Coding Scheme

Utilising a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach, the current case study investigates the characteristics and frequency of the usage of verbal humour that positively or negatively affects the Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) tertiary-level students across two different English language proficiency levels. The participants included 42 EFL teachers and 138 male EFL students from the English Language Institute (ELI) in King Abdulaziz University. The students were enrolled in the beginners (E101) and intermediate (E104) English language proficiency levels. The mixed-methods approach was implemented using audio and video recordings and a questionnaire as the data collection instruments. The findings stated the four main characteristics of both positive and negative verbal humours in Saudi EFL classrooms. These findings revealed that humour was more frequently used at the intermediate than at the beginner level, and that the most effective forms of humour at both levels involved language play, irony, jokes, and self-defeating humour. Suggestions, recommendations, pedagogical implications have also been presented.

International research suggests high-quality classroom talk is central to learning as it engages students and extends their thinking, argumentation and reasoning. Most empirical studies of whole-class teaching focus on teacher talk and the focus on student talk is often taken for granted or is somewhat peripheral to the analysis. This chapter will focus on student talk using a theoretically-grounded discourse-analytical framework. To illustrate the application of the framework, the chapter draws on a data set which formed part of larger study of a professional development programme designed to promote a dialogic pedagogy in the teaching of primary English, mathematics and science in primary schools serving socioeconomically derived areas in England. The framework provides a tool for the micro-analysis of 54 lesson transcripts identified as part of the systematic observation of 134 lessons using computerised software. It reveals rich and deep insights into the learning talk engaged in by students and identifies the repertoire of talk moves they used while sharing, explaining arguing and justifying their thinking and building on the ideas of other students. It concludes with a discussion of how the framework could be used by teachers and students to inform their implementation of a dialogic pedagogy to promote greater student participation and learning in whole-class talk.

Materials evaluation studies have constantly demonstrated that there is no one fixed procedure for conducting textbook evaluation studies. Instead, the criteria must be selected according to the needs and objectives of the context in which evaluation takes place. The speaking skill as part of the communicative competence has been emphasized as an important objective in language teaching. The present study explored the core units of spoken grammar inherent in four widely-used ELT textbooks following McCarthy and Carter's (2002) classification. A coding scheme was developed to make it possible for the researchers to use the classification in codifying the data. The data were then analyzed to detect the units of spoken grammar inherent in the target textbooks. Results from codification of dialogues and transcripts of audio recordings showed that the units of spoken grammar are not evenly distributed in these ELT textbooks. In addition, a significant difference was found between the textbooks in their inclusion of different categories of the spoken grammar.