The use of blogs in EFL learning and teaching has recently attracted a great deal of research attention. Previous research has demonstrated that blogs foster development of EFL skills. This study, which takes a sociocultural approach, focuses on EFL interaction. Specifically, the study aims to identify the interaction strategies that bloggers employ by exploring both teacher-initiated and studentinitiated interactions. An EFL undergraduate class at the University of Chile serves as the vantage point for discussion. Bloggers' posts and comments are thematically analysed for the purposes of this study. It is demonstrated that blogs promote EFL interaction, self-expression, self-evaluation, and a sense of language progress. The study may be of interest to educationists around the world who are interested in identifying how blogs can best be harnessed within foreign language education for the benefit of learners.
This study addresses bidialectism by investigating the linguistic situation on the bidialectal island of Cyprus where Standard Modern Greek (SMG) and the regional Cypriot dialect (CD) are both routinely used. The study implemented a language programme that embraced both sociolinguistic and educational factors and was designed to teach SMG by using the CD as a facilitating tool, while simultaneously ensuring the maintenance of the CD. A quasiexperimental design was used in the application and evaluation of this bidialectal method, comparing a control group and an experimental group of final-year primary-school students in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis. Quantitative analysis of the results revealed that the method had a marked positive effect on the oral and written production of the standard variety. This was due to explicit and conscious comparison of learners' regional dialectal mother tongue with the standard target variety.
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