ESL Research Research Articles

Investigating the complexity of consent forms in ESL research

Consent forms tell potential participants what to expect when joining a research project and are considered critical documents to the research process. However, there has been limited investigation into how to properly create a usable consent form for ESL learners. Most of our current knowledge on the topic comes from various governmental mandates, rules of thumb, or from fields outside of linguistics or TESOL research. This paper details an investigation looking into the practices of consent form writing in 40 published ESL-based dissertations. Findings show that the average consent form was around 2.38 pages long and written above the 11th grade level. Additionally, vocabulary from the forms included a large representation of infrequent words that might not be known by ESL participants. Consent forms written for ESL participants appear to be highly complex documents with their difficulty unlikely to provide truly informed consent. A troubling finding since these researchers could be considered experts in understanding ESL learner needs.

La investigación de evaluación por perfiles de esl en Colombia... ¿Una necesidad creciente?

Propósito: aumentar la conciencia sobre la importancia especial de la investigación de
 evaluación por perfiles.Temas : revistas indexadas, tipos de revisiones y perfiles de inves
 tigación. Desarrollo : seleccionar un tema de investigación puede ser una tarea difícil para
 los investigadores jóvenes o investigadores experimentados que exploran diferentes temas.
 Debido a que los trabajos de investigación esl han incrementado gradualmente durante las
 últimas décadas, tratar de tener una visión general de toda la investigación realizada sobre
 los diversos temas relacionados es un objetivo utópico. Se han realizado esfuerzos conside
 rables tales como manuales, revisiones de literatura y estados del arte para hacer visibles y
 organizar diferentes tipos de textos literarios y publicaciones científicas, adoptando cual
 quier criterio de selección. No obstante dichos trabajos, aun cuando muy valiosos, sirven a
 propósitos muy específicos y por ende, no pueden dar un panorama general de los diferentes
 estudios de investigación publicados en un ámbito académico. Los perfiles de investigación
 pueden satisfacer dicha necesidad, por supuesto, a través de criterios de inclusión tales como
 marcos temporales o contextos geográficos. Asimismo, ayudan a hacer visibles y a clasificar
 los trabajos de investigación de acuerdo con cualquier parámetro, de tal manera que se puedan rastrear las líneas de investigación y se puedan reconocer los cuerpos de investigación regionales o nacionales. Además, los perfiles de investigación son el punto de partida de revisiones más sistemáticas y tareas complejas.Conclusiones: los perfiles de investigación sirven para propósitos diferentes, como ayudar a los investigadores a seleccionar temas de investigación, rastrear y reconocer trabajos de investigación, crear líneas de investigación y establecer agendas de investigación en un país

Reworking the appraisal framework in ESL research: refining attitude resources

AbstractThe Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics as a robust tool in language teaching and research has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. Since its establishment as the most complete account, the framework has been used in a variety of contexts, resulting in a number of refinements, tuning its applicability for specific research purposes such as studies of the evaluative language in research article abstracts, biology experiment reports, wine appreciation and student narrative writing. This article proposes additional refinements, particularly to the system of Attitude, informed by research into the deployment of evaluative resources in spoken discourse by postgraduate students in small group discussions in English and in Vietnamese. The refinements were required to account for the range of evaluative language used in discussions of topics including personal experiences of living and studying in Australia, academic experiences at Australian universities, and opinion about one’s professional standing. These refinements contribute to the ongoing development of the Appraisal framework and provide a resource for enhancing the effectiveness of expressions of evaluative stance for speakers of English as a second or additional language.

EFL and/vs. ESL?

The study of learner language and that of indigenized varieties are growing areas of English-language corpus-linguistic research, which are shaped by two current trends: First, the recognition that more rigorous methodological approaches are urgently needed (with few exceptions, existing work is based on over-/under-use frequency counts that fail to unveil complex non-native linguistic patterns); second, the collective effort to bridge an existing “paradigm gap” (Sridhar & Sridhar 1986) between EFL and ESL research.This paper contributes to these developments by offering a multifactorial analysis of seventeen lexical verbs in the dative alternation in speech and writing of German/French learners and Hong Kong/India/Singapore English speakers. We exemplify the advantages of hierarchical mixed-effects modeling, which allows us to control for speaker and verb-specific effects, but also for the hierarchical structure of the corpus data. Second, we address the theoretical question of whether EFL and ESL represent discrete English varieties or a continuum.

Adopting academic values: Student use of that-complement clauses in academic writing

Abstract Because of their use in reporting the claims of self and others, packaging information as fact, and allowing writers to express evaluative stance, that-complement clauses allow writers to distance themselves from their subject matter and project an objective persona. This study's contribution is a focus on that-clauses in the student report genre. Wide use of student reports based on quantitative data, and structural similarities of these reports with research articles based on quantitative data, make this genre important in socialising student writers into academic language and values in certain disciplines. A corpus approach is used to compare that-clauses in ESL student reports and research articles. Although focused on one disciplinary area, it provides insights applicable to writing on quantitative data. It shows how students' language choices reflect conversational norms, as well as indicating the beginnings of sharing academic values about objectivity and evidence. Student writers used a restricted range of reporting words. Their writing also drew on non-academic sources of evidence, such as common knowledge and community beliefs. The study provides evidence that writers have acquired some elements of academic language and values. The article makes suggestions for writing pedagogy.

Ethical Issues in Addressing Inequity In/Through ESL Research

This article outlines a researcher’s struggles with conducting ethical” research when her case study reveals racializations faced by a minority teacher in a Canadian ESL program. How might ecoming privy to research participants’ experiences of inequity in ESL education complicate the notion of research ethics when doing the right thing” runs counter to a researcher’s ethical duties of ensuring trust, commitment, and confidentiality? The article speaks to the complexities of research ethics in the light of issues of negotiating researcher/researched identities, conducting anti-racist research, and addressing larger issues of power and inequity in ESL education.

Adult ESL: Politics, pedagogy, and participation in classroom and community programs. Trudy Smoke (Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998. Pp. 337.

This anthology consists of 20 chapters contributed by 25 authors and coauthors; its articles are divided into three sections corresponding to the title categories: politics, pedagogy, and participation. As Trudy Smoke states in the preface, “I decided to use the term adult ESL in its broadest sense – non-native speaking adults who participate in ABE (adult basic education), community college, or senior college programs” (p. ix). However, about 75% of the articles are written from a community college or senior college perspective, with a focus on intermediate-level or above English language learners. There is nothing inherently wrong with this; in fact, it may be inevitable that college ESL teachers are more likely to be able to write articles than their ABE colleagues, who are among the most overworked and underpaid teachers in U.S. education. Smoke notes briefly that some ESL students in ABE programs eventually enroll in community and senior colleges, but for the most part the reader is left having to infer how the insights of college ESL practice and research might apply to teachers in community-based ABE programs in ESL. A more extended discussion of the similarities and differences between ABE and college-based learners would have made the book more useful, especially for new teachers or other readers not familiar with the field.

Possibilities for Feminism in ESL Education and Research

* How can feminism have an impact on a predominantly positivist field like TESL/applied linguistics? How do feminist education and research relate to other epistemologies? How can feminist features be applied to ESL research? This report seeks to answer these questions by summarizing a graduate school initiation to feminism by way of courses and an English for specific purposes (ESP) curriculum evaluation completed as part of a thesis. The curriculum (Cooke & Mackie, 1993) was developed for a 1-year certificate program for ESL students consisting of the ESP class, business courses taken with English LI students, and a work placement period. In this report, I discuss (a) the feminist education I experienced and (b) feminist research both in general and in terms of the processes and outcomes of the curriculum evaluation.

Classroom Talk and the Learning of New Registers in a Second Language

This paper describes the role of student-teacher interactions in the development of English, focusing on the more formal academic registers of school, among 9- and 10-year-old ESL students in an inner city mainstream primary classroom in Sydney. The interactions between teacher and learners appeared to play a significant part in facilitating the acquisition of English associated with the science topic that the students were studying, and in the development of literacy skills. Significant factors in this process lay in the place of the interaction within a linguistically based sequence of tasks, and in the degree of student initiation within the interactions. The paper also suggests the need for a broader theoretical base for ESL research in schools,which takes account of both the social and linguistic contexts in which learning occurs.

Metacognitive strategies in second language academic reading: A qualitative investigation

Second language reading of specialized academic material is beginning to receive attention. This paper adds to relevant literature by presenting a qualitative investigation designed to provide a concrete picture of the metacognitive strategies used by ESL students in their academic reading. Two Chinese graduate students at Queen's University participated in the study for over 2 months each. In-depth interviews, think-aloud sessions, and journals served as the principal sources of data. Analyses of the data revealed that ESL academic reading was a very deliberate, demanding and complex process in which the students actively invoked in a repertoire of metacognitive strategies. The participants were found to draw strategies from various sources. They shared the profiles of the competent readers in both L1 and L2 reading. The data also provided enough evidence that the participants were quite aware of their cognitive process in reading, and that they were able to verbalize the strategies they used. The implications of the findings for ESL teaching and research are discussed.

Toward an Understanding of the Distinct Nature of L2 Writing: The ESL Research and Its Implications

Dealing effectively with L2 writers requires a clear understanding of the nature of L2 writing. In an attempt to develop such an understanding, 72 reports of empirical research comparing L1 and L2 writing were examined. The findings of this research indicate a number of salient differences between L1 and L2 writing with regard to both composing processes (and subprocesses: planning, transcribing, and reviewing) and features of written texts (fluency, accuracy, quality, and structure, i.e., discoursal, morphosyntactic, and lexicosemantic). Implications of the findings for L2 and L1 writing theory; future comparative writing research; and the practical concerns of assessment, placement, staffing, and instruction are discussed.

Awareness of Text Structure: Effects on Recall*

Research in second language reading has shown relationships among reading comprehension, reading strategies, and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies (Block, 1986; Barnett, 1988; Carrell, 1989, Carrell, Pharis, & Liberto, 1989). Moreover, research with native speakers of English has shown differences in speakers’ awareness of particular expository text structures (comparison/contrast, description, causation, and problem/solution) and their recall of texts written in those structures (Richgels, McGee, Lomax, & Sheard, 1987). Whereas previous research in ESL has examined the effects of differences in rhetorical structure on learners’ recall of English narrative (Carrell, 1984a) and expository text (Carrell, 1984b, 1985), this ESL research has not investigated differences between learners’ awareness of particular text structures and their recall of texts written in those structures. Nor has the ESL research contrasted different measures of structure awareness. The study reported in this paper was designed to investigate these relationships in EFL/ESL reading.Forty‐five high‐intermediate proficiency ESL students produced written recalls of both comparison/contrast and collection of description texts. In addition, two different measures of awareness were included: (1)use of organization in written recall, and (2) recognition of organization in response to a probe question. Results showed that there were no differences in levels of awareness, regardless of how it was measured, due to differences in text structure, nor were there any differences in the quantity of information recalled between text structures. However, there were differences in the quality of information recalled as a function of text structure. Finally, in terms of relationships between awareness and recall, subjects who used the structure of the reading passages to organize written recalls showed superior recall both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Reading and Writing Descriptive and Persuasive Texts

surge of research and pedagogical examination of reading-writing relationships in English as a first or native language (24; 26; 28; 31). The importance of reading-writing connections has recently become the focus of research in English as a second language (10; 11; 14; 15; 16; 17). Thus far, however, the ESL research on the reading-writing connection has examined the relationship at only a general level. For example, no studies have addressed the influence of specific aims of reading texts and writing tasks, e.g., persuasive vs. descriptive texts, and none has attempted to control either for the previous reading and writing experiences of students (e.g., undergraduate vs. graduate students) or overall proficiency in the second language. The present study was designed to determine the relationships of intermediate-level (Michigan 70-90) ESL students' reading and writing of both persuasive and descriptive texts.

ESL Classroom Dynamics: Towards a Discourse Processing Interpretation

A consistent trend in theory and research on second language learning has been toward greater emphasis on the analysis of elements of background knowledge and discourse rather than on sentences. Two major kinds of approach, textual and ethnomethodological, can be identified within the context of this general trend. An outline of these approaches is presented, together with discussion of their major strengths and weaknesses. Some implications for ESL research, theory, and practice are reviewed. It is proposed that ESL classroom dynamics may be understood in terms of representative discourse-worlds and that responsibility for classroom discourse analysis should be encouraged in both ESL teachers and their students.

EVIDENCE OF A FORMAL SCHEMA IN SECOND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

Research on discourse comprehension has shown that comprehension is determined not only by the local effects (sentences or paragraphs), but also by the overall organization of a text. Each type of text—e.g., stories, fables, expository and scientific texts—has its own conventional structure; knowledge of these conventions aids listeners or readers in comprehending the text as well as in recalling it later (Kintsch and van Dijk 1975; Meyer 1975; Thorndyke 1977). Following Bartlett (1932), this knowledge has been called a schema, or more specifically, following Carrell (1983a), a formal schema.Recent empirical research has shown the powerful effects of formal schemata in first language comprehension for both adults and children (Mandler and Johnson 1977; Johnson and Mandler 1980). Findings for first language acquirers, children, show that at least by first grade children have acquired story schemata and use them to organize comprehension and recall of stories (Mandler 1978a). Yet, no comparable research has been done to empirically investigate the role of story schemata in second language comprehension.This paper reports an empirical study of the effects of story structure on second language comprehension, specifically reading comprehension in English as a second language. Results indicate that the quantity and temporal sequence of story recall are affected by differences in story structure.The findings are discussed in terms of schema‐theoretic approaches to reading and the effects of formal, rhetorical schemata on ESL reading comprehension. The paper concludes with a call for further ESL research in this area.