Non-native English Research Articles

Computerized E-learning platform for teaching Python programming using Hausa language

Staff and students from almost every country are now learning python programming language. However, the syntax of programming languages, libraries, documentation, and instructional materials are taught and presented in English language. Non-native English speaking counties are faced with many challenges with the contents, reading and writing codes in Python. In West African countries Hausa language is one of the languages spoken by over 80 million people globally primarily found in Nigeria, Niger, Sudan, Ghana, and Cameroon. Therefore, it is imperative to teach python programming using mother’s tongue which can be understood easily by non-native English speaking country. The methodology used in this paper is python programming and Hausa languages. Results obtained indicated that there is significant increase in the rate of understanding using this technique.

Instrumental Analysis of English Vowels Produced by Male and Female Zilfaawi Arabic Speakers

Arab and non-Arab English as a foreign language (EFL) students continue to have difficulty pronouncing English vowels accurately. To examine this, our study analyzes how male and female Saudi EFL students pronounce English monophthongs when compared to native speakers assessed in previous research. Gender-related variations between male and female Arab English speakers are also explored. Formant frequencies (F1 and F2) are employed to evaluate vowel quality, with vowel duration measured to investigate vowel length. Learners’ pronunciations of English words containing vowels of interest are used to collect data. Five male and five female EFL learners produced English monophthongs in the /hVd/ context. We then compare the results with previous data on native English speakers and conduct acoustic analysis. Regarding duration, male non-native English speakers’ data are compared with previous results for male native speakers, revealing that the vowels of Saudi learners are shorter than those of native English speakers, and those of non-native men are longer than those of non-native women. Moreover, the low vowels produced by Saudi and native men are longer than their non-low vowels. Regarding vowel quality, men produce lower vowels than native speakers. Women, however, produce lower and more front vowels than native women. Statistically, this study reveals significant differences between male and female Saudi EFL learners in producing English vowels. Saudi men’s vowel space is more centralized than Saudi women’s space. Both men and women overlap low vowels. Saudi learners’ mispronunciations of English vowels indicate that L1 interference is not the only cause of mispronunciations.

Peer Review: The cost of being a non-native English speaker in science

Peer Review: The cost of being a non-native English speaker in science

The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science.

The use of English as the common language of science represents a major impediment to maximising the contribution of non-native English speakers to science. Yet few studies have quantified the consequences of language barriers on the career development of researchers who are non-native English speakers. By surveying 908 researchers in environmental sciences, this study estimates and compares the amount of effort required to conduct scientific activities in English between researchers from different countries and, thus, different linguistic and economic backgrounds. Our survey demonstrates that non-native English speakers, especially early in their careers, spend more effort than native English speakers in conducting scientific activities, from reading and writing papers and preparing presentations in English, to disseminating research in multiple languages. Language barriers can also cause them not to attend, or give oral presentations at, international conferences conducted in English. We urge scientific communities to recognise and tackle these disadvantages to release the untapped potential of non-native English speakers in science. This study also proposes potential solutions that can be implemented today by individuals, institutions, journals, funders, and conferences. Please see the Supporting information files (S2-S6 Text) for Alternative Language Abstracts and Figs 5 and 6.

Exploring the Multifaceted Roles of Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNEST) in Enhancing participants' Speaking Proficiency

<p class="abstrak">This study explores the roles of Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) in facilitating the improvement of participants' English speaking skills. The research was prompted by the challenge faced by a NNESTs from Indonesia, who relocated to Kyrgyzstan to teach English as a second language. The teacher lacked cultural knowledge to support his participants' language learning. To address this, the study employed a descriptive qualitative research design and utilized interviews as the primary data collection method to investigate how NNESTs support the development of their participants' English speaking ability. The analysis employed a Miles and Huberman data analysis to identify patterns and themes in the data. The findings reveal that NNESTs design instructional approaches that foster an environment conducive to speaking practice and enable participants to engage in conversation without fear of criticism. Additionally, the teachers provide personalized feedback to help participants identify their areas of weakness. Creating an engaging learning environment encourages participants to use English more frequently.</p>

Listening to accents: Comprehensibility, accentedness and intelligibility of native and non-native English speech

This study investigates how well English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners report understanding (i.e. comprehensibility) and actually understand (i.e. intelligibility) native and non-native accents of English, and how EFL learners’ self-reported ease of understanding and actual understanding of these accents are aligned. Thirty-three Dutch-speaking EFL learners performed a comprehensibility and accentedness judgement task, followed by an orthographic transcription task. The judgement task elicited listeners’ scalar ratings of authentic speech from eight speakers with traditional Inner, Outer and Expanding Circle accents. The transcription task assessed listeners’ actual understanding of 40 sentences produced by the same eight speakers. Speakers with Inner Circle accents were reported to be more comprehensible than speakers with non-Inner Circle accents, with Expanding Circle speakers being easier to understand than Outer Circle speakers. The strength of a speaker’s accent significantly affected listeners’ comprehensibility ratings. Most speakers were highly intelligible, with transcription accuracy ranging between 79% and 95%. Listeners’ self-reported ease of understanding the speakers in our study generally matched their actual understanding of those speakers, but no correlation between comprehensibility and intelligibility was detected. The study foregrounds the effect of native and non-native accents on comprehensibility and intelligibility, and highlights the importance of multidialectal listening skills.

유튜브 영어 학습 콘텐츠의 진행자 요인에 따른 이용자 인식

This study explored how users' perceptions and responses to YouTube English learning content vary depending on whether the host is a native or non-native English speaker. To this end, two YouTube channels, one hosted by a native English speaker and the other by a non-native English speaker, were selected, and user comments on the learning content were analyzed using the topic modeling technique. The findings revealed that users of both channels perceived the use of the content as a form of 'learning', studying English expressions, vocabulary, and pronunciation on their own as well as asking questions and checking their understanding through comments. On the other hand, there were clear differences in the comments of the two channels according to the host factor. In the contents of the native English speaker, more comments were revealed that users were aware of the host as a native English speaker rather than a mere content creator. These comments encompassed discussions on authentic English expressions and topics tied to American culture. Conversely, comments on the non-native English speaker’s contents revealed a positive evaluation of the host's personal capabilities and learning strategies. These findings indicated the variability of users' perceptions, reactions, and expectations based on the host, irrespective of similarities in content and delivery format. The results also emphasize the potential of YouTube as a platform for English learning and the significance of host-related factors in shaping user reactions to the content.

The Importance of Nonnative English Teachers in Costa Rica

In Costa Rican society, learning English has become a valuable tool to increase job opportunities, which has caused more hiring of teachers of this language. However, some institutions manifest preferences toward native teachers being perceived as the ideal tutor with a target model for language learning. Unfortunately, this causes nonnative English teachers (NNESTs) to suffer from discrimination when they are compared to native English teachers (NESTs). This paper aims to raise awareness in society to consider teachers´ competences and qualities when choosing an English educator because teaching requires more than having a high level in the use of the language. In this literature review, it will be able to recognize the benefits of learning English from NNESTs. Additionally, the analysis of related research was used to exemplify some reasons to qualify NNESTs as educators with sufficient competencies to teach. The results from the literature review suggest that NNESTs are more aware of the students’ needs and the importance of providing feedback. Being in the same position as most of their learners allows them to previously recognize the difficulties when learning English. Sharing students’ cultural backgrounds permits NNESTs to teach and guide students regarding their functions as individuals in society

Grammarly and Grammatical Errors Reduction: A Case for Non-Native English Teachers’ Professional Learning

Grammar has long been a source of aggravation for anyone learning a second language, not just English language learners, but also non-native English teachers. People can now employ Grammarly to correct their grammar mistakes, owing to the sophistication of modern technology. The debate over whether teachers use Grammarly as part of their professional development is ongoing. The purpose of this study was to identify the grammatical errors made by non-native English teachers when writing narrative texts before and after Grammarly checked them. The participants in this qualitative study were 24 English teachers from the English Teacher Association of Buleleng Regency in Bali, Indonesia. This study employed the surface approach taxonomy to analyze the grammatical errors and interviewed the teachers to elicit factors that contribute to grammatical errors. This study found that the most common type of misformation error, specifically the alternating form error, was found in both Grammarly-corrected and Grammarly-uncorrected texts. Furthermore, intralingual factors were responsible for the majority of errors. The integration of Grammarly into teachers' professional learning is discussed.

Generic Moves in The Literature Review Section of PhD Dissertations

The dissertation/thesis as an academic genre has evolved in academic circles in the past 30 years or so. Research into various aspects of the academic genres in general and thesis writing, in particular, started more than two decades ago. However, not much research has been carried out regarding the theorizing of literature review writing as a separate genre in theses, especially in non-native English contexts. The present study aimed to fill the theoretical voids in the research area of Literature Review (LR) section in thesis writing in Pakistani academic settings; thus this study probes into the process of construction of literature reviewing to find out that how students organise this section and deal with the potential problems as an analytical piece of writing with sound argumentation. The current study has investigated the schematic patterns in the literature review through the framework of move analysis in genre theory. The data was drawn from fifteen (15) doctoral theses in the field of English linguistics. The methodology allows for an in-depth coding of the LR chapters in theses to investigate the rhetorical organization. In the coding process, the study has also taken insights from the two previous models of Kwan (2006) and Swales’ seminal CARS model (1990) in order to study the moves (and steps) as rhetorical units. The results of the study reflect the dominant presence of Move 1, Move 2 and Move 4, whereas the employment of Move 3 is comparatively less which justifies the worth of writer’s work. This reveals that the students resort to these moves more often to perform a ritual of literature reviewing and in dire need to be trained enough to craft the LRs argumentatively. Thus, researchers have proposed a revised model to overcome the shortcoming.

ERP evidence for Slavic and German word stress cue sensitivity in English.

Word stress is demanding for non-native learners of English, partly because speakers from different backgrounds weight perceptual cues to stress like pitch, intensity, and duration differently. Slavic learners of English and particularly those with a fixed stress language background like Czech and Polish have been shown to be less sensitive to stress in their native and non-native languages. In contrast, German English learners are rarely discussed in a word stress context. A comparison of these varieties can reveal differences in the foreign language processing of speakers from two language families. We use electroencephalography (EEG) to explore group differences in word stress cue perception between Slavic and German learners of English. Slavic and German advanced English speakers were examined in passive multi-feature oddball experiments, where they were exposed to the word impact as an unstressed standard and as deviants stressed on the first or second syllable through higher pitch, intensity, or duration. The results revealed a robust Mismatch Negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potential (ERP) in both language groups in response to all conditions, demonstrating sensitivity to stress changes in a non-native language. While both groups showed higher MMN responses to stress changes to the second than the first syllable, this effect was more pronounced for German than for Slavic participants. Such group differences in non-native English word stress perception from the current and previous studies are argued to speak in favor of customizable language technologies and diversified English curricula compensating for non-native perceptual variation.

Reporting Verbs in Hard and Soft Sciences of Journal Article Abstracts: An Insight from Indonesia

Reporting verbs (RVs) express varying degrees of alignment and evaluate the credibility and merit of the reported claims in academic writing. This study aims to explore RVs’ tenses, frequencies, and functions in two major disciplines: hard science and soft science. Consequently, two specialised corpora were built from research article abstracts published in 2021–2022. The hard science corpus comprised 19,512 words; meanwhile, the soft science corpus contained 20,222 words. The Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System (CLAWS) web tagger was utilised to identify RVs, and Antconc software was employed to retrieve RVs. The study findings revealed that RVs in hard science and soft science were employed in four tenses forms, i.e. past participle, present participle, infinitive, and past tense. Further, the study indicated that based on the frequencies, soft science employed RVs more frequently than hard science. However, based on functions, hard science utilised RVs more comprehensively than soft science. Hard science and soft science have distinctive ways of implementing RVs in the Indonesian journal article abstracts. Thus, designing an RVs list specialised for non-native English (NNE) students, authors, teachers, and instructors is recommended to strengthen each discipline’s academic writing proficiency.

Examining Language Assessment Literacy for Saudi Pre-service EFL Teachers

Teacher assessment skills include knowledge of assessment methods and techniques, the ability to interpret assessment results, and the ability to use assessment to tailor teaching strategies to student needs. The present study examines non-native Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) pre-service teachers' awareness of students’ assessment. The study also investigates whether studying a course in assessment significantly impacts pre-service teachers' assessment literacy. To answer the research questions, an online test was administered to 52 pre-service teachers who are seniors at Majmaah University. The collected data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially with the aid of IBM SPSS version 22. The results revealed that non-native pre-service TEFL teachers have a low level of assessment literacy. Despite the overall weak performance in the test, the participants showed strength in some of the standards for teachers’ competence. They revealed a high capability of choosing and developing appropriate assessment methods. On the other hand, pre-service teachers possessed little awareness about their ability to implement students’ test results to adjust the curriculum or make better instructional decisions. Based on the study results, institutions may consider adding more assessment courses to the TEFL study plan or adopting some of the existing curricula and extending it to include all the assessment skills needed for creating qualified teachers. Designing a careful professional development training program for EFL faculty members is another important recommendation of the present study. Finally, future research in the field is needed for planning and implementing training programs to improve teachers’ assessment skills.

Short-term retention of learning after rapid adaptation to native and non-native speecha).

Non-native, accented speech spoken by unfamiliar talkers can be challenging to recognize, but rapid improvements in perception are often observed after a short period of exposure. However, it is not clear whether these improvements are retained over multiple sessions. Stimulus variability facilitates learning for non-native speech, so it is possible it may also induce increased retention of learning for speech produced with an unfamiliar accent. In this paper, we conduct a retrospective analysis of a dataset well suited to examine learning of non-native English speech on both a within-session and across-session basis. During data collection, participants completed a protocol involving recognition of matrix sentences recorded by native and non-native talkers with different first languages. Listeners completed the protocol in a self-paced approach, including 15 blocks of 50 trials over 4-7 days, separated by an average of 1-2 days. Learning was strongest within the first day, and improvements were retained at subsequent test sessions. The pace of learning was faster for stimuli produced by native speakers of English as compared to non-native English speakers.

Psychological Problems Faced by Nonnatives English Learners: A Perspective of Secondary Level English Learners in D. G. Khan

This study aimed to explore the problems behind the psychological weaknesses of speaking among some nonnative English language learners. The speaking skill was an unused part of a rather silent, nonparticipating classroom practices in the past in educational processes. The nonnative learners of English as a result, have hardly paid any attention to it in foreign language learning practices in a formal education. This has been documented as a developing problem in the practices of the learners in Pakistan at present. The research design was descriptive, based on survey design. The participants of this study were 400 boys and girls at secondary school level studying in Dera Ghazi Khan (D G Khan). The data were collected through a self-developed research questionnaire at five-point Likert scale by applying random sampling technique. Both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were used for data analysis. The study results show that many learners faced psychological problems at high level in speaking English. Therefore, it is recommended that the teachers should promote English speaking through the usage of direct method.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Native and Non-Native English Teachers on EFL Learners’ Accuracy, Fluency, and Complexity in Speaking

This study aimed to investigate the impact of teacher type (native vs. non-native) on the oral performance of male intermediate English as a foreign language learners between the ages of 14 and 20 who possessed similar language proficiency levels. The participants were selected based on the results of a written test and an oral interview and were divided into two classes: one taught by a native speaker and the other by a non-native speaker. Following a -month treatment period, each learner was interviewed and their speech was recorded. The researchers analyzed the data for accuracy, fluency, and lexical complexity. The statistical analyses revealed that learners taught by the native-speaking teacher demonstrated greater fluency and lexical complexity in their oral production, while those taught by the non-native teacher showed greater accuracy in their spoken language production. These findings suggest that the teacher type has different effects on language learning outcomes. The implications of these results extend to policymakers, administrators, and those involved in the employment and training of language teachers in Iran.

Rhetorical Functions of Articles in SINTA Accredited Journal

Background: 
 In the past ten years or so, the publication of research journal articles has been increasing and growing. The development is even more significant when the Higher Education in Circular Letter No.152 / E / T / 2012 requires article writing for students of all levels as one of the graduation requirements. The publication of articles, especially in English-language journals, is a challenge for Indonesian authors to be able to produce scientific papers that not only meet scientific rules but also linguistic rules in English.
 Methodology: 
 This study aims to see the function of rhetorical moves in English journal articles published in SINTA-accredited journals. The part of the article to be studied is focused on the Introduction which has the main role of providing general information about the research background. The rhetoric function of this article will show a series of texts that have a specific function in the Introduction. The sample of this study was taken from articles in the SINTA-accredited journals level 2 and written in English written by authors of non-English-language disciplines. Two articles were randomly selected from each journal so in total it amounted to 16 articles.
 Findings: 
 This study looks at what rhetorical functions were used, and the textuality of the rhetorical functions used in the Introduction to articles written and published in SINTA-accredited journals level 2. “Indicating the Structure of the Research Paper” and “Announcing Principal Findings” were the least two rhetorical functions stated by the authors in the Introduction section. Two articles in this study fulfil the textuality components but the rests fail to fulfill the textuality components.
 Conclusion: 
 Writing journal articles in English is a great challenge for Authors with an English as a foreign language (EFL) background. Language proficiency, academic language mastery, academic writing convention and mechanics awareness which include rhetorical functions and textuality might distract their content writing competence.
 Originality: 
 Many studies searched the rhetorical functions of postgraduate theses, journal articles, and thesis abstracts in English written by non-native English; however, research on journal articles by Indonesian journal publishers is limited.

Exploring the potential of using an AI language model for automated essay scoring

The widespread adoption of ChatGPT, an AI language model, has the potential to bring about significant changes to the research, teaching, and learning of foreign languages. The present study aims to leverage this technology to perform automated essay scoring (AES) and evaluate its reliability and accuracy. Specifically, we utilized the GPT-3 text-davinci-003 model to automatically score all 12,100 essays contained in the ETS Corpus of Non-Native Written English (TOEFL11) and compared these scores to benchmark levels. The study also explored the extent to which linguistic features influence AES with GPT. The results showed that AES using GPT has a certain level of accuracy and reliability and could provide valuable support for human evaluations. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that utilizing linguistic features could enhance the accuracy of the scoring. These findings suggest that AI language models, such as ChatGPT, can be effectively utilized as AES tools, potentially revolutionizing methods of writing evaluation and feedback in both research and practice. The paper concludes by discussing the practical implications of using GPT for AES and exploring prospective future considerations.

From Cues to Features: Bridging Psycho- and Sociolinguistics in the Development of Non-Native English Stimuli

From Cues to Features: Bridging Psycho- and Sociolinguistics in the Development of Non-Native English Stimuli

Effects of directionality on consecutive interpreting between English and Persian

The present study investigates the effect of directionality on the quality of consecutive interpreting between English and Persian by interpreting trainees. Two experiments were run in which 62 participants were recruited in two experiments at Arak University, Iran. In the first experiment, the participants (N = 30) interpreted from non-native English into native Persian (‘recto’). In the second experiment, different participants (N = 32) interpreted from native Persian into non-native English (‘verso’). The results showed better overall scores when interpreting was done into the mother tongue of the trainees. In each of the two experiments, the experimental group that had received prosody training outperformed the control group, especially on prosody-related rating scales such as pace (fluency). Finally, the performance by the experimental groups was better (relative to the control group) when the training and testing was done in the recto direction than when done verso. We conclude that the prosodic awareness training helps the interpreters to better decode the non-native input rather than to produce prosodically correct non-native output. The pedagogical implications of the present study may pertain to interpreting programs (at least in Iran). Prosody awareness training should be part of the teaching of listening comprehension in the interpreters’ curriculum.