Chinese As A Second Language Learners Research Articles

The influence of language contact and ethnic identification on Chinese as a second language learners’ oral proficiency

Abstract Language contact is widely recognized as a factor that can have a significant impact on second language (L2) learners’ oral proficiency. However, the existing literature on this topic lacks consistency regarding the extent to which language contact can affect L2 oral outcomes. To address this issue, the present study investigates the role of ethnic identification as a mediating factor in the context of Chinese as a second language (CSL). By utilizing structural equation models (SEMs), this study reveals that: (1) language contact can directly affect Chinese oral proficiency, with interactive contact having a particular impact on oral fluency; (2) language contact indirectly affects CSL learners’ oral acquisition through ethnic identification, especially in terms of oral complexity and accuracy; and (3) language contact significantly influences ethnic identification. By constructing models that explore the relationships among language contact, ethnic identification, and Chinese oral proficiency, this study contributes to current theories of language contact in the L2 acquisition domain by highlighting the crucial role of ethnic identification.

Noun phrase complexity and second language Chinese proficiency: An analysis of narratives by Korean learners of Chinese

This study examined differences in the overall noun phrase (NP) complexity and the use of specific types of NP modifiers among Korean learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) at different proficiency levels and first language (L1) Chinese speakers. Our data consisted of a corpus of 134 narratives produced by 103 Korean CSL learners (33 beginner, 37 intermediate, and 33 advanced) and 31 L1 Chinese speakers on the same topic. Each narrative was manually analyzed using seven measures of overall NP complexity and 26 measures based on specific types of NP modifiers. Two measures of overall NP complexity (i.e., complex NP ratio and total length of all complex premodifiers) significantly discriminated all learner proficiency levels. The frequency of several types of NP modifiers consistently decreased or increased from lower to higher proficiency levels, while that of several others showed cross-proficiency fluctuations. Advanced learners demonstrated comparable levels of overall NP complexity as well as similar frequency of usage of specific types of NP modifiers as L1 Chinese speakers, with the exception that the latter used significantly more multiple modifiers. Our findings have useful implications for L2 Chinese writing syntactic complexity research and L2 Chinese writing pedagogy.

Perceived teachers’ enthusiasm and willingness to communicate in the online class: The mediating role of learning enjoyment and group interaction for Chinese as a second language

Few previous studies have focused on the effect of online environment factors (teachers’ enthusiasm, group interaction, etc.) on learners’ willingness to communicate in the context of learning Chinese as a second language (CSL). To fill this gap, this study investigated 471 CSL learners (1) to explore the mediating role of online learning enjoyment and perceived group interaction on the perception of teachers’ enthusiasm and willingness to communicate in L2 in online CSL classes; and (2) to clarify whether gender, weekly self-online learning time and learning achievement moderate those relations. A moderated mediation structural equation model with good fitness revealed that both perceived group interaction and online learning enjoyment fully mediated the relationship between perceived teachers’ enthusiasm and willingness to communicate in L2, with perceived group interaction being a more vital mediator than learning enjoyment. The results illustrated that the structural mediating relationships significantly differ across genders, weekly self-learning times, and learners with different learning achievements. The findings advance the understanding of the pyramid model of willingness to communicate in online L2 learning and provide significant pedagogical implications.

Motivational Dynamics of Intermediate Chinese Learners in a COVID-Induced Remote IPA-Informed CSL Curriculum: A Case Study From a CDST Lens

Abstract Grounded in a complex and dynamic systems theory (CDST) perspective of L2 learning motivation, this year-long longitudinal study examines evolving motivational dynamics of two intermediate Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) learners at a Sino-US joint-venture university in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting Higgins’ framework of motivation, this case study focuses on the interplay of learner motivation for value, control, and truth effectiveness and contextual factors in shaping the contrastive motivational trajectories of two CSL learners who displayed discrepancy in the improvement of Mandarin oral proficiency. In particular, the two contextual factors of interest are an Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) -informed CSL curriculum and COVID-induced remote online learning. We focus on how learners co-adapted with the “here-and-now” manifestations of these contextual factors and how their motivational dynamics and learning behaviors evolved based on multiple interrelated layers of the temporal-spatial context. The findings show that CSL learners’ motivational dynamics were shaped by multiple overlapping and interrelated motivations related to value, control, and truth effectiveness, which emerged out of the contingencies and affordances in the learning context. The learner-context co-adaptations play a significant role in directing relevant motivational dimensions and thereby shaping the overall identity of the whole system. This empirical study contributes to CSL and L2 motivational studies by exploring the applicability of a CDST approach and a global motivational framework to study intermediate CSL learners’ motivational dynamics and how they individually co-adapted with an innovative curricular design and the perturbance during the COVID-19 online teaching and learning process. The paper reflects on the effectiveness and applicability of IPA in an intermediate-level CSL curriculum from a motivational perspective and offers insights into understanding and promoting the complex learner motivation during COVID-19 for language educators.

Research on the Role of an Automatic Resource Generation System to Promote Chinese as a Second Language Learners’ Learning in Colleges

Chinese as a second language (CSL) learning has attracted more attention and supporting learners with adaptive resources becomes difficult. Some online systems recommended pre-designed resources from existing databases while the resources could not match learners’ context. Designing resources dynamically according to learners’ needs could be a solution while it’s time-consuming. Targeting this problem, we proposed a “content-structure” loosely coupled model. Based on the model, we developed an automatic resource generation system and used it in a university. One class was chosen and the students were randomly assigned to the experimental (22 students) and control group (21 students). They participated in the course all the same except the resources generation method. During the learning process, the online behaviors were recorded for behavioral analysis and the learners’ learning outcome and perceptions were measured by tests and questionnaires. Results showed that the system played positive roles in improving learners’ learning outcome and perceptions. Moreover, we found that learners in experimental group participated more actively and there’s evidence that the system could help learners better reflect on their needs. The results revealed the effectiveness of the system in supporting CSL learners’ contextualized learning. This design will provide inspiration for future context-aware CSL learning research.

Promoting foundational linguistic skills for reading development in young Chinese language learners: A 1‐year intervention study

BackgroundUsing a 1‐year longitudinal design, we evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention programme to improve reading attainments among Chinese‐as‐a‐second‐language (CSL) learners. Using the simple view of reading as a theoretical framework, the intervention focused on students' orthographic knowledge, word reading and listening comprehension to facilitate reading comprehension.MethodA total of 186 Grade 4 CSL students (mean age = 9.22, SD = 0.56) participated in the study and were grouped into the treatment (N = 96) and control (N = 90) groups. A range of Chinese language and literacy skills were assessed before and after the intervention.ResultsThe path analysis showed that the intervention significantly affected orthographic knowledge, word reading and listening comprehension directly and reading comprehension indirectly through the three componential skills after controlling for nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary and autoregressors.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that orthographic knowledge, word reading and listening comprehension may be promising targets for instructing young CSL learners.

Eye movements of second language learners when reading spaced and unspaced Chinese texts.

Unlike English, Chinese does not have interword spacing in written texts, which poses difficulties for Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) learners' identification of word boundaries and affects their reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. The eye-movement literature has suggested that interword spacing is important in alphabetic languages; examining languages that lack interword spaces such as Chinese, thus, may help to inform theoretical accounts of eye-movement control and word identification during reading. Research investigating the interword spacing effect in reading Chinese showed that adding spacing facilitated CSL learners' reading comprehension and speed as well as vocabulary learning. However, the bulk of this research mainly looked at the learning outcomes (off-line measures), with few studies focusing on L2 learners' reading processes. Building on this background, this study seeks to provide a descriptive perspective of the eye movements of CSL learners. In this study, 24 CSL learners with intermediate Chinese proficiency were recruited as the experimental group, and 20 Chinese native speakers were recruited as the control group. The EyeLink 1,000 eye tracker was used to record their reading of four segmentation conditions of Chinese texts, namely, no space condition, word-spaced condition, non-word-spaced condition, and pinyin-spaced condition. Results show that: (1) CSL learners with intermediate Chinese proficiency generally spent less time reading Chinese texts with spaces between words, and they showed more gazes and regressions when reading texts without spaces; (2) Non-word-spaced texts and Pinyin-spaced texts interfere with CSL learners' reading process; and (3) Intermediate CSL learners show consistent eye movement patterns in the normal no-space condition and word-spaced condition. I conclude that word boundary information can effectively guide CSL learners' eye movement behaviors and eye saccade planning, thus improving reading efficiency.

The interaction of orthography, phonology and semantics in the process of second language learners' Chinese character production.

Theories of connectionism emphasize the mappings of orthography, phonology, and semantics in the process of word recognition and production. Chinese has a logographic writing system, which is markedly different from alphabetic languages. The current study investigated how orthography, phonology, and semantics contribute to Chinese character production among Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners. This study collected 33,856 Chinese characters in a sample of 2,116 CSL learners with 7 diverse L1s. ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of Chinese character error type on 7 L1s and three Chinese proficiency levels. The results of ANOVA revealed that successful CSL learners' Chinese character production was derived from connections between orthography, semantics, and phonology. Semantics, especially the orthography-semantics connection, was the key point for production skills. Furthermore, connectionist models of languages rather than language distance affected production. These findings indicate that Chinese character production is associated with not only orthographic knowledge but also representation mechanisms of orthography, phonology, and semantics between different language writing systems. The results contribute to a better understanding of literacy skills in CSL learners. Future research could further address how CSL learners transform perceptive skills into production skills and the correlation between reading and writing skills by examining and controlling other important cognitive variables.

Linguistic distances between native languages and Chinese influence acquisition of Chinese character, vocabulary, and grammar.

How linguistic distance affects second language acquisition is a major concern in cross-language transfer research. However, no study has explored how systematic differences between Chinese and learners' native language (L1) influences Chinese character, vocabulary, and grammar acquisition, or how these influences change as Chinese proficiency improves. To address this, we employed the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) index method to multidimensionally quantify the linguistic distance between Chinese and L1, and examined the effect of systematic linguistic distance on acquisition of Chinese character (Quasi-Experiment 1), vocabulary (Quasi-Experiment 2), and grammatical knowledge (Quasi-Experiment 3) in Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners with elementary, intermediate, and advanced Chinese proficiency levels. We examined a random sample of 58,240 CSL learners' test scores from 24 different L1 backgrounds, and analyzed 2,250 CSL learners' Chinese character, vocabulary, and grammar scores in each of the three quasi-experiments. We found that closer linguistic distance facilitated more favorable Chinese character and vocabulary acquisition at elementary, intermediate, and advanced Chinese proficiency levels, and that the influence of linguistic distance on CSL learners' vocabulary acquisition tended to decrease as Chinese proficiency increased. Finally, linguistic difference did not significantly affect CSL learners' grammar acquisition at elementary proficiency, but as Chinese proficiency improved, an L1 interference effect occurred among CSL learners with a short linguistic distance from Chinese, which hindered grammar acquisition. These results suggest that linguistic distance has differential proficiency-dependent effects on Chinese character, vocabulary, and grammar acquisition.

A two-case study on CSL learners’ agency in classroom settings from the perspective of language socialization

Abstract Examining the learner agency expressed by two learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL), the current two-case study was conducted from the perspective of language socialization. Qualitative data have been collected through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis reveals that the two cases in the current study exhibited eight forms of learner agency in their CSL learning, including self-determination, self-motivation, self-regulation, participation, cooperation, negotiation, hesitancy and resistance. In addition, learner agency observed in the two cases is constantly mediated by multiple sociocultural factors in specific contexts of CSL socialization. The results of the current study imply the socioculturally mediated essence of learner agency and suggest that learner agency develops through a temporal course and is constrained by social structures.

Lexical Orthographic Knowledge Mediates the Relationship Between Character Reading and Reading Comprehension Among Learners With Chinese as a Second Language.

Reading in Chinese is complex because readers should not only recognize characters by basic units (i.e., characters) but also integrate characters into words when reading text. While many efforts have been devoted to investigating the effect of sub-lexical orthographic knowledge in Chinese character reading, less is known about the role played by lexical orthographic knowledge at word level. A total of 424 secondary learners with Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Hong Kong were assessed with character reading, reading comprehension, and two lexical orthographic knowledge tasks: lexical orthographic choice (OKC) and lexical orthographic choice in context (OKCC). Path analysis results demonstrated that these lexical orthographic skills significantly mediated the effect of character reading on comprehension, in which OKCC was a more critical mediator as its mediating effect was bigger than that of OKC. Further analyses showed that these mediating effects were significant only among students with richer learning experience (i.e., learning Chinese for 4 years or above). Our results illustrate the possible trajectory of CSL learners’ literacy development from character reading to reading comprehension and provide pedagogical implications for teaching and learning.

A Comparative Study of Three Measurement Methods of Chinese Character Recognition for L2 Chinese Learners.

Measuring Chinese character recognition ability is essential in research on character learning among learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL). Three methods are typically used to evaluate character recognition competence by investigating the following properties of a given character: (a) pronunciation (phonological method), (b) meaning (semantic method), and (c) pronunciation and meaning (phonological and semantic or PS method). However, no study has explored the similar or dissimilar outcomes that these three measurements might yield. The current study examined this issue by testing 162 CSL learners with various L1 backgrounds and Chinese proficiency levels. Participants' performance in character recognition measured using a phonological method, a semantic method, and a PS method was compared, which led to two major findings. In terms of similarity, participants' performance in character recognition and the influence of L1 background and Chinese proficiency level on character recognition was similar across the three methods. As for differences, the semantic method could yield a character recognition test with better quality than the other two methods, and the three methods yielded different best fitting models and showed different predictions for Chinese proficiency across different L1 groups. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are proposed.

Exploring Relationships Between L2 Chinese Character Writing and Reading Acquisition From Embodied Cognitive Perspectives: Evidence From HSK Big Data.

Chinese characters are central to understanding how learners learn to read a logographic script. However, researchers know little about the role of character writing in reading Chinese as a second language (CSL). Unlike an alphabetic script, a Chinese character symbol transmits semantic information and is a cultural icon bridging embodied experience and text meaning. As a unique embodied practice, writing by hand contributes to cognitive processing in Chinese reading. Therefore, it is essential to clarify how Chinese character writing (bodily activity), language distance (past language usage), and cultural background (bodily coupling with the environment) influence CSL reading proficiency. Based on extant research on L2 reading acquisition and strength of key theoretical perspectives of embodied cognition theory (ECT), this study tested a regression model for CSL reading involving individual-level factors (Chinese character writing proficiency [CCWP]) and group-level predictors (language distance and cultural background). This study collected big data in a sample of 74,362 CSL learners with 67 diverse L1s. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed a significant effect of CCWP and significant language distance × CCWP interaction effect on reading proficiency; however, cultural background × CCWP interaction effect was not significant. These results conform to the ECT and indicate that bodily activity, past language usage, and cultural background aided reading. CCWP may benefit from withstanding the negative transfer from L1s. Furthermore, CCWP and cultural background are not synergistic predictors of reading. This study may open novel avenues for explorations of CSL reading development.

A Positive Psychology Perspective on Positive Emotion and Foreign Language Enjoyment Among Chinese as a Second Language Learners Attending Virtual Online Classes in the Emergency Remote Teaching Context Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This study adopted a positive psychology perspective to investigate positive emotion and foreign language enjoyment among Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners in an emergency remote teaching (ERT) context amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A set of 90 preparatory Chinese language students (40 males and 50 females) was assessed for their level of foreign language enjoyment using the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (FLES). Participles' scores on self-perceived language achievement and actual test scores were adopted as the measurement of their Chinese language proficiency. The results revealed that: (1) CSL learners experienced high level of FL enjoyment in an online learning context, (2) no significant correlation was found between FLE and leaners' actual language achievement nor between FLE and their self-perceived achievement, (3) female learners showed higher FLE than male learners and gender was found to have a significant effect on FLE-Private, (4) participants' geological location, i.e., whether in China or at home countries, significantly influenced their FLE, (5) participants' regional group was not a significant predictor of FLE, and (6) teacher-related variables and learner self-perceptions of achievement were strong predictors of FLE among CSL learners. The findings highlight the importance of teacher's role in an online learning environment and suggest that FLE may not boost performance in the short term for language beginners but is still conducive in the long run. Implications for both teachers and learners, and suggestions for future researches are provided.

Pragmatic Competence and Willingness to Communicate Among L2 Learners of Chinese.

Research in second language (L2) pragmatics has paid increasing attention to learners’ individual differences, but few studies have examined the relationship between learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in L2 and their pragmatic competence. To this end, this study investigates the association between WTC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension of Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners. A total of 80 CSL learners studying abroad in three universities in China participated in this study. Data were collected through a WTC questionnaire, a self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) questionnaire, a pragmatic awareness judgment task, and a multiple-choice test for pragmatic comprehension. Statistical analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between the learners’ pragmatic awareness and pragmatic comprehension on the one hand and their WTC and SPCC in L2 on the other. The findings indicated that SPCC correlated positively with the learners’ L2 pragmatic comprehension, but not with their L2 pragmatic awareness. No correlation was found between WTC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension. The results suggest that SPCC may contribute to learners’ L2 pragmatic comprehension; some implications for teaching and future research directions are also discussed.

How do Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners acquire orthographic knowledge: component, structure and position regularity

Learning Chinese characters could be challenging for many CSL learners due to the distinction in orthographic features between the Chinese written system and their first languages. While acquisition of orthographic knowledge could be important for learning Chinese characters, how they can gain knowledge about different aspects of Chinese orthography (i.e. component, structure and position regularity) remains less studied. The component is a basic perceptual constituent of Chinese characters, the character structure is the configuration layout formed by relative positions of components. Many components are supposed to follow the implicit position regularity rule when they are integrated to form characters. In this study, a total of 213 CSL students in Hong Kong were invited to complete three tasks measuring students’ component knowledge, structural knowledge, and position regularity knowledge. It has been found that overall CSL students’ performance in these tasks seemed to be affected by character structures. Furthermore, we found that component knowledge had an indirect effect on position regularity knowledge via the mediation of structural knowledge, which showed a possible link about how learners gradually understand complex orthographic rules based on the perceptual observation. Implications for the teaching and learning of the Chinese language were also discussed.

Effects of Word Semantic Transparency, Context Length, and L1 Background on CSL Learners' Incidental Learning of Word Meanings in Passage-Level Reading.

This study investigated the effects of semantic transparency of Chinese disyllabic compound words on Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners' incidental learning of word meanings in sentence-level reading and passage-level reading. The accuracy of the learners' lexical inferencing was compared among various types of words (transparent, semi-transparent, and opaque words), different context lengths (sentence and passage contexts), and learners with different L1 backgrounds (with and without a Chinese character background in their L1s). In the study, ninety CSL adult learners were asked to infer the meanings of target words in the sentence context and the passage context. The results indicated that the effects of semantic transparency and context length on inferencing accuracy were significant, while the effect of L1 background was not. It was also found that there were significant interactions between transparency and context length as well as between transparency and L1 background.

The acquisition of conceptual metaphors in Mandarin Chinese

AbstractThis study aimed to determine whether learners of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) could more easily acquire Mandarin metaphors in vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension, and essay writing tasks after enhancing their metaphor awareness. Experiment 1 divided CSL participants into three groups and received three types of instructions on metaphors. The results showed that there was no effect of enhanced metaphor awareness across the three kinds of instructions in the vocabulary, reading, and writing tasks, while a marginally significant effect of enhanced metaphor awareness in the writing task. Experiment 2 aimed to determine whether the discourse-based or the sentence-based presentation of metaphorical expressions would affect the CSL learners’ writing performance. The results showed that the paragraph group achieved significantly higher writing scores and frequency of metaphors produced compared with the sentence group. And, the paragraph group produced more new and creative metaphors in their essays compared with the sentence group. To conclude, the two experiments demonstrated that enhancing the CSL learners’ metaphor awareness was beneficial in the writing tasks, but not in the vocabulary and reading tasks. Furthermore, when the metaphorical expressions were presented in discourse to facilitate the connection of semantic relationships between metaphors, this resulted in more coherent essays. This study has practical implications for CSL teachers designing classroom activities involving the learning of Chinese metaphors.

Learning Chinese as a second language in China: Positive emotions and enjoyment

Exploring language learners’ emotions and their role in facilitating language learning in different contexts has become the focus of much research in recent years. This present mixed-method study investigated the language learning enjoyment of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) learners studying in Chinese universities. A corpus of 216 international students, mostly from Africa and Asia, participated in a questionnaire survey and 20 of them were invited to take part in follow-up interviews. Analysis of the survey data revealed a distinct three-factor structure underlying CSL learners’ language learning enjoyment: Personal Fulfillment, Interpersonal Relations and Social Bonds. Personal Fulfillment was found to exert a significant direct effect on CSL learners’ language learning enjoyment while the other two factors played an indirect role. This was well supported by the qualitative data from the follow-up interviews. The findings suggest that the structure of learners’ language learning enjoyment may vary in different contexts but for CSL learners in China, especially for these adult CSL learners, a sense of fulfillment is the most effective booster for their learning enjoyment. Implications of the findings provide a better understanding of teaching CSL learners in China.

Interacting with native speakers of Chinese through online learning communities: A case study with East Asian learners

Abstract Online language learning communities play an important role in providing learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) with access to authentic language opportunities to communicate with native speakers of Chinese. However, few studies have examined CSL learners’ self-initiated naturalistic interactions with native speakers of Chinese on such platforms. This current study aims at filling this research gap by examining five East Asia CSL adult learners’ interactions with native speakers of Chinese in an informal learning context on an instruction-oriented social-networking based learning community. Adopting Henri’s (1992) analytic framework to understand the interactions between online learners from both cognitive and social dimensions, it finds that different types of interactions with native speakers of Chinese influenced learners’ differently. The study provides suggestions to CSL teachers as well as educational technology designers on how to maximize the benefits of online learning communities for CSL learners in their informal language learning beyond the classroom.