Volume 17, Number 1, June 2020 DOI: 10.56040/e-flt.172
Ko-Yin Sung and Wenjuan Guo
Intercultural Competence in the Chinese-Speaking Study Abroad Context (pp. 231–242)
This study of intercultural competence in Chinese-speaking study abroad (SA) context involved 72 international students studying Chinese as a second language in college language centers in China and Taiwan. Two research questions are addressed: “What kinds of intercultural competence do students who study Chinese as a second language abroad possess?”, and “Do the SA students’ intercultural competence differ based on the following factors: (1) gender, (2) length of stay in the Chinese-speaking community, (3) previous SA experience, and (4) self-rated Chinese proficiency level?”. Factor analysis and MANOVA tests were run based on the participants’ answers to the Intercultural Abilities ques-tionnaire. The results of the factor analysis test showed that the participants had three components of intercultural competence, namely, intercultural skill and the awareness of the importance of intercultural competence while in the host culture, intercultural attitude and the awareness of the effect of inter-culture and its development, and intercultural knowledge. The results of the MANOVA test found a significant interactive effect between the participants’ self-rated Chinese proficiency levels and their previous study abroad experience on intercultural knowledge.
It is crucial for second language (L2) teachers to understand L2 learners’ motivation in order to meet learners’ learning needs and improve their performance. This study investigated Arabic language teachers’ perceptions of their students’ L2 learning motivation change patterns and sociocultural factors that affect motivation by conducting interviews with seven teachers. Also, five graduates and six students in Arabic language departments were recruited as interview participants for the purpose of data triangulation. The analysis showed that Arabic teachers recognize job expectations, parents or teachers’ advice, cultural interest, and desire to go to college as major motivating factors for their students to learn Arabic. All the teachers believed that the motives for Arabic learning went through some remarkable changes after the September 11, 2001 attacks, contributing to increasing the employment expectations of learners. In particular, this study identified media, Confucian culture, and academic elitism as sociocultural factors influencing motivation to learn the Arabic language, which is categorized as a Less Commonly Taught Language in South Korea.
The purpose of this study is to identify the types of professional knowledge, which are activated by pre-service teachers of English, when they design a lesson plan. This study utilized the qualitative research methodology. As research subjects, 60 pre-service EFL teachers from three universities located in Chile were considered. Non-participant observation and a semi-structured interview with stimulated recall were used as techniques to generate data. Content analysis was employed to process the data by means of ATLAS.ti software. The findings suggest that the participants mobilize different types of professional knowledge when they design a lesson plan. These involve content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, curricular knowledge, knowledge of learners, and knowledge of educational contexts. It is recommended that EFL pre-service education fosters prospective teachers’ reflection on their teaching practices so that they can reshape, in a progressive and permanent way, their professional knowledge connected to successful teaching practices.
The present study adopted a predictive-correlational design to explore whether self-reported motivated strategies for learning and language-learning strategies of Chinese EFL learners (N = 97) were associated with the following: (a) engagement with a learning management system (LMS), (b) engagement with flipped-classroom materials, and (c) final grades in a flipped EFL course. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) were administered to sophomore-level English writing students in a cross-border higher education setting in the Henan province of China; predictor variables were then explored for association with end-of-term criterion variables operationalized by behavioral and performance data. Results indicated that the MSLQ and SILL failed to predict engagement or success with flipped classroom materials. Instead, the amount of time learners actually spent engaging with flipped materials was significantly, positively associated with student success measured by final grades.
For so long, tests have been teacher-generated. Hence, an intact group of Medical-related university students were asked to design original test types as part of their final written exam in Spanish 2. The study aimed to analyze the features of these student-constructed tests. The identified corpus-driven elements were the language of the directions; the test types; the language of the tests; the lexical bundles/n-grams; and the artistic, creative, and visual elements. Results show that English is the main language of the test directions; translation, matching type, and puzzle are the top three test types; English is the overall language of the tests; “mi nombre es” and “cuál es el” are the top two Spanish lexical bundles; and limited images show the students’ artistic side. Overall, these patterns demonstrate the students’ language ability, knowledge of, exposure, creativity, engagement, and manipulation of Spanish that is (almost) foreign to them. Implications and research trajectories offered can go beyond the scope of Span-ish teaching-learning process.
This mixed-method research study investigates the most preferred type of glossing that is able to assist Thai EFL students to accurately interpret new English words and to explore the elements that will make glossing most effective. The participants were 80 undergraduate EFL students in a government university in Thailand. Quantitative data was collected through three vocabulary tests, while the qualitative data was collected from a cross-analysis of glossed items and interviews with carefully selected participants. Data analysis includes statistical analysis and thematic analysis. The results of the study indicate an incongruity between the students’ preference of gloss types and the effectiveness of the glosses. Thai EFL students tend to use glosses that either have pictures or combine both text and pictures, while textual-only glosses are the least chosen. However, despite the low frequency of being chosen, textual-only gloss users were surprisingly successful at interpreting the unknown vocabulary in tests. The study further identifies the elements that make each gloss type more successful and suggests that Thai lecturers create glosses that bring out the best features of its type and combine both pictures and texts. Findings of the study provide baseline information for EFL reading lecturers in designing glosses that are suitable and efficient for their students. The findings also highlight the importance of seeking tools to assist students during the reading process.
More studies should be conducted to confirm whether peer review instruction is effective when we compare the text quality before and after peer review training with a control class. The present study aims to measure the impact of scaffolded peer review training on the quality of texts produced by students of French as a foreign language in a Vietnamese university. An experiment of peer review training was carried out during a semester in an experimental class of twenty freshmen under peer-assisted condition (PA), compared to a control class of twenty otherfreshmen producing texts individually (IND). A systematic peer review training programme was conducted in the PA class with teacher modelling, customized peer review checklists, sheets of advice on how to give and receive feedback and collective correction sessions. Fortyafter-trainingdrafts from the PA and IND classes and twenty semi-structured interviews from the PA class were collected. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses showed that the PA class made better progress than the IND class in terms of total gain scores, task completion, ideas development, coherence and grammar. Our findings show positive impact of clearly structured peer review training on text quality in FFL context.
This article presents the results of a research study highlighting fossilisable errors of spelling and morphosyntax commonly made by students of advanced levels of French (B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) while pursuing a Bachelor Degree in Modern Languages of the Pontifical University Javeriana. We analyse a corpus of students’ written productions and responses to a questionnaire addressed to professors and students of advanced level courses. We demonstrate that the typical errors of Spanish-speaking French students persist in these advaned levels and may remain uncorrected in the long run. It is therefore essential for the stakeholders involved in the teaching / learning process of French as a Foreign Language to reflect on how such errors may be avoided, and to develop future strategies that would lead students to remember specific rules of spelling or grammar, as well as systematisation activities that would allow them to assimilate the correct forms.