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Vildana Dubravac

Društvene mreže:

A. Brdarević-Čeljo, H. Delić, V. Dubravac

This study aimed to explore the use of nominal and verbal Anglicisms by Bosnian high school students, the students’ familiarity with these Anglicisms and their attitudes towards them and it also aimed to see whether these factors vary with respect to the frequency of students’ use of English in speaking, listening, reading and writing. The findings point to a very frequent use of Anglicisms among Bosnian participants, particularly verbal Anglicisms which tended to be significantly more frequently employed than nominal Anglicisms, and slightly greater familiarity with the English form rather than with the Bosnian equivalent form. Moreover, the frequency of the use of Anglicisms was related to the frequency of reading and writing in English, while the familiarity with the Bosnian equivalent was significantly related to speaking and reading and familiarity with the English equivalent form to all four aspects of English language use. The participants also expressed rather positive attitudes towards Anglicisms, perceiving them as a useful addition and not a serious threat to their native language.

Emnijeta Ahmetović, Senad Bećirović, V. Dubravac, A. Brdarević-Čeljo

Introduction. Despite the fact that error correction has significant and long-term effects on facilitating language learning and development, there has not been any research that investigates its influence on learners' motivation within the classroom context of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Purpose. This research aims to examine the impact of written and oral corrective feedback on students' motivation and achievement within this EFL context. Method. For this quantitative study, the questionnaire has been used to collect the data from 160 middle and high school students in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Results. The findings indicated that the respondents generally like to be corrected and they are moderately to highly motivated to speak and write in English as a foreign language. Furthermore, learners with positive attitudes towards the received feedback feel significantly more motivated to keep learning than those with negative attitudes. Conclusion. The study is expected to provide teachers with suggestions on how to transform their classrooms into an environment conducive to the development of higher levels of writing and speaking motivation and how to provide corrective feedback that will positively influence students' EFL achievement.

Elma Dedović-Atilla, V. Dubravac

This book presents a critique of current English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) practices using research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors identify English communication behaviours that hinder or promote success in the workplace, and trace these back to curricula and teaching practices.

A. Brdarević-Čeljo, V. Dubravac

The book English in B&H: posh or casual? by Amna Brdarević-Čeljo and Vildana Dubravac makes a significant contribution to the sociolinguistic perspective on the status of English in the world and particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Introducing readers to a wide array of sociolinguistic topics, the authors focus on the variability of English among its users and the prevalent impact of two most prominent world Englishes, namely Standardised British and Standardised American English. The theoretical discussion is further strengthened by research into Bosnian EFL users’ and EL teachers’ preference for one or the other variety in different domains of language use. Taking into consideration both perspectives, the authors ultimately put forward practical suggestions as to how to approach variability and consistency in language education in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Senad Bećirović, V. Dubravac, A. Brdarević-Čeljo

The importance of applying cooperative learning and aiming toward an increase in motivation to maximize the effectiveness of the learning process has not sparked an intense research interest in the Bosnian EFL context. Thus, the current study, conducted among 211 high-school participants, explores the impact of gender and grade level on students’ cooperative learning and motivation for EFL learning and aims to determine whether any cooperative learning components are significant predictors of students’ motivation and their EFL achievement. The findings showed no significant gender and grade level differences in cooperative learning and motivation. Additionally, the results revealed that individual accountability and interpersonal skills are significant predictors of participants’ motivation and that promotive interaction and interpersonal skills are significant predictors of their EFL achievement. The research points to the importance of incorporating cooperative learning strategies and motivation-strengthening activities into EFL teaching, which will eventually lead to the improvement in students’ EFL achievements.

The linguistic knowledge of foreign language learners appears to be partly implicit and partly explicit. Learners rely on implicit knowledge when involved in spontaneous everyday com- munication, while explicit knowledge enables them to reflect on language structures and reco- gnise or use metalanguage. The present study investigated the explicit and implicit foreign language learners’ knowledge of English tenses in the Bosnian context at the end of the first educational cycle, i.e., primary school, by means of a metalinguistic test, an untimed gram- maticality judgement test and an elicited imitation test. The study aimed at exploring the var- iability in the quantity and quality of EFL learners’ knowledge and the relationship between different types of knowledge based on three factors, namely gender, average grade, and start- ing age. While revealing quite limited knowledge of the target structures, the findings showed no significant difference between explicit and implicit knowledge, while the correlation co- efficients between them were relatively high. Out of the three factors, a three-way ANOVA showed that only average grade proved to have a significant main effect on EFL knowledge. The interaction effect of gender and grade was significant on the participants’ overall EFL knowledge and their explicit knowledge, whereas a significant interaction effect of all three factors was confirmed only on explicit knowledge.

Emnijeta Ahmetović, V. Dubravac

Regular curriculum modifications and the shift from a teacher-centered to a learner-centered paradigm in educational institutions are meant to enhance the teaching-learning process and fulfill learners' needs as successfully as possible. This study aimed to examine learners' attitudes towards learning English, their needs/wants, learning preferences, strategies, and lesson topics. Moreover, it also investigated the differences in learning preferences based on grade level.  The data were gathered from a survey administrated to 200 elementary school students in Central Bosnia and Herzegovina. The findings illustrated that the participants generally have a positive attitude towards learning English with more significant extrinsic reasons motivating them to learn it. Regarding students' needs, the analysis revealed that overall, students found writing the most challenging and speaking the most desirable language skill. Furthermore, the majority of the participants reported that they like to learn by reading texts or stories, finding the discussion in the classroom the most annoying classroom activity. While learning vocabulary by translating new words is regarded as the most beneficial method, doing written exercises at school presents the most significant way of acquiring grammar. Moreover, the study identified a significant influence of a grade level on the preferred ways of learning English.

A. Čeljo, Senad Bećirović, V. Dubravac

As a core language skill, reading has always occupied a prominent role in the process of language acquisition, with a strategic approach to its development contributing to greater reading competences and better learning outcomes. The present paper, thus, aims to explore variation in strategy use by study field, year of study and university type among 228 university-level students in Bosnia and Herzegovina employing the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS). A one-way MANCOVA revealed a significant effect of the study field on the overall use of reading strategies with the age factor being controlled and a univariate ANOVA indicated that the study field significantly affected all strategy subtypes. More specifically, students in the field of psychology seem to be the most frequent users of reading strategies and their two subtypes, namely global and support strategies, whereas the students in the field of English language and literature most frequently use problem-solving strategies. Moreover, a two-way MANOVA showed a significant interaction effect of the university status and the year of study on the metacognitive reading strategy use, even though their main effects were insignificant. The current study findings may contribute to broader understanding of the overall as well as type-specific use of reading strategies by EFL learners of different backgrounds, thus setting out guidelines for the development of corresponding curricula and instructional design.

Aldiana Laličić, V. Dubravac

Being able to read well is crucially important for language learners. Successful performance at elementary and high school level, as well as on higher levels of academic education, is partly dependent on the ability to read. It is believed that good learners are those who are proficient in reading. However, building such a connection between a reader and the written information is complex for both English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) students, and requires the application of various reading strategies. The present study aimed to investigate EFL Bosnian learners' awareness of the use of various reading strategies. Furthermore, the study investigated students' reading habits, favorite reading materials, and the purpose of reading. It was conducted among fifty-seven ninth grade elementary school students. The findings proved that these students are aware of the importance of reading and development of reading skills, as well as of the importance of using appropriate reading strategies in order to be proficient readers and eventually to be more successful in the overall process of learning.

Rumejsa Ribo, V. Dubravac

The main objective of this corpus-based study is to shed more light on the influence of the English language on BCS with the focus on the business register. The specialized and written corpus was designed in order to examine at what levels of BCS the impact of English is most notable. The corpus was based on the texts from the news portal Klix. The results showed that the influence of English was evident at all levels of BCS, but most prominent at the lexical and syntactic level. All the phrases from the corpus were analyzed and it was found that out of 148 phrases, 113 were the examples of the influence at lexical level and the rest, 35 precisely, were the examples of the influence at the level of syntax. As for the lexical level, most borrowings are nouns, but BCS also borrows a large number of verbs, as well as adjectives. Some of these borrowings are adapted to the rules of BCS, while the others are either used in their original forms or they are used in some hybrid forms. When it comes to the syntactic level, BCS borrows inflections, modification patterns, collocations, as well as passive “by phrase”. Finally, these Anglicisms were also analyzed in terms of writing and spelling and it was found that there are many inconsistencies regarding the spelling of these borrowed words primarily due to the fact that most of them are either brand new Anglicism or they simply were not adapted to the rules of BCS. However, it was concluded that, despite the previously mentioned fact, some rules regarding the spelling of Anglicisms can still be formed.

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