Volume 44, Issue 4 -

Tefl Materials Evaluation: A Teacher's Perspective This paper discusses the merits and demerits of two main types of instructional EFL materials, namely, global and in-house materials with special reference to those used in the Arab Gulf region. It also focuses on the evaluation of the much commoner global materials and the selection of the most appropriate ones for a specific EFL program. Although several questionnaires and checklists for evaluation exist, none of these has reflected the specific needs and concerns of EFL classroom teachers who would be using those materials. The paper stresses the need to scrutinize the current evaluation formats from a teacher's perspective. For this purpose, the writer proposes a specific "customizing" test that would help EFL teachers to assess the available evaluation checklists, select and adapt the most appropriate form that would fit in their respective settings.

Proto-Indo-European Ergativity… Still to be Discussed Since Uhlenbeck's seminal article ("Agens und Patiens im Kasussystem der indogermanischen Sprachen", 1901) many scholars have accepted the hypothesis of an ergative case in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) given the light it could shed on obscure facts discovered by the comparatist school inside the IE family. The Soviet linguistic school has been particularly active on ergativity in relation with their interests for living languages of the Caucasus and for ancient languages of the Middle East. More recent works on ergativity have shifted the focus to Australian languages. When the theory of language universals took ergativity into consideration, scholars began to seek an explanation of the so-called "split ergativity" in relation with Silverstein's animacy hierarchy. A sequel of this was that the kind of split ergativity demonstrated by PIE seemed contrary to the accepted universals and, consequently, discarded. This paper challenges the way language universals have been used to refute the PIE ergativity hypothesis. Indeed, the influence of the animacy hierarchy is known to be effective in many languages, but more as a tendency than as an absolute universal. Also, PIE is not a fully-fledged language, but rather a field of experimentation. I also present the viewpoint that PIE could have had no split at all, but solely a semantic impossibility to use inanimate noun phrases in an agent role, which seemed backed up by similar "embarrassments" in modern languages and by the so-called "Hittite ergative".

Subject-Verb Concord with Collective Nouns or the Count-Mass Distinction: Which is More Difficult for Polish Learners of English? Two aspects of English syntax were chosen for closer analysis in the present paper, i.e., subjectverb concord involving collective nouns in the singular and the syntactic marking of noun reclassification from the category of uncountable nouns to that of countable ones with the help of the indefinite article. The study aims to find out which of them is more difficult for Polish learners of English and whether the degree of difficulty depends on the learners' proficiency in the foreign language. The discussion is based on the results yielded by an empirical study in which intermediate and advanced Polish students of English took part. The subjects had to complete partial English translations of Polish sentences with specific low-frequency English nouns which substituted true English equivalents of the Polish nouns shown in the sentences. The study reveals that marking subject-verb concord in the case of collective subject nouns was as difficult for the subjects as signaling the count-mass distinction by means of the indefinite article and the zero article, respectively.

The Usefulness of the Definitions of Abstract Nouns in OALD7 and NODE The paper presents a study aiming at comparing the usefulness of the definitions of abstract nouns in a pedagogical dictionary ( Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary , OALD7) and a nativespeaker dictionary of English ( The New Oxford Dictionary of English , NODE). It starts with a brief description of the subclass of abstract nouns which is conceived of as a prototypically-structured category composed of members exhibiting different degrees of resemblance to the prototype. Moreover, the most prototypical members of the subclass of abstract nouns are proposed and a comparison of the definitions of abstract nouns from the two dictionaries is made. The paper then reports on the empirical study which investigated the usefulness of the definitions of abstract nouns from the two dictionaries on a group of 60 dictionary users whose level of English oscillated between upper intermediate and advanced. Finally, the results of the study are discussed and an attempt is made to set out the possible reasons for the final outcome of the study.

Direct Effect in Beats-and-Binding Phonology This article offers an interpretation of the theory of Direct Interface (e.g. Scheer 2005, 2006, 2008) in Beats-and-Binding Phonology (a syllable-less model developed by Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 1995, 2002, 2007, inter alia ). The discussion aims to show that a Beats-and-binding analysis meets the criteria of Direct Interface; for example, it can remove the diacritic status of the concept of "boundary". The theoretical analysis is supported with a case study of Spanish reparsing, where an Optimality Theory analysis is compared with a Beats-and-Binding formalization. Finally, the paper offers a Beats-and-Binding interpretation of RP English /l/ velarization and /r/ deletion, involving the positional strength of consonants as proposed in Scheer and Ségéral (2001, 2005) and known as the Coda Mirror.

Production of English Stress Beats: The Case of Polish Speakers This paper examines part of an experiment devoted to Polish English (hencefore PE) stress production. The experiment was conducted on sixteen adult Polish English speakers. The experimental lexical stratum that I used in the investigation was the list of sentences used in Archibald's (1998) and Waniek-Klimczak's (2002) experiments. A controlled reading list was recorded and then analyzed auditorily. The aim of the pilot study was to analyze the metrical structure of PE penultimate stress in longer consonant final words. Specifically, my goal was to explain why stress in PE is systematically located on the antepenult syllable in words ending in a consonant. This is unexpected from the point of view of both Polish (where stress is normally assigned to the penult syllable) and English (where in words of this type stress is assigned to the penult or the antepenult, depending on the weight of the penult syllable).

Measuring Foreign Language Learning Aptitude. Polish Adaptation of The Modern Language Aptitude Test By Carroll and Sapon This article sets itself two main aims. The first is to describe the rationale behind the decision to adapt for Polish learners the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) by Carroll and Sapon (1959), rather than to develop a new measure. The reasons behind the decision are discussed in the context of the relevant individual differences (ID) research in Poland and the need for a reliable and theoretically valid measure of foreign language (FL) aptitude for L1 Polish is articulated. The other aim is to describe the development, piloting and initial validation of the Polish MLAT-based adaptation of a new measure of FL aptitude. Two methods of test adaptation (translation and paraphrase) are discussed and justified with relation to the current project. It was decided that all four components of FL aptitude, as proposed by Carroll (1981), would be represented in the Polish adaptation of the MLAT. The piloting was done on approximately 200 secondary school learners aged 19, while the data for the initial validation study, in the form of second language (L2) English proficiency test results as well as simple measures of motivation, length of study, social background and others, came from ca. 250 subjects, aged 18-22.

Autonomy, Experience and Concepts: A Study in Educational Discourses The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of educational reforms launched in Poland in the last decade upon the notion of learner autonomy as evidenced by the results of a crosssectional study. Necessarily, standard definitions of the concept of autonomy will be re-defined against the background of socio-political reforms in the country and their reflections in syllabuses and curricula. Re-evaluating the notion of learner independence in the Polish context will be primarily viewed from the perspective of the learner; however, relevant comparisons with teachers' perceptions will be also provided. Employing methodological guidelines offered by Conceptual Metaphor Theory, conclusions will be drawn concerning the practicability of fostering learner autonomy in the Polish milieu.

Arabic Conjunction WA : A Conflict in Pragmatic Principles This paper discusses the Arabic coordination particle wa and its use and function on the basis of the Gricean cooperative principle. It aims to provide an outline of the maxims utilized by Arabic speakers in their interpretation of this conjunction. It demonstrates that interpretation brings out a conflict between the Gricean conversational maxims. The context of communication is investigated for a resolution of the conflict. It is argued that context and the functional understanding of language are more decisive in the interpretation of language utterances than either the conventional meaning of a linguistic element or the principle of communicative cooperation.

Review