The 38th International MEXTESOL Convention was held in Morelia October of 2011 and this year the 39th International MEXTESOL Convention will be hosted in Puerto Vallarta. Please mark the dates of October 18-21, 2012 on your calendars for this event and we hope to see you there. The conference theme is “Leading the way to excellence in ELT”. We have finished up 2011 with our final issue of the year. This issue consists of a tribute to Ana Maria Arramayo, three refereed articles, one non-refereed article, an interview with Suresh Canagarajah and lastly a book review of a bilingual dictionary.
Ana Maria Arramayo was active in many of the ELT projects of the British Council that were carried out in Mexico. As well she was a role model for many of us as a teacher trainer and program coordinator. She passed away in October and we shall remember her dearly. Pat Grounds has written a tribute with a photograph in memory of Ana Maria.
“Do second language learners solve lexical problems differently in speaking and writing? What the literature says”, a refereed article by Saul Santos Garcia of the Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit, compares communication strategies of the two skills of speaking and writing. This contrast shows the intricate procedures of how lexical problems are resolved in these two skills.
Concerning lexis, Sasan Baleghizadeh and Arezoo Ashoori (Shahid Beheshti University, G.C.) have submitted a refereed article titled “The impact of two instructional techniques on students’ word knowledge: Flash cards versus word lists”. Carried out in a junior high school in Iran, this research project compares the effectiveness of vocabulary knowledge using the two strategies of flash cards and word lists.
Our next refereed article, “Language preference and perceived performance of Mexican-American students registered in developmental reading courses”, is from Moreno and Ekiaka, both of T&A University at Kingsville. This quantitative research explores in-depth what language Mexican-American college students prefer and their performance in a reading college reading course. As well, cultural issues and bilingual identity are looked at in the conclusions.
Verónica Rodríguez Ambrocio of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla has submitted the article “Experiences that impact EFL Mexican teachers’ professional development”. This article describes how different teaching experiences of MA students in central Mexico have influenced their journey of teacher development using their narratives.
Karen Englander carried out an interview titled “The ideal situation: To be located in your own country and be a part of the conversation – An interview with Suresh Canagarajah. Do not miss reading this interesting interview of Canagarajah who is well known in the ELT profession.
When one learns a foreign language, one of the many tools that the learner uses is, of course, a dictionary whether it is a bilingual or monolingual dictionary. From the Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit Jose Ramon Quintero Gutierrez and Saul Santos Garcia have submitted a book review of the Collins Cobuild: Diccionario Ingles-Español para Estudiantes Latinoamericano from Collins/Heinle CENGAGE Learning.
We hope you have enjoyed this issue and invite you to send us any contribution for 2012.
Traditionally, the literature on communication strategies has been associated with oral communication. In this paper I contend that lexical problems can come to the writer’s attention as much as they come to the speaker’s attention, therefore provoking the use of communication strategies in the written domain. This paper reviews the literature on communication strategies both in oral and written production, and establishes a comparison between them. The analysis reveals four ways in which communication strategies are viewed, from which two are clearly used both in writing and speaking; a third is clearly used exclusively in speaking; and the fourth although clearly used in speaking, may also be used in writing under certain peculiarities. The analysis presented here reveals the complexity and bilingual nature of the process of solving lexical problems during the act of speaking and writing.
Keywords: lexicon, communication strategies, speaking, writing
Research has proven that language performance among Mexican-American college students builds a bilingual-learner identity which encompasses cognitive and cultural benefits (Keener, Gregory, Mahera, & Al-Azami, 2008). To further investigate this phenomenon, a quantitative research method was used to determine the numeric description of trends and opinions of Mexican-American students registered to take developmental reading during the academic year 2010-2011. Specifically, the purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the language preference and perceived performance of Mexican-American students registered to take developmental reading courses at a large public university in Texas. To accomplish this objective, a 25-question survey was administered to the students. Several themes related to the use primary language at home, language preference when conversing with parents, siblings, and friends were explored. Findings suggested that the majority of the participants preferred to speak English across all themes even though their parents’ first language is Spanish.
Keywords: developmental education, language preference, perceived performance, bilingual-learner identity
The aim of this project is to research students’ responses to teaching vocabulary using flash cards and word lists. The study was carried out at the Khatam Junior High School in Iran. Two classes of 18 students at the elementary level of English language proficiency were selected. To investigate the results of teaching vocabulary using flash cards and word lists, the necessary instructions were given for ten minutes in two sessions. After two days, a post-test was given to each group in fifteen minutes and then their mean scores were compared through a t-test. The results revealed no significant difference in the efficacy of either of the two techniques.
This study attempts to explore the teaching experiences of students in an ELT master’s program at a public university in central Mexico and how these experiences impacted their professional development. The data was gathered through narratives. This is a case study which used narrative inquiry for the analysis of the data. The analysis consisted of the identification of the experiences and their categorization in two categories; one for difficult teaching experiences and the other for rewarding experiences. The study reports that the most difficult experiences involved students’ misbehavior and lack of motivation. The rewarding experiences were related to the achievement of the participants’ goals in their field. Both kinds of experiences contributed to these teachers’ professional development.
Keywords: teaching experiences, professional development, difficult teaching experiences, rewarding
MEXTESOL Journal, vol 35, núm. 2, 2011, es una Publicación cuadrimestral editada por la Asociación Mexicana de Maestros de Inglés, MEXTESOL, A.C., Versalles 15, Int. 301, Col. Juárez, Delegación Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06600 Mexico, D.F., Mexico, Tel. (55) 55 66 87 49, journal@mextesol.org.mx. Editor responsable: M. Martha Lengeling. Reserva de Derechos al uso Exclusivo No. 04-2015-092112295900-203, ISSN: 2395-9908, ambos otorgados por el Instituto Nacional de Derecho del Autor. Responsable de la última actualización de este número: Asociación Mexicana de Maestros de Inglés, MEXTESOL, A.C. JoAnn Miller, Versalles 15, Int. 301, Col. Juárez, Delegación Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06600 Mexico, D.F., Mexico. Fecha de última modificación: 31/08/2015. Las opiniones expresadas por los autores no necesariamente reflejan la postura del editor de la publicación. Se autoriza la reproducción total o parcial de los textos aquí publicados siempre y cuando se cite la fuente completa y la dirección electrónica de la publicación.
