Foreign Language Research Research Articles

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary in EFL By Paul Nation and Peter Yongqi Gu (2019)

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary in EFL By Paul Nation and Peter Yongqi Gu (2019) Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, xii + 230pp.

Chinese English as a Foreign Language Teachers' Job Satisfaction, Resilience, and Their Psychological Well-Being.

Job satisfaction, resilience, and teacher well-being, as the three major psychological variables emotioncy- based education, have received special attention among English as a foreign language (EFL) researchers. To pursue the line of this inquiry, this particular study aimed to investigate the relationship between Chinese EFL teachers’ job satisfaction, resilience, and their well-being. To conduct the study, 343 Chinese EFL teachers with different academic qualifications, various academic degrees, and different majors voluntarily participated in this study. The results of the study showed that job satisfaction and resilience could jointly predict 56.4 of the variance in psychological well-being. Both variables were the significant predictors of well-being, while job satisfaction was a better predictor, uniquely explaining 29.6 of well-being’s variance. Based on the findings, some pedagogical implication for administrators, educational institutions, and EFL teachers were discussed in the article.

A Synthesis of EFL Research in Chilean High Schools: Research Shortage or Research Opportunities?

This article is a configurative literature review that aims to synthesize available research on English as a foreign language education, undertaken specifically in Chilean high-school settings. Drawing on a pre-COVID-19 research corpus, I identified a limited number of concordant accounts (n = 23) published during the last decade. I used a critical interpretive synthesis methodology which yielded three research fields ranging from didactics to socio-structural problematics. The synthesis shows that the research addresses curricular aspects devoid of socio-political and historical contexts, emphasizing primarily teachers’ teaching tensions and challenges. Finally, I discuss the English as a foreign language research limitations and implications for the Chilean context, for which I suggest some innovations to broaden future inquiry critically.

Listening to historians: Using a listening tour to improve library support for foreign language researchers

As at many other libraries, the University of California (UC)-Berkeley Library’s budget has not kept pace with student enrollment. Yet our faculty and students continue to expect extensive research holdings and personal care. To improve our ability to meet researcher needs amid constraints, our team recently surveyed social science faculty on their use of foreign language materials and followed up by meeting several historians for a “listening tour” of their needs from a research library.

Incorporating a reflective thinking promoting mechanism into artificial intelligence-supported English writing environments

ABSTRACT Automated writing feedback supported by artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has attracted the attention of English as Foreign Language (EFL) researchers. However, there is insufficient evidence and inconsistent conclusions on the actual impacts of AI on students’ writing skills. In addition, in the field of EFL writing, there are few studies which have integrated appropriate teaching strategies to promote the effectiveness of EFL writing teaching and learning. Furthermore, it remains unclear how learners can effectively benefit from AI technology-based English writing. To solve this problem, this study proposed a reflective thinking promotion mechanism-based AI-supported English writing (RTP-AIEW) approach to deepen learners’ thinking and improve their EFL writing quality. To investigate the effectiveness of this learning approach, a quasi-experiment was conducted in two EFL writing classes in a university. One class (50 students) was the experimental group learning with the proposed RTP-AIEW approach, while the other class (53 students) was the control group learning with conventional AI-supported EFL writing. The results indicated that the proposed approach not only significantly improved the experimental group students’ English writing performance, but also improved their self-efficacy and self-regulated learning, and significantly reduced their cognitive load. In addition, students’ learning experience and perceptions are also discussed.

A Logogenetic Delve into Attitudinal Meanings in Native vs. Non-Native Discussion Section of Research Articles

Using evaluative language has been considered as the significant predictor of academic writing success in second and foreign language research. Such an importance paved the way for the current study to investigate the use of the APPRAISAL tool, namely ATTITUDE resources, in the research articles (RAs) written by native (N) and non-native (NN) writers, focusing on the discussion sections. A qualitative corpus selection resulted in choosing 30 RAs written by American writers and 30 authored by Iranian writers. Two coding schemes were used: one for discussion boundaries based on Kanoksilapatham’s (2005) discussion move structure, and the modified version of APPRAISAL theory (Xu, 2017) for identifying attitudinal resources. The corpus analysis revealed that academic writers preferred to use a great number of inscribed ATTITUDE resources, that is, APPRECIATION tools compared to JUDGMENT. There was also a significant difference between N and NN sub-corpora in using attitudinal resources, highlighting that the language of N RAs contained more authorial stance of ATTITUDE compared to NN sub-corpus. However, the use of idioms as evoked ATTITUDE was found to be frequently applied by NN authors. The findings of the study contributed to the significance of using evaluative language in academic writing through which the writers can make a dialogic interaction with readers and enhance their critical stance by involving them in the argument.

Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language: Theories and Practices

Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language: Theories and Practices

인지언어학 이론을 적용한 연구 동향 분석 - 국어학, 대조언어학, 국어교육학, 한국어교육학 분야의 학위논문을 중심으로 -

This research focuses on dissertations and analyzes research trends in the fields of Korean linguistics, contrastive linguistics, Korean language education, and Korean language education as a foreign language. Based on the results of the study, the application direction of cognitive linguistics theory in the future of Korean language education as a foreign language research is proposed. First, a total of 193 dissertations were collected, and their analysis criteria were divided into four categories: annual, research theme, research object and research method. In order to ensure feasibility, the papers were analyzed according to the criteria. Finally, some suggestions are made for the future research direction of cognitive linguistics in the field of Korean language education as a foreign language. Through this study, it will be possible to have an overall perspective of the coordinates of cognitive linguistics in the field of Korean education as a foreign language in the future, and a qualitative leap in research will be enabled. In addition, the study of trends based on the four criteria in this paper will serve as a meaningful reference for graduate students who are planning their dissertations in Korean language education as a foreign language in the future. (Seoul National University)

Literacy en français and à la française: Socializing students to academic literacy practices in a foreign language

AbstractResearch on academic socialization has predominately focused on the L2 educational experiences of international students. While foreign language (FL) research has explored “multiliteracies” and “intercultural learning,” literacy in a FL continues to be understood as the use of foreign words and grammar combined with culturally familiar reading and writing practices. This article, which is conceptual in nature, highlights the potential to socialize US FL learners to literacy practices from the target culture. It reports on an upper‐division French literature and composition course that was redesigned to socialize students at UC Berkeley to two French academic genres, namely, the explication de texte and commentaire composé. The insights from the present project, which are not language‐specific and hold relevance for undergraduate and graduate students alike, encourage critical reflection within FL departments on what is—and can be—entailed by literacy in additional languages.

A Challenge for Contrastive L1/L2 Corpus Studies: Large Inter- and Intra-Individual Variation Across Morphological, but Not Global Syntactic Categories in Task-Based Corpus Data of a Homogeneous L1 German Group.

In this paper, we present corpus data that questions the concept of native speaker homogeneity as it is presumed in many studies using native speakers (L1) as a control group for learner data (L2), especially in corpus contexts. Usage-based research on second and foreign language acquisition often investigates quantitative differences between learners, and usually a group of native speakers serves as a control group, but often without elaborating on differences within this group to the same extent. We examine inter-personal differences using data from two well-controlled German native speaker corpora collected as control groups in the context of second and foreign language research. Our results suggest that certain linguistic aspects vary to an extent in the native speaker data that undermines general statements about quantitative expectations in L1. However, we also find differences between phenomena: while morphological and syntactic sub-classes of verbs and nouns show great variability in their distribution in native speaker writing, other, coarser categories, like parts of speech, or types of syntactic dependencies, behave more predictably and homogeneously. Our results highlight the necessity of accounting for inter-individual variance in native speakers where L1 is used as a target ideal for L2. They also raise theoretical questions concerning a) explanations for the divergence between phenomena, b) the role of frequency distributions of morphosyntactic phenomena in usage-based linguistic frameworks, and c) the notion of the individual adult native speaker as a general representative of the target language in language acquisition studies or language in general.

Mapping adolescent literacy across L1 backgrounds: Linguistic and discourse features as predictors of persuasive essay quality

Proficiency in academic writing in secondary school is often a contributor to success in adulthood in both academic and professional spheres. Yet, despite extensive English-as-a—Foreign-Language (EFL) research at the college level, academic writing in EFL adolescent learners is considerably understudied, especially in the domain of discourse components. This study examined academic writing (AW) features that predict writing quality in 220 persuasive essays written by adolescents from three different first language (L1) backgrounds: EFL students from China and Russia, and native English-speaking students from the US. Essays were coded for linguistic (lexical and syntactic) and discourse features, and scored for writing quality.Regression analyses revealed that several AW features (i.e., lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, diversity of discourse markers, and the presence of a conclusion) significantly predicted writing quality demystifying criteria for effective essay writing in secondary school. Other discourse features (i.e., types of supporting examples) were not related to differences in writing quality, but their frequencies varied by L1. Findings shed light on the AW features relevant to the design of EFL writing instruction and assessment tools, and document different trends in the discourse features that are more frequently used to support arguments in writing across L1 groups.

Investigating EFL Learners’ Engagement in Writing Research Papers

This study explores voices from an Appraisal Theory perspective (Martin & White, 2005). It aims to investigate how novice English as a Foreign Language (EFL) research writers deploy Engagement resources to review existing literature in the field. The study is based on a corpus of literature reviews from 25 research articles written by Thai undergraduate students enrolled in a research report writing class. Findings show that the writers demonstrated a strong preference to engage readers in the writers’ justification of knowledge. The results revealed that Entertain, Acknowledge, and Counter resources were most often used in the articles. By contrast, novice research writers, to some extent, convince readers of their perspectives by using bare assertions without reference to other voices. It may be assumed that second language (L2) novice research writers are aware of the need to engage with readers and to strategically construe dialogic divergences in their written works.

On the Digital Hybrid Publishing Model of English Reference Books for Primary and Secondary Schools—A Case Study of Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

English reference books occupy a large proportion in the basic educational books market, and the innovative publishing model is worth exploring. Another valuable question is the way to apply digital hybrid publishing—a new publishing model—in English reference books. In this article, the above problems are analyzed by taking the digital teaching reference products of Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press as examples.

Praxis-Based Grammar Instruction Using Social Media Networking: Mediational Feedback within ZPD

Recent second or foreign language (L2) research has shown that integration of form-focused instruction into collaborative, communicative activity is highly influential. Sociocultural theory (SCT) provides a praxis-oriented educational ecosystem wherein L2 grammatical knowledge and practical use can be effectively linked. This SCT-inspired study examined the effects of praxis-oriented grammar instruction and mediational feedback within the social media networking (SMN) platform (i.e., Telegram) on L2 learners’ microgenetic development of grammatical knowledge. Participants were 30 EFL learners that were assigned to three different instructional conditions: (i) conventional teacher-fronted instruction as the comparison group, (ii) collaborative instruction attuned to learners’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in an actual classroom as the first experimental group, and (iii) ZPD-based instruction in virtual Telegram space as the second. The groups were pre- and posttested on a grammar test targeting subject-verb non-inversion in embedded WH-questions, which poses cross-linguistic challenges to Persian L2 learners of English. Collaborative whole-class, dyadic, or triadic talk-in-interactional activities were employed to engage learners in co-constructing educational praxis and providing contingent, ZPD-sensitive graduated mediation in both virtual and face-to-face settings. The results indicated that the two ZPD groups outperformed the comparison group. No significant difference was, however, found between the ZPD groups despite witnessing a developmental trend in favor of the virtual SMN setting. Post-intervention interviews revealed learners’ positive attitudes towards using Telegram affordances for praxis-oriented grammar instruction. Further theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.

The Field of Teacher Identity: Challenges, Endeavors, and Implications for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Research

Teacher identity provides a critical analytical lens for the field of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) research in the last decade. However, the complicatedness of identity leaves room for disputes over conceptualizations and components of EFL teacher identity, while at the same allowing for multiple theoretical approaches. This paper reviewed three major challenges facing the EFL teacher identity research field: conceptualization, components, and analytical approaches. Two recent endeavours were synthesized that have stood out among research attempts in this field: a situated learning perspective and a developmental lens. Implications are suggested for EFL research in the future.

Receptive Vocabulary Acquisition in Pre-Primary Education through Soft-Content and Language Integrated Learning

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become the focus of Foreign Language (FL) research within the last decades. CLIL provides a more complete, naturalistic, and meaningful context to FL learning, which has proven to brings many benefits to learners, such as a higher motivation and promotion of creativity, and better results in receptive skills, vocabulary, morphology and fluency. Nevertheless, most CLIL research has focused on primary and secondary level students and, thus, more research is needed with younger learners, namely, pre-primary students. The present study examines the learning of FL vocabulary in pre-primary learners following a soft-CLIL program, as compared to their same age peers following Formal Instruction (FI) of English. Over the course of six months, pre-primary students of two grades, namely 4- and 5-year-old students (N=155), took part in such program, aiming at teaching two curricular preschool units, traditionally taught in the mother tongue (L1), in English in the FL sessions. A longitudinal study was conducted, and students were administered a general vocabulary level pre-test, as well as a target words receptive vocabulary post-test after the two units had been worked on. The focus of the research was on receptive vocabulary acquisition, but age and word frequency effects were also analyzed. Results showed positive tendencies in receptive vocabulary development through soft-CLIL, although not statistically significant. A significant frequency effect was found, indicating that high-frequency words are recalled more easily than lower-frequency ones, but no significant differences were found when comparing learners from the two grades.

The Effect of English Language Proficiency Level on Undergraduate Libyan Students’ Use of Subject Verb Agreement

This study aims to examine the proficiency level of Libyan EFL (English as a Foreign Language) undergraduate students in terms of the types of subject-verb agreement errors they commit. It also attempts to identify, analyze and categorize the frequency errors related to subject-verb agreement into three categories. These errors are statically analyzed and classified into: subject-verb agreement (SVA) errors with third person singular subjects (TPSS), with third person plural subjects (TPPS), with compound subjects (CS). The participants of this study were 40 intermediate and advanced students whose major is English at the Faculty of Arts in Misurata University, Libya. They were chosen based on their level of English language proficiency during the current study. The data of this study were collected through a written test consisting of six short passages. The results showed that the percentage of errors made by both groups was below 30% which refers to non-significant differences among the two groups with respect to the SVA errors made by them. Consequently, it can be concluded that language proficiency has little effect on the participants' use of the SVA rule. It was also found that subject-verb agreement errors with (TPPS) were the least frequent, and the most common errors committed were (CS) and (TPSS). This study is important for EFL teachers to be aware of the subject verb agreement errors that their target learners commonly produce. The implications for SLA research and classroom teaching practice are given for foreign language teachers and researchers.

Project study of transformations in the works of F. Kafka and M. A. Bulgakov (“The Metamorphosis” and “Heart of a Dog”)

The subject of this research is the literary works of F. Kafka “The Metamorphosis” and M. A. Bulgakov “Heart of a Dog”. The object of this research is the metaphor of transformation in the aforementioned novels. The article employs comparative, analytical, and descriptive methods. The methodological framework is comprised of the works of Russian and Chinese scholars. The study is founded on the compilation of research experience of such Chinese authors as Liang Kun, Wen Wenwen, Zhao Lijun, and Zhang Meng), and determines the peculiarities of transformations in the works of F. Kafka and M. A. Bulgakov from the perspective of project study. Practical importance of this research lies in application of the acquired results for creating various methodological textbooks, including cross-cultural direction, for the purpose of bringing Chinese and Russian people together, improving communication, and studying Russian (or Chinese) language on the example of classical literature and analysis of the literary works by Chinese researchers. This work is also valuable for the linguists, as it enriches the knowledge in the area of foreign language research and creation of literary works. The conclusion is made that the use of the metaphor of transformations in the novels “Heart of a Dog” and “The Metamorphosis” answer the social questions faced by Kafka and Bulgakov. Although, it is important to underline the differences in the use of this metaphor as a literary technique. The transformation is associated with the personality of the protagonist. Despite the different social origin of the writers, their works resemble a concern on the social status of a person, and describe emotional torments and life difficulties of the ordinary people. The work aims to broaden the theoretical framework of the research by synthesizing the results of analytics of the selected literary works, as well profound analysis towards seeking the additional meanings of transformation in the novels of F. Kafka and M. Bulgakov in “The Metamorphosis” and “Heart of a Dog”.

INFORMAL ENGLISH LEARNING WITH ONLINE DIGITAL TOOLS: NON-LINGUIST STUDENTS

The internet has offered numerous opportunities for educational content delivery. The main current delivery models for learning a language online range from more formal structured approaches provided by schools and universities, which typically take place in a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) or LMS (Learning Management System), to more informal unstructured approaches, including Virtual Worlds like Second Life and MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) like World of Warcraft. The purpose of this study is to analyse the experiences and perceptions of the online digital tools that provide engagement with the English language outside the classroom by the non-linguist students at a Ukrainian public university. The study is based on the quantitative and qualitative data collected employing an online questionnaire including Likert-type ratings, multiple-choice questions, and free-text responses to open questions. The questionnaire inquires about students’ experiences with 17 technologies not related to their classroom activities, how frequently they are used, how helpful the students find them for their language acquisition in general, and how useful they are considered for the development of particular language competencies (writing, reading, speaking, listening, pronunciation, grammar, communicative competence). The results of the survey attest to regular students’ engagement with the English language involving online technologies, which leads to implications for foreign language learners, teachers, and researchers of second language acquisition for incorporating online digital tools for foreign language acquisition beyond the classroom. Being aware of how students engage with technology outside the classroom may facilitate educators in increasing learners’ engagement with the foreign language, provide additional practice, and produce an emotional response, which increases retention of information.

THE ROLE OF PROJECT AND RESEARCH ACTIVITIES IN THE PROCESS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION OF THE GIFTED PERSONALITY

The article deals with the issues of using project and research technologies for the formation and development of a gifted person in the process of foreign languages teaching. The formation of a student's communicative culture in both his native and foreign languages is unthinkable without the general development of his personality, since in the process of communication, its participants not only reveal their communicative qualities, but are also formed as personalities, assimilating historical, cultural experience, getting to know social norms and values of another nation.A certain system of work with intellectually gifted students based on the idea of realizing personal development as the main priority in teaching and upbringing has been created in the Republic of Belarus. Actualization of the creation of an educational environment for the development of a gifted person in teaching a foreign language occurs both in the classroom and in the process of extracurricular work.An important direction in the work in the field of the formation of a gifted personality is the organization of project and research activities, which ensures the development of creative potential, makes it possible to enrich the experience of interacting with other people, to form teamwork skills, to develop individual abilities, interests and inclinations, the cognitive activity of students, to increase their motivation for education.Thus project and research activities contain a huge potential, since in the process of this type of activities a gifted person’s educational and cognitive skills, which allow developing the ability of thinking outside the box, are improved. Students engaged in research activities are distinguished by productivity and originality of thinking, flexibility of decisions, and the ability to put forward and develop their own ideas, which gives them the opportunity to become competitive in a constantly changing world.Keywords: gifted personality, higher education, foreign language education, educational environment, project technology, research activities, professional development, educational and cognitive skills.