English Language Teaching Educational Journal

The impacts of the global pandemic on online learning in Vietnam

Dat Bao — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The global outbreak of COVID-19 has caused tremendous disruptions in the field of education, including in Vietnam. In response to the ongoing pandemic, online learning has emerged as the primary mode of education delivery, transforming the traditional learning landscape. This article reports a study that adopts a combination of reflection and text-based research. The project explores the impacts of the pandemic on online learning in the new normal within the Vietnamese education system. The work focuses mainly on learning motivation, student engagement, and digital competence. While the pandemic has led to increased acceptance and utilization of online learning platforms, it has also presented challenges, including issues of digital inequality and limited social interaction. Findings suggest that the Vietnamese education system needs to adapt to fully harness the potential of online learning in the new normal.

Developing ESP learning materials for airport ground handling services students: A needs analysis

Herida Panji Olivia Azhar, Anita Nur Masyi’ah — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) plays a pivotal role in enhancing the communicative competence of students preparing for careers. In order to develop the ESP learning materials for ground handling students, this study focuses on the needs analysis. The needs analysis will capture two aspects: 1) The participants’ perspectives on the development of ESP learning materials 2) the use of the English language by the airport ground handling crews. A mixed-method design was employed, incorporating surveys and interviews. The 397 participants involved students, instructors, and airport ground crews. Descriptive statistics were used to unveil the trends in the findings, and simultaneously, data reduction, data display, and drawing verification were used to delve into the participants perspectives. The validity and reliability of the survey questionnaire were tested, and member checking was used to justify the credibility of the qualitative findings. The findings provide valuable input for the development of ESP learning materials that are contextually relevant and aligned with the needs of airport ground handling services students.

The The impacts of blended corpus-based instruction on enhancing writing proficiency of Thai university students

Patcharin Satchayad, Sasima Charubusp — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Collocational competence is gaining more attention in the field of second language acquisition as it indicates a higher level of target language proficiency. However, Thai university students have been reported as obtaining a low degree of collocational competence which affects productive second language writing (Boonyarattanasoonthorn et al., 2020). The current study aimed to examine the impacts of blended corpus-based instruction (BCBI) on enhancing Thai university students’ writing proficiency and to examine the students’ attitudes towards the implementation of BCBI. A mixed-methods one-group experimental study was conducted with 43 first-year English major students at an autonomous university in Thailand for 8 weeks. The data were gathered utilizing a pre-test, a post-test, an attitude questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview. The results revealed significant differences between the scores before and after the implementation of BCBI at 0.05. Despite there being no drastic change in their collocational competence, the students were highly positive towards the instruction, in particular the use of corpus-based data to assist their writing as well as the awareness of gaining collocational competence. To effectively integrate corpus-based instruction into a writing pedagogy, tasks should be manageable and achievable by the students.