College English Learning Research Articles

Cognates in Vocabulary Size Testing - a Distorting Influence?

Abstract This article examines the issue of cognates in frequency-based vocabulary size testing. Data from a pilot study for a cognate-controlled English vocabulary size test was used to assess whether a group of Japanese university English learners (n = 60) were more successful at responding to cognate items than noncognate ones in three 1000 word frequency bands on a Japanese-English translation task. The results showed a statistically significant difference between scores achieved on cognate and noncognate items at the 2000 and 3000 frequency levels, but not at the 1000 frequency level. The findings suggest that cognate items may be easier for test-takers to respond to than noncognate ones of similar frequency, indicating the importance of ensuring that their respective proportions in tests are representative of those inherent in the frequency bands they have been sampled from. It is also argued that such representativeness may best be achieved via a stratified item sampling approach.

An evaluation of an automated approach to concept-based grammar instruction

Acquiring sufficient linguistic proficiency to perform competently in academic and professional contexts generally requires substantial study time beyond what most language programs can offer in the classroom. As such, teachers and students alike would benefit considerably from high quality self-access materials promoting independent learning out of class when possible and, thus, allowing greater social interaction in class when necessary. The present study is a follow-up to Lyddon (in press), in which a concept-based approach to grammar instruction was adapted into a series of computerized modules. As the number of participants in the previous study was insufficient for meaningful statistical analyses of the learning outcomes, the current investigation redressed this shortcoming as well as responded to survey suggestions for several key changes to the pedagogical materials, including provision of more numerous training sentences, more highly elaborated feedback on exercises, and an immediate remediation option. As before, the purpose of the present study was to determine the viability of a computer-based conceptual approach to teaching English grammar. In a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, 31 Japanese university English learners of English for Science and Engineering completed a series of self-paced, interactive online tutorials aimed at teaching the concept of grammatical voice. Gains were then measured in terms of improvement in post-treatment grammaticality judgments. While the findings showed the modules to be generally effective, they also suggest important differences in learner understanding of the use of animate vs. inanimate subjects. Thus, additional study will be needed to focus on this particular issue.

A Study on the Use of Fairy Tales as College Learners’ Motivation for English Writing

The purpose of this study is to investigate how fairy tales influence learners for English writing participation and performance on course work and test. Two groups of the different English level of 21 and 24 college students respectively attending their elective which is called business English were selected for the study. The pre-test was followed by the second week of the fall semester, 2010 and the post-test was administered to examine their progress upon completion of 45 hours of the course work that included lectures on how to perform fairy tales in class. The questionnaire was also conducted to learn the students’ opinion on their performance during the lesson. The results of the study show that the group who was provided with fairy tales performed better on the pre-test, and a lot closer rapport between the teacher and the learners was established from the beginning of the semester. Fairly numerous students also did their homework more enthusiastically than the group taught without fairy tales during the course. It can be concluded that fairy tales increase learners’ motivation, making them engage in hands-on English writing process. It is essential for a teacher to create a positive motivation-inducing atmosphere so that the college English learners participate aggressively and do their coursework effectively for better English writing. (Konyang University·Korea Nazarene University)

Teaching Multiliteracies: A Research Based on Multimodality in a PPT Presentation

This paper aims to focus on a research about college students’ awareness and level of multiliteracies. The participants in the study are non-English major sophomore undergraduates. They made 267 slides in a 34 PPT presentation works for their assignments. The research shows college students’ weak performance in multiliteracies. Thus we have suggested some methods to improve college students’ multiliteracies and discussed the instructions the concept of multiliteracies has brought about for college English teachers and learners.

College English Lexical Learning Dependent on Context

Lexical learning is an essential component of college English learning. The traditional grammar-based learning model of vocabulary focuses on developing the linguistic competence rather than the pragmatic competence, which can not meet the need of college English learning in the new educational situation. The meaning of a word is generated in specific language environment and a single word is meaningless, so context plays a crucial role in the word meaning determination. Context roughly falls into linguistic context and non-linguistic context, with the former consisting of lexical context, verbal context and grammatical context and the latter of situational context and cultural context. In the process of college English learning, these five contexts are expected to be applied to differentiate polysemy, to eliminate ambiguities and to indicate referents.

Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: A Probe into the Application of Online Social Networking in College Freshman English Curriculum

Interaction, sharing, and connection are at the heart of Web 2.0, giving rise to innovative online media usage and the concept social networking that have transformed not only the network behavior of the masses, but also the form of online learning. In college English learning courses, Web 2.0 provides real-time and easily-accessible online resources for students to search for the information they need, granting them more autonomy in the English learning process. Meanwhile, Web 2.0-based network tools and video-sharing platform, such as Wikipedia and podcasts, provide a user-oriented and user-centered mechanism that allows personal creation, cooperative creation, interactive social networking, and peer-to-peer mutual learning, as an extension to the scope of autonomous English learning. In addition, with the rising popularity of Web 2.0-inspired social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs, the concept of social networking should also be increasingly incorporated into language education, since it promotes online interactions among English learners, while facilitating the establishment of information sharing, data query, and learning partnership in the network learning community. Thus, this project exploits Web 2.0-based online learning as the framework to design freshman English materials fusing social learning elements, for the purpose of boosting students’ interests for enhanced learning effectiveness, expanding e-learning into s-learning.

Educational Psychology Strategies to Improve the Abilitiesof the Students Poor at College English Learning

Educational Psychology Strategies to Improve the Abilitiesof the Students Poor at College English Learning

A Study of Listening Training Materials for Chinese Colleges Students in Second Language Acquisition

In classroom, students do more listening than reading. Listening competence is “larger” than speaking. The significance of listening in second language acquisition can never be overestimated. Listening comprehension has been a focus for college English learning for years in China. With the information obtained from listening, learners build up their own linguistic system and are ready to retrieve whatever they want when they speak and write. There are many factors that affect listening, among which materials play a key role in facilitating listening comprehension. In order to achieve the final goal of promoting listening competence, teacher must realize that listening materials should be tailored to the needs of individuals. Based on the exploration of the nature of listening comprehension, this paper verifies the elements hindering learners’ listening competence on the basis of the need analysis and Krashen’s input hypothesis. With a questionnaire conducted at Wuhan Polytechnic University ，and the author accordingly concludes that a feasible materials should meet the learners’ requirements so that the enhancement of listening comprehension can be achievd.

Conceptualizing Humanistic Competence in the Language Classroom by TJP - A Chinese Case

As learning is seen to be a social process as well as an intellectual activity in which teachers work in active partnership with students, “Teaching by Joint Presentation” (TJP) project sought to investigate what a humanistic concept of teacher-student joint presentation and critical inquiry can evoke in the language classroom within Chinese context. 289 college English literature learning students and 87 in-service secondary school teachers have participated in this study. The findings articulated a series of multifaceted differences concerning with students’ learning aspiration and competence, together with the complexities of teaching methods in a humanistic language classroom. The results indicate that humanistic ideal does increase students’ learning competence of critical insight, independent thought and reflective analysis. The study provides insights into humanistic competence growth of Chinese college language students based on empirical evidence.

The effectiveness of cooperative learning in teaching English to Chinese tertiary learners

Few studies have been conducted of the impact of cooperative learning (CL) on the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) at the tertiary level. This study investigated the effects of CL on Chinese EFL learners' English language competencies in listening, speaking, reading, writing and vocabulary. Participants were a 100 first‐year College English learners from a university in the north of China. A pre‐test‐post‐test control group quasi‐experimental design was employed to study the effects of the CL approach on students' language competencies in comparison to traditional instruction. Findings revealed clear differences in favour of the CL approach in the areas of listening, speaking and reading but no differences were found between the two approaches in the areas of writing and vocabulary.

Investigating learners’ use and understanding of peer and teacher feedback on writing: A comparative study in a Chinese English writing classroom

Existing comparative studies between peer and teacher feedback in English writing classes have predominantly used frequency measures of peer and teacher feedback in learners’ revisions to suggest their relative values for developing learners’ writing proficiency. However, learners do not necessarily understand the feedback that is used in their redrafts. This study distinguished learners’ use from their understanding of peer and teacher feedback. Eighteen Chinese university English learners participated in the study for sixteen weeks. Three research methods were adopted: (a) content analyses of learners’ use of feedback, (b) stimulated recall interviews on learners’ understanding of feedback, and (c) interviews on the factors that affected learners’ responses to feedback. The findings suggested that the learners used more teacher than peer feedback in their redrafts. However, interviews with these learners revealed that they used a larger percentage of teacher feedback than peer feedback without understanding its significance or value. Student interviews uncovered learners’ passive acceptance of teacher feedback and the facilitative role of first language use in peer interaction. This study suggests that learners’ understanding of feedback should be taken as at least an equally important factor as learners’ use of feedback in examining the relative value of peer and teacher feedback for developing learners’ writing proficiency.

An Analysis of College English Classroom Discourse

English classroom teaching and learning is an important aspect of English teaching and learning. The analysis of classroom discourse is a very important form which classroom process research has taken. The present study focuses on college English classroom discourse. Through a detailed description and analysis of the collected data by referring to Sinclair and Coulthard’s classroom discourse analysis model, the problem of patterns of the classroom discourse is made clear and on the basis of which a few strategies for college English teachers are put forward by the author in order to improve college English teaching and learning.

College English learners’ discursive motivation construction in China

There are abundant studies of second/foreign language learning motivation. However, there appears to be insufficient research into how language learners’ discourses mediate the construction of their learning/motivation. This paper investigated the discursive construction of two English language learners’ motivation in a comprehensive university in the People’s Republic of China. Employing a critical discourse analysis framework, this paper illustrated how learner motivation was discursively constructed in the constant interaction between the individual and the social environment, and through a complex process involving learners’ interpersonal relationships, their imaginative projections about the future, and an alignment with social discourses. The paper argues for more discourse-based studies that view motivation as a social and historical construct dynamically emerging from individual learners’ interaction with contextual conditions and construed in learners’ language in use. This paper starts by locating this study within the L2 motivation literature and then provides an interpretation of the interview and diary study texts in light of the sociocultural context where the investigation occurred.

The Effect of Lengthened Writing Approach on L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

Based on empirical research and qualitative analysis, this paper aims to explore the effects of Lengthened Writing Approach on L2 vocabulary acquisition. The results show that, during L2 vocabulary teaching process, the proper application of Lengthened Writing Approach can effectively facilitate the memorization of new words, and this teaching approach is welcomed by most subjects. This study highlights the role of Lengthened Writing Approach in L2 vocabulary acquisition, and sheds light on the college English learning and teaching.

The Temporal System of Interlanguage of College EFL Learners in Taiwan

The study aims to investigate the interlanguage temporal system of college English learners in Taiwan. Given that English tense has been a difficult area for Chinese learners, it is important to look into the L2 data directly to understand where and how the learners' problems arise. As English tense and aspect are interrelated, the tense and aspect in the English interlanguage temporal system of the Chinese learners were examined as an integrated whole. Various tense-aspect forms (T-A forms) were inspected in terms of their forms, meanings, and functions. Three tasks were adopted in this cross-sectional study: a cloze passage, a composition task, and a multiple-choice test. The subjects included 129 undergraduate students of Chinese Culture University, including both non-English majors and English majors. Statistical procedures employed for data analysis included frequency count, percentage, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, etc. The results of this empirical investigation showed that the adult Chinese learners' difficulty with English tense and aspect stemmed mainly from their insufficient knowledge of English aspect and their unfamiliarity with the forms of T-A components. Most of the learners have developed a certain degree of concept of temporality in English, which might have benefited from their acquired temporal concept via L1 Mandarin. The tense of L1 Mandarin appeared to be facilitative in the learners' acquisition of the L2 English temporal system. On the other hand, English aspect was shown to be a more serious problem for the Chinese learners. The learners tended to confuse progressive aspect with nonprogressive aspect, and they had difficulty with the perfect aspect. The results also suggested that the inherent properties of verbs affected the learners' use of aspects to a certain extent. It was also shown that the Chinese learners' knowledge and application of the pragmatic functions of English T-A forms were unsatisfactory. Another revealing finding was that the processing overload of the learners was one major impediment for their correct uses of the English tenses in longer stretch of sentences and discourses. Pedagogically, the teaching of English tense and aspect should go beyond the grammatical level and the pragmatic functions of English tense and aspect should be integrated into formal instructions. More importantly, the learners should be taught to self-monitor their L2 output and be aware of their problems with English T-A forms.

Awareness of Metalanguage

This paper reports an investigation into the language used by writers of grammars of English and learners' awareness of it. Two key features of this genre are whether and how writers present themselves in the text ('personality') and whether and to what extent they qualify their statements via the use of modality. Two comparable texts, one from a pedagogic grammar and one from a scholarly grammar were given to university learners of English in order to gauge their reactions as to the degree of friendliness and certainty of the text, as well as their level of difficulty and appropriateness. The students reacted more positively to the pedagogic text on all counts, most significantly in terms of its certainty and least significantly in terms of its friendliness. The students were also asked to identify the items in the texts that had led to their reaction; some pinpointed features of personality and modality, though most did not and pointed to other aspects, in particular the use of examples. The paper concludes that the choices made by writers about personality and modality are important for learners, though not necessarily in ways that would be expected.

Cultural Content and Reading Proficiency: A Comparison of Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong Learners of English

This study looks closely at the relation between background knowledge and L2 proficiency in L2 reading performance in two groups of university learners of English, one from Mainland China and one from Hong Kong. The students (n = 214) shared Chinese culture in general, but differed in terms of their local sub-cultural and social background. They were divided into intermediate and post-intermediate groups on the basis of a test of General Proficiency in English. Two English cloze tests were then constructed to assess reading comprehension, one with cultural content that would have been familiar to the Hong Kong students, and one that was culture free. The results show a strong cultural effect on reading comprehension, but not on post-intermediate readers. The findings have implications for teaching reading to L2 learners.

Investigating Japanese learners' beliefs about language learning

This article reports on a study of the beliefs about language learning of almost 1300 Japanese university learners of English. The primary aims of the study were: (1) to validate a questionnaire, developed for the Japanese context and written in Japanese, on a variety of beliefs (e.g. person, task, strategy, achievement) about language learning; (2) to investigate the value of interview data to complement and explain questionnaire data; and (3) to describe the beliefs about language learning of Japanese learners of English and to determine, through factor analysis, how those beliefs are organized. One of the principal findings of the study is that without complementary sources of data, learners' responses to questionnaires such as the one developed for this study can be easily misinterpreted as evidence of instrument unreliability. The study found evidence that many of the respondents' beliefs about learning English correspond to the distinction which many teachers would make between traditional and contemporary approaches to language teaching and learning. The article concludes by describing how data on learners' beliefs can inform efforts at policy and program evaluation.