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Why international students fail English tests
Students fail because they do not understand the test requirements.
Students fail because they underestimate the large volume of work necessary to pass.
Students fail because they have limited English vocabulary.
Students fail because some English skills are not practiced.
Students fail because they rely on “secret tips” rather than real skill.
Students fail because they cram for tests and become confused.
Students fail because they become upset and cannot perform.

Widespread concern about students’ poor thinking skills has been expressed recently by educators, journalists, and the public at large. The National Assessment of Educational Progress has reported that students show weaknesses in the logical processes required for clear communication. In A NATION AT RISK, The National Commission on Excellence in Education noted that students have a poor command of such intellectual skills as drawing inferences and solving problems.
The College Board’s Project Equality booklet, ACADEMIC PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE,

Diamond, Sharp and Ory (1983) suggest that effective lecture preparation and delivery can be arranged under the following three stages: 1) the beginning; 2) the body; and 3) the closing. In the beginning stage, the lecturer usually relates lecture content to previous class material, mentions the background of the current lecture, or gives students a brief introduction of the content of the current lecture. In the body of the lecture, there is some flexibility for the lecturer to present the content. During the lecture the lecturer may ask questions to check on students’ understanding of the lecture or ask them to make their comments. In the last stage of the lecture, the lecturer may briefly summarize the content of the lecture or reemphasize what he or she expects students to learn from the lecture.
Therefore, if students have some knowledge about the organization of an academic lecture and they are familiar with different stages of a lecture, they may be better able to infer relationships between different sections and gain a solid understanding of the content.
Chinese Students in American Classrooms

Academic listening plays an important role in an ESL university student’s academic success. Research in EAP has begun to show that ESL students have difficulty in English academic listening at American universities. Chinese students, who are from a different educational system and cultural environment, experience particular challenges in English academic listening. This study focuses on their challenges as reported by Chinese students in understanding English lectures. Seventy-eight Chinese students at an American university were asked to complete a questionnaire that consisted of 30 items and an open-ended question. Most of the items required them to mark their responses on a five-point Likert scale.
This paper focuses on American classroom instructional factors that Chinese students report affect their English academic listening. Chinese students report that the following instructional factors affect their English academic listening at an American university: 1) lecture organization, 2) use of textbooks, 3) blackboard writing, 4) lecture summary, 5) amount of student participation, and 6) amount of group work. The paper offers suggestions for American professors about how to make their lectures more accessible to Chinese students and or others Asian students.
Listening has been regarded as the most frequently used language skill in the classroom. It plays an even more important role in one’s academic success than reading skill or academic aptitude (Conaway, 1982). Research shows that English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students have difficulty understanding academic lectures at American universities. Chinese students, who are from a different educational system and cultural environment, experience particular challenges in understanding academic lectures in English. The question of which factors affect their academic lecture comprehension merits closer examination. Recognizing their challenges in understanding English lectures is the first step; the next is to discover the sources of these challenges and to propose solutions. This study reports the sources and suggests solutions to challenges of academic listening as reported by Chinese students at an American university.

Terminology
We decided to continue students’ learning traditional terminology for several reasons.
1. For metalanguage purposes, some grammar-four labels are necessary in order to talk about the role of language in writing.
2. There lurks a possibility, however remote and unwelcome, of resuming traditional instruction either in whole or part in some venues. Familiarity with terms will certainly serve anyone who must teach them
3. The scientific linguistic community lacks any consensus on theory. Twenty-five plus theories on the Internet oppose the dominant theory. 4. Very little pedagogical infrastructure exists for teaching modern grammars of any sort. However, a plethora of resources exist and continue to be published for traditional grammar.

This article discusses the role of grammar in educating Secondary English Teachers and Elementary Education Teachers with an English Concentration. The term “grammar” is difficult, with varied referents in varied contexts. Students learn to associate a different number with each of five common, but different, definitions of grammar (Hartwell 1985). Students learn grammatical labels to discuss writing and to read descriptions in dictionaries and usage books which employ these terms. Students are taught traditional labels but not with traditional definitions. Students learn to read sentence diagrams but not to draw nor teach them. They learn not to teach grammar separate from writing. The preferred texts for analysis are authentic, not canned, e.g., pupils’ or students’ writing, speeches, literary passages. Final results in terms of both student attitudes and accomplishments are mixed.

It might be argued that Homo loquens is a better description for our species than Homo sapiens, because our use of language is what distinguishes us from other animals. For a number of reasons, Grammar and Meaning: An Introduction for Primary Teachers is an ideal book for teachers and others who want to know more about how language works. Droga and Humphreys have produced a book well suited to the tastes of tertiary education students, in that it cleverly scaffolds the processes of learning new grammatical concepts and difficult linguistic terminology. It offers all teachers what they need both in terms of developing their knowledge of the English language and in terms of supporting their students’ use of it–a metalanguage for talking about language. The book would fit well in a first-year course because the knowledge about grammar is built in a cumulative way.

‘Our central aim is to describe Modern Standard English in its standard form’, say the authors of this massive tome. With almost 2,000 pages, weighing in at almost 3 kilos, at a price that would feed a student for several weeks, it is clearly intended for library use.
The book (henceforth CamGEL) ‘aims to bridge the large gap that exists between traditional grammar and the partial descriptions of English grammar proposed by those working in the field of linguistics’, according to the preface. CamGEL does not assume any familiarity with theoretical linguistics on the part of the reader, the authors assert, but significant changes have been made to traditional analyses, so that CamGEL, they claim, reflects the progress made by linguists in the understanding of grammar.
Huddlestone is the major contributor. He is sole author of seven of the book’s twenty chapters, and joint author (with either one or two colleagues) of the remaining thirteen. Pullum, on the other hand, appears as a co-author only, of six chapters.
The twenty chapters cover the major areas within English grammar, and the relevant points are illustrated with examples taken mainly from prose produced since the mid-twentieth century. Special-purpose varieties of English such as newspaper language, poetry, or computer jargon have been excluded.

A Chinese proverb, “It is better to teach fishing skills than to give the fish” tells the true essence of teaching. Of course there are a lot of publications on English teaching pedagogy, however, D. W.’s A Revolution: Learn to Learn English is exceptional, which in the author’s opinion, may drive some teachers of English out of job, can challenge the traditional English teaching, and can make quacks terror-stricken in China. How to learn English is a question often being asked.

Another business that has benefited from ESL is Case Swayne Co., a food-processing firm in Santa Ana that packages taco sauce and dry seasonings. Case Swayne began teaching English to its Spanish-speaking employees as the company prepared to increase its computer use and statistical-assessment strategies. Managers believed that workers’ basic competency in English was fundamental to the company’s growth plan.