No abstract

Private English tutoring, understood as the paid English teaching service offered to students to supplement their learning of English at school or prepare them for an examination in English, has become a popular out-of-school learning activity. In order to obtain deeper insights into its intricacies, the need arises to examine the experience of one of its pivotal stakeholders – the private tutors. This article is based on a phenomenographic study with a view to investigating the conceptions of private tutoring held by 15 English teachers from three countries (Poland, Portugal, and Turkey) who offer private teaching services in English in their local contexts. The findings suggest that there are at least three conceptions according to which private tutoring can be experienced by the participants: as a source of income, as helping, and as professional development. The study also poses the question if there is space for formal training of private tutors and calls for further research into English private tutoring

ABSTRACT. In this study, an experimental research was conducted to find out the correlation between the learners' translation skills and reading comprehension. The reading skills and translation skills were compared in the translation course in which form and meaning focused translation instruction treatment was given. The correlations between these two skills were investigated. The translation test was prepared by three experts in the field of English Language Teaching in evaluating the students' translation levels. The Reading Test was taken from the KPDS (State Staff Foreign Language Proficiency Exam) is a language examination administered in Turkey in order to evaluate the foreign-language skills, especially of governmental officials) which was prepared by the ÖSYM (Öğrenci Seçme ve Yerleştirme merkezi -Student Selection and Placement Centre). The treatment was done in the 2009-2010 fall semester and the reading and translation levels were scored before and after the treatment. Also, the translation skills were measured according to their reading levels which were graded as good, average and poor. The meaning focused translation instruction showed that it had improved the reading and the translation scores of the students better than form focused translation instruction.