Promoting Intellectual Skills: Teachers’ Practices and Attitudes A cognitive Study: An Evaluation of the English File Upper-intermediate Students’ Book Used at Modern Languages School of Tizi-Ouzou
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Date
2020
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Publisher
Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
The present study seeks at evaluating the activities implemented in the English File Upperintermediate
Students’ Book used in Modern Languages School of Tizi-Ouzou in promoting
learners’ intellectual skills. To investigate this issue, three main objectives have been set
respectively. The first objective is to determine whether the upper-intermediate textbook
activities engage MLS EFL learners in significant learning experience. The second objective
is to see whether these same activities foster learners’ cognition. Then, the third objective is
to find out MLS English teachers’ views towards the effectiveness of the textbook activities
intended for upper-intermediate learners in enhancing their intellectual skills. The corpus of
the current research consists of twenty randomly selected activities analyzed on the basis of
the Significant Learning Taxonomy developed by DEE Fink in 2003. This set of data has been
supplemented by a semi-structured questionnaire addressed to five MLS teachers teaching
English to upper-intermediate EFL classes to figure out and measure the attitudes they hold
towards the issue under study. A mixed method approach, combining both quantitative and
qualitative methods, has been adopted to process the obtained data. The quantitative part has
been devoted to process the different numerical data and percentages using the rule of three,
while the qualitative part has concerned the interpretation of the open-ended questions
through the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA). The results sorted out from the textbook
evaluation have revealed that EFL upper-intermediate learners at Modern Languages School
are actively engaged in significant learning experiences and that the activities are of
significant importance in fostering their cognitive faculties along the target language. These
same results have also shown that DEE Fink’s Taxonomy is partly reflected throughout the
textbook since only the four first learning dimensions are emphasized. Moreover, the answers
provided by the teachers to the questionnaire have indicated their positive attitudes
concerning the importance of the English File Upper-intermediate Students’ Book activities
relied on in MLS in developing learners’ intellectual skill. Finally, the research has provided
some recommendations for further research in the field of intellectual skill development.
Description
30cm ; 82p.
Keywords
Intellectual skills, Significant Learning Experience, Fink’s Taxonomy, English File Upper-intermediate Students’ Book.
Citation
Language and Communication