Proficiency Groups Research Articles

The limited effects of visual and audio modalities on second language listening comprehension

This study examined the effects of watching gestures and lip movement on second language (English) listening comprehension. The participants were 30 high and 22 low proficient learners of English. There were six listening tasks combining two variables: modality and difficulty. The modality consisted of three types of assessments: Body (the upper half of body was visible), Face (close up view), and Audio. The difficulty consisted of two levels: Easy and Hard. Learners watched Body, Face, or listened to Audio, and worked on six comprehension questions twice for each task. Moreover, the participants were asked about their modality of preference. The notable results were (1) the modality of listening had no influence on their listening performance, (2) for the high proficiency group, the score difference between the easy and the hard texts was larger at the second attempt than at the first attempt, (3) the participants generally preferred to watch the whole body, followed by watching the face, and then listening only, (4) the high proficiency group showed more variations of preference than the low proficiency group, and (5) the participants’ modality preference had no influence on their listening performance.

An investigation into English majors’ self-regulated writing strategies in an online learning context

With the large increase in online English language learners, there is a need to explore how those learners practise self-regulated writing in such an autonomous learning context. This article reports on an exploratory study of self-regulated learning strategies used by two writing-proficiency groups (low and high) of Saudi English majors within an online context. Data were collected from a total of 50 (high proficiency = 23 and low proficiency = 27) students using video-stimulated recall of two online writing tasks. Quantitative analysis of the students’ stimulated recall data revealed that students in both proficiency groups used 11 self-regulated strategies to complete the two online writing tasks. Results also revealed a positive correlation between self-regulated learning strategy use and the students’ writing proficiency level. The chi-square test analysis revealed statistically significant differences between the two groups in six strategies overall favouring the high writing-proficiency group. Further qualitative analysis of the stimulated recall data within the framework of sociocognitive theory revealed that the high proficiency students stood out from their low-proficiency counterparts in how they self-regulated their personal, behavioural, and environmental processes. Implications for writing instruction to improve students’ writing performance in online learning contexts and future self-regulated writing strategy research are discussed.

The Fluctuating Effect of Thinking on Language Performance: New Evidence for the Island Ridge Curve

ABSTRACT Thinking skills play a critical role in determining language performance. Recent advancement in cognitive diagnostic modelling (CDM) provides a powerful tool for obtaining fine-grained information regarding these thinking skills during reading. Studies are scant, however, exploring the relations between thinking skills and language performance, not to mention studies examining the variation of this association with language proficiency. The current study explored this variation through the lens of the Island Ridge Curve (IRC). Drawing on an English reading test data by 2,285 students, we identified five thinking skills using CDM. Next, we followed guidelines of IRC and put students into four language proficiency groups to examine the relations of each skill identified through reading tasks to language performance across groups. Results of multi-group path analysis showed the effect of each skill identified through reading test fluctuated in the pattern of the IRC. The potential of IRC for examining the moderation of language proficiency on language factors is discussed.

The Extended Simple View of Reading in Adult Learners of Chinese as a Second Language.

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) designates that reading comprehension is the product of decoding and listening comprehension and this conclusion has been supported by studies on school-aged native and nonnative speakers. However, it remains unknown whether SVR can be applied to adult second language (L2) learners. The current study addressed this issue by testing adult learners of Chinese as a second language with various proficiency levels and further extended the model by including word segmentation and word-meaning access, both of which are particularly crucial in reading Chinese. The results showed that listening comprehension only contributed to reading comprehension for the advanced learners, while decoding accuracy predicted reading comprehension regardless of Chinese proficiency. However, the total proportion of variance accounted for was relatively low, especially for the lower proficiency groups. Interestingly, word segmentation and word-meaning access explained a large proportion of the total variance and concomitantly decreased the apparent influence of word decoding. Taken together, these findings highlight that the individual characteristics of a given language can modulate the contributions of decoding and listening comprehension to predicting reading comprehension.

Gasless endoscopic transaxillary thyroid surgery: CUSUM analysis of a single surgeon's experience from 105 preliminary procedures.

We aimed to evaluate the feasibility and oncologic safety of gasless endoscopic transaxillary thyroidectomy (TAT) in patients with thyroid diseases. Improvements in surgical techniques were also reported, and the learning curves of gasless endoscopic TAT were further studied. An exact 1:1 matching analysis was performed to compare the technical safety and oncologic outcomes between TAT and conventional open surgery. A questionnaire was designed to evaluate the quality of life of enrolled patients. A cumulative summation analysis was designed for the quantitative estimation of the learning curves. A total of 105 consecutive patients who successfully received endoscopic TAT were retrospectively enrolled in the current study. A standard three-step working space making procedure, an approach that does not free the superficial part of the sternal head of the sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM, NFSSH) and a "point to line to surface" en bloc procedure utilized in lobectomy with ipsilateral central neck dissection (CND), were introduced in our surgical procedures. The mean operation time in the TAT group was significantly longer than that in the conventional open group (86.9 ± 31.3 vs 44.2 ± 8.3, p < 0.001). Significant differences in the complication rate were not found between the two groups. Discomfort in the anterior neck area and SCM was relieved over time in most cases (verbal response scores (VRSs) were gradually decreased over time). The learning curves for working space making, ipsilateral thyroidectomy and the total endoscopic TAT approach were 45 cases, 25 cases and 42 cases, respectively. The operation time in the proficient group was significantly shorter than that in the learning group (67.0 ± 8.4 vs 112.3 ± 35.7, p < 0.001). VRSs in the SCM were significantly lower in the proficient group (for 1week: 1.25 ± 0.65 vs 2.40 ± 0.63, p < 0.001; for 1month: 0.81 ± 0.69 vs 1.81 ± 0.40, p < 0.001). Gasless endoscopic TAT was safe in a cohort of patients with thyroid diseases, with satisfactory surgical outcomes and cosmetic appearance. The learning curve for endoscopic TAT was approximately 42 cases. The proficiency of the endoscopic TAT approach depended primarily on the proficiency of working space making.

Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitors Function as Potential Immune Regulators via Inducing Pyroptosis in Triple Negative Breast Cancer

BackgroundImmunotherapy is the most promising treatment in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and its efficiency is largely dependent on the intra-tumoral immune cells infiltrations. Thus, novel ways to assist immunotherapy by increasing immune cell infiltrations were highly desirable.MethodsTo find key immune-related genes and discover novel immune-evoking molecules, gene expression profiles of TNBC were downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) were conducted to identified hub genes. The CMap database was used subsequently to predicate potential drugs that can modulate the overall hub gene expression network. In vitro experiments were conducted to assess the anti-tumor activity and the pyroptosis phenotypes induced by GW-8510.ResultsGene expression profiles of 198 TNBC patients were downloaded from GEO dataset GSE76124, and ssGSEA was used to divide them into Immune Cell Proficiency (ICP) group and Immune Cell Deficiency (ICD) group. Hub differential expressed gene modules between two groups were identified by WGCNA and then annotated by Gene Ontology (GO) annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. A cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 2 inhibitor, GW-8510 was then identified by the CMap database and further investigated. Treatment with GW-8510 resulted in potent inhibition of TNBC cell lines. More importantly, in vitro and in vivo studies confirmed that GW-8510 and other CDK inhibitors (Dinaciclib, and Palbociclib) can induce pyroptosis by activating caspase-3 and GSDME, which might be the mechanism for their immune regulation potentials.ConclusionGW-8510, as well as other CDK inhibitors, might serve as potential immune regulators and pyroptosis promotors in TNBC.

Mapping Pitch Accents to Memory Representations in Spoken Discourse Among Chinese Learners of English: Effects of L2 Proficiency and Working Memory.

We examined L2 learners’ interpretation of pitch accent cues in discourse memory and how these effects vary with proficiency and working memory (WM). One hundred sixty-eight L1-Chinese participants learning L2-English listened to recorded discourses containing pairs of contrastive alternatives and then took a later recognition memory test. Their language proficiency and WM were measured through standard tests and the participants were categorized into low, medium, advanced, and high advanced language proficiency groups. We analyzed recognition memory task performance using signal detection theory to tease apart response bias (an overall tendency to affirm memory probes) from sensitivity (the ability to discern whether a specific probe statement is true). The results showed a benefit of contrastive L + H* pitch accents in rejecting probes referring to items unmentioned in a discourse, but not contrastive alternatives themselves. More proficient participants also showed more accurate memory for the discourses overall, as well as a reduced overall bias to affirm the presented statements as true. Meanwhile, that the benefit of L + H* accents in rejecting either contrast probes or unmentioned probes was modulated for people with greater working memory. Participants with higher WM were quite sure that it did not exist in the memory trace as this part of discourse wasn’t mentioned. The results support a contrast-uncertainty hypothesis, in which comprehenders recall the contrast set but fail to distinguish which is the correct item. Further, these effects were influenced by proficiency and by working memory, suggesting they reflect incomplete mapping between pitch accent and discourse representation.

The Influence of Chinese Proficiency and Cultural Background on CFL Learners’ Comprehension of Chinese Logogriphs

Abstract This study investigates how Chinese logogriphs are comprehended by learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) with different Chinese proficiencies and cultural backgrounds. Eighty-eight CFL learners from four cultures (South Koreans, Southeast Asians, Western Caucasians and Arabs) were divided into two Chinese proficiency groups according to their HSK scores, and 15 L1 Chinese speakers also took part in the experiment as a control group. The participants were asked to write down how they interpreted Chinese logogriphs in questionnaires. An ANOVA analysis was conducted to examine the effects of Chinese proficiency and cultural background on logogriph comprehension. The results indicate that the accuracy of logogriph comprehension and the frequency of adopting logogriph-solving strategies positively correlated with the learners’ Chinese proficiency, and that those with higher proficiency used more linguistic and cultural knowledge of the target language. As for cultural influence, Western Caucasians tended to think more visually than the other three cultural groups, and South Koreans and Southeast Asians were better at activating Chinese semantic knowledge. The closer the CFL learners’ culture is to Chinese culture, the more similar strategies they adopted to those of L1 Chinese participants. Moreover, the participants’ Chinese proficiency and cultural background show an interactive effect on their logogriph comprehension, with the former factor having a greater influence than the latter in this process.

Language-related perceptions: How do they predict student satisfaction with a partial English Medium Instruction in Higher Education?

This study investigated language-related predictors of satisfaction with a partial English Medium Instruction (EMI) programme in teacher education at a Spanish university. More specifically, it explored the impact on programme satisfaction of students' perceptions of language improvement, of opportunities to use English, of lecturers' English proficiency, and language improvement as a motivation for enrolling in the programme. Additionally, it examined how self-rated proficiency affects the association between these language-related variables and satisfaction. Results show that students were more satisfied than they were dissatisfied, that they acknowledged having made an improvement in their English skills, and that the lecturers' English proficiency was below their expectations. Most importantly, the language-related variables under study were found to be significant predictors of student satisfaction with EMI, and each of them explained a high percentage of the variance in programme satisfaction. It was also found that these variables impacted student satisfaction differently across different self-rated proficiency groups. The article discusses that, at a time when competition among universities is taking a global dimension and students’ general English proficiency is getting progressively higher, most attention needs to be paid to the language when designing and resourcing EMI initiatives in order to make them competitive and sustainable.

Effects of linguistic proficiency on speech act development in L2 Chinese during study abroad

AbstractThis study investigated the effects of different levels of linguistic proficiency on the development of multiple speech acts during study abroad. Participants were 109 American learners of Chinese recruited from a study abroad program in China. They were divided into a higher proficiency (HP) group and a lower proficiency (LP) group based on their scores on a standardized Chinese proficiency test. The participants completed a computerized oral Discourse Completion Test (DCT) that assessed the production of compliment response, refusal, and request as pre- and posttests. The learners’ oral productions were analyzed according to measures of appropriateness rating and speech rate. Linguistic analysis was performed to examine changes in strategy preference and distribution across the three speech acts. Results revealed a complex relationship between proficiency, speech act type, pragmatic performance measure (e.g., appropriateness, speech rate), and ways that pragmatic changes are evaluated (e.g., developmental trajectory, amount of gain).

Recognizing User Proficiency in Piloting Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAV)

User proficiency in manual operation of autonomous systems is crucial to the performance of these systems because users are often the final barrier in detecting and correcting abnormal behavior in autonomy. This letter presents a new approach to identifying user proficiency in piloting small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAVs) by first extracting meaningful features and then using a clustering method to generate ground truth. Pilot performance has been broadly explored in the field of aviation, but not for operation of sUAVs, and both are inherently different due expectations for training, location of user, and subsequent change in user’s point-of-view. We propose a novel, hybrid approach to evaluate UAV pilot performance: combining human-rater data and computational methods that incorporate performance metrics to tune and homogenize the process (of applying controls) and the product (UAV flight path) of piloting sUAVs. The results reveal a spectrum of user skills that designers of these systems need to account for and the ways that users at different skill levels can be expected to respond, informing future autonomy design. In a 20 participant study, users were asked to fly a sUAV along 8 different flight paths of varying difficulty while the flight trajectory and user control inputs were recorded. We utilized unsupervised learning techniques to group pilots into proficiency groups and analyzed the clusters with respect to the features built. We also identified possible factors based on groupings to target training of these users. We validated our approach using new set of data from 12 participants.

영어 능숙도 및 쓰기 주제에 따른 영어 쓰기에 영향을 미치는 요인 연구

The present study reports on the moderating effects of English proficiency and writing topics on the model of EFL writing. A total of 68 university students participated in the present study, and data were analyzed using a series of multiple regression. Results of the study indicate that for the lower English proficiency group, English grammar, vocabulary, and writing anxiety made a significant prediction on English writing about every-day life, while English grammar, vocabulary, writing anxiety, and perceptions of feedback significantly affected English writing about climatic change. However, for the higher proficiency group, English grammar, vocabulary, knowledge about textual organization and logical flow, and writing anxiety explained a significant proportion in the variances in English writing about every-day life, whereas English writing about climatic change was significantly accounted for by English grammar, vocabulary, reading-writing connection strategy, knowledge about textual organization & logical flow, and writing anxiety. The results were discussed in terms of previous literature, and pedagogical implications were given.

Korean-Speaking L2 Learners’ Understanding of Ambiguous Sentences with the Preverbal Also

A sentence containing preverbal also (i.e., Mary also ate a cookie) causes semantic ambiguity since the focus is assigned to a subject NP or an object NP. Depending on which constituent is identified as focus, the sentence evokes a different presupposition in discourse contexts. The current study examined which interpretation Korean EFL learners prefer to have in the comprehension of preverbal also-sentences with ambiguous focus and how it can differ in terms of their English proficiency. In a revised picture truth value judgment task, participants were asked to read a target sentence and then view a picture that described a presuppositional event. They were asked to check whether the target sentence is compatible with the depicted situation. The results showed that low and intermediate proficiency groups favored an object-focused interpretation whereas groups of high proficiency and English native speakers were able to assign the focus to a subject NP and an object NP by making use of relevant presuppositions from picture contexts.

Assessing Students’ Translation Competence: Integrating China’s Standards of English With Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment Approaches

While translation competence assessment has been playing an increasingly facilitating role in translation teaching and learning, it still failed to offer fine-grained diagnostic feedback based on certain reliable translation competence standards. As such, this study attempted to investigate the feasibility of providing diagnostic information about students’ translation competence by integrating China’s Standards of English (CSE) with cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) approaches. Under the descriptive parameter framework of CSE translation scales, an attribute pool was established, from which seven attributes were identified based on students’ and experts’ think-aloud protocols. A checklist comprising 20 descriptors was developed from CSE translation scales, with which 458 students’ translation responses were rated by five experts. In addition, a Q-matrix was established by seven experts. By comparing the diagnostic performance of four widely-used cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs), linear logistic model (LLM) was selected as the optimal model to generate fine-grained information about students’ translation strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, relationships among translation competence attributes were discovered and diagnostic results were shown to differ across high and low proficiency groups. The findings can provide insights for translation teaching, learning and assessment.

The Relationship between Test-Taking Strategies and Thai Students’ Reading Comprehension Test Performance

Tests are often applied to evaluate students’ academic performance in all educational contexts. In order to be successful in the tests, students are required not only to possess the knowledge of the subject, but also test-taking strategies which enable them to gain higher test score. The present study was aimed at investigating the relationship between the students’ test-taking strategies use and their reading comprehension test performance and the types and frequency of the test-taking strategies used among high and low proficiency students. This research employed the mixed-methods approach. A total of sixty eight university students at an international university in Thailand took part in this study. They were asked to take a reading comprehension proficiency test and a questionnaire to find out about their use of the test taking strategies during the test. The results revealed that the test-taking strategies had a significantly positive influence on students’ reading comprehension test performances. Although high proficiency students used the test-taking strategies more frequently than those in low proficiency group, both groups of students were found to similarly employ a variety of techniques to cope with the challenges in the reading test. The findings of this present study not only empirically verified the benefits of the test-taking strategies, but also emphasizes the necessity of the formal instruction of the strategies used in the English tests, especially the ones considered most effective for tertiary students, to ensure their greater academia success.

Chinese EFL learners’ apology strategies

AbstractThis paper presents a multimodal analysis of apologies performed by Chinese EFL learners at two proficiency levels by considering their use of both verbal and nonverbal (i.e., gestures and gaze) strategies. The results showed that both groups used IFID (illocutionary force indicating device, which, in this study, refers to explicit apology strategies such asSorryorForgive me), explanation, and acknowledgment of responsibility strategies frequently, but the high proficiency participants tended to use more diverse IFID sub-strategies. Analysis of gestures also revealed significant between-group differences in the duration and frequency of the use of gestures, with the high proficiency group using more ideographic gestures (gestures which indicate specific meaning or help to express certain meaning, such as emblems, illustrators, and regulators) than their lower proficiency counterparts. Finally, the two groups differed significantly in gaze duration, but not in gaze frequency. These findings suggest that although both groups used nonverbal cues to supplement linguistic strategies of apology, they differed in how they used them. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of employing a multimodal approach when attempting to gain a more comprehensive understanding of EFL speakers’ use of speech acts.

Predicting first grade students’ writing proficiency

ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the predictability of writing development and if scores on a writing test in the first weeks of first grade accurately predict students’ placements into different proficiency groups. Participants were 832 first grade students in Norway. Writing proficiency was measured twice, at the start and at the end of first grade (time 1 and time 2, respectively). Multilevel linear regression analysis showed that writing proficiency measures at time 1 were significant predictors of writing proficiency at time 2. The results also showed that measures at time 1 could identify students running the risk of not meeting expectations with high precision. However, the results also revealed a substantial proportion of false positives. The results are interpreted and discussed from a formative writing assessment perspective.

주석, 영어능력 그리고 우연적 어휘습득

Glossing has been shown to have favorable effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition in second language learners. Expanding upon this line of research, we explored whether the effects of glossing may vary as a function of learner proficiency. To this end, Korean eighth graders (N = 104) were instructed to read a short story (1,002 words) for meaning. The story included 18 glossed target words that occurred 1, 3, or 5 times. They then responded to a reading comprehension test, followed by a battery of unannounced vocabulary tests (form recall, meaning recall, meaning inference) immediately and one week after reading the story. Overall, the high proficiency (HP) learners tended to outperform their low proficiency (LP) counterparts in all measures of lexical knowledge. Interestingly, the magnitude of difference between the two groups as measured by Cohen’s d was most pronounced in meaning inference, followed by meaning recall and form recall. Taken together, our findings indicate that glossing may widen the gap between the HP and LP learners, rather than closing the difference between the two proficiency groups.

Korean Learners’ Production of English Consonant Clusters and the Role of L2 Proficiency

This study investigated the production of word-medial English biconsonantal clusters with an onset liquid by the high and low proficiency Korean EFL learners. It was found that Korean learners’ production was influenced by the factors such as L2 proficiency level, the place/manner of articulation of the first member of a cluster (C1 place/manner), the liquid type involved, and the word frequency. First, while the high group did not show any significantly different production accuracy according to C1 manner, the low group exhibited significantly lower production accuracy when C1 manner was a stop than when it was a nasal. Since most errors occurred with respect to the nasalization or lateralization of a stop consonant before a liquid, this result indicates that the low group’s low accuracy was due to the influence of L1 phonological rules realizing a stop before a liquid as a nasal or a lateral. Second, both the low and high proficiency groups showed lower production accuracy for the homorganic clusters such as /tl/, /tɹ/, /nl/, and /nɹ/ although the low group’s accuracy for /nɹ/ was inexplicably as high as the high group’s. This can be accounted for in terms of the phonetic similarity of the members of a cluster. Finally, it was found that the low proficiency group was influenced by the loanword pronunciation for the words such as outlet and online and showed low production accuracy differently from the high proficiency group. (Hannam University, University of Seoul)

Idiosyncratic Development of Receptive and Free Active Vocabulary

The present study seeks to explain the role of different essay types and proficiency level based on receptive vocabulary knowledge on learners’ free active vocabulary. The study includes the works done in a 15-week academic term by 26 EFL students with C1 level English proficiency. At the beginning of the research, the participants are applied Vocabulary Size Test (Nation &amp; Beglar, 2007) to determine their receptive vocabulary knowledge and divided into two groups according to their results from VST: the more proficient group who master 8000 or more word families and the less proficient group who master less than 8000 word families. Throughout the semester, they have written two essays on each of two different essay types: comparison-contrast essay and cause-effect essay. In order to determine the participants’ free active vocabulary, two different scores, i.e., detailed Lexical Frequency Profile (Laufer and Nation, 1995) and condensed Lexical Frequency Profile (Laufer, 1995), are calculated in the writings of the participants. The results indicate that neither essay types nor proficiency based on receptive vocabulary knowledge has any significant effect on learners’ free active productive vocabulary.