{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.019534184823441023, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004507888805409466, 'mean_word_length': 5.110091743119266, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Time to Ring Alarm Bells? Students Have a Say

To be able to apply their foreign language knowledge and skills properly, students need to be trained how to do it. If the knowledge of a language system is acquired, but not properly incorporated into the use of the fundamental language skills, students are not given a chance to put their real-life communication knowledge into operation. In short, knowledge without skills is not of much help in real life communication, not even in the situations which require rather receptive, let alone productive language use. Integrated language skills have long been the most advocated and vastly applied approach to teaching English. Despite this, especially bearing in mind the concept of most standardized coursebooks, practice shows that too many English language teachers still rely on the traditional grammar-translation method in their classrooms, thus depriving their students of the chances to internalize their L2 knowledge or use it spontaneously in daily communication. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted among students, aged 18+, gathered in three different educational institutions (N = 344), which helped us look into the situation with the English teaching practices in secondary education in Serbia. The results show it is time we rang some warning bells.