Language Structure and Social Situation： Developing Communicative Strategies for the Nigerian Teacher of English

Defining knowledge and extent of communicative competence in the Nigerian, teacher of English underlies the ability of the teacher to engage adequately in ＂can do＂ statements which describe communicative competence in an ESL （English as a second language） communication situation. Therefore, in the skills of reading, writing, listening, interactive speaking, and in the spoken production of giving a speech or presentation, should fall the teacher＇s （and by extension, his students＇） competencies--linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic. This paper examines the successful classroom communication of the Nigerian teacher of English which depends on his ability to manipulate the structures of English accurately, as well as to be able to use this knowledge in different social situations especially for the practice of impartation of knowledge. This paper postulates on the teaching of communicative competence, as it brings teachers to terms with the task of preparing students for their new role in the classroom And, the research recommends strategies to enhance the communicative competence of the Nigerian teacher for effective classroom teaching of English beyond the traditional ESL concems.

On General Issues of Bilingual Education for Minority Ethnic Groups

Minority language literacy is an important issue in national education policy for any multi-nationality country.China sticks to the policy of safeguarding the rights and interests of ethnic minority groups to use their own languages and writing systems.In education,considering communications among different nationalities and the development of minority ethnic groups,a bilingual education policy is being implemented by insisting on teaching students in their own ethnic languages;when the mastery of their own languages has been achieved,bilingual teaching will be employed.There are three types of bilingual teaching for minority ethnic groups:teaching in their own languages,with Mandarin Chinese added;teaching in Mandarin Chinese,with minority languages added;teaching both in Mandarin Chinese and in minority languages.The biggest problems to be solved in implementing bilingual education in ethnic minority regions are the editing of language textbooks and supporting materials for minority ethnic groups and the training of ethnic minority teachers.

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.