Authentic Spoken Research Articles

Integrating Socio Cultural Theory and Bloom’s Taxonomy to Overcome Xenoglossophobia and Anxiety in English Language Speaking in Sri Lankan Undergraduates

The importance of knowing a second or a foreign language today has become a pivotal factor with regard to education, travel, trade, business, information, communication and most importantly to acquire a recognizable occupation. Even so, obtaining a job related to a graduate’s educational background in the Sri Lankan context at present, is a challenging task. Having realized this, the local government of Sri Lanka have been taking measures in teaching English at local government schools from Grade 3 onwards since 1950’s. Nonetheless, even by the time the Sri Lankan local government school children enter university after engaging in English language learning for over a decade and subsequent to Ordinary and Advanced level examinations, their English-speaking skills stand at a marginal level with traits of xenoglossophbia and anxiety. Thus, the aim of the study is to find out the main factors that influence xenoglossophobia and suggest strategies to overcome them. A sample of 32 Engineering undergraduates from the first year of General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) was selected based on purposive sampling technique. The selection process was performed based on an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). After having exposed the students to a teaching process for 15 academic weeks, they were re-administered through a post-OPI. The lesson plans were set according to Blooms Taxonomy knowledge-based objectives. Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT) was incorporated when designing the lessons. Data was analyzed via a mixed approach. The findings revealed that the students had increased motivation and confidence to speak English as they were exposed to a gradual process of self-autonomy. Paving way for authentic speaking opportunities via Task Based Activities (TBA) and making students aware of the importance of English language communication for employment purposes from school levels is highly important. Further, teacher, learning environment and material play a considerable role in motivating language learners while self-negativity is a main reason for the majority to possess xenoglossophobia which adversely affects their future employability.

The Role of Vlog Project in Facilitating Authentic Speaking Assessment

To date, video blog (vlog) has been identified as a convenient learning tool to develop learners’ speaking skill. In language assessment, especially speaking, vlog has met the criteria for assessing learners’ speaking skill authentically since it provides real-life situations in the process of creating the video. This study aimed at investigating how vlog facilitates authentic assessment in measuring students’ speaking skill. This study is guided under a descriptive qualitative method using interview guidelines to collect the data and observation checklist in analysing the data. Two lecturers and six tertiary students from spoken English class were involved. The findings illustrate that the vlog project has acquired the criteria of authenticity of a speaking assessment as well as students’ preference in speaking assessment. The vlog project, therefore, can be advantageous media to assess students’ speaking skills authentically.

The development of an authentic speaking material of ESP for basic English learners

Basic Instructional Speaking materials of English for Business Management plays important role in teaching learning process for Economic College in order that the education goal as stipulated in National Framework Curriculum (KKNI) could be achieved. The ability to use English in oral communication is the communicative goal. In fact, there have been many Higher Educations such as Economic College does not provide reliable instructional materials which are based on students‘ needs and industrial needs. Even the materials are not relevant to the students‘ Department. However, since there has no many ESP books and researches done due to this issue, this research was eventually carried out and the final product is to grand a basic instructional material of ESP for Economic Students. The data analyses were through interview and questionnaires to the first grade students of Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Sampit. The results indicated the students are considered as basic learners of English who need appropriate materials as per their level ability. Therefore, instructional materials for Business English especially for basic learners who want to speak English for Business needs are hardly needed in STIE Sampit.

Border troubles. Some uncertainties of legal transfer

AbstractIssues of production, translation and transformation of texts are explored in the light of the differences between modern Western legal thought and Chinese views of legal rationality. Contemporary Chinese culture is often viewed with suspicion. On the one hand, Chinese thinking is mistrusted as influenced by the Confucian world view regarded as deeply irrational. On the other hand, China’s economical practises are often suspected of mere reproducing and copying. This paper is concerned neither with alleged or factual deficiencies of China’s legal rationality nor with violations of “intellectual property” or other rights or the governmental policies of the People’s Republic of China. My interest is the fact that accusation and concern for the Chinese practises of creation and transformation by copying and cloning seem to hit the nerve of Western modernity’s cult of authenticity. The very problem, the paper suggests, is our modern relation to the other and to the others. I will argue this in three steps: the first part starts from a discussion of ‘shanzhai’, the Chinese neologism pointing to alternative ways of production, before analysing the Western scandalization of plagiarism; drawing upon studies from various disciplines, specific aspects of writing and scripture, such as the the differentiation between real text and fiction, the idea of authentic speaking and the distinction between textual and functional equivalents, are explored. The second part is first about the role of truth and truthfulness in modern Western art and philosophy, then about the interpenetration of wisdom and cunning in ancient Greek and Chinese thought. The final part addresses the relation of reasonable knowledge and instrumental rationality in legal thinking. The Chinese notion of ‘quan’, law, is described as a jurisgenetic path of law. Against this background, open questions associated with legal “transplants” come to the fore.

Curtain Up! Enhancing L2 Spontaneous and Authentic Speaking Opportunities through Play Scripts and Drama-based Approaches

Helping second language (L2) learners to enhance their oral skills is vitally important, and pedagogical approaches are often seen as challenging when offering learners chances to successfully develop them. This article shares the experiences of a class of final-year high-school Italian learners ( n =10) who learned English using theatre plays both as texts combined with drama games (text-based approach) and as a full-scale performance (performance-based approach) within their rather rigid compulsory curriculum. The study was implemented longitudinally over 20 weeks, equally divided between the two approaches, aiming to create a dynamic learning environment which enables students to communicate within a safe open space. A semi-structured questionnaire and follow-up interviews were used in this mixed-methods study in order to gain insights into learners’ perceptions regarding the two approaches in terms of level of control over the language, the extent to which learners were able to communicate, and their feelings of language spontaneity. Findings encourage the use of drama for maximizing L2 spontaneous and authentic speaking opportunities. Implications for research and language teaching are discussed.

The Rensselaer Mandarin Project — A Cognitive and Immersive Language Learning Environment

The Rensselaer Mandarin Project enables a group of foreign language students to improve functional understanding, pronunciation and vocabulary in Mandarin Chinese through authentic speaking situations in a virtual visit to China. Students use speech, gestures, and combinations thereof to navigate an immersive, mixed reality, stylized realism game experience through interaction with AI agents, immersive technologies, and game mechanics. The environment was developed in a black box theater equipped with a human-scale 360◦ panoramic screen (140h, 200r), arrays of markerless motion tracking sensors, and speakers for spatial audio.

A Corpus-Based Analysis of V2 Variation in West Flemish and French Flemish Dialects

This paper explores V2 variation in West Flemish and French Flemish dialects of Dutch based on an extensive corpus of authentic spoken data. After taking stock of the existing literature, we probe into the effect of region, prosodic integration, form and function of the topicalized constituent, form of the subject, and the number of constituents in the prefield on (non)inverted word order. This is the first study that carries out regression analysis on the combined impact of these variables in the entire West Flemish and French Flemish region, with additional visualization of effect sizes. The results show that noninversion is generally more widespread than originally anticipated, with unexpected higher occurrence of noninversion in continental West Flemish and lower frequencies in western West Flemish. With the exception of the variable number of constituents in the prefield, all other variables had a significant impact on word order: Clausal topicalized elements, elements that have peripheral functions, and elements that lack prosodic integration all favor noninverted word order. The form of the subject also impacted word order, but its effect is sometimes overruled by discourse considerations.

A Frequency Analysis of Delexical Verb get in Listening Transcripts of English Textbooks and Authentic Spoken Data

A Frequency Analysis of Delexical Verb get in Listening Transcripts of English Textbooks and Authentic Spoken Data

Language assessment literacy for language learning-oriented assessment

This paper reflects on the findings of a small-scale and exploratory study which attempted to explore whether and how learning-oriented assessment opportunities might be revealed in, or inserted into formal speaking tests, order to provide language assessment literacy opportunities for language teachers teaching in test preparation courses as well as teachers training to become speaking test raters. Hamp-Lyons and Green (2014) closely studied a set of authentic speaking test video samples from the Cambridge: First (First Certificate of English) speaking test, in order to learn whether, and where, learning-oriented behaviours could be encouraged or added to interlocutors’ behaviours, without disrupting the required reliability and validity of the test. We paid particular attention to some basic components of effective interaction that we would want an examiner or interlocutor to exhibit if they seek to encourage interactive responses from test candidates: body language (in particular eye contact; intonation, pacing and pausing); management of turn-taking and elicitation of candidate-candidate interaction. We call this shift in focus to view tests as learning opportunities learning-oriented language assessment (LOLA).

A Settlement of the Relative Honorific Speech Level for Korean Language Education Materials, and Authentic Spoken Language

A Settlement of the Relative Honorific Speech Level for Korean Language Education Materials, and Authentic Spoken Language

Attributive clauses in Danish – and the relative irrelevance of relative clauses

This paper discusses criteria for distinguishing attributive (also known as adjectival) clauses and relative clauses, and argues that traditional approaches to these subclause categories and their interrelation lack consistency as well as empirical justification, from a modern Scandinavian perspective. Relative clauses are traditionally and in current Scandinavian reference grammars treated as a formally defined clause type with the attributive function as their prototypical, but not their only, constituent function. In this paper it is argued that the traditional criteria for identifying relative clauses, especially in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are essentially not formal but functional criteria, more or less identical to those applied to identify attributive clauses. Indeed, the modern Scandinavian languages, it is argued, hardly offer the empirical basis for a coherent category of relative clauses to be consistently distinguished on formal criteria. Rather, to account for the heterogeneous inventory of subclauses traditionally associated with relative clauses, a general outline of the functional category of attributive clauses in Danish is proposed, based on authentic spoken and written Danish discourse. Traditional definitions of attributive clauses are discussed and refined, and are shown to apply to a different and wider range of Danish subclause forms than has traditionally been recognised.

Language contact phenomena in the language use of speakers of German descent and the significance of their language attitudes

Within the scope of my investigation on language use and language attitudes of People of German Descent from the USSR, I find almost regular different language contact phenomena, such as viel bliny habn=wir gbackt (engl.: 'we cooked lots of pancakes') (cf. Ries 2011). The aim of analysis is to examine both language use with regard to different forms of language contact and the language attitudes of the observed speakers. To be able to analyse both of these aspects and synthesize them, different types of data are required. The research is based on the following two data types: everyday conversations and interviews. In addition, the individual speakers' biography is a key part of the analysis, because it allows one to draw conclusions about language attitudes and use. This qualitative research is based on morpho-syntactic and interactional linguistic analysis of authentic spoken data. The data arise from a corpus compiled and edited by myself. My being a member of the examined group allowed me to build up an authentic corpus. The natural language use is analysed from the perspective of different language contact phenomena and potential functions of language alternations. One central issue is: How do speakers use the languages available to them, German and Russian? Structural characteristics such as code switching and discursive motives for these phenomena are discussed as results, together with the socio-cultural background of the individual speaker. Within the scope of this article I present exemplarily the data and results of one speaker.

The Usage of Psychological Passives in Spoken and Written English: A Corpus-based Analysis and Implications for English Language Teaching

This article aims to compare conversation data and written data from the BNC regarding the usage of psychological passives (e.g. John was surprised by/at Bill.) in order to understand more thoroughly important differences and similarities and to consider these in relation to ELT in Japan. Despite a gradual shift in ELT toward the communicative approach in Japan, psy-passives continue to be taught by sentence-level rote-learning based on primarily invented written examples. Recent linguistic research has suggested that it is useful to consider authentic spoken and written data when trying to understand linguistic features. Thus, the comparison of spoken and written data regarding the construction was expected to be fruitful for Japanese learners and teachers.

Between Speech and Silence: The Postcolonial Critic and the Idea of Emancipation

The concept of emancipation has an increasingly ambivalent status in postcolonial criticism. Under the influence of poststructuralism, the idea that the subaltern subject might overcome colonial relations of cultural domination through acts of self-representation has been thrown into disrepute. If there is to be emancipation, according to this view, it will not come through the recovery of an authentic speaking subject, but through strategies of ‘strategic essentialism’. Here it is argued that this postructuralist approach leaves the subaltern in a politically pre carious position and should be exchanged for the kind of hermeneutic approach that makes possible a genuine politics of recognition.

Introducing Authentic Spoken Texts in the First Semester Language Class

Certain theories of language acquisition and authentic text structure can inform our introduction of authentic texts in the foreign language classroom. It is, of course, possible to use authentic texts in interlinear translations, choral recitation of texts, memorization and mastery of vocabulary and discrete-point grammar items, and in a linear approach to texts (i.e., beginning with the first word of the text). However, it is also possible to approach such a text as a native speaker would approach an overheard conversation: to understand it and the goals and intentions of the speakers, and to react honestly to the situation and its participants. From that perspective one can then proceed to more in-depth analyses of grammatical, semantic, social, and cultural issues. This paper addresses the latter approach to authentic texts. The first part deals with the theoretical issues underlying the approach, the second with an application of methods based on those issues through the introduction to the language of an authentic conversation.

Exophoric Reference in Beginning Textbooks

One of the phenomena which occurs in authentic spoken texts, i.e., conversations between friends, acquaintances, and even strangers, is exophoric reference, a type of reference which relies solely on the context of situation for meaning. Without the visual depiction of a situation, or without a running commentary accompanying the text, exophoric language cannot be fully understood. Since this phenomenon occurs regularly in spoken texts, but rarely in written ones, a study of its occurrence in beginning textbooks can give some indication of how conscious textbook writers are becoming to the features specific to spoken texts. A more detailed description of exophoric reference follows, together with an analysis of the spoken texts in eight first-year German textbooks.'