pedagogical skills to provide optimised learning and teaching environment. This research is seen as a fundamental framework for teachers to improve their English teaching perseverance.

AbstractStudies of the determinants of English language ability have generally focused on the largest immigrant groups in the United States. Much less is known about smaller, but significant regional concentrations of immigrants and refugees. This article presents data on four very distinct and understudied groups: Russians, Somalis, Hmong, and Mexicans in the Midwest. We found large differences in English language proficiency across the different national origin groups, even after controlling for background variables. These differences were not attributable to refugee status or to linguistic distance from English. Being Somali, migrating to the United States at a young age and having a college diploma were the best predictors of both spoken and written proficiency. The returns to higher education were particularly noteworthy — respondents with college diplomas were more than 29 times more likely than non‐high school graduates to speak English well, and more than 20 times as likely to read well. Women appear to have benefited more than men from completing college in terms of spoken English proficiency since the male‐female gap narrows among the highly educated. Length of time in the United States was a good predictor of whether an individual speaks English at home, regardless of age of entry to the country.

There is a wide range of evidence to support the view that new technologies serve an integral part of teenagers' life. However, in Hungary, it seems that even though the facilities are provided in most of the educational institutions, these are not in regular use due to teachers' lack of competence, the willingness of using them or their constant operational problems. Using a qualitative, small-scale study conducted in semi-structured focus group interviews (N=8) with 15 participants in five Hungarian primary schools, the study primarily aims to uncover how teenagers can relate their foreign language advancement to their use of digital devices in their free time. Furthermore, the paper examines their views on foreign language (FL) instruction supported by ICT at school as well as which digital devices and for what purposes they would preferably use them in FL classes. The study implicitly raises the issue of cultural sustainability and tries to find evidence to what extent mass culture affects the Hungarian language proficiency of students. According to the results, teenagers' attitude towards institutional foreign language learning seems to be quite traditional, as they cannot relate their free time activities spent with digital devices to study purposes at school. Although participants are conscious about the effectiveness of ICT promoting language learning, they think that watching films, instructional videos, or working with projected tasks connected to course books are the major reasons for using digital devices for classroom purposes. Regarding cultural sustainability even within this small-scale study, there is some evidence that English as one of the most influential languages of mass culture can have an impact on the mother tongue language maintenance.

The economic and social pressure has led many Indonesian to become migrant workers in some foreign countries for a better life. Their poor language proficiency due to their lack of preparation prior to their departure has hampered them from communicating well in the country of destination which they have lived. This paper presents the analysis of how the Indonesian migrant workers prepared their language proficiency in their country of origin,Indonesia, how they have acquired the language of the receiving country in which they have worked, and how they have maintained the acquired foreign language upon their return toIndonesiaas their social capital. This paper found out that language preparation, language acquisition and language maintenance play very important roles in the life of Indonesian migrant workers. Poorly planned language training has made the migrant workers face many problems in communication in the country of destination. This condition can be gradually solved by acquiring the language during their work in the country of destination and this language acquisition through immersion has become their social capital; however, such social capital is not well processed to empower the community in most areas of the country of origin,Indonesia. This fact is worsened by the reality that the formal government structure in the villages seems to neglect this self-empowered group of the community. Key words: Economic and social pressure, migrant workers, proficiency, acquired, social capital

Given the increase in service sector jobs, the demand for English education in school is increasing day by day. To keep up with this demand the government is also setting up English-medium schools. Apart from state boards, many boards like ICSE and CBSE are also imparting English education. This paper seeks to find out the English language proficiency (ELP) level of pupils of various boards, especially in the states of Jharkhand and West Bengal. Of the different school Boards, students of Indian Council of Secondary Education (ICSE) board had the greatest proficiency while the lowest proficiency appeared in schools run by respective State Boards.

This article discusses and empirically tests the relations between German language proficiency
and national identification with Germany among first-generation immigrants in Germany. It presents three
theoretical arguments: (i) language proficiency positively affects national identification; (ii) contrastingly,
national identification positively influences language proficiency; and (iii) there is a reciprocal relationship
between both constructs. To test these potentially contradictory claims empirically, we use data on firstgeneration
immigrants in Germany measured in four waves (1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003) from the German
Socio-Economic Panel study. Language proficiency is operationalized with the variable proficiency in
German language. Hypotheses are tested using autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models.
Findings demonstrate an effect of language proficiency on national identification among immigrants in
Germany. However, data provide no support for an effect in the other direction.

The two-part language course 'English for Students of Social Sciences (UNIcert III)'(1) was developed in the period 2005-2007 within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci project 'EUROVOLT via VLE'(2). In the process, teaching and learning materials were created taking into consideration the specific experiences and requirements of German students of Political and Managerial Sciences and Sociology. The course aims at the requirements of the professional world of these students.(3) A further important premise was compatibility with the existing UNIcert training level and the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The material was specifically developed for a teaching and learning concept which implements innovative approaches in the combination of online and offline language learning (Blended Learning or BL) and investigates their success. To this end, a test and control group enrolled on the UNIcert III/1 level were available for each semester respectively; the test group had 2 sessions in the multimedia language laboratory and 2 in the classroom (contact sessions), and the control group had 4 contact sessions. Both groups used the same material and dealt with the same topics, the test group online and the control group as printed material.