Advanced Foreign Language Learners Research Articles

Unravelling the relationship between language anxiety and foreign language speech fluency in a monologue production

ABSTRACT This study investigated the interplay between language anxiety of advanced foreign language learners and their speech fluency measured with temporal indices. Language anxiety levels of 59 university level students of English were identified with the Input, Processing and Output Anxiety Scale (the IPOAS; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994. The effects of induced anxiety on three stages of cognitive processing in computerized vocabulary learning.’ Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1017/S0272263100012560) and the Post-Session Survey on Anxiety. The former informed about the levels of anxiety experienced at three stages of linguistic processing, hence, input anxiety, internal processing anxiety, and output anxiety. The latter was applied to identify language anxiety levels exhibited during a monologue production, reported as task-specific language anxiety. Speech samples from the performance were analyzed for fluency breakdown (the number of filled and silent pauses), speed of speech (articulation rate), and composite measures (speech rate). The findings revealed that the advanced foreign language learners with higher levels of internal processing anxiety and output anxiety used filled pauses more frequently. Furthermore, the levels of output anxiety and task-specific language anxiety were inversely related to speech and articulation rate. The study also showed statistically significant differences in the production of filled pauses and speech rate between advanced foreign language learners with low and high levels of language anxiety as measured by the IPOAS.

Audio Description Practice in the Catalan L1 Classroom

Audio description (AD) has been successfully used in educational settings, especially in foreign language learning—often in combination with other audiovisual translation modes. Most studies have focused on advanced foreign language learners, in the context of higher education. The use of AD in school settings, and in connection with L1, is a promising but arguably under researched area, which our study explores. The AD workshop conducted in a Catalan secondary school in the realm of the research presented in this article is now part of a forthcoming catalogue of activities to encourage the use of Catalan among students, which is published by the Generalitat de Catalunya and addressed to Catalan schools. The article outlines the pedagogical design of the intervention, its main results, limitations, and ways forward. We report a positive effect of practising AD on students’ lexical and syntactic abilities in Catalan and an important impact on their awareness on blindness and functional diversity, as well as the development of critical thinking and empathy. One of the challenges of the activity was to evaluate students’ productions and another was to deal with multilingualism and translanguaging in the classroom, two key aspects that are also discussed in the article. Lay summary Film audio description is an aural description of what happens on screen inserted between dialogues and important sounds. It is a mode of audiovisual accessibility for persons with blindness or low vision, but we can also use it in education. In this context, students create an audio description as a way of practising their language skills: this is called didactic audio description and it has been used with success in foreign language learning in universities. Our study explores the use of didactic audio description in secondary school and in the local language of instruction (L1). Our project took place in a secondary school in Catalonia. The project involved two researchers (the authors of this article), a professional audio describer, a teacher of Catalan, and 80 students aged 12-13. These students participated in a workshop. The workshop included a presentation of what audio description is, a first practice, and a guided final practice. This final practice consisted in the audio description of a short film where the main character is blind: The Fish and I, by Babak Habibifar (2020). In this article we inform on didactic audio description, we explain the methodology of our study, the realisation of the workshop, and our most important results. These results concern the main benefits of didactic AD in L1 in secondary school. The most important results are: The benefits of didactic AD for developing language skills in L1. The benefits of didactic AD for developing other competences, such as working in team or analysing a film. The benefits of didactic AD for making students aware of blindness and diversity. The benefits of didactic AD for the revitalization of Catalan, a minority language. The article also presents the difficulties that the research team encountered. Some of these difficulties were evaluating the students’ work and dealing with multilingualism in the classroom.

Advanced Foreign Language Learners: Prosodic Transition from L1 to L3

This study provides more data from more typologically distant languages and focusing on interrogative sentences. Thus, this research addresses a key gap from previous studies that have only studied prosodic transitions between more typologically close languages. Moreover, this study successfully controls for the background of participants in a more detailed way by setting limitations on participants’ language proficiency and the recency of their language usage. These limitations are necessary since it is difficult to conduct research on prosodic transitions within 3 languages due to the limited number of trilingual participants. Finally, this paper finds that for people who speak second language (L2) and third language (L3) with high proficiency, the influence of phonological characters from L1 will be more prominent than that of L2 on L3 intonational status. This study can be improved, as the amount of data collected is limited. Besides this problem, intonational typology considered in this paper should be reevaluated in further studies.

ФРАЗЕОЛОГІЗМИ З КОМПОНЕНТОМ ПЕЧІНКА У СЛОВ’ЯНСЬКИХ МОВАХ

The present article aims to examine phraseological units with the lexical component “liver” in a Slavic languages: Belarussion, Bulgarian, Croatian, Lower Lusatian language, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Ukranian. Somatic phraseology is a relatively new study of phraseology. The comparative semantic analysis of somatic phraseological units from an equivalence perspective allowed to establish their common and distinctive features, which are the reflection of cultural specificity and uniqueness of each language. The analysis was based on the researches of both Ukrainian and world linguists. The source of linguistic material were phraseological dictionaries of different languages. The results of this study may be useful for translators and advanced foreign language learners. This scientific study is a small fragment of the study of comparative somatic phraseology. But even such a fragment can reflect the common and different in the worldview of speakers of different languages. At the present stage of development of phraseology, many different and insufficiently studied problems have been identified, in particular the study of phraseological units in a comparative aspect.

Multimodal metaphor in ELT: combining theoretical knowledge and skills development

Multimodal metaphor combines elements of various modes (i.e. visual, written or auditory) and constitutes an attractive means of communication. The aim of the paper is to show that knowledge of metaphors should be taught in foreign language (FL) lessons along with the mother tongue. A pilot study on the effectiveness of the adoption of knowledge on metaphors in practical classes was conducted among students of English philology at the University of Bialystok. The issue was conducted by means of a specially designed Google survey and evaluation sheets. The paper presents some ways of introducing linguistic knowledge of metaphors to advanced FL learners. Furthermore, some practical class activities concerningmetaphor are proposed. Integratingmetaphor and practical exercises on metaphor in FL lessons broadens students’ linguistic knowledge. Developing metaphoric competence also enhances second language learners’ communicative ability, with a special emphasis on their metaphoric competence. Moreover, metaphor-based activities incite students’ analytical and critical thinking. Exercises on metaphors facilitate learners using the newly acquired knowledge in practice. Finally, adopting this approach contributes to promoting students’ autonomy and self-education.

The effect of visual priming on the lexical retrieval on implicit memory tasks for advanced foreign language learners

This study attempted to investigate the possible effects of visual priming on a foreign language vocabulary retrieval on three implicit memory task types (i.e., word stem completion (WSC), word fragment completion (WFC) and anagram solution tasks). Gender effect was also focused for lexical retrieval under the priming effect. A total of 45 male and 45 female Iranian advanced EFL learners were recruited and assigned to each of the three experimental groups of the study which contained an equal number of males and females learners. WSC, WFC and anagram solution tasks held 30 lexical items which were developed out of 5000 most frequent words in English. 15 primed and 15 unprimed lexical items were randomly accommodated in each task. After the visual priming phase and distracting participants’ attention via an unrelated task, the participants were asked to do the implicit memory tasks based on their experimental groups. The results showed that participants gained higher scores on the visually primed lexical items on all implicit tasks. Also, no statistically significant difference was observed between males and females regarding the visual priming effect. Pedagogical implications are finally discussed on the light of the findings.

ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL INTERFERENCES IN THE ORAL COMMUNICATION PRESENTED BY PIBBI PARTICIPANTS

This present study aims to analyse and describe features of L1 interference in oral communication by PIBBI Participants of Level 5 who enrolled in an intensive language program at LTC, SWCU. The data were collected by giving oral tasks when describing something, giving opinion and explaining how things work. A stimulated recall interview proposed by Dornyei (2007) was used to explore the findings in detail. The analysis presents the type of grammatical interferences, the frequency of occurrence of each interference type and their detailed description. Analysis of data revealed that students in high level still experience grammatical interferences in producing Indonesian speech. It is hoped that this study will give a better suggestion for the advanced foreign language learners and provide information for teachers on common interferences in language learning which can be used as a reference in developing the teaching materials.

Foreign Language Writing Fellows Programs: A Model for Improving Advanced Writing Skills

AbstractWithin the growing field of scholarly literature on foreign language (FL) writing pedagogy, few studies have addressed pedagogical questions regarding the teaching of writing to advanced language learners. Writing fellows peer tutoring programs, although typically associated with first language writing instruction, likely can benefit and support advanced language students learning to write in FL contexts. Using a mixed‐methods approach, the authors compared two sections of an upper‐division Portuguese literature class that employed writing fellows tutors with two sections that did not. Data suggest that incorporating writing fellows into FL contexts affected how students learned to write: (1) the papers of students who worked with writing fellows exhibited more developed thought, (2) students who worked with writing fellows employed more successful writing strategies, and (3) students who worked with writing fellows exhibited changes in their writing processes for future writing assignments. These conclusions suggest that the inclusion of peer tutors such as writing fellows may be an effective pedagogical practice for teaching writing to advanced FL learners.

The Nature of Metacognitive Awareness in Foreign Language Learners and Its Interaction with Creativity

Recent evidence suggests that second/foreign language learning and cognitive functions mutually affect each other. In pursuit of an earlier study which asserted the superiority of advanced foreign language learners over beginners in divergent thinking abilities, the present study examined another important cognitive function, i.e., metacognitive awareness in the same participants, that is, two groups of advanced English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and beginners through Schraw and Dennison’s Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. The results revealed that there was no significant difference between the two groups on this measure. However, the correlation analysis showed that the two cognitive functions, i.e., creativity and metacognitive awareness, significantly correlated with each other either in advanced English as a foreign language learners or beginners. The significance of this correlation in language learning programs is further discussed.

Advanced FL learners explaining their writing choices: epistemic attitude as an indicator of problem-solving and strategic knowledge in the on-line revision process

ABSTRACTVerbal protocols are usually used to study cognitive processes involved in various activities, as it is argued that they could make implicit processes of thinking visible and thus reportable. Here, it is proposed that verbalisations can also be approached from another angle, namely as a discourse that contains linguistic markers of writers’ revision activity. This small-scale study explores advanced foreign language (FL) writers’ choices during an on-line revision activity in a test environment. The starting point is the writers’ focus on certain phases in this activity that are signalled by the Finnish cognitive verbs meaning to think, combined with the linguistic marking of epistemic attitude during the revision processes. In these revision contexts, the writers explained how they solved problems related to their previously written texts. They revised problematic linguistic forms and functions both at the micro and macro levels on the basis of their strategic knowledge. The analysis showed that two types of revision activity were signalled by the epistemic attitude: change and pause in the process. Furthermore, contrary to a previous research study, the writers often appeared to focus on meaning-based problems related to lexical choices, which, however, were accompanied by hesitation and doubt regarding the correct choice. Moreover, the advanced writers showed strategic knowledge during the revision process, as they used several strategies that were occasionally accompanied by implicit reasoning for decision-making.

Televised Whorf: Cognitive Restructuring in Advanced Foreign Language Learners as a Function of Audiovisual Media Exposure

ABSTRACTThe encoding of goal‐oriented motion events varies across different languages. Speakers of languages without grammatical aspect (e.g., Swedish) tend to mention motion endpoints when describing events (e.g., “two nuns walk to a house”) and attach importance to event endpoints when matching scenes from memory. Speakers of aspect languages (e.g., English), on the other hand, are more prone to direct attention to the ongoingness of motion events, which is reflected both in their event descriptions (e.g., “two nuns are walking”) and in their nonverbal similarity judgements. This study examines to what extent native speakers (L1) of Swedish (n = 82) with English as a foreign language (FL) restructure their categorisation of goal‐oriented motion as a function of their proficiency and experience with the English language (e.g., exposure, learning history, etc.). Seventeen monolingual native English speakers from the United Kingdom (UK) were recruited for comparison purposes. Data on motion event cognition were collected through a memory‐based triads matching task in which a target scene with an intermediate degree of endpoint orientation was matched with two alternative scenes with low and high degrees of endpoint orientation. Results showed that the preference among the Swedish speakers of FL English to base their similarity judgements on ongoingness rather than event endpoints was correlated with exposure to English in everyday life, such that those who often watched television in English approximated the ongoingness preference of the English native speakers. These findings suggest that event cognition patterns may be restructured through exposure to FL audiovisual media. The results add to the emerging picture that learning a new language entails learning new ways of observing and reasoning about reality.

Second-Language Learners’ Identification of Target-Language Phonemes: A Short-Term Phonetic Training Study

Abstract: This study examined the effect of short-term high-variability phonetic training on the perception of English /b/, /v/, /d/, /ð/, /æ/, /#_x028C_#/, /i/, and /i/ by Catalan/Spanish bilinguals learning English as a foreign language. Sixteen English-major undergraduates were tested before and after undergoing a four-session perceptual training program involving a series of discrimination and identification tasks. Although some scores were already high at pre-test, there was improvement from pre-test to post-test, and this improvement generalized to novel words and a novel talker. An effect of word frequency was observed, but this effect was found to decrease after training. The results show that relatively advanced foreign-language learners in an instructional setting may improve in perception as a result of short-term high-variability phonetic training. The implications of these findings for the teaching of pronunciation are discussed.

University Level EFL Students’ Self Blogging to Enhance Writing Efficacy

In the field of foreign language education, Web 2.0 technologies put forward new scopes for both teachers and students. Among these technologies, blogs have a remarkable place since they provide teachers and learners with new horizons. Among the three types of blogging which are tutor blog, learner blog and class blog ( Campbell, 2003 ), self-blogging and its role on the writing- efficacy of learners in writing have received the least attention in research. The present study aims to investigate the impact of self-blogging on the writing efficacy levels of university level advanced foreign language learners. Data for the study came from writing-efficacy scale (Yavuz-Erkan and İflazoğlu-Saban, 2011) and the semi-structured interviews with the participants. The results and the implications were discussed in the following sections.

Emotive communication online: A contextual analysis of computer-mediated communication (CMC) cues

More than any other feature, computer-mediated communication (CMC) cues such as emoticons and other typographic markers are associated with digital communication, including text-based chat. Using transcripts from college classroom discussions, this study adopts a pragmatic perspective to analyze how advanced foreign language learners use CMC cues, including emoticons (“:-)”), nonstandard/multiple punctuation (“…”, “!!!”), and lexical surrogates (“hmmm”) in a quasi-synchronous computer-mediated consensus-building discussion. Rather than taking form-meaning pairings for granted (e.g., smiley “:)” means “happy”), I adopt a microanalytic approach to show systematic, empirically grounded correlations between CMC cues and their interpretations in different contexts. I argue that the results must be interpreted and viewed alongside the large body of research on emotive communication in offline modes to better understand the pragmatics of online relational work.

Phonetics Learning Anxiety – Results of a Preliminary Study

The main aim of this paper is to verify the assumption that pronunciation learning during a course of phonetics is hindered by the feeling of anxiety (Phonetics Learning Anxiety) experienced by foreign language (FL) learners studying English as their major at universities or colleges. A study carried out among 32 students of the School of English at Wroclaw University (Poland) revealed a significant negative correlation of moderate strength between the subjects’ level of Phonetics Learning Anxiety (PhLA) and their attainments on pronunciation tests (sentence, passage and word reading) conducted after a 45-hour (30x90-minute lessons) course of practical phonetics. The detrimental effect of PhLA on pronunciation learning was further supported by t-tests, in which the pronunciation of high anxiety subjects was found to be at a significantly lower level than that of low anxiety students. The Phonetics Learning Anxiety Scale, a 44-item questionnaire based on a 6-point Likert scale, designed for the purpose of the research sheds light on the nature of this peculiar type of apprehension experienced by advanced FL learners in a specific educational context (i.e. a traditional classroom, rather than a language or computer laboratory), in which the major focus is on pronunciation practice. The obtained quantitative data imply that such factors as fear of negative evaluation (represented by general oral performance apprehension and concern over pronunciation mistakes, pronunciation self-image, pronunciation self-efficacy and self-assessment) and beliefs about the nature of FL pronunciation learning are significant sources of PhLA. Anxiety about the transcription test (IPA Test Anxiety) - one of the other hypothetical determinants of PhLA - did not prove to be correlated with the general level of Phonetics Learning Anxiety.

Critically minded podcasts: An interactive curriculum

In an effort to improve intermediate and advanced foreign language learners’ critical thinking skills regarding the understanding of argumentative and persuasive passages without taking up excessive class time, podcast delivered content and text reconstruction exercises were introduced. However, the challenge of implementing these additions into the syllabus in such a way that content delivered outside the classroom remained relevant to what occurred in the classroom was considerable. In order to maintain cohesion between out-of-class and in-class experiences, text reconstruction exercises were designed to raise learner awareness of explicit podcast content. While the authors found that the increased learner involvement made up for the limitations of the software, the design and implementation of these exercises raised some interesting questions regarding software inflexibility, its use, and the rationale behind the location of text-breaks.

Process analytical approach to translation and implications for translations teaching

The considerations which will be made in this paper can be located within the newly established field of translation process analysis (cf.Gerloff 1988; Jääskeläinen 1990; Krings 1986; Lörscher 1991; Séguinot 1989; Tirkkonen-Condit 1991). They are based on a research project which I have been carrying out since 1983. The aim of this project is to analyze psycholinguistically translation performance as contained in a corpus of orally produced translations from German into English and vice versa. This is done in order to reconstruct translation strategies. These underlie translation performance, operate within the translation process, and are thus not open to direct inspection. In the first stage of the project, translation processes of advanced foreign language learners were investigated.

Effects of multimedia annotations on incidental vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of advanced learners of english as a foreign language

The study investigates immediate and delayed effects of different hypermedia glosses on incidental vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of advanced foreign language learners. Sixty-nine freshman TEFL students studying at a Turkish university were randomly assigned to three types of annotations: (a) definitions of words, (b) definitions coupled with associated pictures, and (c) definitions coupled with associated short videos. Subjects were asked to read an annotated text with the intention of comprehension. The data were collected through a vocabulary pre-test, a vocabulary post-test, a delayed vocabulary test as well as a reading comprehension test. In order to measure incidental vocabulary learning, subjects were not told that they were going to be given vocabulary tests. Results showed that the groups that had access to definitions along with both types of visuals had significantly higher vocabulary scores on both immediate and delayed post-tests than the definition only group. However, no differences were observed on the reading comprehension test. Finally, the qualitative data revealed that hypermedia reading had positive impact on participants’ attitudes towards foreign language reading and vocabulary learning.

Ethnographic preparation for short-term study and residence in the target culture

This article focuses on the central role of ethnography in an experiential language and cultural immersion program for Hong Kong English majors. At their home institution, the students were introduced to the theory and practice of this mode of research. Through weekly tasks and debriefing sessions, they honed the skills of participant observation, note-taking, reflexive interviewing, data analysis, and report-writing. Using the tools of ethnographic research, the students conducted a project to explore a sub-culture (e.g. the discourse and culture of Mahjong players, the life of a Filipino amah (maid) in a Chinese family). Then, during a 5-week stay in England, the students investigated a cultural scene of their choice (e.g. their homestay). In both settings, their responses to ethnographic preparation and fieldwork were carefully monitored, revealing that this approach encouraged them to take a more active role in the world around them; most became more conscious of the uniqueness of their own culture and developed an understanding and appreciation of other worldviews. The author highlights the benefits and challenges involved with preparing advanced foreign language learners to undertake ethnographic research, as one means of enhancing their language skills, intercultural awareness, and personal growth in short-term study abroad programs.

Critical Language Awareness: Key Principles for a Course in Critical Reading

This paper will examine some key principles of Critical Language Awareness with reference to a class on Critical Reading which was taught to advanced foreign language learners. The paper will argue that CLA needs to be located within Critical Pedagogy, and that Critical Pedagogy is typically conceptualised around three major principles. They are, respectively, teaching as emancipatory, difference-orientated and oppositional. Some applications and implications of these principles will then be questioned on the grounds that they, first, position Critical Pedagogy as a marginalised project; second, that they overstate the importance of a confrontational stance to establishment discourse. The final part of the paper will examine the extent to which the rationale of the Critical Reading course addressed the need to develop a different understanding of critical pedagogy: one which values commonality rather than difference and resistance rather than opposition and which aims to bring Critical Pedagogy into the mainstream.