British University Students Research Articles

Misunderstandings of Communicative Approach in College English Teaching

The Communicative Approach, started in the 70s, focus on real communication and interaction. This approach is prevalent in English teaching as it proposed an alternative to the then ubiquitous systems-oriented approaches. In the Communicative Approach, instead of focusing on the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar, it emphasizes the development of learner’s competence to communicate in real-life situations. In other words, it aims at cultivating communicative competence rather than the grammatical or linguistic competence. Although the Communicative Approach is an effective method to teach English, it is often misunderstood and misused by many English teachers, especially college English teachers. This thesis explains what the essence of communicative teaching method is, what are its characteristics, and what misunderstandings teachers usually have about it, in the hope that the Communicative Approach can be used correctly and effectively in college English teaching and students can actually increase their English competence from this approach.

A Genre-based Approach to Teaching Descriptive Report Writing to Japanese EFL University Students

This mixed-methods study explored the effects of employing a genre-based approach (GBA) to descriptive report writing on the understanding of text structure and ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings among Japanese university students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) over a 15-week course divided into three units. Applied within a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) framework, the GBA allowed micro- and macro-analyses of essays from 23 first-year university students with low/high proficiency in English and limited/extensive second-language writing experience. Quantitative analysis collected general impression scores from all students’ essays at three time points using the SFL rubric. Qualitative investigation applied clause structure annotations to identify and analyse the functional parts of the clause from three metafunctional perspectives—ideational, interpersonal and textual—on descriptive genre essays by EFL learners. Lower-proficiency and novice EFL students demonstrated an improved understanding of the content, events and background information of the essay topics (ideational), and the social and power relationships between readers and writers (interpersonal). By comparison, high-proficiency and experienced students demonstrated a better understanding of the structure and coherence of the essay. This study was limited in developing an understanding of the use of pronouns and auxiliary verbs, which should be addressed in future studies.

A Descriptive Panorama of Metacognitive Knowledge among Students in the Moroccan University

One of the key concerns of second language acquisition research is language learning strategies and the extent to which these strategies lead to successful language learning and academic achievement. Indeed, there is a consensus among researchers that learners who take charge of their own learning are academically more likely to succeed than their counterparts. In this respect, a large body of research has proven that metacognitive knowledge is critical in language learning. For this reason, this study is conducted, which is exploratory in nature. It aims at describing Moroccan English department students’ metacognitive knowledge across three geographically distinct schools of art and humanities. Henceforth, the study included 136 participants belonging to three universities, mainly Kenitra, Meknes, and Oujda. To answer the research questions of this study, the respondents were asked to complete a self-report metacognitive questionnaire with a focus on argumentative writing. Findings displayed that Moroccan English university students’ metacognitive knowledge is strong. Furthermore, this study indicated that when age is at play, adults have higher metacognitive knowledge than young learners.

Unpacking the interaction between foreign language learners’ emotion, cognition, and activity in the flipped classroom in higher education: A perezhivanie perspective

Few studies have investigated learners’ emotional experiences and the interactions between emotion, cognition, and activity in the flipped foreign language classroom (i.e., a mixed teaching mode that combines in-class teaching and off-class self-directed learning). This study, from the perspective of perezhivanie (a concept from sociocultural theory), addressed these research gaps by exercising a longitudinal narrative study on a total of 32 Chinese-as-the-first-language university students of English who attended a 15-week English course with this teaching design. Among them, eight focal students were randomly selected for further evidence of the characteristics of the interactions between emotion, cognition, and activity. The results showed that the participants experienced more of positive emotions than negative emotions in the flipped classroom (FC) context, which supports the efficacy of the pedagogy. But most importantly, complex interactions between emotion, cognition, and activity were revealed. Generally, (negative) positive emotion, cognition, and activity were interconnected; however, what is also evident is that learners’ emotions either promoted or inhibited their cognitive functions, and positive and negative emotions did not necessarily correspond to positive and negative activities, respectively. This is due to the presence of dynamic, developmental, and historical sociocultural mediators in learners perezhivanija, be it teacher, peers, technology, teaching materials, teaching activities in an FC, or the learners’ previous English learning anecdotes, etc.

Promoting L2 writing development via a concept-based approach to teaching genre: A sociocultural intervention study in Chinese EFL writing classrooms

This article investigates the effect of concept-based instruction (CBI), a pedagogy based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, on second language (L2) learners’ writing development. A quasi-experimental intervention lasting 16 weeks was conducted involving 88 first-year Chinese university students of English. The participants were assigned to three conditions: Full CBI (F-CBI) treatment, Partial CBI (P-CBI) treatment (i.e. CBI without peer–peer talk) and control. A definition task and two writing tasks (a narrative and an argumentative task) were used to measure students’ knowledge and understanding of genre and their writing performance, respectively. The results indicated that the F-CBI intervention generated significantly larger gains in learners’ understanding of genre as well as their overall writing performance than did the control group. In addition, a significant difference was also observed between the F-CBI group and the P-CBI group in the definition task and the argumentative task, which further suggests that peer–peer talk plays a crucial role in enhancing learners’ conceptual development. This study highlights the feasibility and effectiveness of integrating CBI in L2 writing instruction and the importance of engaging learners to talk through their understanding and use of concepts in the classroom. Theoretical contributions to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind are also discussed.

Sudanese University Students’ Arabic and English Request Modifiers

This study has aimed at studying request modifications produced by Sudanese university students in Arabic and English. It has compared and contrasted the pragmatic features in the production of the subjects in the two languages in an attempt to identify the universal and culture-specific ones. It attempted to classify the modifiers used by the subjects. It also tried to find out subjects’ preferences of the different modification types and the reasons behind them. The subjects were two hundred students who responded to Arabic and English Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs).
 The study showed that the subjects used a shared group of universal modifications that included eleven internal modifiers and six external ones when responding to the two DCTs. It has been found that the subjects preferred to use interrogatives, politeness devices, past tenses, grounders, and checking on availability more than the others. They did not use negations and downtoners in Arabic and used embedded if-clauses, consultative devices, and hedges sparsely. It also revealed other culture-specific types that did not appear in the Cross-Cultural Speech Acts Realization Project (CCSARP)i.e. alternatives, religious appealing markers, and other types of speech acts. The subjects’ choices were determined by linguistic, social, cultural, religious, and contextual factors.

English Compound Meaning Predictability: An Exploratory Cross-Linguistic Study

Compound words are integral to the development of word knowledge in English. This study explored cross-linguistic similarities and differences in compound-meaning inference, focusing on the semantic relation between the modifier and head in noun-noun compounds. Semantic relation specifies how the meanings of the modifier and head are combined. Although some less-established compounds allow multiple semantic relation, causing ambiguity in meaning, L1 speakers of English typically prefer using semantic relation/meaning. This study investigated whether English L2 students would be able to identify the dominant semantic relation of ambiguous novel compounds (e.g., child art). Two groups of English L2 university students, a Thai L1 group and a Vietnamese L1 group, completed a multiple-choice format, compound-meaning inference task, in which they identified the dominant meanings, as preferred by a group of native speakers of English. Results indicated that the Thai L1 and Vietnamese L1 groups did not differ in their overall mean scores for the dominant meanings, although they demonstrated some differences at the item level. This study discusses the need for more cross-linguistic studies in compound words. Keywords: compound processing; second language; vocabulary; semantics; meaning predictability

Research on College English Flipped Classroom Teaching Model Based on Micro-class

The teaching model of flipped classroom based on micro-class is the focus of global education in recent years. It realizes the reversal of teaching process between knowledge imparting and knowledge internalizing. It also transforms the roles of classroom and teachers and students. This new teaching model has the characteristics of flexibility, timeliness, openness, modularity and multimodal input. It is helpful to realize students’ personalized learning and create a good language learning environment for students. This paper analyzes the feasibility of applying flipped classroom model based on micro-class in college English teaching by studying the concepts and features of micro-class and flipped classroom, the features of college English teachers and students, the current English teaching model, as well as the teaching environment. It also explores the flipped classroom teaching in theory and practice.

Research on College English Flipped Classroom Teaching Model Based on Micro-class

The teaching model of flipped classroom based on micro-class is the focus of global education in recent years. It realizes the reversal of teaching process between knowledge imparting and knowledge internalizing. It also transforms the roles of classroom and teachers and students. This new teaching model has the characteristics of flexibility, timeliness, openness, modularity and multimodal input. It is helpful to realize students’ personalized learning and create a good language learning environment for students. This paper analyzes the feasibility of applying flipped classroom model based on micro-class in college English teaching by studying the concepts and features of micro-class and flipped classroom, the features of college English teachers and students, the current English teaching model, as well as the teaching environment. It also explores the flipped classroom teaching in theory and practice.

Singular they in English as a foreign language

Abstract A much-debated issue in English is the use of “epicene pronouns”, i.e. third-person singular pronouns of indeterminate gender. Previous studies have shown that singular they is the most common epicene in L1 English, but this pronoun has not received much attention in studies of L2 use. The present study extends previous research by examining variation between L2 groups in the distribution of epicene pronouns, focussing particularly on the use of singular they and how it is affected by three features of the antecedent: definiteness, notional number, and gender expectancy. The data originate in an elicitation experiment, which was completed by 338 university students of English from eight L1 backgrounds. The results show that singular they was most frequently used with notionally plural antecedents, whereas it was least common with gender-stereotyped antecedents. The study also disclosed variation between learners: In some L1 groups, they was used frequently with all types of antecedents, suggesting that these learners perceive singular they as a singular pronoun in its own right. In other groups, singular they appeared to function mostly as a modification of the plural they, as the pronoun was only frequent with notionally plural antecedents. The findings have important implications for language teaching.

AN ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY ENGLISH STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of this research was to investigate the development of vocabulary as reflected in their written English and the problems faced by university English students in writing. This quantitative research used a pre-post design. The instruments used writing test and a closed questionnaire which had 15 items. The research showed different resuslts for all variables that analyzed. In total word produced and Type Token Ratio (TTR), the result showed that there were no significant differences, but in less frequent words, the result showed that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test results. The result of the questionnaire on the students’ problems in writing showed that more than half of students (65%) had difficulties in grammar, because they felt that they had lack of vocabulary and ability in grammar. The conclusion showed that all variables that were analyzed showed different results. In the result of questionnaire showed that almost all students had difficulties in grammar and lack of vocabulary. In addition, others problems were found in generic structure, choosing words, expressing ideas, and the tense that was used.

Speaking Anxiety in the Interlanguage of Kurdish University Students of English: A Quantitative Study

The aim of this study was to investigate the level of speaking anxiety in the interlanguage of Kurdish EFL students at the University of Human Development (UHD), to find out which component of the participants’ interlanguage (phonology, grammar and meaning) contributes more to speaking anxiety, to assess the effect of gender and level of study on the participants’ speaking anxiety, and to examine the correlation between the three components of the participants’ interlanguage as far as speaking anxiety is concerned. The study utilized a quantitative method represented by a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire consisting of 18 items responded to by 106 Kurdish university EFL students from three semesters at UHD. The statistical analyses of the collected data revealed that the participants had a low to moderate level of speaking anxiety, meaning was the most contributing component of the participants’ interlanguage to speaking anxiety, gender and level of study exhibited no significant impact on speaking anxiety and there was a strong positive correlation between the three components of the participants’ interlanguage (phonology, grammar, meaning) as far as speaking anxiety is concerned.

Researching Translanguaging as a Feasible Pedagogical Practice: Evidence from Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language Students’ Perceptions

Translanguaging as pedagogical practice and a theory of language has gained increasing importance in recent years. However, little research has reported Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language students’ perceptions of translanguaging; neither has research examined the predictive effects of the factors contributing to the amount of student translanguaging in the Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language classrooms. This study intended to fill the gap by inviting 292 Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language students to respond to a questionnaire that explores students’ perception of translanguaging. Two research questions were addressed: first, how do students’ attitudes to translanguaging vary across second-language proficiency? Second, how is the amount of student translanguaging predicted by students’ attitudes to translanguaging and the amount of teacher translanguaging? The results of a one-way analysis of variance revealed a statistically significant difference among the four groups in attitudes to teacher translanguaging and students’ translanguaging. A post hoc test found that non-English major first-year university students had a significantly higher level of acceptance of teachers’ and students’ translanguaging than English major first-year university students. Multiple regression analysis showed that the amount of teacher translanguaging and student attitudes to translanguaging explained a significant quantity of the variance in the amount of student translanguaging. The implications of the study were also discussed.

Why Do University Students in Pakistan Confront Problems In Spoken English?

Language is a mode of communication between individuals. In Pakistan, English is learned as a second language. The main objective of this study was to identify the problems faced by university students in spoken English. The study was conducted at NUST Balochistan Campus in a time frame of three months. This study was design to evaluate the factors confronted by university students in their spoken English. Total 9 factors are lack of confidence in speaking the English language, non-availability of words to express feelings, fear of making mistakes when speaking the English language, lack of motivation in students to speak English language were identified, and questionnaires were circulated among seven hundred (700) university students. 500 students submitted their complete responses. Their responses were analytically analyzed. After analysis of data, this study revealed that the problem faced by university students are Lack of Confidence in Speaking the English Language with a score of 3.731 and was ranked on the top, followed by Lack of Vocabulary with score of 3.692, Fear of Making Mistakes When Speaking English Language with a score of 3.654, Lack of Motivation in Students in Speaking English Language with a score of 3.50, feeling Nervous in Speaking English Language in Public with a score of 3.462, feeling Shy when Speaking English Language with a score of 3.269, committing Common Grammar Mistakes While Speaking English Language with a score of 3.231, concerning problem of Difference of Syntax with a score of 2.923 and Lack of English Teachers with a score of 2.923. It is concluded that the university students in Pakistan confronts serious problems in spoken English, thus these problems should be solved by acting effectively.

Morphological knowledge in English learner university students is sensitive to language statistics: A longitudinal study

AbstractExposure to statistical patterns of language use affects language production and comprehension. In this longitudinal study of English language learner (ELL) university students, we examined the interplay between language experience and language statistics as a window into the formation and stability of morphological representations in memory. We hypothesized that within-participant change in sensitivity to distributional properties of complex words on written production would reflect changes in morphological knowledge. At two timepoints, separated by 8 months of language exposure, a sample of ELLs (n = 196) completed a written suffix completion task. The largest gains in production accuracy were observed for derived words ending in less productive suffixes. In addition, across both timepoints we found a consistent effect of derivational family entropy, such that derived words belonging to morphological families with equally dominant members were less accurately produced. Both effects indicate that ELLs exploit distributional cues to morphological structure and shed light on two aspects of morphological knowledge in ELLs. First, knowledge of suffixes becomes more entrenched in memory, independently of knowledge of the full forms of derived words. Second, ELLs draw upon interlexical connections between morphological family members during written word production.

‘Dear Dr John Smith. I refuse to obey this mark. That’s mean. So, can you give me a higher mark?’

Abstract This research studies a group of Chinese university students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to analyse the macro- and microstructure of their emails and their pragmatic competence. In order to study the features and context adequacy of their email communication, a corpus of 200 emails written by 100 second-year students (sophomores) and 100 fourth-year students (seniors) was analysed to identify the uses and preferences concerning subject lines and opening and closing moves and to investigate the uses and functions of strategies related to disagreement in their communication to a faculty member. Findings show that both Chinese groups lacked standardisation in relation to the use of subject line and opening and closing moves. Data also proved that Chinese EFL emails were inappropriate due to insufficient mitigation, lack of acknowledgment of the imposition involved and lack of status-congruent language.

A Survey and Analysis of College English Students’ Satisfaction Under the Flipped Classroom Model

A Survey and Analysis of College English Students’ Satisfaction Under the Flipped Classroom Model

Alignment in second language speakers’ perceptions of interaction and its relationship to perceived communicative success

Conversation is a co-constructed social activity, and interlocutors, including second language (L2) speakers, frequently align in their linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviors to create shared understanding. Given that L2 speakers make assumptions about their interlocutors, this exploratory study examines whether their perceptions about linguistic, socio-affective, and behavioral dimensions of interaction align. It also explores whether such alignment is related to their agreement about the success of the conversation. Eighty-four pairs of L2 English university students completed a 10-min academic discussion task, subsequently rating each other's comprehensibility, fluency, anxiety, motivation, and collaboration. At the end of a 30-min session, they also assessed the communicative success of their conversational experience. Speakers were generally aligned in their evaluations of each other and in their perception of communicative success, with alignment operationalized as the difference between the partners' scores. Although alignment in all dimensions of interaction was associated with perceived communicative success, collaboration had the strongest relationship (0.40 or 16% shared variance). The findings provide preliminary evidence that L2 speakers' alignment in perceived dimensions of interaction, particularly collaboration, is associated with their perceived communicative success.

Analysis and Practice of Applying Oriented Teaching Method to Improve the Effect of College English Teaching.

The Ministry of Education of my country released the first “national standard” in January 2018, clearly stating that it is necessary to attach importance to and improve the ability of undergraduates. Through the analysis of the research results in this field at home and abroad, this study finds that the thinking ability training strategies that can be provided in the previous research are relatively scattered, and there is a lack of effective training methods and guidance. Therefore, Dr. Wen Qiufang proposed the teaching method of “production-oriented approach.” “Production-oriented approach” includes driving, promoting, and re-evaluation, in which the training content is integrated into each link. Therefore, this study combines training and Production-oriented Approach, and using this theoretical basis in the English teaching classroom can explore better. It provides a new way for the cultivation of college students' English thinking ability. In the actual classroom teaching, the production-oriented teaching method is used to teach English to the students during the research process. After the teaching course is over, the teaching data are collected and analyzed with SPSS 25.0 software, and the data results are displayed. It can be seen that applying the Production-oriented approach to English classroom teaching can indeed improve the level of domestic college English students and provide a reference approach and method for students' English training, and this method is effective and feasible.

Developing Supplementary Reading and Writing Materials for English Major University Students

This paper is an exploratory study about designing supplementary materials for reading and writing skills based on constructivism principles for the second-year English majors at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University (SFL-TNU).