Chinese Learners Research Articles

Effectiveness Analysis of IELTS and HSK Test Based on SVM in the Development of English Writing Ability

As China develops and grows, there are an increasing number of Chinese language learners worldwide, and Chinese learners are becoming more and more interested in the Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). The Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK) is also continuously evolving and improving. After more than 20 years of development, it has gradually been recognized by Chinese language learners at home and abroad. However, due to the short launch time, the existence of deficiencies is inevitable. But the IELTS exam was introduced in China in 1987 and has since amassed a wealth of knowledge and practice. Its framework is similar to HSK, so it can be used for HSK propositions and tests. One of the most challenging aspects of teaching Chinese is writing which involves the writing of Chinese characters, most Chinese learners have difficulty in writing. This paper mainly compares the test design and content in the writing part between HSK and IELTS, analyzes the effectiveness of the writing part of HSK, and puts forward some reference suggestions for the future writing test proposition and implementation of HSK.

Engagement and willingness to communicate in the L2 classroom: identifying the latent profiles and their relationships with achievement emotions

ABSTRACT Engagement and willingness to communicate (WTC) are crucial elements for second language (L2) learning. However, little is written about whether L2 learners demonstrate heterogeneous patterns of engagement and WTC in the classroom. This study aims to identify intraindividual differences in these two constructs and examine the roles of eight achievement emotions in predicting these profiles. To this end, 607 Chinese college L2 learners were recruited to complete three valid scales. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) using Mplus 8.7 revealed a four-profile solution: high engagement-low engagement (C1: 26.85%), moderate engagement-moderate WTC (C2: 48.11%), moderate engagement-low WTC (C3: 14.83%), and low engagement-low WTC (C4: 10.21%). Multinomial logistic regression analyses revealed that negative achievement emotions did not predict these profiles, whereas positive ones did. Particularly, enjoyment was a positive predictor for all profiles, with a decreasing order of impact (C1 > C2 > C3 > C4). Hope did not differentiate between C1 and C2 but showed a decreasing influence on the subsequent profiles (C1 = C2 > C3 > C4). Lastly, pride was a significant predictor only for C4 (C1 = C2 = C3 > C4). This study also discusses the theoretical and pedagogical implications and suggests directions for future research.

A Comparative Study on the Lexical Collocations in Academic Discourse by International Scholars and Chinese EFL Learners

Lexical collocations are essential in academic English and present considerable challenges for L2 learners. This study compiled three text corpora: one from academic written texts published in top international linguistics journals, and the others from MA theses and doctoral dissertations of Chinese college students majoring in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. An Academic Collocation List (ACL) was initially created from the journal articles and then the collocation lists of the top 200 verbs were compared across the three corpora. The study identified potential collocates for over 2,400 content words in the ICAE (International Corpus of Academic English) journal articles, resulting in 375 potential combinations. Among these, noun combinations (adj+n, n+n) accounted for nearly 70% of the total entries, followed by verb+noun/adj combinations, adv+adj combinations, and verb+adv combinations. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences between Chinese EFL learners and international scholars, with a larger discrepancy observed between MA theses and journal articles than between doctoral dissertations and journal articles. Chinese EFL learners tended to overuse a limited set of collocations that, while grammatically correct, often sounded unnatural to native speakers. Additionally, the verb+noun combinations used by Chinese EFL learners were frequently physically and semantically different from those employed by international scholars. These findings underscore the need for targeted pedagogical interventions to improve the collocational competence of Chinese EFL learners.

Quizlet's Usefulness for Vocabulary Learning: Perceptions of High-Level and Low-Level Chinese College EFL Learners

This study investigates the perceived usefulness of Quizlet for vocabulary learning among Chinese college EFL learners and examines differences in perceptions between high-level and low-level learners based on their post-test scores. A descriptive research design was employed, utilizing a web-based survey to gather quantitative data from 95 students in Shandong province, China, after an 8-week intervention using Quizlet. The survey was based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and focused on perceived usefulness. The findings reveal that overall, students hold a positive attitude towards Quizlet, with an overall mean score of 3.81 (SD = 0.64), indicating its perceived utility in enhancing vocabulary acquisition. Specifically, Quizlet was found to be particularly beneficial for improving both receptive (M=4.18, SD=0.70) and productive (M=4.17, SD=0.68) vocabulary knowledge. However, its perceived usefulness in improving broader language skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening was comparatively lower. An independent samples t-test indicated no significant difference in the overall perceived usefulness between high-level and low- level learners, though high-level learners perceived greater benefits in learning speed and productive vocabulary knowledge. These insights suggest that while Quizlet is a valuable tool for vocabulary learning, its integration should be complemented with other methods to address comprehensive language development. The study’s implications highlight the need for tailored instructional strategies to optimize digital tools like Quizlet across different proficiency levels in EFL contexts.

Does interlanguage grammar project intermediate categories? Evidence of partial representation from one‐substitution by Chinese learners of English

AbstractThis study investigates how prepositional phrases within English noun phrases (e.g., the student of physics from Italy) are represented and processed by advanced Chinese‐speaking learners of English (henceforth L2ers). Using grammaticality judgment tasks and self‐paced reading tasks, we aim to examine the offline performance and the real‐time processing of English NP‐internal PPs in relation to the head nouns. To this end, two groups of participants were instructed to provide judgments of testing materials and to respond on‐line to experimental stimuli containing the proform one. Results indicate that highly proficient L2ers processed English NP‐internal PPs utterly differently from English controls in that they demonstrated almost no sensitivity to the existence of PPs as complements following one, mostly without consciously distinguishing them from PP adjuncts. To account for L2ers’ response patterns, we propose a partial representation hypothesis (PRH), claiming that L2ers tend to disregard intermediate categories containing PP‐complements in English NPs, thus only partially representing syntactic constituents of the target language. As a structural explanation, PRH awaits further corroboration and/or falsification from more empirical studies.

Social Media as a Tool for Informal Spanish Learning: A Phenomenological Study of Chinese Students' Behaviour in Spain.

This study explores the perceptions of Chinese learners in Spain regarding the use of social networks for informal Spanish language learning. The objective is to identify the challenges and benefits of using social networks to address the real needs of students in learning Spanish. A qualitative phenomenological approach was adopted, focusing on participants' perceptions before and after using social networks. Eight Chinese students were selected for the study. The study was conducted in Valencia and Barcelona, Spain, from 1 September 2023 to 20 March 2024, and three commonly used social media networks were compared. The results indicate positive perceptions towards social media as a tool for learning Spanish, highlighting its usefulness in improving language skills and enhancing cultural awareness. Additionally, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili emerged as the most popular platforms for Spanish language learning among Chinese students. This study concludes that social media effectively meets the authentic needs of Chinese students learning Spanish in Spain, enhancing both language skills and cultural adaptation. This multifaceted approach reflects the complexity of learning Spanish in the digital age, combining personal passion, professional aspirations, and cultural adaptation needs.

Effects of instructional factors on students’ acceptance of and participation in flipped language learning

ABSTRACT Based on a systematic review of flipped learning (FL) instructional principles and the technology acceptance model, this study examined the effects of instructional factors on students’ acceptance of and participation in FL activities in learning Chinese as the native language. The participants were 2684 primary and secondary school students in Hong Kong. Two questionnaires were used to measure students’ perceptions of FL instructional design and implementation in their Chinese language classes and their acceptance and participation in FL activities. Descriptive analysis indicated that students perceived a moderately high degree of consistency between the design and implementation of FL activities in their Chinese language classes and the various instructional principles of FL. Students’ perceptions about FL were positive and their intention to use this new approach to learn Chinese was high. Structural equation modelling showed that the quality of FL tasks significantly and positively affected students’ perceptions about the usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment of FL, which, in turn, indirectly influenced their intentional and actual use of FL. The findings provide insights for improving students’ acceptance of FL as a novel learning approach within traditional language learning in school.

How L2 Learners Process Different Means of Time Encoding in a Tenseless Language: An ERP Study of Mandarin.

In the past, research on the cognitive neural mechanism of second language (L2) learners' processing time information has focused on Indo-European languages. It has also focused on the temporal category expressed by morphological changes. However, there has been a lack of research on L2 learners' various time coding means, especially for Mandarin, which lacks morphological changes. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the cognitive neural mechanism of L2 learners with native Indonesian background in processing two time coding means (time adverbs and aspect markers) in Chinese. Indonesian has time adverb encoding time information similar to that of Chinese, but there are no aspect markers similar to Chinese in Indonesian. We measured ERPs time locked to the time adverb " (cengjing)" and the aspect marker "verb + (verb + guo)" in two different conditions, i.e., a control condition (the correct sentence) and a temporal information violation. The experimental results showed that the native speaker group induced the biphasic N400-P600 effect under the condition of time adverb violation, and induced P600 under the condition of the aspect marker "verb + (verb + guo)" violation. Indonesian L2 learners of Chinese only elicited P600 for the violation of time adverbs, and there was no statistically significant N400 similar to that of Chinese native speakers. In the case of aspect marker violation, we observed no significant ERPs component for the Indonesian L2 learners of Chinese. Both groups of subjects induced elicited a widely distributed and sustained negativity on the post-critical words after "verb + (verb + guo)" and "(cengjing)". This showed that the neural mechanism of Indonesian L2 learners of Chinese processing Chinese time coding differs from that of Chinese native speakers.

Exploring ethnic minority students’ perspectives on anxiety in learning Chinese as an additional language: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

ABSTRACT Existing research on ethnic minority students in Hong Kong (HK) has documented their struggles in learning Chinese-as-an-Additional-Language (CAL) and the linguistic challenges for ethnic minority students to learn CAL at school can be the source of their anxiety, which may prevent them from integrating into HK society. The paper aims to explore ethnic minority students’ perceptions of how their Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) affect their learning of CAL. The data, from semi-structured interviews with ethnic minority students of varying CAL anxiety levels and fieldnotes from classroom observations and informal teacher interviews, were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings illustrate that while FLA can certainly influence students’ CAL learning experiences, other personal and sociocultural factors, such as students’ motivation to learn CAL, the prevalence of English-as-a-Lingua-Franca in society, and the impact of examination policies, also contribute significantly. This paper argued that the perceived relevance and importance of CAL in students’ lives are closely linked to FLA and can contribute to the lack of motivation observed in students with high or mid-level FLA. Thus, there is a need for teachers to attend to the interplay between other sociocultural factors and FLA when understanding ethnic minority students’ CAL learning behaviours.

Metacognitive Instruction for Improving the Effectiveness of Collaborative Writing for EFL Learners’ Writing Development

AbstractThere has been substantial research on the effects of metacognitive instruction on improving L2 learners’ language skills. However, little is known about the impact of such instruction on improving the effectiveness of L2 students’ collaborative writing. To fill this research gap, we conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate how such an instructional programme would help Chinese EFL learners’ writing development through collaborative writing. A total of 62 post-graduate students from a university in central China were randomly allocated to either an experimental group receiving three weeks of collaborative writing interventions with metacognitive instruction for writing collaboratively, or a control group that was taught via a genre-based approach. Pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-tests were administered with both groups at the onset, immediately after, and six weeks after the interventions to compare their change in writing production, specifically in lexical complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Results revealed that the metacognitive instruction and collaborative writing interventions helped improve participants’ writing performance in lexical variation, accuracy, and fluency. However, no significant effects were observed in lexical density and lexical sophistication. We discuss the results for their pedagogical and theoretical implications.

Unpacking EFL learners’ emotions and emotion-regulation strategies in digital collaborative academic reading projects: An integrated approach of vignette methodology and interview analysis

This study explored the manifestation of multifaceted emotions, sources of emotions, and emotion regulation strategies of college EFL learners participating in digital collaborative academic reading projects. Data were collected through a vignette-based survey that was comprised of 19 episodes of authentic emotion-inducing scenarios among 72 Chinese EFL learners, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with 16 participants. While the results showed a relatively balanced distribution of positive and negative emotions, anxiety, nervousness, and happiness were found to be the top three most commonly experienced emotions. The study identified three sources of positive emotions including topic interest, experiencing mastery and achievement, and recognition from other groups. The findings also revealed factors inducing negative emotions in digital collaborative academic reading: reading difficulties, challenges in interacting with group members, low-quality feedback from external groups, online learning environment and technology issues, and time pressure. Furthermore, the study extended the literature on emotion regulation by developing a comprehensive taxonomy of six categories of strategies (i.e., co-regulation, cognitive change, response regulation, attention deployment, task-related regulation, and situation modification) tailored to the context of digital collaborative academic reading. These findings can offer practical guidance for enhancing social-emotional interactions in technology-enhanced collaborative academic reading.

Implementing discourse-gating tasks to study the timing of speech act recognition

This paper presents the development of two novel discourse-gating tasks to investigate the processing of pragmatic information, namely, the timing of the recognition of genuine (sincere) and ostensible (transparently insincere) refusals in Chinese and provides preliminary validity evidence for the tasks. Gating tasks were introduced to investigate spoken word recognition and have been successfully extended to spoken language processing, most notably sentences. Following Grosjean's (1996) observation that gating tasks could be used to investigate a variety of linguistic features, we extended the gating tasks to spoken discourse using turns as gates. The open-prediction gating task allows participants to make a single prediction about the outcome of each of 12 recorded conversations as soon as they can. The fixed-prediction gating task asks participants to make predictions at regular intervals while listening to a second set of 12 conversations. One hundred and seven participants (60 L1 speakers and 47 third- and fourth-year learners of Chinese) were recruited to test the tasks. The tasks reveal a lag in speech-act identification not found when retrospective speech-act identification tasks are used. The fixed-prediction task additionally reveals alternatives that are considered during processing. The paper discusses the benefits of the discourse gating tasks and the merits of each, the quantitative and qualitative evidence for the tasks, and future directions for discourse gating tasks.

A refined and concise model of indices for quantitatively measuring lexical richness of Chinese university students’ EFL writing

In the existing literature, scholars have proposed various indices to measure the lexical richness (LR) of English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. However, there are currently issues of redundant indices and inconsistent usage. Attempting to address the research question of which indices are the most sensitive and effective ones to distinguish between different grade levels of Chinese university students’ EFL writing, this study aims to put forward a refined and concise model of indices that can truthfully reflect LR in EFL writing. A total of 180 compositions were selected from a Chinese EFL learner corpus: <i>Spoken and written English corpus of Chinese learners</i>. Scores of 28 LR indices of these compositions were computed using the software <i>Lexical Complexity Analyzer</i>,<i> MATTR</i>,<i> </i>and<i> Coh-Metrix</i>. One-way ANOVA or Welch’s ANOVA, depending on the variable’s homogeneity of variances, was conducted for each index. Two criteria were applied to determine which index of a measure should be included in the refined model: whether the difference of an index is significant among different grade levels and the effect size of ANOVA. Based on the quantitative results of ANOVAs and qualitative human judgment based on literature, six indices of the six LR measures were included in the refined model: lexical density, lexical sophistication-I, verb sophistication-II, number of different words-expected sequence 50, corrected TTR, and squared verb variation-I. This refined model addresses the issues of redundancy and inconsistency in previous studies, providing a more accurate and efficient tool for assessing LR in EFL writing.

Foreign Language Enjoyment and Anxiety of Chinese EFL Learners at the Tertiary Level: A Pseudo-Longitudinal Investigation

Foreign Language Enjoyment and Anxiety of Chinese EFL Learners at the Tertiary Level: A Pseudo-Longitudinal Investigation

Effects of Task Complexity on Chinese EFL Learners’ Language Production in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication

Effects of Task Complexity on Chinese EFL Learners’ Language Production in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication

Modeling relationships among large-grained, fine-grained absolute syntactic complexity and assessed L2 writing quality: An SEM approach

The current study investigated the relationships among large-grained and fine-grained aspects of absolute syntactic complexity (SC) and expert-assessed writing quality of 446 argumentative writing samples of college-level Chinese EFL learners. Computational indices tapping into large-grained and fine-grained aspects of absolute SC were computed by TAASSC and L2SCA. Drawing upon rigorous SEM analyses, this paper demonstrated the utility of computational indices that tap into absolute SC. Overall, the measurements of absolute SC accounted for 42 % of the variance in human-judged overall writing scores. The results revealed that (1) noun phrase (NP) complexity was the underlying cause that determined trained raters’ judgement on argumentative writing quality; (2) among traditional large-grained indices, MLC, CN/C, and CN/T, were dependable metrics in representing SC and predicting writing quality; (3) among fine-grained indices, prepositional phrases and relative clauses as noun modifiers were prominent in representing NP complexity; (4) relative clause and adjectival modifiers had unique and complementary effects to large-grained NP complexity in affording explanations for human judgement; (5) the use of prepositions in NP was the most prominent contributor to the increase of large-grained NP complexity among the noun phrase modifiers in this specific corpus. Situated in previous research, the results provide an opportunity to evaluate L2 writing within the theoretical framework of absolute syntactic complexity.

Uses of the Light Verb GET in Chinese EFL Learners’ and English L1 Undergraduates’ Writing: A Corpus-Pattern-Analysis-Based Investigation

Uses of the Light Verb <i>GET</i> in Chinese EFL Learners’ and English L1 Undergraduates’ Writing: A Corpus-Pattern-Analysis-Based Investigation

Interface Design and Functional Optimization of Chinese Learning Apps Based on User Experience

This research paper investigates the interface design and functional optimization of Chinese learning apps through the lens of user experience. With the increasing popularity of Chinese language learning apps in the era of rapid mobile internet development, users' demands for enhanced interface design and interaction experience have grown significantly. The study aims to explore the influence of user feedback on the design and functionality of Chinese learning apps, proposing optimization strategies to improve user experience and learning outcomes. By conducting a comprehensive literature review, utilizing methods such as surveys and user interviews for data collection, and analyzing user feedback, this research identifies existing issues in the interface design and interaction experience of Chinese learning apps. The results present user opinions, feedback analysis, identified problems, improvement directions, and specific optimization strategies. The study discusses the potential impact of these optimization strategies on enhancing user experience and learning outcomes, compares findings with previous research, addresses limitations, and suggests future research directions. In conclusion, this research contributes to enriching the design theory of Chinese learning apps, offering practical optimization recommendations for developers, and supporting the continuous advancement of Chinese language learning apps.

Lexico-grammatical Features of Online Essay Writings Among Chinese EFL Learners

This linguistic study investigates the lexico-grammatical features of Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ argumentative essays. The study utilizes corpus linguistic methods and natural language processing tools to analyze 1460 writing samples from an online learner corpus. Variations in linguistic complexity and sophistication of clause, phrase, and syntactic sophistication across different proficiency levels were examined using AntConc, Multidimensional Analysis Tagger, and TAASSC. The results indicate significant variances in lexico-grammatical complexity and sophistication features between low and high proficiency levels. The study revealed that proficiency levels of EFL learners had varying effects on clausal complexity, phrasal complexity, and syntactic sophistication. The study also identifies limitations in the natural language processing tool used for extracting target indices in argumentative essays. Overall, these findings have implications for EFL teaching, learning, and assessment, and for improving NLP tools.

LEARNING CHINESE THROUGH ENGLISH: TRANSLANGUAGING REALITY IN INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION CFL CLASSROOM

LEARNING CHINESE THROUGH ENGLISH: TRANSLANGUAGING REALITY IN INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION CFL CLASSROOM