Field Of Foreign Language Learning Research Articles

Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning Process

The concept of learner autonomy in the field of foreign language learning was clearly articulated in the 1979 report prepared by Holec for the Council of Europe. The learner autonomy aims at providing language learners with the ability to take on more responsibility for their own learning. In addition, students may make decisions by themselves about what and how they should learn. On the other hand, traditionalists assert that providing autonomy to learners will cause teachers to lose their control over the class. In this review, the concept of learner autonomy in language learning has been explained from different aspects. Afterwards, the necessary clues regarding how to support the development of learner autonomy in language learning process are given and the characteristics of autonomous learners are presented. In addition, the ways recommended to promote the learner autonomy are discussed and the roles of both teachers and learners in developing of autonomy are mentioned.

The Effect of Field Dependence\Independence Cognitive Style on Deductive/Inductive Grammar Teaching

Recently, the interest of both teachers and researchers in the field of foreign language learning and teaching has increasingly focused on the learner, including the strategies which an individual uses in learning and communicating. The problem under investigation was to see whether there is any significant difference between the performances of field-independent learners in deductively/inductively taught grammar classes. The whole research was carried out in two major phases. In the first phase, The 54 fieldindependent subjects were randomly divided into two groups of 27 subjects. The researcher taught the first group deductively and the second group inductively. Finally, a post-test was administered. In the second phase, the same procedure was exactly carried out for field dependent learners. The results of the analyses for the collected data showed that there was a significant difference at the level of p<0.05 between the post-test scores of field dependent and independent subjects in the first group and their counterparts in the second group. In other words, the results of the study indicated that there was a cognitive style bias operating in conjunction with learning different grammatical structures regarding fielddependent/independent learners. Field-independent learners prefer deductive methods of teaching grammar whereas field-dependent ones prefer inductive methods of teaching grammar.

Using Weblogs in Foreign Language Classrooms: Possibilities and Challenges

Over the past few years, the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies such as weblogs, wikis, and social networks has created new opportunies and challenges in the field of foreign language learning. The characteristics of Web 2.0, which facilitate interactive information sharing, user-centered designs, and online collaboration, are recognized to have great potential for more effective teaching and learning foreign languages. Consequently, a growing number of researchers and teachers have been exploring the ways to integrating various Web 2.0 technologies into foreign language classrooms. Weblogs have become one of the best-received Web 2.0 technologies in foreign language education. This study explores the significant issues of using Weblogs in foreign language learning, examining the theoretical justification of using Web 2.0 in foreign language learning, identifying possibilities and challenges of weblogs implemented in foreign language classrooms, and discussing advantages and disadvantages of using weblogs.

Online conversations: a sociolinguistic investigation into young adults’ use of videochats

Conversation, the social and socialising activity par excellence, has undergone a profound semiotic and phenomenological transformation in the contemporary age. Broadly speaking, conversation used to be associated with speech and a shared context of situation in many linguistic approaches (e.g., conversation analysis), but computer-mediated conversation (e.g., videochat) challenges well-established notions of what a conversation actually is. How is conversation modified by the use of digital technologies? To what extent is a computer-mediated conversation different from a face-to-face conversation? What degree of awareness do young adults possess as regards the communicative affordances that computer-mediated conversations allow? Can videochats be successfully used in and outside class and how? This paper sets out to highlight the fundamental role of conversation as a social and socialising activity and to illustrate from a theoretical standpoint some of its contemporary technologically constrained modifications, such as those present in computer-mediated conversations. Our aim is also to present data collected through a sociolinguistic research carried out between 2009 and 2010. Questionnaires, structured and semi-structured interviews were administered to a sample of 100 English-speaking high school and university students. The project was focused on how young adults (15–20 years old) engage with video conversations, with specific reference to the combined use of speech and writing in videochats. Significant alterations in conversational patterns in videochats are outlined and discussed, taking into account specific features. We also contend that such findings encourage applications in the field of foreign language learning and teaching.

W poszukiwaniu wiedzy praktycznie użytecznej. O dojrzewaniu glottodydaktyki jako dziedziny akademickiej

My thesis in this article is that developing glottodidactics as an academic discipline is an optimal program for the field of foreign language learning and teaching, especially considering its prospects of generating practically useful knowledge. I begin by making distinctions between ‘practice’, ‘theory’, and ‘science’ in the context of three stages in the maturation of our field. This is to show the qualitative differences between a) commonsense b) methodology, and c) an academic discipline with the prospect of satisfying social demands for knowledge which is useful in teaching, understood as its own application. Chances of this full-fledged discipline generating such knowledge, however, depend on its success in constituting itself as mirror image of an empirical discipline with an empirical system as its subject matter.

The Influence of Experiential Factors on Self-assessment of Foreign Language Proficiency

With a growing interest in learner autonomy in the field of foreign language learning, there has been much discussion on the validity of self-assessment as an alternative to more objective measures in the evaluation of foreign language competence. Given that many of the past studies supported the usefulness of self-assessment, current research focus has been on factors that might enhance or mitigate its accuracy. This study investigated the influence of one such factor, experiential factor, on self-assessment scores, using the self-ratings provided by 357 company employees about their English abilities to perform 65 job-related tasks. More precisely, the research questions are (1) Does learners' experience with a task affect their self-assessments of the target task?, and (2) if so, how are task content and learners' language proficiency related to the experiential factor? Results revealed that in most tasks, the self-estimates given by the experienced were higher than those by the inexperienced and that the differences were statistically significant. This provides evidence that self-assessment is affected by the degree of learners' experience with the tasks self-rated. It was also found that when the tasks are complex or involve encoding/productive skills, experiential factors play more influential roles in learners' measurement of their ability to perform them. On the other hand, it was clearly shown that the higher the learners' language proficiency is, the less evident such effects are in their self-ratings. The findings suggest that the extent of learners' language experience should be considered in designing a self-assessment questionnaire and interpreting its results.

Het Autonoom Leren Van Vreemde Talen Door Volwassenen in Nederland

Autonomous Learning of Foreign Languages by Adults in the Netherlands: A UNESCO Research Project In the field of foreign language learning there is a growing interest in the group of adult learners. As foreign language learning in school often does not provide students with all the knowledge and skill they need, many countries are looking for facilities for adults to brush up or to improve their skill in the languages they have learned at school and/or to learn other languages. The fact that most adults are often unable to attend language courses conducted by teachers, may force them to seek materials for self-instruction. The UNESCO is trying to obtain information on whether in Europe materials for autonomous foreign language learning are available and, if so, what criteria they meet. The UNESCO Secretariat has asked the French National Commission to prepare a critical study, with the help of a research group of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint Cloud (Audio-Visuel Centre), of the forms of autodidaxy and semi-autonomy in the field of foreign language learning in Europe. This research pro-ject involves English, French, Spanish and Russian and was carried out in Great Britain, France, Spain, URSS, Sweden and the Netherlands. Dis-tance teaching by means of mass media as well as the issue of the efficiency of autonomous learning are not investigated. The sophisticated analysis grid developed for the sake of the evaluation of the materials and the systems, is perhaps the most im-portant aspect of this project. The information received with the aid of this analysis grid, shows that in the Netherlands the materials are rather inadequate.