Knowledge Of Language Learners Research Articles

Motivation and learning psychology of teachers in language translation learning

AbstractThis study aimed to understand pre‐service teachers’ motivations and learning psychologies in language teaching. The study used a phenomenology pattern, a qualitative research method, to gather pre‐service teachers’ views about language teaching, motivations and learning psychologies during translation activities. The study group consisted of 42 language department undergraduate students from the Education Faculty of a private university in TRNC in the 2022–2023 academic year, selected using the criterion sampling method. Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews. The NVIVO‐R1 qualitative data analysis program was used for categorisation and coding in the data analysis. The findings revealed that translation studies motivate and improve comprehension–explanation skills, increasing academic success, positively impacting learning psychology, and reducing anxiety. Effective teaching methods and motivation were influential factors in teaching language to pre‐service teachers. The study also found that reinforcers, intrinsic motivation, exemplification–association, measurable goals, teaching environment, teaching method and applied learning significantly affect the language teaching process and academic success. It was concluded that pre‐service teachers are attentive to their professional careers and motivations. Additionally, the study revealed that learning the historical development of the language and different types of translation positively contributed to the motivation levels, academic achievement and language learning knowledge and skills of pre‐service teachers. Regarding grammar teaching, pre‐service teachers highlighted the importance of focusing on the social and interactional dimensions of language in addition to grammar learning. They expressed that language learning anxiety stemmed from insufficient practice. Finally, the study suggested that the language‐learning problems of pre‐service teachers could be attributed to the neglect of translation studies.

Teachers’ Beliefs About Multilingualism at Universities in North Macedonia

Abstract The purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism at universities in North Macedonia. Multilingualism as a concept is related to an individual’s ability to speak three or more languages. Given the educational and cultural globalization, multilingualism is crucial in many countries in the world. North Macedonia is an excellent example of multilingualism where different cultures live together and learn the languages of each other. At Universities across the country, teachers face different challenges while teaching multilingual classes. Linguistic competence in many local languages allows students to learn foreign languages easily and thus raises students’ global awareness and deepens knowledge about their future teaching career. The study analysed data collected from thirty EFL teachers from four different universities, Southeast European University, University of Tetova, Mother Teresa University and International Balkan University in North Macedonia. The research instrument used was the teacher survey which contained five domains: Teachers’ perspective on multilingualism; Students’ language learning knowledge; Language teacher collaboration; Learning materials, and other topics related to L2 learning and teaching. The study results revealed that teachers view multilingualism as a positive asset for the students, and they expressed that they have developed an approach which helps multilinguals to achieve their learning goals. One area which needs improvement is teacher collaboration, as they tend to collaborate regarding materials and textbooks, however, not willing to share their experience on teaching methods/strategies and challenges faced.

The Camera-on or Camera-off, Is It a Dilemma? Sparking Engagement, Motivation, and Autonomy Through Microsoft Teams Videoconferencing

A videoconferencing system to communicate synchronously is an indispensable tool for educators, teachers, students, parents, and administrators in online courses. One of the effective online learning platforms that can increase student engagement and motivation in online courses is Microsoft Teams. This research aimed to explore English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ views of enacting Microsoft Teams videoconferencing. This study employed a mixed-method design complemented by observation, open-ended questionnaires, as well as in-depth interviews for qualitative analysis in capturing and exploring their experience of synchronous learning using the Microsoft Teams in the post-pandemic. Furthermore, close-ended questionnaires were also distributed as quantitative data. The results revealed that Microsoft Teams helped the learners to be more involved in debates with both faculty and students as a result of their participation in discussion forums. They also gained a better comprehension and knowledge of language learning. It was clear that they were highly motivated and enjoyed the online course due to its ease of use and fun features, and they appreciated direct feedback in the synchronous online meeting. Thus, the learners with strong motivation can develop their learning autonomy. They can monitor and evaluate their self-progress in learning. Further research is highly recommended for exploiting Microsoft Teams to create innovations in a virtual classroom.

Exploring The Use of Knowledge in Language Learning

There is a close connection between the use of different types of knowledge and the connections with the four strands of language arts: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In the quest to gain knowledge, learners need to use their language skills. The knowledge can be categorised as conditional, declarative and procedural knowledge. In order to gain these three types of knowledge, language users need to use the four language skills and they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the context of this study the skills are developed by language users in the process of gaining conditional, declarative and procedural knowledge. This study is done to explore how conditional, declarative and procedural knowledge influence the use of language skills. 252 respondents responded to the survey. The instrument used in this study is a survey. The survey has 4 sections. Section A has items on demographic profile, section B has 22 items on conditional knowledge, section C has 10 items on declarative knowledge and section D has 10 items on procedural Knowledge. Data is analysed using SPSS and revealed that different people focus on different knowledge in their effort to learn English. Total mean show that language uses used declarative most often compared to conditional and procedural knowledge. Findings of the study bear interesting implications in the teaching of all four language skills.

Alternative Computer Assisted Communicative Task-based Language Testing: New Communicational and Interactive Online Skills

Computer-assisted language learning knowledge tests should no longer be designed on traditional skills to measure individual competence through traditional skills such as reading, comprehension and writing, but instead, it should diagnose interactive and communication skills in foreign lan-guages. In recent years in online education, it has been necessary to review the concept of interactive competence in digital environments in a comple-mentary way to its traditional use. It is important to promote a new typolo-gy of alternative tasks and items in tests where examinees can prove a real interactive performance in communication and interaction through the digi-tal scenario. This should be done through tools that facilitate oral negotia-tion, the management and understanding of the information extracted from online repositories, the search for suitable online digital material, and the use of new modes of audio-visual communication. Although some of these tasks have been used in a complementary way in the design of language tests previously: it is true that they have not been applied in a coherent way to be used as an assessment tool. A first approach was made by Miguel Ál-varez, García Laborda & Magal-Royo (2021) in the development of oral ne-gotiation skills through the use of interactive tools. The current online as-sessment models analyzed by García Laborda & Álvarez Fernández (2021) indicate the need to seek new ways of assessing foreign languages through the design of tests that fit in the current digital and interactive world.

Exploring Learning Management System of the Smartphone Application Based e-Learning in Covid-19 Era: Developing Innovation to Investigate the Metacognitive Approach for Students of AIK Lesson

Exploring Learning Management System of the Smartphone Application Based e-Learning for learners’ approach about metacognitive approaches contact on effectiveness, and the association between metacognitive approach and effectiveness on their developing Innovation to Investigate the metacogntive Approach for Students of Al-Islam and Kemuhammadiyahan (AIK) lesson. To examine the effects of approach instruction on students’ reading performance, a qualitative interview technique and quantitative research methods including a paired-sample t-test and Person Product Moment Correlation will use to estimate the relationship between metacognitive approaches and effectiveness on students’ reading accomplishment of Al-Islam and Kemuhammadiyahan (AIK) lesson. Significance showed that the most frequent use of metacognitive approachwas found to be the metacognitive approach, followed by the cognitive approach. Learning strategies and on language learning documents of Al-Islam and Kemuhammadiyahan (AIK) lesson that are self-directed at continuing recognition of the need to help language learners reflect and improve their beliefs and knowledge about learning metacognitive knowledge explicitly about the function of knowledge in language learning of Al-Islam and Kemuhammadiyahan (AIK) lesson. This article reviews the theoretical literature and research on metacognition to enhance the understanding of approaches to second language acquisition that establish active roles for students, and conclude with consideration of the practical implications for teaching foreign languages and second languages. In addition, there is a significant positive connection between metacognitive approachand effectiveness on their Smartphone application. Reading approach, on the other hand, was unrelated to reading achievement.

Using Learner-centered Instructional Approach to Foster Students’ Performances

This study aims to delineate the significance of using student centered instructional approaches for enhancing learners’ competency in vocabulary learning, in higher education. The working group for this study comprised of 26 students studying the Foundation Year Program in the English Language Centre at University of Bahrain during the academic year 2018-2019. Student Centered “instructions designed according to the model consisting of nine steps of instructional events based on the Condition of Learning theory by Robert. M. Gagné” was used for this purpose. Gagne's model of instructional design provides valuable guidelines to organize lessons as a systematic instructional design process. It focuses on the instructional learning outcomes and how to organize specific instructional events to facilitate effective learning experiences in order to accomplish the intended learning objectives. Applying Gagne's nine stages of learning administers a systematic learning program as it presents a structured framework for lesson planning and a holistic view to the teaching learning process. Prior to using this series of nine levels of learning, students were given a pretest, in order to understand the stratum of active and passive vocabulary they utilize in language learning. At the end of the study, students were evaluated by a post test. The results demonstrated that learner centered instructional approach was successful in augmenting learners ’retention and transfer of productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge in language learning therefore, such learner centred instructional approaches are cogent for paving higher educational academic accomplishments and promoting learner autonomy.

Exploring public speaking anxiety and personal disposition in EFL presentations

Personality traits and anxiety have been acknowledged for their influence in foreign language (FL) learning situations. Moreover, research recognizes the role of personality characteristics in determining an individual's propensity towards feelings of anxiety. However, relatively few studies investigate associations between personality and anxiety in English as foreign language (EFL) settings, particularly with regard to delivering presentations. This research reports on the associations between personality traits measured via the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and perceived anxiety related to delivering presentations assessed by the Personal Report on Public Speaking (PRPSA). Exploratory factor analysis identified four public speaking anxiety factors: Positive mindset, Physical symptoms, Preparation anxiety and Performance anxiety. Employing these factors as dependent variables in multiple regression equations with personality traits as explanatory variables showed that personality variables Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness and Openness to experience were all significant predictors of public speaking anxiety − explaining 10 to 23% of the variance − contingent upon which factor was employed as the dependent variable. Personality variables were then entered into hierarchical regressions while controlling for English ability and the amount of variance explained ranged from 16 to 32%. Avenues through which this research advances our understanding and knowledge of language learning are discussed.

Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners

As the topic suggests, the research paper presents Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners. Error analysis always tries to resolve language learners’ problems in acquiring second or foreign language setting. Learning to English pronunciation is perhaps as important as learning listening skill, speaking, and spelling. Errors in English pronunciation create several problems for English language learners in their works. In other words, most of the English language errors of pronunciation are due to the lack of knowledge of language learners. However, all the students in our sample are of age group (16-25) at Bushehr language institute and they are all Iranian nationals. In addition, all of them were female learners. An English pronunciation (consonant) test was used to get information about the knowledge of the learners in English pronunciation. Findings of this article indicated that the first and second hypotheses of this article were accepted, but the third hypothesis was rejected. However, the findings of this paper showed that the Iranian EFL students have problem to pronounce English sounds correctly.

Metalinguistic Knowledge of Salient vs. Unsalient Features: Evidence From the Arabic Construct State

This study examined to what extent English-speaking learners of Arabic demonstrated varied metalinguistic knowledge of a salient feature (head-direction) vs. an unsalient feature (definiteness) in the Arabic construct state. In addition, it examined whether this knowledge was utilized in form-focused task performance. In the target construction, the head is canonically positioned before the complement (left-headed) and the definite marker is prefixed to the complement. Salience of these two features was operationalized in terms of inherent prominence; head-direction was determined to be more salient than the monosyllabic proclitic definite article. Metalinguistic knowledge was conceptualized in terms of the learners' ability to selectively focus attention, provide explicit explanations, and use metalanguage. A beginner group (N = 20) and an intermediate-proficiency group (N =18) completed a multiple-choice task. A retrospective think-aloud interview with 10 participants from each group sought to capture the manifestations of their metalinguistic knowledge. The quantitative-qualitative analysis revealed that while both groups demonstrated complex metalinguistic knowledge of head-direction, they did not demonstrate the same knowledge of definiteness placement. A follow-up correlation showed strong connections between manifestations of metalinguistic knowledge and response type distribution in the task. The role of metalinguistic knowledge in language learning and relevant pedagogical focus-on-form implications are discussed.

From specific examples to general knowledge in language learning

The extraction of general knowledge from individual episodes is critical if we are to learn new knowledge or abilities. Here we uncover some of the key cognitive mechanisms that characterise this process in the domain of language learning. In five experiments adult participants learned new morphological units embedded in fictitious words created by attaching new affixes (e.g., -afe) to familiar word stems (e.g., “sleepafe is a participant in a study about the effects of sleep”). Participants’ ability to generalise semantic knowledge about the affixes was tested using tasks requiring the comprehension and production of novel words containing a trained affix (e.g., sailafe). We manipulated the delay between training and test (Experiment 1), the number of unique exemplars provided for each affix during training (Experiment 2), and the consistency of the form-to-meaning mapping of the affixes (Experiments 3–5). In a task where speeded online language processing is required (semantic priming), generalisation was achieved only after a memory consolidation opportunity following training, and only if the training included a sufficient number of unique exemplars. Semantic inconsistency disrupted speeded generalisation unless consolidation was allowed to operate on one of the two affix-meanings before introducing inconsistencies. In contrast, in tasks that required slow, deliberate reasoning, generalisation could be achieved largely irrespective of the above constraints. These findings point to two different mechanisms of generalisation that have different cognitive demands and rely on different types of memory representations.

Study of media that mediate the creation of knowledge in language learning : Focusing on Pattern languages as dialogue media

Study of media that mediate the creation of knowledge in language learning : Focusing on Pattern languages as dialogue media

Teachers' beliefs about the role of prior language knowledge in learning and how these influence teaching practices

The present study was developed to assess teachers’ beliefs on (1) the role of prior language knowledge in language learning; (2) the perceived usefulness of language knowledge in modern society; and (3) the teaching practices to be used with multilingual students. Subjects were 176 secondary schoolteachers working in Italy (N=103), Austria (N=42), and Great Britain (N=31) who taught subjects ranging from languages to science, literature, or physical education. Teachers were asked to rate a series of statements on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) Likert scale. The data were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis distribution-free test to identify differences in responses in the three countries. Overall results suggest that teachers in Italy, Austria, and Great Britain tend to share similar views on the three topics examined. The article discusses the need to introduce modules on multilingualism and language learning as a regular feature of teacher training programs as many teachers show beliefs that suggest little awareness of the cognitive benefits of multilingualism and of the usefulness of home language maintenance for students and their families.

Culture Differences and English Teaching

Language is a part of culture, and plays a very important role in the development of the culture. Some sociologists consider it as the keystone of culture. They believe, without language, culture would not be available. At the same time, language is influenced and shaped by culture, it reflects culture. Therefore, culture plays a very important part in language teaching, which is widely acknowledged by English teaching circle. This thesis depicts the relationship between culture and language. As a result, the gap of cultural differences is one of the most important barriers in English teaching and study. Among the students, lacking of cultural background knowledge can, to a great extent, hold up the improvement of English teaching and become a noticeable problem. At present, the objective of English teaching has broken free from the traditional listening, speaking, reading and writing, and the demand for cultural background knowledge in language learning has been gradually concerned. Presentation of history of the country which has the target language, cultural background knowledge and customs is the proposed solution to the problem. This paper mainly discusses how to present cultural background knowledge and expose learners to it in the need of English teaching at Chinese schools so as to solve the problems caused by cultural differences, help learners grasp the crux of the language and develop their comprehensive English ability.

The Effectiveness of a Theme-based Syllabus for Young L2 Learners

This paper reports a longitudinal quasiexperimental study that investigated the effectiveness of a theme-based syllabus versus an essentially grammatical syllabus with functional elements for young Turkish learners of English (aged 10–11) in a primary school setting. The theme-based syllabus rested on two different theoretical premises, one being Widdowson's (1990) notion of systemic versus schematic knowledge in language learning and the other being Cummins' (1981) twodimensional concept of language proficiency, involving basic interpersonal/communicative skills and cognitive/academic language proficiency. Two intact groups were randomly assigned to one of these syllabus types and received instruction for two years. Results indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group both in listening and reading/writing skills.

Metacognitive Knowledge and Language Learning1

Dating back to the early 80s, the FL/SL literature on learner strategies and on self-directed language learning documents an ongoing recognition of the need to help language leamers reflect upon and refine their beliefs and knowledge about learning, i.e. their metacognitive knowledge. To date, however, this literature has not been explicit about the function of this knowledge in language learning. This article reviews selected theoretical and research literature on metacognition to address this lack. It argues that insights provided by the review can enhance our understanding of those approaches to second language acquisition which assign an active role to the learner, and concludes with a consideration of practical implications for foreign and second language instruction.