HomePsychology and Education: A Multidisciplinary Journalvol. 23 no. 9 (2024)

English Proficiency in the Online World: A Multiple Case Study

Fernando Cortez, Jr. | Melody Idul

Discipline: Education

 

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to discover and explore the experiences, struggles, coping mechanisms, and insights of workers online on the importance of the English language in their work. The data were gathered using an In-depth Interview and were analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique. Furthermore, the researcher selected the participants based on the following cases: (a) math tutor; (b) virtual assistant; (c) ESL teacher; (d) call center agent; and, (d) cybora. As part of the ethical consideration, the identities of the five participants were kept confidential and anonymous. The findings revealed that the struggles of workers online were the lack of vocabulary, accent, spelling, culture, and self-confidence. The coping mechanisms of the participants were watching English movies and reading books, practice speaking, reflecting on the negative feedback, learning other culture, and using AI tools. Insights divulged in the study were students have to keep practicing, being confident enough, need to consider other culture, consider receivers accent, importance of little things to learn difficult one, and develop learning inside and outside the school.



References:

  1. Andrews S (2003) ‘Just like instant noodles’: L2 teachers and their beliefs about grammar pedagogy. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 9(4): 351-75.
  2. Artino, A. R. (2012). “Supervising and writing a good undergraduate dissertation.” Journal of educational Evaluation for Health Professions, 9, 4.
  3. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W. H. Freeman.
  4. Bargh, J. A., & McKenna, K. Y. A. (2003). The internet and social life. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 573-590.
  5. Basturkmen H (2012) Review of research into the correspondence between language teachers’ stated beliefs and practices. System 40(2): 282-95.
  6. Basturkmen H, Loewen S and Ellis R (2004) Teachers’ stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their classroom practices. Applied Linguistics 25(2): 243-72.
  7. Beaton, R. D., Murphy, S., Johnson, L. C., & Nemuth, M. (2004). Secondary traumatic stress response in fire fighters in the aftermath of 9/11/2001. Traumatology, 10, 7-16.
  8. Bodie, G. D. (2011). The active-empathic listening scale (AELS): Conceptualization and evidence of validity within the interpersonal domain. Communication Quarterly, 59(3), 277-295.
  9. Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2001). PRAAT, a system for doing phonetics by computer. Glot International, 5(9/10), 341-345.
  10. Bogdan RC, Biklen SK (1982) Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theory and Methods.
  11. Borg S (1999) Studying teacher cognition in second language grammar teaching. System 27(1): 19-31.
  12. Borg S (2003) Teacher cognition in language teaching: a review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching 36(2): 81-109.
  13. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Borg M (2001) Teachers’ beliefs. ELT Journal 55(2): 186-88. Borg S (1998) Teachers’ pedagogical systems and grammar teaching: a qualitative study. TESOL Quarterly 32(1): 9-38.
  14. Breen MP, Hird B, Milton M, Oliver R and Thwaite A (2001) Making sense of language teaching: teachers’ principles and classroom practices. Applied Linguistics 11: 470-501.
  15. Bremner, S. (2010). Professional writing and genre: Exploring the influence of apprenticeship. English for Specific Purposes, 29(2), 121-132.
  16. Brown, A. (2015). “The Effects of Spelling Errors on Written Communication.” Journal of Business Communication, 52(1), 23-34.
  17. Brown, J., Cooper, C., & Kirkcaldy, B. (1996). Occupational stress among senior police officers. British Journal of Psychology, 87, 31-41.
  18. Brown, J., Fielding, J., & Grover, J. (1999). Distinguishing traumatic, vicarious and routine operational stressor exposure and attendant adverse consequences in a sample of police officers. Work and Stress, 13, 312-325.
  19. Brown, R. (2018). “Risk Management: Preparing for the Unexpected.” Harvard Business Review.
  20. Burke, R. J. (1998). Work and non-work stressors and wellbeing among police officers: The role of coping. Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 11, 345-362.
  21. Butterfield, L. D., Borgen, W. A., Amundson, N. E., & Maglio, A. T. (2005). Fifty years of the critical incident technique: 1954-2004 and beyond. Qualitative Research, 5, 475-497.
  22. Cashdan, S. (2018). “The Self-Confidence Game: How Confidence Influences Communication.” Psychology Today.
  23. Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. (2006). Virtual globe task force. Retrieved May 21, 2006, from http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com
  24. Clarkson, L. (2006). The effects of sexual assault investigations upon the sex offence investigator. Unpublished master’s thesis, Royal Roads University, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
  25. Comas-Quinn, A. (2011). “Learning to teach online or learning to become an online teacher: An exploration of teachers’ experiences in a blended learning course.” ReCALL, 23(3), 218-232.
  26. Criminal Intelligence Service Canada. (2005). Sexual exploitation of children. Retrieved May 21, 2006, from http://www.cisc.gc.ca/annual_reports/annual_report2004/ exploit_2004_e.htm Doherty, G. W. (2004).
  27. Crisis in rural America: Critical incidents, trauma and disasters. Traumatology, 10, 145-164. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://tmt.sagepub.com/ cgi/content/abstract/10/3/145
  28. Davies, A. (2010). Language assessment in call centres: The case of the customer service representative. Globalization, communication and the workplace, 242-250.
  29. de Vries, L. E., Giebel, O., Schwager, S., & Kaufmann, H. R. (2020). “A Customer in Need Is a Customer Indeed”: The Impact of Employees’ Emotional and Linguistic Appropriateness on Service Quality. Journal of Service Research, 23(2), 207-227.
  30. Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241-266.
  31. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). “The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior.” Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.
  32. Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2009). “Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication.” Language Teaching, 42(4), 476-490.
  33. Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2009). Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication. Language Teaching, 42(4), 476-490.
  34. Du-Babcock, B., Nistor, N., & Grosseck, G. (2020). “Virtual Cultural Competence in Global Online Learning.” International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 10(2), 15-31.
  35. Evans, B. J., Coman, G. J., Stanley, R. O., & Burrows, G. D. (1993). Police officers’ coping strategies: An Australian police survey. Stress Medicine, 9, 237-246.
  36. Farrell TSC (1999) The reflective assignment: unlocking preservice teachers’ prior beliefs. RELC Journal 30(2): 1-17.
  37. Farrell TSC (2007) Reflective Language Teaching: From Research to Practice. London: Continuum.
  38. Farrell TSC, Lim PCP (2005) Conceptions of grammar teaching: a case study of teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. TESL-EJ 9(2): 1-13.
  39. Figley, C. R. (1995a). Compassion fatigue: Toward a new understanding of the costs of caring. In B. H. Stamm (Ed.), Secondary traumatic stress: Self care issues for clinicians, researchers, and educators (pp. 3-29). Lutherville, MD: Sidran Press.
  40. Figley, C. R. (Ed.). (1995b). Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
  41. Folkman, S., & Moskowitz, J. T. (2004). “Coping: Pitfalls and promise.” Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 745-774.
  42. Follette, V. M., Polusny, M. M., & Milbeck, K. (1994). Mental health and law enforcement professionals: Trauma history, psychological symptoms, and impact of providing services to child sexual abuse survivors. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 25, 275-282.
  43. Gatbonton E (2008) Looking beyond teachers’ classroom behaviour: novice and experienced ESL teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. Language Teaching Research 12(2): 161-82.
  44. Gault, J., Leach, E., & Duey, M. (2010). Effects of business internships on job marketability: The employers’ perspective. Education + Training, 52(1), 76-88.
  45. Goggin, G., Lee, Y. S., & Lim, S. S. (2018). “Translation Technologies and Multilingual Communication.” The International Journal of Translation & Interpreting Research, 10(1), 45-58.
  46. Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools. A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
  47. Haisch, D. C., & Meyers, L. S. (2004). MMPI-2 assessed post-traumatic stress disorder related to job stress, coping, and personality in police agencies. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 20, 223-229.
  48. Hammer, M. R. (2012). The Intercultural Development Inventory: A New Frontier in Assessment and Development of Intercultural Competence. Intercultural Press.
  49. Hammer, M. R., & Bennett, M. J. (2001). “The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Manual.” Intercultural Communication Institute.
  50. Hart, P. M., Wearing, A. J., & Heady, B. (1995). Police stress and well-being: Integrating personality, coping and daily work experiences. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 68, 133-156.
  51. Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.
  52. Hayes, S. (2019). “Repetitive Exposure and Practice: Keys to Reducing Anxiety.” Psychology Today.
  53. Hope, N. L. (2006). When caring hurts: The significance of personal meaning for wellbeing in the presence of secondary traumatic stress. Unpublished master’s thesis, Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia, Canada.
  54. Johnson KE (1994) The emerging beliefs and instructional practices of preservice English as a second language teachers. Teaching & Teacher Education 10(4): 439-52.
  55. Kan, S. Y. (2015). A study of the effects of using movies for EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition. International Journal of English Language Education, 3(2), 98-109.
  56. Koleva, S., Nacheva, G., Stefanov, K., & Stefanova, E. (2017). Mobile applications for vocabulary learning: The effect of app type and learners’ prior vocabulary knowledge. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 7(11), 841-847.
  57. Langer, E. J. (2014). Mindfulness. Da Capo Lifelong Books.
  58. Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2013). How Languages Are Learned (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
  59. Lincoln YS, Guba EG (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications.
  60. Lindemann, S. (2002). Listening with an attitude: A model of native-speaker comprehension of non-native speakers in the United States. Language in Society, 31(3), 419-441.
  61. Lippi-Green, R. (2012). English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. Routledge.
  62. Lockwood, J., Forey, G., & Price, H. (2008). English in Philippine call centers and BPO operations: Issues, opportunities and research. Philippine English: Linguistic and literary perspectives, 219-241
  63. MacIntyre, P. D., & Gardner, R. C. (1994). The subtle effects of language anxiety on cognitive processing in the second language. Language Learning, 44(2), 283-305.
  64. Manning, W. H. (2016). Clinical Decision Making in Fluency Disorders (4th ed.). Plural Publishing.
  65. Masten, A. S. (2011). “Resilience in children threatened by extreme adversity: Frameworks for research, practice, and translational synergy.” Development and Psychopathology, 23(2), 493-506.
  66. Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. C. (2013). Culture and Psychology (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.
  67. McDonough J, McDonough S (1997) Research Methods for English Language Teachers. London: Arnold.
  68. Merriam SB (1988) Case Study Research in Education: A Qualitative Approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  69. Merriam SB (2001) Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  70. Meyer, E. (2014). The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business. PublicAffairs.
  71. Miles MB, Huberman AM (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis. London: SAGE Publications. Richards JC (1996) Teachers’ maxims in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 30(2): 281-96.
  72. Morreale, S., & Pearson, J. (2008). Why communication education is important: The centrality of the discipline in the 21st century. Communication Education, 57(2), 224-240.
  73. Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge University Press.
  74. Nation, P. (2001). “Learning Vocabulary in Another Language.” Cambridge University Press.
  75. Neeley, T. (2012). Global business speaks English. Harvard Business Review, 90(5), 116-124.
  76. Ockey, G. J., & French, R. (2016). From one to multiple accents on a test of L2 listening comprehension. Applied Linguistics, 37(5)
  77. Pinker, S. (2014). The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. Viking.
  78. Richards JC, Lockhart C (1994) Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  79. Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2010). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. Routledge.
  80. Robbins, S. P. (2014). Organizational Behavior (16th ed.). Pearson.
  81. Robles, M. M. (2012). Executive perceptions of the top 10 soft skills needed in today’s workplace. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 453-465.
  82. Savignon, S. J. (2002). Interpreting communicative language teaching: Contexts and concerns in teacher education. Yale University Press.
  83. Seidlhofer, B. (2001). “Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 133-158.
  84. Senior R (2006) The Experience of Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  85. Shuter, R. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach (5th ed.). Sage Publications.
  86. Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. National Academy Press.
  87. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008). Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory. Continuum.
  88. Spitzberg, B. H. (2013). (Re)Introducing communication competence to the health professions. Journal of Public Health Research, 2(2), 126-135.
  89. Steinberg, A. (2020). “Using Technology to Improve Communication and Productivity.” Forbes.
  90. Stone, D., & Heen, S. (2014). Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. Penguin.
  91. Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work. William Morrow Paperbacks.
  92. Todd, S. Y., Oliver, G., & Harvey, P. (2014). Positive self-talk: Benefits and techniques. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(6), 936
  93. Verhaert, N., Van Keer, H., & Desoete, A. (2019). Vocabulary knowledge as a key predictor of success in the transition from primary to secondary education. Reading and Writing, 32(2), 459-483.
  94. Verloop N, Van Driel J, Meijer P (2001) Teacher knowledge and the knowledgebase of teaching. International Journal of Educational Research 35: 441-61.
  95. Wood, J. T. (2016). Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.