Houman Bijani; Salim Said Bani Orabah
Abstract
Literature in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) recruitment practices suggests that the myth of monolingual speakerism has impacted the employment methods in various countries in the world. The monolingual (native) speaker has a privileged position in English language ...
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Literature in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) recruitment practices suggests that the myth of monolingual speakerism has impacted the employment methods in various countries in the world. The monolingual (native) speaker has a privileged position in English language teaching, representing both the model speaker and the ideal teacher. Bilingual teachers of English are often perceived as less competent than their monolingual counterparts in Oman. The aim of the research was to critically explore and problematize the workplace and recruitment matters that discriminate between bilingual and monolingual English teachers in Oman. This research reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative study conducted at the English Language Centre (ELC) at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences in Oman through obtaining data via face-to-face oral interviews from six participants who were selected based on their personal willingness to get involved in this research. The results demonstrated that the native speakers’ fallacy is “alive and kicking” in Oman. The results of the study indicated that there is also a huge discrimination based on salary range between native and non-native teachers, despite doing same job. Colonial impact is another reason behind monolingual speakers’ preference. The impact of discrimination is that bilingual teachers of English are left feeling inferior. Hence it is essential to adopt policies, which install greater sense of job security to enhance motivation and innovation. The study suggests that recruitment practices in Oman must be reviewed to establish equality and to create a healthy working environment.
Houman Bijani
Abstract
The current popularity of second/foreign language oral performance assessment has led to a growing interest in tasks as a tool for assessing language learners’ oral abilities. However, most oral assessment studies so far have investigated tasks separately; therefore, any possible relationship among ...
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The current popularity of second/foreign language oral performance assessment has led to a growing interest in tasks as a tool for assessing language learners’ oral abilities. However, most oral assessment studies so far have investigated tasks separately; therefore, any possible relationship among them has remained unexplored. Twenty English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers rated the oral performances produced by 200 EFL learners before and after a rater training program using description, narration, summarizing, role-play, and exposition tasks. The findings demonstrated the usefulness of multifaceted Rasch measurement (MFRM) in detecting rater effects and demonstrating the consistency and variability in rater behavior aiming to evaluate the quality of rating. The outcomes indicated that test difficulty identification is complex, difficult, and at the same time multidimensional. On the other hand test takers’ ability is a more determining factor in their score variation than other intervening variables. The outcomes displayed no relationship between task difficulty and raters’ interrater reliability measures. The findings suggest that tasks have various effects on oral performance assessment tests and most importantly, performance conditions in estimating the oral ability of test takers. Since various groups of raters have biases to different tasks in use, the findings indicated that training programs can reduce raters’ biases and increase their consistency measures. The findings imply that decision makers had better not be concerned about raters’ expertise in oral assessment, whereas they should establish better rater training programs for raters to increase assessment reliability.
