Browsing by Author "Hiouani, Amira Sarra"

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    Between english for specific purposes ESP and general english GE
    (Université De Larbi Ben M’hidi Oum EL Bouaghi, 2022) Rahmani, Abdeldjalil; Zerroug, Youcef; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    The need for English for Specific Purposes has arisen in Algeria due to globalization. Students must be exposed to English in the academic and professional spheres, so Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is a necessity. Teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is a branch of English Language Teaching (ELT) that focuses on teaching specific groups of language learners, who are determined by undergoing Needs Analysis (NA). Our study is aimed at understanding the needs of first-year students in using English for specific purposes in the faculties of Economics, Biology, and Mathematics at Larbi Ben M'hidi University. ESP seems to suffer from a number of issues within the Algerian education system, including low standards and a tendency to neglect the teachers' professional needs to cope with the actual requirements. This may be because the term has been drained of its meaning, or due to the "application and elaboration" of it. Such a problem requires a research design in order to be solved. This study focuses attention on ESP teacher quality within the University of Larbi Ben M'hidi as a critical component in improving English language education across the institution. The aim is to explore the main issues and difficulties that teachers and learners may encounter in an ESP teaching situation, and put forward recommendations to improve ESP teaching in this particular field. To carry out the present research, a mixed-methods approach was relied on to collect the necessary data in the target settings. A quantitative questionnaire was distributed to first year students in order to draw an insight about their needs, lacks, wants, and their satisfaction with the English courses they take. In addition, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with teachers who were supposed to know more about students' needs, lacks, and wants regarding the English language. Accordingly, in light of the outcomes obtained, the course is neither aligned with ESP standards, nor does it follow the principles of current ELT. The fact that general English teachers are intended to teach ESP in a "learner-centred" environment exposes enormous difficulties and issues to properly attain an ESP teaching/learning goal. Furthermore, despite the global awareness of the importance of ESP, teachers seem to rely on teaching General English within ESP fields. Therefore, we suggest some efficient strategies and practices to be implemented in ESP classrooms at the target faculties. These strategies aim to raise awareness of the importance of Needs Analysis in ESP courses, and to put emphasis on the process of designing ESP courses that fulfil the students' needs in order to improve the ESP situation within Larbi Ben M'hidi University.
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    Exploring the psycho-social factors influencing code switching and mixing patterns among students of english at Larbi Ben M’hidi university
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2024) Nouar, Chahrazad; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    Code switching and mixing are common behaviors among bilingual and multilingual individuals. The present study aims to explore the potential impact of psychosocial factors on code switching and mixing patterns among students of English, and to investigate the relationship between the students’ psychosocial states, code switching and mixing patterns, and identity. It also aims to inspect into the influence of the interplay between the learners’ psychosocial facets and its implications on their communication and language choice. In order to achieve the aforementioned aims, a qualitative approach is conducted, using narrative interviews, participant observations, and semi-structured interviews as research tools, taking into consideration the research questions and the privacy of the participants. Through the use of purposive sampling, seven participants were selected from three different levels. Using NVivo, thematic analysis was conducted to ascertain different themes relating to psychosocial aspects, communicative patterns, and identity shaping the code switching and mixing habits of the participants involved. The findings of this study involved the emergence of seven themes, which highlighted different psychological, social, and psychosocial factors and their role in the production of code mixing in particular. They primarily included fidelity to the original meaning, habituation, lexical gap switching, casualness, religious language and semantic precision maintenance, and emotional expressions. The findings also highlighted the interplay between these aspects, the code-mixing habits, and participants identities further drawing upon their language choice and commination. It was discovered that code mixing was much more prevalent within the community than code switching. Thus, the aspects practically shaped code-mixing patterns to a large extent in relation the participants’ identities, social contexts and relationships. These findings help in the comprehension of considering both the psychological and social factors that impact learners’ language behaviors and to promote the practice of using of code mixing in EFL classrooms among teachers and learners in order to create a comfortable and interactive learning atmosphere.
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    Investigating EFL students perceptions of the impact of mental health on their academic performance: the case of third year LMD students of english at Larbi Ben M’hidi University
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2023) Drici, Djoumana; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    The Current study investigates the perceived impact of mental health on the academic performance of students of English at Larbi Ben M'hidi University. The main aim of this study is to scrutinize the factors contributing to mental health issues in EFL classrooms and to examine how these issues possibly influence students' academic performance. A sample of 63 third year LMD students of English took part in this study. A survey, through which the data was collected, was administered in order to reach the aim and to test the proposed hypotheses. The questionnaire covered a wide range of questions that tackled the most commonly recognised mental health issues, namely stress and anxiety, cognitive functioning, as well as academic performance. The findings reveal that students' academic performance will perceptibly increase if they receive help and instruction on how to successfully manage their mental health. This sheds light on the availability and efficiency of support services as well as the prevalence of mental health issues in the chosen setting. The results obtained could potentially further assist in the construction of plans and solutions to help students take care of their mental health and enhance their academic performance. In conclusion, addressing the mental health needs and issues of the EFL students is crucial and essential for their academic success and general wellbeing, and by putting forward effective interventions and offering sufficient support, the Algerian university can create a healthy and supportive environment that promotes good mental health and raises students' academic performance.
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    Investigating EFL teachers perceptions towards the use of educational games and songs as aids to teach english grammar: the case of Ain Beida primary schools
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2023) Yahi, Wiam; Benchikh, Anfal; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    The aim of the present study is to examine Algerian EFL primary school teachers' perceptions of the possible effectiveness of using educational games and songs in teaching English language grammar. The study, further, aims to explore the benefits that games and songs can potentially bring to the EFL classroom and to discover the usefulness of these tools in making primary school pupils learn grammar rules in an effective and amusing way. To achieve the aforementioned aims, a descriptive study was conducted in which data was collected using a questionnaire addressed to EFL primary school teachers. The sample comprised ten teachers, each among whom taught at three different primary schools in the city of AinBeida and surrounding villages. The results reveal that educational games and songs are believed to have an influential role in the teaching-learning process, in the sense that they reinforce grammar and improve students' ability to understand grammar rules in a relaxed and relatively easy manner even though their use seems to be quite restricted due to an apparent lack of resources. It is subsequently concluded that educational games and songs ought to be carefully selected by EFL teachers and they should essentially be suitable for the learners' age and needs. It is recommended that if given a chance, teachers should not entirely rely on games and songs to teach grammar because overusing them may have an undesirable reversed impact on pupils notwithstanding.
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    Investigating the correlation between students metacognitive awareness and their listening proficiency: the case of first year LMD students of english at Larbi Ben M’hidi University
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2023) Abdelali, Nardjess; Hiouani, Amira Sarra; Zidani, Abir
    This research is carried out to examine the relationship betweenstudents' metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency in the Algerian EFL context.Its main objective is to evaluate the extent to which metacognitive awareness influences second-language learners' listening proficiency. Accordingly, a correlational study was utilized in order to examine the research hypotheses. A sample of 51 first-year second-language learners participated in this study. Listening proficiency was measured through a British Council Listening Proficiency Test while metacognitive awareness was assessed using a Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire through which the data were collected. The results obtained revealed a weak positive relationship between students' metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency scores, indicating that the application of the metacognitive awareness strategies while listening does not necessarily lead to the improvement of listening proficiency. However, students' listening skills can be improved through the increase of their metacognitive awareness apropos their listening practice. To sum up, the development of metacognitive skills is recommended to strengthen students' listening proficiency, with students actively participating in self-monitoring and reflection, and teachers incorporating metacognitive training in language learning.
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    Social media for learning exploring the role of students’ online collaborative practices in the development of their productivity
    (Université De Larbi Ben M’hidi Oum EL Bouaghi, 2022) Kouachi, Romaissa; Hamel, Lina Rayane; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    Facebook is considered to be one of the most popular platforms for online social networking among university students, who are attracted to such spaces more than any time before. At first glance, the use of social media platforms seems to be a waste of time; however, it is believed to help students develop important knowledge and social skills. It provides various opportunities for students to, flexibly, interact beyond classroom walls. The ever-growing popularity of such spaces launches the debate among educators, who view these online tools as a clear opportunity to develop innovative ways of teaching and learning. The current study brings together the areas of collaborative learning and their academic performance. It attempts to find out whether undergraduate students at the Department of English at Larbi Ben M'Hidi University use Facebook effectively as a learning environment that could support their educational matters in the form of collaboration with one another. Therefore, in an attempt to address this issue, data were collected with qualitative and quantitative methods. At the outset, an observation took place throughout the entire period of our research in an attempt to understand what type of content students usually share and interact with, how they interact, and, most importantly, how they collaborate within a virtual space, and the result showed that Facebook is the most powerful educational strategy, which students learn in groups for achieving collaboration and common goals. Amid our observation, we conducted questionnaires that were submitted to undergraduate students at the Department of English. The results reveal that students believe social media platforms, particularly Facebook, to be an essential environment to support their educational matters. It provides students with promising opportunities to interact, share academic content, and boost their productivity inside and outside the classroom.
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    Sociolinguistics meets education fostering dialect awareness among EFL learners for better production of standard codes
    (university of Oum El Bouaghi, 2016) Hiouani, Amira Sarra; Melgani, Haroun
    The inescapability of sociolinguistic variation as a systematic occurrence has long been acknowledged by contemporary linguists. Nonetheless, the undemanding notion of incorporating sociolinguistic diversity teaching programmes involving standard and non-standard employment of spoken language into english as a foreign Language (EFL) classes was only approached by handful researchers. In essence, the present investigation aims at highlighting the prominence of integrating a range of dialect awareness activities into the EFL curricula of algerian universities. In pursuance of this aim, first year LMD students at Larbi Ben M'Hidi university were selected as the target population of the study. Two of eight pre-arranged groups were settled on to form the experimental and control groups. The former underwent a sequence of observation sessions that took place prior to the pre-test and subsequent to the post-test. It was only after the pre-observation got to an end that the quasi-experiment was executed and was essentially one in which both groups were pre- and post-tested with dissimilar treatments in the midst of the two tests; namely, students in the experimental group undertook a series of dialect awareness activities and instructions about their application in contexts while the control group ones were merely exposed to authentic spoken language. The results obtained from the quantitative examination of the gathered data reveal that the integration of dialect awareness activities had a significant impact on raising the students' recognition about dialect variation which, in turn, substantially affected their academic oral production. On account of these findings, a number of pedagogical implications are given to teachers, students and course designers, with reference to the restraints that obstructed this work from being more elaborate.
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    Students' attitudes towards formal and informal ways of leaning vocabulary
    (Université De Larbi Ben M’hidi Oum EL Bouaghi, 2022) Bensid, Hanna; Habbaz, Hind; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    ocabulary is one of the most difficult and complex aspects of learning a foreign language. It is a challenging aspect that requires significant effort from students and requires specific strategies that teachers can provide to achieve a decent level of learning. Significantly, this research aimed to investigate students' attitudes towards formal and informal ways of vocabulary learning. This study drew upon a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data. Statistical tests and thematic analysis were employed to analyse the data. In this study, the participants were students in the Department of English at Larbi Ben M'hidi University; Oum El Bouaghi. For the questionnaire, thirty male and female students took part. Additionally, and ten male and female students participated in a set of semi structured interviews. The findings of this study display that informal methods can improve EFL students' vocabulary knowledge and reveal the EFL learners' positive attitudes towards the use of social networks as a supplementary tool to enhance their vocabulary knowledge. In general, the findings indicated that students have positive attitudes towards the use of formal and informal ways of learning as well as the notion of integrating social networks into the educational system, which is deemed extremely beneficial and effective for improving vocabulary. Accordingly, incorporating informal methods, especially ones that integrate social media platforms, into EFL classrooms is recommended in order to enhance the students' vocabulary competence. It is also suggested that teachers and students be aware of, and serious about, the importance of using both formal and informal strategies for vocabulary enhancement.
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    The Westward gaze
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2024) Boukhechem, Safa; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    Language and culture are interrelated; through language, individuals transfer cultural aspects and concepts. According to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, culture shapes the mind and the cognitive development of individuals. This work predominantly aims to investigate the potential influence of Wokeism, which has become a constituent part of some Western cultures, on EFL students as part of their inevitable exposure to the target language set of cultures. To achieve this aim, a qualitative phenomenological inquiry was employed making use of a focus group and semi-structured interviews as the main data collection instruments for this research. The questions and illustrations employed in both tools were carefully designed and chosen to ensure the collection of the appropriate data to answer the research questions. Employing purposive sampling, a group of ten students of different levels was selected from a target population that involved students of English at the Larbi Ben M’hidi University. Using NVivo, thematic analysis was employed as a crucial step for identifying and exploring the perspectives of participants in relation to the observed phenomenon. The findings of this study were confined into five main themes, namely Americanization, West idealism, reality awareness or lack thereof, popular media influence, and westernized feminism. These themes embodied the influence of woke culture and ideology on the students’ perceptions, attitudes, and identities. The findings served to provide pedagogical implications mostly at the level of raising awareness of the possible impact of topics that are typically regarded as taboo, the calculated institutional inclusion of which might mitigate their threat to the Algerian identity.
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    Visual Literacy
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2024) Chaibainou, Alaa; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    This research is concerned with using visual literacy in second-language teaching. It aims to scrutinize a certain Algerian English language textbook that was a collaborative effort of a group of educators to assess its reliability and effectiveness, in the hope of filling the void and offering a source of instruction for the early stages of education in the Algerian setting. This study was conducted at Al-Aziza Kindergarten, where the textbook was principally used. A qualitative research design, which was employed to collect data, involved the use of semi- structured interviews answered by teachers who used the textbook in the chosen setting. It also predominantly comprised a qualitative corpus analysis of the textbook as the main source of data as it focused on certain elements of it, namely the visuals and the accompanying texts, as well as an autoethnographic position where the researcher reflected on their own experiences as an autoethnographer and a teacher. The data were thematically analyzed with the help of the NVivo software, which organized the results and identified codes that were later transformed into themes. Based on the findings, the textbook has utilized visual learning in a rather novice way by incorporating visuals in the teaching process as part of the tasks although it contained some challenges in using visuals effectively. Not only has it offered a linguistic boost to pre-schoolers, but it also shaped them cognitively and emotionally, as it catered to their different needs and met their cultural identity, proving to be a great resource to help the kids shape their critical thinking and understanding of the real world. Overall, this textbook has proven to be suitable and relatable for use in teaching English in the early stages of education, although it lacks endorsement from the administration for future use.
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    Voicing obstacles in EFL learning
    (University of Oum El Bouaghi, 2024) Derbal, Nadjoua; Hiouani, Amira Sarra
    Stuttering is a speech disfluency that has been extensively tackled by different researchers due to its profound impact on the individual’s quality of life, especially in educational settings. It has been constantly proven to pose significant challenges to students in the academic environment and to hinder their ability to interact and communicate effectively, and EFL learners are no exception to these setbacks. The current research aims to explore the place of stuttering in EFL Algerian pupils’ educational trajectories as well as its impact on their language and interaction skills development, and to scrutinize the social and psychological factors affecting their language performance. To this end, a phenomenological study was conducted to obtain a thorough understanding of stuttering EFL pupils’ experiences employing purposive sampling from three different populations, namely pupils who stuttered, teachers with pertinent experience, and speech therapists. Data were collected through overt classroom observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews and were thematically leveraged for analysis with NVivo. The results obtained exhibited that stuttering impacted EFL Algerian pupils’ interaction in the classroom but not their overall English language achievement. Nevertheless, it was substantiated that it caused a noteworthy obstruction to their spoken language performance due to the lack of practice and impeded pronunciation attempts that it seemed to engender. It additionally posed momentous social and psychological challenges to EFL pupils suffering from it. These findings suggest the need for sensitization among teachers and pupils alike about the deep impact of stuttering on those who suffer from it, as well as the exigency for the allocation of more scholastic time for EFL classes and more institutional positions for speech-therapists to provide unconditional help for pupils in need.