Teaching writing to Arab EFL learners in general, and to students who have never been exposed to an Anglo-Saxon foreign language in particular in institutions of higher education, through incorporating culturally mean...Teaching writing to Arab EFL learners in general, and to students who have never been exposed to an Anglo-Saxon foreign language in particular in institutions of higher education, through incorporating culturally meaningful learning materials, can actually be enjoyable and fruitful. However, it can also be very challenging given the sociocultural and linguistic background of the learners as well as other factors related to the nature of the imported teaching materials from overseas. The challenge then is identifying and selecting materials for each particular class, as well as how to get students motivated and successfully engaged in the process of writing. This paper enlightens educators and language programs managers and planners about the mechanism of the writing process while incorporating the cultural components relevant to the learner, as well as drawing their attention to the benefits of engaging students in the actual process of writing and boosting their motivation via a meaningful socioculturally based approach.展开更多
The aim of this study is to portray and explore the variety of social actors depicted visually along the pages of the intermediate level ELT coursebooks that are published locally （by British and American publishers...The aim of this study is to portray and explore the variety of social actors depicted visually along the pages of the intermediate level ELT coursebooks that are published locally （by British and American publishers） and marketed globally （mostly to the EFL contexts）. For this, a thorough photo-ethnographic exploration of the visuals supported by the inventory of ＂social actor interaction network＂ is employed. In the field of Coursebook Analysis, visuals have attracted limited attention despite marking asocio-semiotically rich discursive field. In fact, the semiotic labor division between the ＂word＂ and the ＂image＂ in representing and reconstructing （simulating） the world, points to a gain on the part of the image as the brain is evolutionarily more experienced in processing visual information than processing verbal information. Therefore, images can appeal more directly to the sensory experience domains of the viewers via visual contact, evoking deeper consciousness. Acting as the prominent mediators of signification practice, visuals catalogue the representations and simulations of social-life viewed l^om a particular subject position associated with a particular set of norms, beliefs, and values. Hence, they position the viewers across dynamic loci of subjectivities in terms of social distance, relations, and interaction. As both reflections and reproductions of reality, images in the coursebooks have the potent to influence learners＇ perspectives of the world presenting them with readymade cognitive schemes. In order to reveal a comprehensive picture of the visually depicted social actors and the identity options made available through them, in this study the author focused on the peopled photos of the 6 popularly traded ELT coursebooks. The author investigated them regarding the relations of social distance, involvement, power and interaction formed between the depicted social actors and their viewers as well as the emergent practices of exclusion, role allocation, genericization, specification, assimilation, individualization, and categorization. The results show that the representational repertoires of the coursebooks contain disproportionately distributed visual depictions of social actors in terms of cultural orientation and gender. The ＂culturally different＂ are repeatedly pictured in assimilative ways as an aggregate of enumerable people, while the social actors of the reference group are usually pictured individually and with their own intended meaning.展开更多
文摘Teaching writing to Arab EFL learners in general, and to students who have never been exposed to an Anglo-Saxon foreign language in particular in institutions of higher education, through incorporating culturally meaningful learning materials, can actually be enjoyable and fruitful. However, it can also be very challenging given the sociocultural and linguistic background of the learners as well as other factors related to the nature of the imported teaching materials from overseas. The challenge then is identifying and selecting materials for each particular class, as well as how to get students motivated and successfully engaged in the process of writing. This paper enlightens educators and language programs managers and planners about the mechanism of the writing process while incorporating the cultural components relevant to the learner, as well as drawing their attention to the benefits of engaging students in the actual process of writing and boosting their motivation via a meaningful socioculturally based approach.
文摘The aim of this study is to portray and explore the variety of social actors depicted visually along the pages of the intermediate level ELT coursebooks that are published locally （by British and American publishers） and marketed globally （mostly to the EFL contexts）. For this, a thorough photo-ethnographic exploration of the visuals supported by the inventory of ＂social actor interaction network＂ is employed. In the field of Coursebook Analysis, visuals have attracted limited attention despite marking asocio-semiotically rich discursive field. In fact, the semiotic labor division between the ＂word＂ and the ＂image＂ in representing and reconstructing （simulating） the world, points to a gain on the part of the image as the brain is evolutionarily more experienced in processing visual information than processing verbal information. Therefore, images can appeal more directly to the sensory experience domains of the viewers via visual contact, evoking deeper consciousness. Acting as the prominent mediators of signification practice, visuals catalogue the representations and simulations of social-life viewed l^om a particular subject position associated with a particular set of norms, beliefs, and values. Hence, they position the viewers across dynamic loci of subjectivities in terms of social distance, relations, and interaction. As both reflections and reproductions of reality, images in the coursebooks have the potent to influence learners＇ perspectives of the world presenting them with readymade cognitive schemes. In order to reveal a comprehensive picture of the visually depicted social actors and the identity options made available through them, in this study the author focused on the peopled photos of the 6 popularly traded ELT coursebooks. The author investigated them regarding the relations of social distance, involvement, power and interaction formed between the depicted social actors and their viewers as well as the emergent practices of exclusion, role allocation, genericization, specification, assimilation, individualization, and categorization. The results show that the representational repertoires of the coursebooks contain disproportionately distributed visual depictions of social actors in terms of cultural orientation and gender. The ＂culturally different＂ are repeatedly pictured in assimilative ways as an aggregate of enumerable people, while the social actors of the reference group are usually pictured individually and with their own intended meaning.
