Recent studies have suggested that teacher and learner beliefs and expectations have significant influence in language teaching and learning process and, consequently, in the students’ learning outcome. However, in the Mozambican context, we still do not have studies focusing on the relation between students’ learning outcome and teacher and learner beliefs and expectations. Using questionnaires and taking into account our practical experience in ELT, we look at the Mozambican linguistic profile, the learner and teacher beliefs and expectations, as well as their beliefs about development of language teaching materials in a multilingual and multicultural context. The results show that in the Mozambican English language teaching and learning context there is a need of creating an environment in which teachers and learners’ motivation, cultural background, beliefs, expectations, needs and the wider community are considered so as to enable teachers to deal with their profession effectively, as well as enabling learners to achieve common understanding and positive learning outcome.
Effective Reading Strategies in English for Academic Purposes among Mozambican Students
Recent studies indicate that second language learners use different reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension. It is in this context that the aim of this study was finding out strategies Mozambican English language learners use effectively to improve their self-efficacy, especially through reading activities. The employment of a questionnaire, a pre-test, a three-moth strategy-based reading instruction program, an interview, and a post-test enabled us to see which strategies are effective within the Mozambican context. The findings showed that the experiment group improved its reading comprehension as a result of the intervention and that a conscious and interactive use of reading strategies improves reading comprehension. Therefore, for achieving positive learning outcome, Mozambican readers use pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading strategies both separately and in clusters. This shows that there is a need of a Reading Strategy Instruction - RSI that fits to Mozambican learners’ needs and expectations.
Enhancing Reading Skills through Extensive Reading
The current study explores university students’ reading speed and comprehension throughout a four-month extensive reading program. The program was conducted among students majoring in Journalism at the University Eduardo Mondlane, in Mozambique. Individual choices of different readings were made on the basis of personal interests and linguistic level. The conducted activities were integrated into normal reading lessons, which included discussion and orientation. The study has applied a reading strategies questionnaire, as well as a reading comprehension pre-test and post-test. Qualitative and quantitative results show that good readers, that is, those who read faster and higher number of pages achieved higher reading speed and performed better in their reading comprehension than slow readers
Extensive Reading, Academic Reading and Reading Attitudes
Throughout decades, second language (L2) reading pedagogy has shown benefits of Extensive Reading (ER) in several contexts and domains. Researches have also become increasingly interested in the affective domain of reading, examining the effect of ER on L2 reading attitude. It is for checking the extent to which ER influences students reading attitude that an ER program was conducted at the University Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique, from February to May 2014, involving an experimental group and a control group, both majoring in Journalism. A reading attitude questionnaire was applied both in the beginning and at the end of the program. Reading comprehension pre-test and post-test was also applied. Qualitative and quantitative results showed that ER not only enhances academic reading, since they performed better in their academic reading comprehension post-test, but also it affects learners’ attitudes towards reading.