Volume 6, Number 1, June 2009
Etsuko Toyoda
An Analysis of L2 Readers’ Comments on Kanj Recognition (pp. 5–20)
The paper investigated how adult L2 readers with an alphabetic language background learning a language that is orthographically distinctive from their L1, develop awareness of the structural and functional properties of small units of the unfamiliar script. The focus of the present paper is on developing awareness of the structural and functional properties of sub-character units (components) of kanji, Chinese characters used in Japanese. Participants with different levels of kanji knowledge were asked to verbally account for their performance in kanji processing tasks. Overall, interview data suggest that L2 readers gradually develop their awareness of components in four aspects: positions and combinations, semantic function, phonological function and the limitations of the functions. The data further suggest the following points: The awareness is not absolute, but improves as exposure to the script increases. Rudimentary awareness begins to emerge very early and develops in a sequence dictated by the orthographic principles. In the process of the development, the focal point
of the awareness shifts from global to local, and the awareness, once perfected, goes background.
Victoria Russell
Corrective feedback, over a decade of research since Lyster and Ranta (1997): Where do we stand today? (pp. 21–31)
It has been just over a decade since the publication of Lyster and Ranta’s critical articles on corrective feedback. Since then, there have been numerous publications in this area of classroom based Second Language Acquisition research. Lyster and Ranta (1997) and Lyster (1998b) found that recasts are the most common, but least effective, form of oral corrective feedback employed by foreign language teachers. Further, Lyster and Ranta concluded that students often fail to notice recasts by confusing them with a repetition or affirmation of their own utterances. This review of literature will explore the research on recasts in the decade following the publication of Lyster and Ranta’s seminal articles. The following will serve as guiding questions: 1) Does current research on recasts continue to support Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) and Lyster’s (1998b) findings? 2) What factors influence the effectiveness of recasts? 3) How do teachers and learners perceive recasts? Current findings indicate that there may be a mismatch in teachers’ and students’ perceptions of what is considered to be effective feedback on oral errors.
Reza Pishghadam
A Quantitative Analysis of the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Foreign Language Learning (pp. 31–41)
The major aim of this study was to examine the role of emotional intelligence in second language learning. At the end of the academic year, 508 second year students at four universities in Iran were asked to complete the Emotional Intelligence Inventory (EQ-i). EQ-i data were matched with the students’ academic records, scores in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Predicting second language learning success from emotional intelligence variables produced divergent results, depending on how the variables were operationalized. When EQ-i variables were compared in groups (successful vs. unsuccessful) who had achieved very different levels of academic success and scores in different skills, second language learning was strongly associated with several dimensions of emotional intelligence. Results are discussed in the context of the importance of emotional intelligence in second language learning.
Wenhua Hsu
College English Textbooks for General Purposes: A Corpus-based Analysis of Lexical Coverage (pp. 42–62)
This study aims to create a corpus of General English (GE) reading textbooks used in universities in Taiwan to form the basis of an analysis. The operational measures for comparison involved vocabulary size, vocabulary levels (distribution among the British National Corpus 1st–14th 1,000 high-frequency word families) and text coverage. Coxhead’s (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) containing 570 word families was chosen as one of the base word lists. In addition, the Grades 1–9 Curriculum 2,000 basic English words required by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education as well as the elementary and intermediate vocabulary covered in the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) were lemmatized into word families, and then added to the base words, the BNC high frequency word lists and the AWL established in Nation’s RANGE (n.d.) software. The GEPT is the accredited English proficiency test in Taiwan that college students are likely to encounter as an English graduation benchmark and the language requirement for the job market. The results show that a GE textbook can contribute to learning 49–415 interdisciplinary academic words. Beyond the 2,000-word level, a GE textbook can supply students with 162–2,001 new word families. It may be useful in preparing learners for an intermediate GEPT by covering 24.55% to 65% of the vocabulary involved in the test. It is hoped that the indices examined in this study would help English teachers to take into account vocabulary size and levels in curriculum design.
Si Thang Kiet Ho
Intercultural language learning has become an important focus of modern language education, a shift that reflects greater awareness of the inseparability of language and culture, and the need to prepare language learners for intercultural communication in an increasingly multicultural world. This paper reports on an ongoing study into the presence and status of cultural content in tertiary EFL teaching in Vietnam and the effect of intercultural language learning on learners’ EFL learning. In the paper, I will critically analyze the underlying assumptions about culture in two traditional EFL textbook units currently used in a Vietnamese university. The cultural components of the units will then be proposed using a set of standards for intercultural language learning drawn from the literature. The proposed cultural components aim at raising learners’ cultural awareness and engaging them cognitively, behaviourally and affectively in culture learning. The approach may be implemented in any language courses and is appropriate for the study of any target culture.
Learning vocabulary in the second language requires the use of vocabulary learning strategies which have been receiving much attention in the field of second language learning (Schmitt, 2000). The use of vocabulary learning strategies have accompanied the shift from the teacher-oriented to the learner-centered curriculum. In the Hong Kong context, Cheung (2004) claims that not much literature has been published in areas relating to learning and teaching vocabulary in Hong Kong classrooms. Furthermore, it seems there have been even less studies investigating the perceptions of Hong Kong learners’ towards the frequency and the usefulness of vocabulary learning strategies. In the present study, the researcher examined 36 postsecondary students’ responses to a questionnaire (adapted from Cheung, 2004) in a postsecondary institution in Hong Kong on the frequency of their use of vocabulary learning strategies and their perception of the strategies’ usefulness. The results show that the frequency of vocabulary learning strategy use did have an influence on postsecondary students’ choices in choosing the most useful vocabulary strategies in their responses. The most frequently used and most useful vocabulary learning strategies from the questionnaire results were as follows: 1) spelling the word in the mind repeatedly; 2) analyzing the word by breaking down the sound segments; and 3) remembering words by doing a project; and 4) asking classmates for the meaning of the word. Follow-up structured interviews were carried out with 10 students probing their reasons for their preferences in choosing the most useful vocabulary learning strategies.
Heinz L. Kretzenbacher
Deutsch nach Englisch: Didaktische Brücken für syntaktische Klammern1 (in German) (pp. 88–99)
Die Mehrheit der DaF-Lernenden weltweit lernt Deutsch nach English (DnE), typischerweise als zweite oder weitere Fremdsprache, Lernende mit englischer Muttersprache auch als erste Fremdsprache. Während die nahe Verwandtschaft des Deutschen und des Englischen oft positiven Transfer als Konsequenz hat, gibt es doch englische Muster, deren Transfer in die Interimsprache der DnE-Lernenden den Erwerb von unterschiedlichen deutschen Mustern erschwert oder gar behindert. Dies ist besonders im morphosyntaktischen Bereich der Fall, wo Englisch z.B. mit seiner rigiden SVO-Satzstellung und seiner ausschließlichen Identifikation von grammatischem und „natürlichem“ Genus sich nicht nur vom Deutschen, sondern von fast allen anderen germanischen Sprachen unterscheidet. Mit Hilfe einer einfachen und gedächtnisfreundlichen didaktischen Methode können DnE-Lernenden die strukturellen Unterschiede zwischen Deutsch und Englisch in diesen Bereichen bewusst gemacht werden, was sie dazu ermutigt, die entsprechenden deutschen Strukturen in ihre Interimssprachen einzubauen anstatt auf Transfer der englischen Strukturen zu vertrauen. Das visuelle Hilfsmittel eines Brückenschemas kann sowohl die Haupt- und Nebensatzklammern anschaulich machen, als auch eine einleuchtende Begründung für die scheinbar schikanös komplexe Genusdifferenzierung des deutschen Nominalparadigmas geben. So werden Lernende stärker motiviert, das Genus als notwendige Kategorie des Nomens beim Lernen von deutschen Substantiven stets mitzudenken.
Review
Youdao Desktop Dictionary: Learning Mandarin in a Painless Manner “有道桌面词典：学习汉语有道” (in Chinese) (pp. 100–107)