MATEFL Research Paper Guide
Dr Abuelgasim Sabah Elsaid Mohammed/ Head of the Graduate Studies Unit
Dr Hala Salih Mohammed Nur/ Director of the English Language Institute
Preparing the research paper is the final phase of accomplishing the master programme study. You will specialise in teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The research paper is required by TEFL 607 Research Methods & Design in Language Teaching course. Please follow the basic principles outlined below to finish your study.
WHAT IS A PAPER?
A paper is intended to be a serious academic challenge in the form of an analytical piece of writing (research) as opposed to a purely summative/descriptive one. Research involve a planned and systematic investigation of a particular phenomenon, in other words research seeks to describe, identify, and control relationships among phenomena in order to study them.
In your paper you need to:
* identify a research area you are interested in and formulate one or more specific research questions. The objective of the research questions may be to discover or describe patterns of relationships in foreign language learning and teaching. The aim of the research questions may also be to test specific hypotheses in the field to be investigated.
* demonstrate your familiarity with the most important literature in the field
* demonstrate your awareness of analytical tools and justify the use of the one(s) you are applying
* collect or select a well-defined and justified set of materials you will base the analysis on (e.g. empirical quantitative data, corpus of texts, set of course books or practical activities).
* conduct an analysis by providing clear and convincing argumentation and presentation of results.
* draw well-founded conclusions, which consider possible alternative views and explanations, as well as practical implications.
* document all the sources you used properly and follow the APA format guidelines
* Use Time New Roman font 14, one and half spacing with the following margins:
5 cm margin on the left
2.5 cm margin on the right side of the page
4 cm from the upper edge
2.5 cm margin at the bottom of the page
NOTE: An analysis is essential for a successful paper. If, for example, your work involves practical materials design, the actual materials/activities should form the appendix of your work, while the main body should contain the rationale for designing the materials the way you did, including the description of the scientific basis and supporting evidence. Your conclusion does not necessarily have to provide solutions to problems, but you are expected to demonstrate in it a deeper understanding of the selected issue.
THE ROLE OF YOUR SUPERVISOR
In preparing your paper you will be aided by a supervisor. For the procedures to select him/her and for a description of the ways he/she can help you, see Section II. Please note, however, that your supervisor is not responsible for doing any part of the work for you; instead, he/she will make sure that the paper is your original product.
The paper will be read by your supervisor and an independent reader, who will grade it according to the criteria described in Section III.
II. PROCEDURES FOR SUBMITTING A PAPER
To get you started on your paper in a timely fashion, five steps need to be carried out.
1. Contact the MA TEFL coordinator.
2. Decide on your topic, how you intend to investigate the topic, and your title (for now, a general title is sufficient; a colon and subtitle can be added later to more accurately describe your work).
3. Type an approximately two-page to six-page proposal following this format:
- Heading: your name, the title of the paper
- Background to topic
- Statement of the problem
- Research objectives
- Research questions
- Significance of the Study
4. Make and attach to the proposal an annotated bibliography of your preliminary readings consisting of at least four books or eight journal articles.
5. Make 2 copies of the proposal and give them to the MA TEFL coordinator.
6. The proposal MUST be submitted on October 10, 2016.
7. The supervisor will be assigned in accordance to your topic.
8. You can meet your supervisor after that to discuss your topic and to agree on a plan.
NOTE: It is advisable to see the coordinator well before the official submission date so that you have enough time to rewrite the proposal if necessary.
The Coordinator will assign a supervisor according to your paper topic. The topic should be chosen based on your interest and related to the area of applied linguistics.
SUPERVISORS can offer the following support:
- a minimum of 4 office hours for consultation
- clarification of appropriate research questions
- suggestion of a reading list
- advice on specifications of the approach to the analysis.
The supervisor will not be expected to edit language, punctuation and spelling. The dissertation is supposed to demonstrate your academic abilities; therefore the quality of your paper is exclusively your responsibility.
SUBMISSION AND MARKING
Two copies of the final draft are to be submitted to the coordinator after the supervisor agreement. The supervisor and the coordinator will appoint 2 readers for all dissertations submitted in time. Readers and supervisor will each receive a copy for marking.
Markers are required to assign a mark and submit a report of justification. The final mark of your paper will be decided on at a formal Paper Markers' Meeting chaired by the ELI Director. The date of this meeting will be decided later. Conflicting marks will be negotiated and reconciled. If necessary, a third reader will be appointed by the coordinator. You will be informed about the final mark and receive a copy of the reviews two days after the meeting.
The readers' reports are normally 1-2 typed pages and include a detailed evaluation of the main aspects of the paper following the marking criteria outlined in Section III. The mark approved by the Paper Markers’ Meeting is not subject to appeal.
III. PAPER MARKING CRITERIA
I. FORM (20 points - 40%)
Format (10 points)
- Layout: Professional appearance (neatness, spacing, fonts, margins).
- Structure: Division into main parts, clarity of organisation, subheadings, paragraphs.
- APA reference and citation style.
Language (10 points)
- Accuracy (grammar, punctuation, etc.).
- Register (appropriate academic style, reader-friendliness).
- Discourse (clarity of argumentation, cohesion within and transition between paragraphs)
II. CONTENT (40 points - 60%)
Review of the literature (15 points)
- Clear relationship between the research question and the literature survey.
- Familiarity with relevant literature and research results (placing the research topic within the development of the field).
Analysis (25 points)
- Research question(s) and objectives: original and explicitly formulated.
- Materials: a well-specified and justified set of materials (e.g. empirical quantitative data, corpus of texts, set of course books or practical activities).
- Originality: proof of original and independent use of academic research tools, providing new approach to the area researched.
- Procedures: (of data collection, data analysis and interpretation) clearly and systematically presented with convincing arguments/justification.
- Results: clearly presented (e.g. in tables, figures, charts or graphs if necessary) and interpreted.
- Conclusion: well-supported, convincingly related to the study as a whole, includes consideration of alternative interpretations and views, draws practical implications from the study (where appropriate).
IV. GUIDELINES ON THE CONTENT, structure AND FORM OF THE PAPER
Paper papers may be of two types: theoretical or empirical. A theoretical paper usually focuses on an ambiguous problem. In this case, the main aim of the paper is to show various treatments of the particular problem in the field and provide a synopsis of literature and original solution of the problem. The paper starts with the comparison of what different authors say about the same topic, that is, a survey of the relevant literature arranged into some logical framework invented by the writer. The overview should be critical, and should be followed by an argumentative proposal of the writer’s own opinion and solution of the problem.
Writing an empirical paper in applied linguistics and language pedagogy is more common than theoretical papers. A research paper should also investigate a problem and is argumentative in nature, but unlike in the theoretical paper, the writer uses empirical data to support his/her hypotheses. Empirical research has two types: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research studies an individual case or a limited number of cases closely with the purpose of understanding the particular phenomenon/phenomena from the perspective of the participants. Quantitative studies usually take an outsider's perspective and involve a sufficient number of participants so that the findings could be generalizable for the behaviour of the population investigated. The paper should range from 20000 to 25000 words.
STRUCTURE (See appendix 1)
Title page (see appendix 2), dedication, acknowledgement, Abstract (English), Abstract (Arabic), table of contents, list of tables, list of figures, abbreviations, and list of appendices, with each one of them on a separate page. Use the Roman numbers for pages except the title page which is not numbered.
Appendix 1: Paper contents
Table of Contents
|Table of Contents||v|
|List of Tables||x|
|List of Figures||xii|
|List of Abbreviations||xiii|
|List of Appendices||xv|
|Chapter One: Introduction|
|1.2. The Research Problem||5|
|1.3. Research Objectives||6|
|1.4. Research Questions||6|
|1.5. Research Hypotheses||7|
|1.6. Significance of the Research||7|
|1.7. Outline of the Research||8|
Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review
It should be divided into sections & subsections as required following the sample below:
2.1. Definition of Communicative Competence
2.2. Types of Communicative Competence
|Chapter Three: Research Methodology|
|Chapter Four: Results and Discussion ( should be presented in accordance to the research questions or objectives).|
|Chapter Five: Conclusion|
|5.1. Summary of the Study|
|5.2. Summary of the Results|
Appendix 2: Title page
Title of Paper (Font 14)
A paper submitted to the University of Khartoum for the partial fulfilments of the degree of MATEFL.
Required for TEFL 607: Research Methods and Design in Language Teaching (Font 12)
Student’s name (14)
Professor/ Dr. Supervisor’s name (14)
University of Khartoum (14)
English Language Institute
Graduate Studies Unit