Volume 9, Number 1, June 2012
The present study is an off-shoot of a larger project, in which a significant statistical relationship was observed between learner variables of a large sample (n=1440) of Chinese Learners of English as a Foreign Language and their reported use of Language Learning Strategies. In this article, we report the use of a combination of metacognitive strategies, namely selective attention, organisational planning and self-management in two different learning contexts (in-class and out-of-class) as an investigation of the perceived usefulness of this combination in these contexts. An analysis of the listening and speaking tasks that students face both in and outside the classroom revealed considerable variation, notably with more use of the metacognitive strategies reported for speaking and listening when both were undertaken out-of-class. In addition, variation was reported along gender lines. These outcomes are elaborated with implications for the teaching and learning of speaking and listening of English in China.
This paper primarily compared the effects of a word card strategy versus a word list strategy, and spaced versus massed practice on Taiwanese EFL junior high school students’ English vocabulary retention and secondarily explored their attitudes toward each strategy. Participants included 120 Taiwanese EFL ninth graders divided into card-spaced, card-massed, list-spaced, and list-massed groups receiving identical 8-week instruction on 120 target words presented on either word cards or word lists. A vocabulary test serving as the pretest, posttest, and delayed test was administered: just before, one week after, and five weeks after the ex-periment. Two questionnaires developed by the researchers explored participants’ attitudes toward cards versus lists. Individual interviews further probed students’ attitudes toward both strategies. Statistical analyses of three vocabulary test scores suggested that the word card strategy yielded significantly better performance on vocabulary retention, whereas spaced practice (practicing or studying target words at one-week intervals) led to better but non-significant results than massed practice (practicing or studying target words all at one time). Results derived from questionnaires and individual interviews indicated a majority of the word-card group preferred the word card strategy to the word list strategy to facilitate their vocabulary retention. Based on the overall results of the current study, three educational implications and five suggestions for future studies were presented.
This paper considers Arabian learners’ concepts of “good” Japanese language teachers and addresses differ-ences and similarities of these perceptions between “good” native Japanese teachers and Arabian non-native Japanese language teachers. Literature has suggested that language learners have different views on native and non-native teachers, and that learners’ ideal teachers differ depending on individual learners’ back-grounds. To date, no empirical studies have been conducted concerning “good” teachers for Arabian learners of the Japanese language. Quantitative results show a commonality among learners; that is, they want teachers to demonstrate the characteristics of knowledge, experience, and personality. Additionally, Arabian learn-ers expect native Japanese teachers to be more skilful and to have a wider variety of skill sets than non-native teachers. Learners’ gender and study duration are also associated with their expectation for the two teacher groups. This paper considers that learners’ excessive expectations toward native Japanese teachers could be attributed to the current developing situation of Japanese language education and teachers in the Arabic region.
The purpose of the present qualitative case study was to look into second language (L2) teachers’ perceptions and classroom implementations of grammar instruction with regard to communicative language teaching (CLT). The study focused on individual teachers’ perspectives of CLT because teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical skills have an impact on how they teach (Bandura, 1993, 1997). Participants were six college level teachers who taught Spanish as L2 in a major university in the Southern United States. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews, and document and record collection. The findings indicated that there was a mixture of perceptions regarding the inclusion of explicit grammar instruction in a CLT classroom. The findings also revealed that teachers’ perceptions of what they deem to be effective L2 instruction are influenced by their experience as learners as well as their observation of student learning. The results suggest that teachers’ beliefs are generally reflected in their classroom practices, but exceptions may occur due to departmental regulations. Pedagogical implications for teacher education and world language methods courses were drawn up based on the findings of the study.
This study examines the use of the Elicited Imitation Test (EIT) (Ellis, 2004) to measure second language learners’ underlying knowledge of restrictive relative clauses which will reflect their interlanguage representation of this property. Two groups of learners, L1 Malay and L1 Chinese speakers, were involved in the study. To test the suitability of the EIT as a test of such implicit knowledge, the Malay and Chinese speakers were brought through the EIT and a grammaticality judgement test (GJT), an established task often used in second language acquisition studies. The results from both tasks were compared and correlated. The results showed that learners were generally better at judging and imitating grammatical items in both tests and a positive correlation is indeed found between both tests for grammatical items. Scores obtained from both groups of learners were also comparable. However, it was found that learners were less determinate in their judgement and production of ungrammatical items. In general, they were less proficient in their ability to imitate or judge and recast the ungrammatical items correctly. The results indicate that the L1 Malay and L1 Chinese learners of L2 English have interlanguage representations that differ from native speakers’ underlying representations of the said property. The results also indicate that although there is no correlation between the two tests in measuring the ungrammatical items, it is proposed that it was actually a factor related to the time al-lotted for participants to respond to items in the GJT rather than the EIT itself that had resulted in this outcome.
Abstract This study examines the use of the Elicited Imitation Test (EIT) (Ellis, 2004) to measure second language learners’ underlying knowledge of restrictive relative clauses which will reflect their interlanguage representation of this property. Two groups of learners, L1 Malay and L1 Chinese speakers, were involved in the study. To test the suitability of the EIT as a test of such implicit knowledge, the Malay and Chinese speakers were brought through the EIT and a grammaticality judgement test (GJT), an established task often used in second language acquisition studies. The results from both tasks were compared and correlated. The results showed that learners were generally better at judging and imitating grammatical items in both tests and a positive correlation is indeed found between both tests for grammatical items. Scores obtained from both groups of learners were also comparable. However, it was found that learners were less determinate in their judgement and production of ungrammatical items. In general, they were less proficient in their ability to imitate or judge and recast the ungrammatical items correctly. The results indicate that the L1 Malay and L1 Chinese learners of L2 English have interlanguage representations that differ from native speakers’ underlying representations of the said property. The results also indicate that although there is no correlation between the two tests in measuring the ungrammatical items, it is proposed that it was actually a factor related to the time al-lotted for participants to respond to items in the GJT rather than the EIT itself that had resulted in this outcome.
With the reputed goal of enhancing students’ English proficiency and competitiveness in the global market, an increasing number of universities/colleges in Asia are establishing English proficiency graduation requirements. This study explores how such requirements have impacted 17 tertiary educational institutions in Taiwan. Extensive questionnaire and interview data from students at 8 schools with such requirements and 9 schools without them suggest that mandated EFL proficiency tests have had minimal washback on students. The article concludes by interpreting these results in the light of recent studies on learner washback and suggesting avenues for further research.
This study provides a comprehensive insight into the relationships between foreign language anxiety, learning motivation, autonomy, and language proficiency. The subjects of the study were first-year non-English major undergraduates, who were separated into various levels of English language classes based on their English proficiency. The findings determine that foreign language anxiety is prevalent among the students. Strikingly, more than half of the subjects’ responses reflected different degrees of learner anxiety for all the 33 Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) items. Among the variables investigated in this study, learning motivation, followed by listening proficiency, reading proficiency, and learner autonomy, had the highest correlation with foreign language anxiety; all the correlations were highly significant and negative. Results from the stepwise regression predicting language proficiency indicated that both learner anxiety and autonomy contributed significantly to the prediction of proficiency. Motivation failed to contribute significantly in the regression model when leaner autonomy was simultaneously included as a predictor variable. This result can be due to the high degree of correlation between these two learner variables.