Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in Two Sociocultural Contexts

Abstract

This research study examined two teachers teaching English to speakers of other languages in two different sociocultural instructional contexts. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to determine the teachers' definitions of what makes an English language learner communicatively competent in the English language, their beliefs about what knowledge they consider important to teach in order to achieve the communicative competence for their students and what role the different sociocultural context plays.

A qualitative design of a comparative case study was used as the method to explore and compare a teacher, who was an American citizen teaching English to speakers of other languages in the USA and a teacher, who was a Slovak citizen, teaching English to speakers of Slovak language in Slovakia. Data were collected from several data sources in each country, including semi-structured interviews, class observations with field notes during both fall school term and spring school term, short clarifying post observation interviews, and online demographic and short concept surveys. All data were analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis tools and a matrix for each participant was developed. Once the coding and the matrices were finished, themes were identified that allowed the address of the research questions.

The findings of the study showcased that the teachers who teach English to speakers of other languages in different sociocultural context are influenced in the way they organize their instruction by the requirements placed on them by their respective school districts. However, it is each teacher's personal belief of what constitutes a communicatively competent speaker that ultimately provides the structure for the instruction and the curriculum.