Language Learning Histories Research Articles

Social media in second and foreign language teaching and learning: Blogs, wikis, and social networking

This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily since 2009 and mid 2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.

English Medium Instruction (EMI) from the perspectives of students at a technical university in Turkey

ABSTRACTIn parallel with the spread of English as an international language of communication, English Medium Instruction (EMI) has rapidly gained importance in Turkish tertiary education but also brought some controversy among students and academics. It is important to clarify the prevailing situation in order to enhance the quality of instruction. Descriptive in essence, the present study examines the results of a survey about EMI courses in the context of a technical university conducted in 2018 to understand students’ attitudes towards EMI courses, the challenges they face and the suggestions they make for improvement. Although there are some positive aspects of EMI, such as getting ready for work life where English has become prevalent and the presence of a large number of resources and articles in English, there are also some possible challenges, such as linguistic challenges inherent in students’ language learning history, some lecturers having limited English proficiency and ineffective courses. Although it is deemed prestigious to offer EMI courses, some changes are necessary. Taking students’ views into consideration, some suggestions are providing intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses to help students cross the linguistic barrier and equipping lecturers with the necessary skills before appointing them to EMI courses.

Phenomenological Analysis into Students’ Self-Perceived Autonomy and Out-Of-Class Learning

Autonomy researchers have employed qualitative approaches to investigate a variety of issues. Ethnographies, case studies, language learning histories, (auto)biographies, among others, are featured in the literature. Some of these approaches fall under the umbrella of narrative research (Barkhuizen, Benson, & Chik, 2014; Early & Norton, 2012), which is emerging strongly in the L2 learning research (Barkhuizen, 2013; Benson 2014). This paper discusses another approach that has not been widely featured in autonomy or L2 learning research, phenomenology. “Phenomenology is a philosophical approach to the study of experience” (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009, p. 11). Phenomenology seeks “to determine what an experience means for the persons who have had the experience and are able to provide a comprehensive description of it” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 13). Phenomenological research was employed to explore the phenomenon of ‘institutionalised L2 learning and possibilities for autonomy in Trinidad & Tobago’ with thirty students in the context of a BA in Spanish programme. Students’ self-perceived autonomy emerged from the analysis and shed light on the sociocultural phenomena that enabled or hindered students’ development and exercise of autonomy. The paper illustrates how phenomenological research can be a valuable qualitative approach to explore sociocultural phenomena in learner autonomy.

“If you don’t have English, you’re just as good as a dead person”: A narrative of adult English language literacy within post-apartheid South Africa

This article centres on the narrative of Thuli, a 62-year-old black South African domestic worker taking English language literacy classes outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. For Thuli, English literacy is of vital importance because, as she claims, “if you don’t have English, you’re just as good as a dead person”. Drawing primarily on the methodology of narrative inquiry, this article employs human narratives to expose the links between individual, social and political histories. Specifically, it centres on the life narratives of Thuli and the ways in which her stories are integrated into the complex history of language learning and adult education within South Africa. Utilising these coexisting histories and HERstories, the author of this article seeks to understand the multiple forces that impact a learner such as Thuli to become literate in English. By highlighting Thuli’s narrative as well as demonstrating the roles that both the author as the researcher and Thuli as the narrator play in the creation of her narrative, the author attempts to exhibit the power of the narrative in further understanding nuances of language, power and identity. Moreover, the author ventures to expose the ways in which the links between these concepts continue to affect adult learners in postcolonial South African adult basic education (ABE) and language learning. Finally, the author links Thuli’s experience to two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely Quality education (SDG4) and Gender equality (SDG5). In addition, the author attempts to reveal how the links between both goals are missing in policy documents. Using this narrative as an example of the complexity of English within South African ABE, what becomes apparent are the ways in which the desire to learn English is both individually nuanced and laden with historically (re)produced ideologies.

Connecting the dots to see the whole: Learner variables, wellbeing and coping strategies in student narratives‡

Taking a complex dynamic systems perspective and following an adapted theory of wellbeing, the present mixed-methods project looked into the wellbeing of Iranian postgraduate students majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT). The participants included 29 male and 45 female 24–31 year-old students whose language learning histories were analysed for elements of wellbeing and coping strategies. In addition, the impact of learner variables of resiliency, language learning strategy use, multiple intelligences, and language learning aptitude on the participants’ wellbeing was investigated. The elements of wellbeing in narratives written by students were found to be emotional responses, accomplishments, meaningful engagement, and relationships in a descending order. Hierarchical multiple regression showed resiliency, language learning strategy use, multiple intelligences, and aptitude (but not gender) affected wellbeing. While male students used accomplishments, meaningful engagement, emotional responses, and relationships as their coping, their female peers used emotional responses, accomplishment, meaningful engagement, and relationships.

The history of language learning and teaching in Britain

ABSTRACTThis article provides an introduction, based on the most recent research available, to the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT) in Britain. After an overview of the state of research, I consider which languages have been learnt, why and how that has changed; the role of teachers and tests in determining what was taught; changes in how languages have been taught (and why); and the emergence of the modern infrastructure of language teaching policy and practice. I conclude with case study of the contribution of Walter Rippmann, a key figure, in the period 1895 to ca. 1920, a time of professionalisation of language teaching and of efforts towards innovation and change, which set the agenda for many of the major developments of the twentieth century, including a call for scientifically based language teaching and a greater emphasis on the spoken language.

JOHN BRADBY BLAKE'S MULTIMEDIA DICTIONARY: FROM WORDLIST TO WORLDVIEW

The unique illustrated and annotated ‘Chinese‐English Vocabulary’ (hereafter ‘Vocabulary’) in the John Bradby Blake collection in the library of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation is described, along with the composition of individual entries and their arrangement. Analysis of the contents suggests that the Vocabulary was composed in a multi‐layered process beginning with the illustration and main Chinese characters, which were then annotated by two other individuals, most likely John Bradby Blake himself and perhaps Whang at Tong. The layers of the Vocabulary document an attempt at cross‐cultural exchange, with equivalences being proposed, explanations offered, and meanings contested. Situating the Vocabulary in the history of Chinese language learning and the more general history of bilingual wordlists reveals various types of precedents and related material, but it is unique in the history of Chinese‐English lexicography and what it has to teach us about the worldview of its authors and mid‐Qing intellectual knowledge exchange between British and Southern Chinese.

But…What Will the Students Think? Factors Shaping University English Language Teachers’ Decisions to Teach Grammar

There is a growing body of research on English language teachers’ form-focused decision- making. However, less is known about such form-focused decisions at the tertiary level in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses (Burgess & Etherington, 2002). This study sought to discover the factors impacting on the grammar-related decisions of four EAP teachers at a large university in an Asian context—a context less investigated at the onset of this study. A qualitative case study methodology was adopted with data collected via videotaped, direct, non-participant classroom observations (including fieldnote taking) and semi-structured stimulated recall interviews (Gass & Mackey, 2000). The observed classroom lessons were videotaped and the interviews were audiotaped, and all were transcribed for analysis. The results of this study suggest that the teacher-participants’ anticipation of their students’ reaction to a focus on language form (grammar) factored heavily into the decisions the teachers made. These anticipations were found to be rooted in several factors: the teachers’ language learning histories (especially when the teacher has a shared background with the students); previous teaching experiences with the course at hand; and most notably, the teachers’ anticipation of their students’ evaluation of their teaching. The possible influence of student evaluations is an area less explored in research in teacher-decision making, but one that was found to be significant in this study, and is an area for further investigation.

A Study of English Language Learning History and Perceptions of Primary School Students in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province

A Study of English Language Learning History and Perceptions of Primary School Students in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province

‘We are not as they think about us’: exploring Omani EFL learners’ ‘selves’ in digital social spaces

This paper reports a research study of Omani EFL learners’ motivation to engage in social technologies through the medium of English, adopting Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System as the main theoretical framework, whilst exploring other emergent context-sensitive motivational driving forces. The purpose of the research study was to explore identities and self-perceptions of Omani nationals using social media to learn English, an under-researched context. Reflective focused group discussions were conducted with 14 university-age students, along with individually composed language learning histories. The data of the research lend substantial support to the relevance of the L2 Motivational Self System in the Omani context, highlighting, in particular, the emerging collective national and religious identities of young Omani nationals. The paper argues for the need to deepen and broaden our understanding of the association of English social technologies and the national and religious affiliations of learners.

Nicola, McLelland: German through English Eyes. A History of Language Teaching and Learning in Britain 1500–2000

Nicola, McLelland: German through English Eyes. A History of Language Teaching and Learning in Britain 1500–2000

An evaluation of second language acquisition in postmodern era

On looking back the history of second language learning (SLA), one can clearly see the shift beginning from structural approaches to cognitive, naturalist, socio-cultural, communicative approaches, then contextualized and much later ecological ones. Although each approach comes out by criticizing the previous one/ones in different fields, they are just like a complement of each other in terms of SLA. To illustrate, cognitivists criticizes structuralism in that structural linguists see the language as only a linear, systematic system in which teaching takes place in forming habits through pre-selected, pre-sequenced linguistic forms. What cognitive linguists believe that learning a language cannot be limited to what is taught as linguistic forms since learners can create infinite number of sentences using finite rules of grammar and they add there should be something which helps learners to use the second language (L2) cognitively. It is sure that language cannot be regarded without linguistic forms and may need explicit explanation with a continual and conscious attention until it becomes automatic as structural linguists have suggested. In addition, being able to understand mental procedure happening during language learning provides learners to become more aware of their own learning process and benefit from whenever it is needed as cognitivists have mentioned. Just like in this example, the new perspective meets the deficit of the previous one. By the time SLA reaches its postmodern era, each forthcoming approach, technique, method, or procedure brings a new look to language itself, to language learning, and to second language learning via complementing a part which has not been considered before. In this case, it is certain that we can expect the newest approach is the most complex and the most inclusive of all. Despite the fact that postmodernism brings a broader viewpoint to SLA, there are some assumptions which are still fresh to debate. This paper aims to explain the significance of individual variability in L2 as a central construct and whether the experiences in physical and social world support language learning or not.

Successful L3 learning in a study abroad context: a personal narrative

ABSTRACTStudying abroad may seem like an unparalleled opportunity to learn a foreign language. Massive exposure to the language, chances for interaction with native speakers, and cultural immersion appear to create excellent conditions for language learning. Yet, most available research indicates that study abroad (SA) participants rarely achieve linguistic success. By way of contrast, the aim of the study reported below is to investigate an example of accomplishment in language learning abroad. The participant of the study is a Polish third-year student of English studies who took part in a semester-long SA programme (Erasmus+) in Turkey. The instrument used in the study is her personal narrative, specifically her language learning history which was analysed with the use of a grounded theory approach. The results of the study provide insights into which and how motivations, personality traits, and SA contexts interact resulting in successful L3 learning.

Communities of Practice in Study Abroad: A Four‐Year Study of an Indonesian Student's Experience in Japan

This 4‐year case study used a photo‐elicitation approach to language learning history research in an individual case study of an Indonesian student's experiences of communities of practice while studying abroad in Japan. The study showed how the student's opportunities for interaction in Japanese were at first limited by his peripheral participation in institutionally organized communities of practice that consisted of international students and local Japanese support staff. Toward the end of his 4 years, however, the student succeeded in becoming a central participant in an informal self‐organized community of practice that consisted mainly of local Japanese friends, who were more supportive of his interactions and language development. The study also shows how earlier experiences of peripheral participation scaffolded the student's later experience as a central participant. Photographs taken by the student over the 4 years were both a valuable source of data on the nature of his participation in communities and a stimulus to reflection that enriched the language learning history data.

When pumpkin is closer to onion than to squash: The structure of the second language lexicon

The current research investigated the organization of the second language mental lexicon. Twenty-seven English-Hebrew bilingual speakers (who spoke Hebrew as their second language) completed a semantic fluency task in each of their languages, and 24 native Hebrew speakers completed the task in Hebrew. Responses were compared within and across groups, using computational tools. The analyses indicated that the lexical network of the second language displayed greater local connectivity and less modular community structure than the network in the native language, both in the entire sample and in a sub-sample of bilinguals whose Hebrew vocabulary was matched to that of the native Hebrew speakers. These findings suggest that the lexical network of the second language is not as well-organized as is the network of the first language, even in highly proficient bilinguals. The structural characteristics of the second language lexicon might be affected by factors related to language learning history, including age of acquisition and language use.

German Through English Eyes: A history of language teaching and learning in Britain

German Through English Eyes: A history of language teaching and learning in Britain

Competition between multiple words for a referent in cross-situational word learning.

Three experiments investigated competition between word-object pairings in a cross-situational word-learning paradigm. Adults were presented with One-Word pairings, where a single word labeled a single object, and Two-Word pairings, where two words labeled a single object. In addition to measuring learning of these two pairing types, we measured competition between words that refer to the same object. When the word-object co-occurrences were presented intermixed in training (Experiment 1), we found evidence for direct competition between words that label the same referent. Separating the two words for an object in time eliminated any evidence for this competition (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that adding a linguistic cue to the second label for a referent led to different competition effects between adults who self-reported different language learning histories, suggesting both distinctiveness and language learning history affect competition. Finally, in all experiments, competition effects were unrelated to participants' explicit judgments of learning, suggesting that competition reflects the operating characteristics of implicit learning processes. Together, these results demonstrate that the role of competition between overlapping associations in statistical word-referent learning depends on time, the distinctiveness of word-object pairings, and language learning history.

Viagens de aprendizagem: um estudo de metáforas em narrativas de aprendizagem de inglês

Neste artigo apresentamos um estudo sobre a metáfora da viagem em histórias de aprendizagem de língua inglesa, tendo por suporte teórico o conceito de metáfora e de esquemas imagéticos da linguística cognitiva. Os dados foram retirados do corpus de narrativas de aprendizagem de inglês do projeto AMFALE . Para localizar os exemplos de metáforas que têm como base a metáfora conceitual A APRENDIZAGEM DE LÍNGUA INGLESA É UMA VIAGEM , utilizamos o mecanismo de busca do Google, interno ao site que hospeda o corpus do AMFALE, e fizemos buscas com palavras do campo semântico viagem em português e em inglês. Em seguida selecionamos exemplos onde a metáfora era mais salientes e escolhemos alguns deles para nossa análise. Dividimos a análise em três partes, a partir do esquema imagético da viagem, origem-percurso-destino. A análise evidencia que a maioria das metáforas está relacionada ao processo de aprendizagem metaforizado como um percurso, apesar de encontrarmos também algumas poucas metáforas se referindo à origem e ao destino da viagem.

As construções metafóricas de aprendizes de inglês sobre seu papel na aprendizagem de uma língua adicional

Com base em um corpus constituído de 64 narrativas de aprendizagem, o foco do trabalho a ser apresentado está no modo como a imagem do aluno é construída no discurso de aprendizes adolescentes de inglês como língua adicional. As metáforas encontradas foram analisadas qualitativamente à luz das teorias da Metáfora Conceptual (LAKOFF e JOHNSON, 1980) e dos Esquemas Imagéticos (LAKOFF, 1987). A partir da análise, evidencia-se que este grupo de aprendizes se conceptualiza como trabalhadores, máquinas, contêineres e construtores. Fica evidente, portanto, a necessidade da realização de pesquisas sobre esse tema para proporcionar um desenvolvimento reflexivo por parte de professores e pesquisadores acerca do processo de ensino e aprendizagem desse idioma, nos dias atuais.

The role of second language in higher education: A case study of German students at a Dutch university

AbstractThis article reports on an investigation of the challenges and benefits of university students taking a degree course in a language other than their mother tongue. Our study was conducted from the point of view of the non-native students themselves, and our primary concern was the role of language. We investigated the academic achievement of German students studying in a Dutch-English academic environment. Dutch is the main language of instruction, and English the main language of the literature used. In search of predictors for successful learning of Dutch (our first research question), LexTALE tests were administered to determine linguistic competence in the students’ first language, German, and their second language, English. In addition, we collected data on their educational background and language learning history. None of the LexTALE scores stood out as ‘the’ predictor for success in learning Dutch; German was a slightly better predictor than English. The best predictor appeared to be the students’ general educational level, expressed in mean grades for final exams in secondary education. We then studied the role of proficiency in the foreign languages needed for academic success. Language data on L3 Dutch were gathered at the start and were compared to study results after the first six months and at the end of the first year. The level of Dutch as a second language correlated with study results, expressed in ECTS; the correlation was even higher with mean grades on exams. This indicates that language proficiency does play a role in study success.