Analysis of the Promoting Effect of Chinese Learning Experience on the Development of English Ability

In the field of second language acquisition, transfer is a common phenomenon. The mother language system has positive or negative effects on second language learning, namely positive transfer, and negative transfer. As the mother tongue of Chinese English learners, Chinese also has some interference in their English learning, especially in listening and speaking. Based on the experiences of teaching and learning English, this author analyzes the influence of negative transfer of Chinese on the cultivation of students' English listening and speaking abilities and discusses the corresponding countermeasures from the perspective of contrastive analysis between English and Chinese.

With the current application of artificial intelligence in education, English teaching methods in colleges and universities are developing rapidly. In this paper, we explore the application of the streamlined bilinear attention network to enhance students’ English proficiency and evaluate teaching effectiveness to improve teaching efficiency and improve students’ English proficiency. The study applies the bilinear attention mechanism to effectively process visual information during college English teaching using computerized visual learning methods to improve the accuracy of classroom teaching quality assessment. The methodology includes implementing a bilinear attention mechanism and applying a deformable convolution module to extract more accurate image features and optimize model performance. The model achieves 98.89% accuracy in facial expression recognition on the CK+ dataset, and 88.5% and 78.9% on the RAF-DB and Fer2013 datasets, respectively. Through online emotion evaluation experiments, the model performed well in recognizing emotional activity in teaching videos, which is highly consistent with the manual evaluation results. In analyzing students’ English proficiency development, the model-assisted teaching method can significantly improve students’ listening, grammar, phonetics, and many other abilities, with a mean value of self-evaluation reaching 4.09576 points. It shows the effectiveness of the streamlined bilinear attention network in assessing the teaching effectiveness of English teaching in colleges and universities and improving students’ abilities. Not only does the model accurately identify emotional activity in the classroom, but it also enhances students’ English learning.

Employers in Rwanda have been expressing their dissatisfaction with university graduates’ low English proficiency affirming that it hindered their performance at work. Rwanda Development Board (RDB) also noticed that the English proficiency and work readiness skills of university graduates on internship in 2019 left a lot to be desired, which was an impediment to the completion of the internship and to the development of their professional skills. To enhance these graduates’ communication and work readiness skills, the Rwandan Government, through RDB, sent them to a one and half-month employability boot camp at the University of Rwanda. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating factors that hindered these interns’ development of English proficiency and at exploring whether the course helped improve their skills in this language. For the sake of validity and reliability, both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms were applied to collect and analyse the research data. Themes emerging from classroom observations and interviews were analysed inductively and figures used to interpret the trainees’ results in the entry and exit English proficiency tests. Research findings revealed that unfavorable linguistic environment, teachers limited English proficiency, and regular shifts in the medium of instruction were major impediments to the trainees' improvement of English proficiency. Findings also disclosed that the training had helped the majority of participants boost the four language macro modalities, but that more time was required for slow learners. In agreement with the findings, some recommendations were made on how to effectively support Rwandan students’ learning of English.

For non-native English speaking (NNES) teachers, the most important professional duty beyond teaching their students is to develop their own foreign language proficiency (Medgyes, 2001). However, most in-service professional development activities tend to take NNES teachers’ English proficiency development for granted. The results of a nation- wide evaluation of the current teaching workforce in Vietnam during 2011-2012 identified in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ low level of language proficiency as an inherent problem of English education in Vietnam. This thesis explores the perceptions of Vietnamese primary and secondary EFL teachers regarding their English proficiency and the level they consider as necessary for their teaching in comparison with the standard mandated by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). The thesis also investigates teachers’ attitudes towards English proficiency development, and the characteristics of their language practice. This research employed a mixed-methods design using a combination of a self-rated English language proficiency survey, semi-structured interviews, and narrative inquiry. The survey collected responses from 298 in-service EFL teachers participating in professional development courses in four provinces of Northern Vietnam. Forty-two teachers were then selected for the semi-structured interviews. Of these participants, five were chosen and then repeatedly interviewed using narrative-inquiry techniques over a ten-week period. The findings indicate that participants’ perceived English proficiency was significantly higher than both the level they perceived as required for their teaching practice and the English proficiency level mandated by MOET. Participants were found to have confidence to teach English mainly as a content-subject rather than as a means of communication, partly due to the powerful negative wash-back effects of high-stakes examinations. The study also documents how participants struggled to improve their English proficiency with limited and intermittent support. The research uncovers how participants’ English proficiency developments were shaped by their language learning history, personal circumstances, and various other institutional and socio-cultural factors. These factors are categorised into a model with three overlapping categories namely personal, institutional and socio-cultural challenges. The close interdependence of the three groups of challenges demands a holistic solution to the daunting task of improving EFL teachers’ English proficiency in Vietnam. Successful implementation of such an approach requires effort and collaboration between different forces at different levels, including the government, MOET, teacher training institutions, school administrators, and teachers themselves. The thesis concludes with some practical recommendations to help MOET and the educational reforms move in the right direction.

As the foundation of English learning, the acquisition of vocabulary has always been a hot topic in the fields of second language acquisition and foreign language teaching. Contrasted with intentional vocabulary acquisition, incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) relates to lexical gains as a by-product of main cognitive activities. In the field of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Chinese high schools, the incidental acquisition of English vocabulary has increasingly attracted the academic attention in recent years. However, few empirical studies have focused on the incidental acquisition of English vocabulary engendered by doing content retelling tasks. In light of the inadequacy, this study adopted the quality audio-visual material as input and content retelling as output (forming an input-output-input circle), aiming at exploring the effect of retelling on Chinese high school EFL learners’ IVA. Results indicated that learners who retold the content of the audio-visual material between two viewings can pick up more words. In this process, the attempted use of new words in oral reproduction plays a positive role in strengthening the immediate acquisition and long-term retention of the target words.

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the features and development of multi-word formulaic sequences for foreign language learners in the field of second language acquisition. While considerable amount of research has been conducted on continuous formulaic sequences both domestically and abroad, scant attention has been rendered to discontinuous phrase frames. Adopting a corpus linguistic perspective, the current study compares and analyses second language learners from different backgrounds with native speakers, focusing on the phrase frame features identified in the argumentative essays written by Chinese and German EFL learners. With a corpus-based approach, the four-word phrase frames are extracted from the English TOEFL essay texts of Chinese and German students using AntConc 4.1.4 corpus analysis software. The top 100 most frequently occurring phrase frames are manually filtered and then classified according to their structural and functional features to identify similarities and differences in terms of overall frequency, structure, and function features of phrase frames between two groups of learners and with those of native writers. The findings reveal that L2 learners significantly employ more fixed and predictable phrase frames than their native writers, with German L2 learners using more phrase frames than their Chinese L2 counterparts. In terms of functional features, German L2 learners use more stance and discourse organizing expressions than Chinese L2 learners. Awareness of the essay genre, English proficiency, and the time-limited writing environment are contributing factors to these features. Therefore, the study suggests that the accuracy and variety of phrase frame usage are more representative of L2 learners’ acquisition and writing quality than their quantity of use. This study facilitates an understanding of different EFL learners’ phraseological competence through the lens of their p-frame use and provides pedagogical insights accordingly into teaching and learning argumentative essays in EFL contexts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of discourse markers (DMs) by Chinese EFL learners and find out the relationship between English proficiency and the pragmatic fossilization of DMs. The current study focuses on the use of DMs in speech. The data from the high-level English learners and the intermediate English learners are used for the exploration of Chinese EFL learners’ DMs use, and Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English is selected as speech of native speakers for comparison. By analyzing three frequently used DMs in their oral production, the results show that the fossilization of DMs is caused by English learners’ lack of acquiring the pragmatic functions of DMs as native speakers do. The study indicates that Chinese learners are not aware of the importance of DMs in constructing textual coherence. In this case, both explicit instructions and implicit instructions should be given in class. Under the framework of Relevance Theory, the textual coherence of DMs should be explained explicitly in classroom. From the perspective of Relevance Theory, DMs can be used to help the speaker to organize information, produce clear utterances, and ultimately direct the hearer towards the intended interpretation of the utterances in discourse with the minimum cost of processing effort. On the other hand, DMs can ease the hearer’s search for relevance of utterances by providing an effective means for constraining his interpretation of utterances in discourse in terms of the principles of relevance. In addition, teachers should provide learners with accurate and appropriate L2 input and as many chances as possible to make enough L2 output in proper situation.

In the context of globalization, multilingual learning and teaching have become more and more popular in China. The phenomenon of cross-linguistic influence is more complex in L3 acquisition than in L2 acquisition. Does the previously learned L2 affect L3 acquisition? From the perspective of trilingual acquisition, the English and French national test proficiency scores of 112 French major students in Chinese universities were selected as the research data to explore the potential relationship between English (L2) proficiency and French (L3) learning. The research results showed a positive correlation between English and French proficiency among Chinese learners, and a predictable equation was established through regression analysis. In addition, the study reveals that a threshold level of English (L2) is essential to generate a significant correlation. The threshold level is roughly equivalent to the level of IELTS 5.5. According to the results, the analogical teaching method is advocated.

This article provides a systematic account of collocational use in Chinese EFL learners’ oral production and explores some of the issues involved, by adopting a corpus-based error analysis approach. The distribution of six types of collocational errors extracted from two sizeable Chinese learner English corpora shows that verb-noun collocations pose the greatest difficulty for Chinese learners. An exploration of the correlation between the learners’ English proficiency and collocational performance finds that the learners’ knowledge of collocation has not developed alongside their knowledge of vocabulary in general. Our further descriptive and diagnostic analyses of verb-noun errors indicate that 1) Chinese EFL learners have the greatest difficulty with the verbs when using verb-noun collocations; 2) the learners’ use of nouns is also not satisfactory; 3) due attention should be paid to the inappropriate use of the non-lexical elements (prepositions and articles); and 4) the main causes of verb-noun collocational errors include L1 transfer, assumed synonyms, overgeneralization and misselection of the target word. It is suggested that university English teaching in China should attach more importance to the examination and diagnosis of collocational errors and also integrate learner-centered, corpus-based methods into vocabulary teaching.

In the field of second language (L2) acquisition, the number of studies focusing on L2 pronunciation instruction and perceptual/production training has increased as new classroom methodologies have been proposed and new goals for L2 pronunciation have been set. This book brings together different approaches to L2 pronunciation research in the classroom or in the language laboratory. 13 chapters, written by well-known researchers focusing on a variety of first and target languages, are divided into four parts: Pronunciation development and intelligibility: implications for teaching and training studies; L2 pronunciation teaching; L2 pronunciation training: implications for the classroom; and Pronunciation in the laboratory: High Variability Phonetic Training. Intended for researchers in the fields of second language acquisition, phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, speech therapies, speech technology, as well as second language teaching, this book not only summarizes the current research questions on L2 pronunciation teaching and training, but also predicts future scenarios for both researchers and practitioners in the field.

Language motivation research has long been a research focus in the field of second language acquisition. In the past two decades, a large number of motivation studies has been conducted in different social and cultural contexts. Researchers contributed to the explorations of factors that affect learners’ foreign language motivation as well as the relationship between motivation and other aspects of foreign language learning. However, research on Chinese ethnic minority learners’ motivation to learn English is in paucity. Many of the ethnic minority students are proficient in their mother tongue (minority language) and Mandarin (national language), while they are also learning English as a foreign language. The social and cultural contexts to which they are exposed make their English learning complicated. To address the gap, the present study adopted a qualitative research approach in the form of a case study to explore the impact of learning experience on English learning motivation among three Chinese ethnic minority pre-university students. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with three participants. The findings from the qualitative data revealed that the English learning motivation of the participants was typically examination-directed and greatly influenced by teachers’ teaching style, peers’ attitudes toward English and the overall learning atmosphere in the class. The study provides implications for educational policy making and English instruction in China’s ethnic minority regions.

While seminal work identified age of onset to L2 as a core predictor of L2 learning in naturalistic environments, recent research has shown that other variables, such as language use, are more important than an early age of onset in predicting L2 attainment in speakers who learn the second language primarily in school. In this study, we investigated whether the acquisition of vocabulary and the development of overall proficiency in English as L2 can be predicted more faithfully by daily language, intended as daily share of L2 use in comparison to L1s, or L2 age of onset. To explore this issue, we analyzed a large public dataset of 650 speakers (de Bruin et al., 2017), in which participants were native in Spanish and/or Basque and spoke English as an additional language. Participants were previously assessed on their vocabulary skills using the LexTALE task and on their overall proficiency using a semi-structured interview. Language skills were then added to a linear regression model where age of onset and daily use of English were treated as predictors. Our results show that, in this dataset, use is a better predictor of language skills (both lexical knowledge and overall proficiency) than age of onset.

Purpose: This research investigated the impact of bilingualism on the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL) among students seeking English proficiency. The primary objectives of the study was to examine the effects of bilingualism on the ESL learning process, identify recurring language transfer patterns resulting from bilingualism in learning ESL and determine effective bilingual strategies for optimizing ESL learning. Methodology: The research questions guiding the study were: How does bilingualism influence the ESL learning process? What language patterns are transferred due to bilingualism in ESL learning? And what bilingual strategies can enhance ESL learning? The study adopted a qualitative approach, utilizing a case study design to investigate the experiences of English proficiency students at Tangaza University. Convenient sampling methods were employed, and data was collected through structured questionnaires and written compositions on the topic How I Spent My Last Holiday. The collected data was analyzed using thematic and content analysis. Findings: The study findings revealed that bilingualism influenced ESL learning in both positive and negative ways, with recurring language transfer patterns at phonological, morphological, syntactic, and grammatical levels. Effective bilingual strategies, such as consistent practice, immersion, and the use of technological tools, were identified as key to enhancing ESL learning outcomes. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study was guided by Larry Selinker’s Language transfer theory (1972), which significantly influenced the field of second language acquisition (SLA). The study recommended more effective teaching methodologies, including tailored instructions, structured writing training, and interactive learning activities, to improve learners’ language interaction and usage.

Anxiety is the most researched emotion variable in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Researchers from several nations have long examined different causation and solutions associated with second language anxiety among English learners. This study conducted a questionnaire survey of 68 English learners in China to investigate the sources of their speaking anxiety and the solutions they believe can alleviate their speaking anxiety. Research has found that learners’ sources of anxiety are Communication Apprehension, Test Anxiety, and Fear of Negative Evaluation. And school education and teachers’ teaching methods also have a certain impact on learners’ oral anxiety. 73.5% of respondents believe that the teaching methods of teachers have resulted in insufficient development of their oral skills. The study also analysis how to alleviate anxiety from the perspective of learners, come to the conclusion that schools can provide sufficient professional exercises, such as pronunciation course and psychological courses, to help learners alleviate their speaking anxiety.

The relationship between Chinese university students' conceptions of language learning and their online self-regulation