Band 62, Heft 2

Via a 90-min classroom experiment, this study examined the effects of interactive reading on EFL students’ content and vocabulary learning. Specifically, two intact Chinese college EFL classes with the same level of English proficiency participated in this study. One was taught with a “read plus intra/inter-group discussion” (Read-Discuss) approach and the other was instructed with a traditional approach involving no student-student interaction. After the experiment, the students took two immediate posttests (one on content and one on vocabulary) and, three weeks later, retook the same tests (delayed posttests). The results of statistical analyses indicate that whereas in the immediate posttests both classes attained a similar level of learning on both the content and vocabulary tests, in the delayed posttests, the Read-Discuss class significantly outperformed the traditional class, demonstrating that the Read-Discuss approach produced significantly better consolidated learning/retention in both content and vocabulary. Pedagogical/research implications of the results are also discussed.

Based on the theoretical framework of the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), the present study aims to make a methodological contribution to L2 motivation research. With the application of a novel growth mixture modeling (GMM) technique, the study depicted developmental trajectories of three motivational variables (ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experience) of 176 Chinese tertiary-level students over a period of two semesters. Results showed two to three salient classes with typical developmental patterns for the three motivational variables respectively, with which the study gained fresh insights into the developmental processes of motivation beyond the individual level. Our study further established three main multivariate profiles of motivation characterized by a distinct combination of different motivational variables. The findings extend our understanding of motivational dynamics, providing a nuanced picture of emergent motivational trajectories systemically. Additionally, GMM has shown to be an effective and applicable method for the identification of salient patterns in motivation development, which leads to practical implications.

This article reports on a study that used the online MULTITEACH questionnaire to examine the relationship between the multilingual pedagogies 111 language teachers, employed in upper-secondary schools in Norway and Russia, reported implementing, their beliefs about how multilingualism benefitted students and teachers, and their self-assessed ability to teach language aspects and skills. The study also investigated whether sociobiographical variables and participants’ language habits outside of work affected their beliefs about multilingualism benefitting their students and implementation of multilingual pedagogies. The findings revealed that participants utilized multilingual pedagogies least frequently when teaching in first language contexts and that those who used foreign languages outside of work applied such pedagogies more frequently than participants who did not. Moreover, their beliefs about multilingualism benefitting their students were positively predicted by their beliefs about multilingualism benefitting teachers and negatively predicted by their support of the monolingual approach to language learning and teaching.

This study compares L2 classroom assessment practices related to learning motivation in a high-performing grammar school and middle-range regular school to find the characteristics of L2 classroom assessment that promote learning motivation. First, we observed how four L2 teachers assessed eight seventh-grade classes at the two schools (four classes per school). Then, we administered questionnaires to the students in these eight classes to investigate the correlation between classroom assessment and learning motivation. Finally, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the four teachers (each teacher in charge of two classes) and 10 randomly stratified students to interpret such a relationship. Quantitative data were projected into SPSS 25 for analysis, and qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The results showed that it was not the frequency but the characteristics of assessment that fostered learning motivation. The results suggest including assessment techniques to enhance learning motivation in Vietnamese L2 teacher education programs.

This paper describes English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ pedagogic beliefs and practices regarding culture and interculturality and the extent to which Islamic outlook informed their instruction. Five Indonesian high-school EFL teachers participated in this study. Data were collected over a 12-week period through classroom observations, narrative frames, and stimulated-recall and in-depth interviews. Findings were analysed using a qualitative framework. Evidence indicates that participating teachers often drew on home knowledge and religious significance to make sense of ideas expressed in English. Despite realising the global prominence of English, there were hints that the teachers lumped members of the target culture together. Ambiguities surrounding the teachers’ instruction reveal paradoxes of educational exigencies and attitudinal resistance to ostensibly Western culture. This study calls for EFL pedagogies being more responsive to local linguistic repertoire and religio-cultural factors, highlighting the need to liberate the English classes from rigid ties to particular cultures.

Prior research found that compared with individual writing, collaborative writing improves learner performance and facilitates writing development. However, it remains unknown whether collaboration may allow learners to tackle writing tasks of varying cognitive demands. This study examined the role of task complexity in collaborative writing (CW) through (a) comparing how individual learners and dyads performed in tasks of varying cognitive demands and (b) examining how task complexity impacted pairs’ co-constructed texts. Sixty-nine Chinese junior high school learners of English (14–16 years old) were divided into two groups: individual writing ( n  = 21 learners) and a CW group ( n  = 24 pairs). Learners in both groups completed a simple and a complex task (manipulated via ± task structure). The written products were analyzed in terms of linguistic complexity, accuracy, fluency, and functional adequacy. Results indicated that the benefits of collaboration on learners’ written products were subject to the influence of task structure. When task structure is present, dyads produced functionally more adequate and longer texts than individual learners. In contrast, without task structure, dyads gained an edge over individual writers in terms of linguistic accuracy and fluency. Also, when examining the role of task complexity within the CW group, this study found that task structure exerted some influence on fluency, but not on other aspects of the jointly written products. Pedagogical and research implications were discussed.

This study examines the status of lexical stress in the processing system of heritage speakers of Spanish and whether or not it is influenced by their experience with English. Participants completed an ABX matching task with auditory stimuli differing in the location of stress or in one consonantal sound. Findings reveal that heritage speakers are more accurate in consonant-based trials than in stress-based ones, but only when matching stimuli were non-adjacent, which suggests that their stress-processing strategies pattern more closely with those of native English speakers. Furthermore, dominance and knowledge of Spanish appear to be associated with increased phonological sensibility to stress contrasts. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

This study reports a meta-analysis of studies that investigated the effectiveness of instruction on second language collocation learning. A total of 64 research projects in 17 primary studies (the number of participants = 3,859) were included in the meta-analysis. Aggregated results confirmed the effectiveness of collocation instruction for facilitating second language collocation learning ( d  = 1.415, 95% CI: 1.189, 1.641). The results of moderator analysis indicated that the intervention method was a significant predictor of intervention effectiveness. To be specific, 1) explicit interventions produced larger effect sizes than implicit interventions; 2) interventions with low session frequency did not produce larger effect sizes than those with high session frequency; 3) long interventions did not show larger effect sizes than short interventions; and 4) constrained-constructed responses, selected responses, and multiple outcome measures did not produce larger effect sizes than free-constructed responses. The study also offered explanations for the results, as well as implications for the teaching and research of collocations.

E-Portfolios in language education have emerged over two decades. Despite their popularity as an instructional tool, many cast doubt on their usefulness in second language classrooms, especially when scholars are not clear about how e-Portfolio artefacts can be converted into reliable learning evidence by students’ active reflection and validation via multimedia feedback to inform language teaching and learning. This paper examines the usefulness of e-Portfolios by looking into how teachers attempt the tool to connect portfolio evidence, rationalisation, and feedback. Three novice teachers with three-year school experience (Jill, Jamie, and Jackie) undertook action research projects in their secondary schools. They participated in the study by trying out their individual e-Portfolio programmes for a year. Qualitative data, including two classroom observations and three reflective journal entries per teacher were collected by the author. Content analysis of qualitative data (i.e., lesson observation transcripts and journal entries) was performed deductively. The findings showed that except Jamie, Jill and Jackie hardly enhanced the usefulness of e-Portfolios, because they could not empower students to link artefacts, reflection, and validation properly owing to multiple reasons. Pedagogical implications concerning how to scale up the usefulness of e-Portfolio in L2 classroom contexts are discussed.

This study examined the extent to which second language (L2) learners’ syntactic prediction resembles or differs from native speakers’ and the role of L2 proficiency in this process. An experimental group of 135 Chinese learners of English and a control group of 58 English native speakers participated in a phrase-by-phrase self-paced reading task where the experimental sentences were contrastive in whether the DP disjunction was preceded by either or not. To ensure that the participants had sufficient knowledge about the target stimuli, they were asked to additionally judge the acceptability of the experimental sentences. The results showed that like native speakers, L2 learners read the critical region consisting of “or” and a DP disjunct faster when it was preceded by either compared to when either was absent. In addition, this effect of the presence versus absence of either spilled over to the post-critical region. Moreover, L2 proficiency was not found to robustly modulate this process. It is concluded that L2 learners, like native speakers, can make predictions at the level of syntax.

The present study introduces a novel instructional approach to teaching a Chinese construction to college students in a foreign language classroom. Based on the framework of the construction-grammar approach to language acquisition, this study tested the effect of construction-based teaching, which integrates formal and semantic aspects of language with contextually meaningful visual scenes, in Korean-speaking Chinese learners’ acquisition of the Chinese Ba construction. Two groups of Chinese learners, who were enrolled in second-semester college-level Chinese classes, received constructional ( n  = 33) or form-focused instruction ( n  = 33) for 13 weeks. Results from elicited production and grammaticality judgment tasks implemented preceding and following the instruction showed that the constructional instruction group had improvements to a greater extent than the form-focused instruction group. These findings underscore the validity of the construction-grammar approach as an effective teaching method in foreign language learning settings.

Despite the extensive research on willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC), foreign language anxiety (FLA), and foreign language enjoyment (FLE), few studies have tested the roles of these variables in predicting L2 learning outcomes. This line of inquiry is imperative, especially because the importance of L2 WTC primarily lies in its presumable role in enhancing L2 learning. This study examines how FLA, FLE, and L2 WTC predict English public speaking performance. Data were collected by administering a questionnaire that contained closed-ended and open-ended items to 132 Chinese university students who took an English public speaking course. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that FLE was the single significant predictor of L2 WTC and public speaking performance. Participants’ responses revealed a range of major categories underlying classroom episodes when they felt most enjoyable, most anxious, and most willing to communicate. Implications for future research and pedagogical practice are finally addressed.

This paper outlines a classroom-based study on the timing of explicit language instruction. It also provides an alternative to the CALF (Complexity Accuracy Lexis Fluency) framework for analyzing learner language, which may not always be appropriate for EFL contexts. Two groups of learners, assigned to either a TBLT or a PPP condition, completed a speaking task. A follow-up task was given three months later, but with no explicit language focus for either group. Data from these interactions were analyzed for use of target grammar structures and overall speaking proficiency. Results suggest that explicit introduction of language through PPP benefits immediate task performance, but that ultimately post-task focus on language through TBLT leads to greater language development. The framework for analysis was effective in showing differences in performance between the groups in this context.

This study investigates how L2 learners of Korean in foreign language-learning environments manifest the target knowledge as a function of various factors surrounding the learners (e.g., L2 textbook input, language-specific properties, general language-use experience in class), specifically concerning the learners’ written production of the postposition–verb pair in a locative postposition–verb construction. For this purpose, we analyze two textbook types and learner writing from two L1 groups, focusing on postposition/verb use, Type–Token Ratio, and keyness. We find some meaningful relationships, but also inconsistencies, between L2 textbook input and L2 written production regarding this construction. We discuss implications of the findings with respect to how L2 knowledge is shaped at the interface of L2-textbook characteristics, language-specific properties involving the target knowledge, learners’ L1, and general language-use experience in class. Based on the results, we also discuss pedagogical implications, with emphasis on (methods and technologies of) utilizing the existing corpora for instructional purposes.

Chunks are multi-word sequences that constitute an important component of the mental lexicon. In second language (L2) acquisition, chunking is essential for attaining fluency and idiomaticity. In the present study, in order to examine whether chunks provide a processing advantage over non-chunks for L2 learners at different levels of proficiency, three groups (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) English-speaking learners of Chinese participated in an online acceptability judgment task and a familiarity rating task. Our results revealed that the participants in all three groups processed chunks faster and with fewer errors than they did non-chunks. It was also found that the observed processing advantage of chunks could not be explained by a familiarity effect alone, thus suggesting that L2 learners across the board store chunks as holistic units. The implications of chunk instruction in relation to input frequency and variability in L2 settings are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of English article accuracy in second language writing following direct or indirect corrective feedback (CF). Participants were 56 middle-school-aged learners of English nested within four classrooms who were studying for the writing portion of the Secondary School Admission Test. In this longitudinal analysis, each student completed four essays, with a weekly gap between each assignment. On the measures of writing accuracy, adolescent students in the direct CF group demonstrated increasing trajectories of accuracy with English article usage compared to the indirect CF group. Additionally, there was a significant difference in improvement by proficiency level: for lower proficiency learners, but not higher proficiency learners, both indirect and direct corrective feedback resulted in improvement in English article accuracy. The findings suggest that CF treatments designed to enhance a learner’s accuracy can be influenced by the learner’s existing proficiency, at least among adolescents.

Although teacher enjoyment has been positively related to teacher well-being and performance, little is known about the combination of perspectives and experiences that contribute to it. This study uses Q methodology to identify, characterise and compare divergent viewpoints of tertiary-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers regarding enjoyment within their professional context. A Q sort of 44 statements reflecting enjoyment in foreign language teachers was administered to 40 participants. By-person factor analysis was conducted to identify common patterns across the Q sorts. Three viewpoints emerged, namely classroom engagement , career value and social interaction . The narratives show that the unique composites of experiences within these viewpoints characterise enjoyment for each group of EFL teachers. To boost or recover their enjoyment, EFL teachers are advised to clearly communicate their expectations for student behaviour, use positive reinforcement when teaching, seek opportunities for professional growth, establish career goals and embrace opportunities for collaboration.

This study proposes two collaborative concept mapping-based prewriting strategies to help Chinese EFL learners with a reading-to-write task—reading an unfinished story and then writing its ending. Collaborative concept mapping enables students to visualize the storyline with the help of peer scaffolding. The two proposed strategies used collaborative fill-in-the-blanks concept maps (CFCM) and collaboratively constructed concept maps (CCCM). Classes 1 ( N  = 48) and 2 ( N  = 47) participated in the experiment and respectively learned the strategies of CFCM and CCCM. The collected data included students’ concept maps, reading-to-write products, responses to questionnaires on attitudes and motivation, and learning journals, which were analyzed by t tests, path analysis, and qualitative coding. The results indicated that students using CCCM showed more positive attitudes and higher motivation than those using CFCM; however, the two strategies shared similar effectiveness in developing students’ reading-to-write abilities. Students found the proposed strategies effective in helping them write the story ending.

Pronunciation has gained significant attention in the field of English language teaching, with recent studies examining pronunciation representation in textbooks, classroom practices, teachers’ beliefs, and learners’ perceptions. However, research into teachers learning to teach English pronunciation is only beginning to emerge. The current study extends this line of enquiry by investigating the preparation of 20 Vietnamese English teachers to teach pronunciation. The study also examined the teachers’ perceptions of how Vietnamese teacher education could further assist teachers in teaching pronunciation. Qualitative data sources included academic transcripts, a questionnaire, and individual semi-structured interviews to examine the teacher-participants’ pronunciation pedagogy training and their beliefs about effective pronunciation teacher preparation. The findings showed that the teachers were insufficiently trained but reported being confident in their ability to teach English pronunciation. The participants also proposed several changes to be made to Vietnamese English teacher education programs for teachers to teach pronunciation more effectively.

This study investigated the role of language aptitude for participants with extensive instructed L2 English learning experience in judging the grammaticality of sentences in auditory and written modalities. Partially replicating a naturalistic L2 learning study, we administered written and auditory grammaticality judgement tests in L2 English and the LLAMA aptitude tests to 37 students at an English-medium state university in Turkey. The participants were divided into higher and lower aptitude groups based on LLAMA scores, and their accuracy/response time scores in early/intermediate/late-acquired structures were examined. The results showed that aptitude was significantly associated with performance only in late-acquired structures in the written modality. Additionally, aptitude distinguished response time rather than accuracy scores, suggesting a qualitative processing difference. The explicit and analytic nature of language aptitude was discussed for adult learners, which is more relevant for the Turkish context where English is taught as a foreign language in academic settings.

Thus far, glossing studies have remained at the level of individual words rather than including their lexical environment. To fill this gap, the present study explored if different glossing conditions would have a distinct impact on L2 reading comprehension and incidental lexical and collocational learning. Sixty-three first language (L1) Cantonese speakers read two English stories that contained 12 adjective-pseudonoun collocations. The participants were placed in one of the three conditions, i.e., unglossed, single-word glossed, and collocation glossed. Participants’ reading comprehension was measured with twelve true-or-false statements for each story, and their lexical and collocational learning was assessed using unannounced recognition and recall tests. The results revealed that collocational glossing promoted reading comprehension significantly compared to the other two reading conditions. In addition, while both glossing conditions promoted lexical and collocational knowledge in the immediate posttest, collocational glossing demonstrated a more durable facilitative impact in the delayed posttest.

The correlation between motivational beliefs and foreign language learning has been widely explored. However, there has been little investigation of this link among learners with different foreign language levels. Based on expectancy-value theory (EVT), this research examined the association between motivational beliefs and English achievement of 11,854 Chinese secondary students. Data were collected using students’ self-reported English self-efficacy, intrinsic value, utility value, and English achievement test. The results of ANOVA showed that self-efficacy, intrinsic value, and utility value of high-achieving English learners were significantly higher than that of medium-achieving ones, followed by low-achieving ones. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that after controlling for socioeconomic status and gender, intrinsic value was most correlated with high- and medium-achieving learners’ English achievement, followed by self-efficacy, while utility value was not significantly associated with English achievement of the two groups. In addition, utility value was most strongly related with low-achieving learners’ English achievement, followed by intrinsic value, but self-efficacy was not positively linked with their English achievement. These findings not only extend EVT and validate the situative perspective of motivation research, but also have practical implications for foreign language education.

The inherent complexity of listening activities poses considerable challenges to second language listeners. For decades, researchers have been exploring effective strategies to help improve L2 learners’ listening proficiency. Note-taking, which is frequently and strategically employed to complete listening tasks and to learn content, has also been examined extensively from various perspectives. However, it seems that little is known about the effect of L2 learners’ linguistic choices in note-taking on their listening performance. Employing pedagogical translanguaging as an analytical lens, the current research sets out to investigate whether or not L2 learners’ multilingual notes, compared to monolingual notes, significantly enhance their performance in academic listening activities. Conducted in a Chinese university EFL context, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach. A total of 90 participants were assigned to three groups and were asked to take notes in Chinese, English, and a combination of all languages, symbols, drawings, etc., respectively. Data were collected from the results of two listening tasks (a listening comprehension test and a retelling task), a questionnaire survey designed to focus on their attitudes to the linguistic choices they made in note-taking, and the multilingual notes taken. The findings revealed that students who were allowed to make full use of their linguistic and semiotic resources in note-taking were able to perform significantly better in both listening tasks. The same group of students also demonstrated a diverse and flexible mobilization of their multilingual and multimodal assets in the notes they took. This study provides evidence for applying pedagogical translanguaging as an effective approach in designing note-taking instructions. It is suggested that L2 learners should be encouraged to deploy their entire linguistic repertoire when taking notes during listening activities, which could lead to improved performance.

Research on second language (L2) enjoyment and anxiety has mainly focused on independent reading and writing tasks. An integrated reading-writing task involves students in both reading and writing processes, raising the possibility of different combinations of, and unique interaction between, enjoyment and anxiety across reading and writing in such a task. This study aimed to identify integrated reading-writing task based enjoyment and anxiety profiles using a person-centered latent profile analysis (LPA) and to explore their relationships with imagination and performance. Six hundred and seventy-nine 12th-grade Chinese students completed an integrated reading-writing task, namely a story continuation writing task (SCWT), and a questionnaire measuring their L2 reading enjoyment and anxiety, writing enjoyment and anxiety, and imaginative capacity. The LPA identified four different profiles: (1) the moderate-enjoyment/moderate-anxiety group, (2) the moderate-enjoyment/low-anxiety group, (3) the high-enjoyment/moderate-anxiety group, and (4) the low-enjoyment/high-anxiety group. Further, a student’s profile membership was strongly predicted by imaginative capacity. Those in the moderate-enjoyment/low-anxiety group scored highest in story continuation writing performance. Pedagogical implications tailored to integrated reading-writing task instruction are discussed.

This study investigates the differential effects of monolingual (L1 or L2) and bilingual (L1+L2) subtitles on students’ receptive vocabulary acquisition. In light of the widespread use of bilingual subtitles in videos in language classrooms with limited supportive literature available, this study aims at examining the pedagogical effects of bilingual subtitles on receptive vocabulary acquisition in the L2 classroom. A seven-week quasi-experimental study was conducted among four year-3 English-major classes in a Chinese university: three treatment groups and one control group. Adopting a counterbalanced design, students in the treatment classes were exposed to three types of subtitles within three videos. They were then tested on recall and recognition of the vocabulary target items encountered in the videos. The results demonstrate a significant advantage for bilingual subtitling in videos in terms of students’ vocabulary recognition and recall at post-test, and this advantage is maintained at the delayed post-test. Implications of the study are discussed in the context of current pedagogical practices such as a wider L1 use in the L2 classrooms.

Considering the increasing application of task-based frameworks to second language (L2) writing research, there has been a pressing need to examine TBLT views on the interactions between task conceptualization, task performance, and L2 writing outcomes. To address this need, the present study was designed to explore the synergistic effects of task complexity and task repetition on different facets of syntactic complexity as a key construct of proficiency and development in L2 writing. In doing so, 96 ESL learners performed written argumentative task versions with varying cognitive complexity in a counterbalanced fashion and then complete a task difficulty questionnaire. Afterward, they repeated the tasks in the opposite order at a one-week interval. The essays were analyzed using fine-grained syntactic complexity measures (reported by Lu’s L2 syntactic complexity analyzer, 2010). Linear mixed-effects models indicated significant main effects of task complexity and task repetition on different facets of syntactic complexity with robust effect sizes. However, no significant interaction effect between task complexity and task repetition was observed. These findings provide a reliable and accurate understanding of how syntactic complexity plays a role in the current accounts of connections between task features, implementation variables, and L2 writing task performance.

This paper investigates the use of English verb-argument constructions (VACs) in second language writing in light of usage-based constructionist approaches to language development. It employs a comprehensive list of VACs to analyze every sentence in 390 essays written by L2 learners of three levels, i.e., Low, Mid, and High, and examines the theoretical hypotheses that the repertoires of VACs expand along with L2 proficient profile and that individual VACs, albeit varying in their expansion patterns, compose a structured inventory based on constructional information. Results indicate that L2 learners of higher proficiency used significantly more types of VACs than those of lower proficiency. It is also found that significant expansions of individual VACs appeared at different L2 proficiency levels. For example, the use of [Verb + NP complement] construction significantly increased between Low and Mid, not between Mid and High, whereas the [Verb + Prepositional object] construction significantly expanded throughout the three proficiency levels. Finally, there were strong cluster effects in the expansion of VACs as small sets of VACs showed similar by-text co-occurrence patterns.

Recent research has provided evidence that corrective feedback (CF) timing can play a significant role in feedback effectiveness. However, given that immediate and delayed feedback are differentially contextualized, little is known about the mediating role of learners’ field dependence/independence (FDI) cognitive style on the effectiveness of immediate and delayed prompts. To this end, the present study examined the effects of immediate and delayed prompts as well as the mediating role of learners’ FDI on the development of English articles by EFL learners. Fifty eight EFL learners were randomly assigned into two treatment conditions as well as a control group. The participants’ FDI orientation was measured through the group embedded figures test (GEFT). The treatment groups differed from each other in terms of whether the participants received prompts immediately after errors were made or at the end of the treatment task. The results obtained from post-tests and delayed post-tests showed that providing prompts immediately following learners’ errors is more effective than delaying them until the communicative activity is over. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that the effectiveness of immediate prompts, and not delayed prompts, is significantly predicted by learners’ FDI cognitive style.

Vocabulary is a key variable to successful listening comprehension. Research has explored the relationship between aural and orthographic vocabularies and listening comprehension. This current study examined the relationships among aural vocabulary, orthographic vocabulary, and listening comprehension within the same Japanese cohort in an integrated manner. The test data of 155 Japanese EFL students, who took identical aural and orthographic vocabulary tests (the listening vocabulary levels test [LVLT] and new vocabulary levels test [NVLT], respectively) and a high-stakes listening test (Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) for Parts I and II), were analyzed. The results indicated that aural and orthographic vocabulary are closely related but not identical. Moreover, orthographic vocabulary is more connected to the word- and propositional-level understanding of extended texts than to aural vocabulary for the Japanese group. More specifically, the 2,000-word and 4,000-word level and the academic vocabulary of the orthographic vocabulary predicted 27% of the variance of the listening comprehension test performance, whereas only the academic words of the aural vocabulary predicted 8%.

Metadiscourse plays a significant role in determining the quality of writing. While a growing number of studies have investigated the use of metadiscourse by adult second language learners in academic writing at the tertiary level, studies on how secondary-level students adopt such linguistic resources in other genres, particularly in examination writing, remain few. The present study addresses this research gap by examining the distributions of metadiscourse markers in a corpus of 120 low-, medium-, and high-rated advice-giving texts (letters and reports) randomly selected from the Hong Kong public examination of English language writing, written by secondary-level Chinese learners of English. Using Hyland’s (2019) framework of metadiscourse, the study found considerable variation in the use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse across genres (letters vs. reports) and the final exam grades awarded to texts. Implications for teaching English to pre-tertiary Chinese writers are discussed with suggestions for future research.

In recent years, research interest in both multilingual learners and, more specifically, in immigrant populations has increased. This is also true for students who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh) and have families who do not speak or sign the languages of the wider community at home (d/Dhh multilingual learners; DML), and may be recent immigrants transitioning to a new country (immigrant DML; IDML). This is a low-incidence, diverse population of learners with minimal research on both language development and on adequate language support during the schooling years. The present study is a scoping review of the research methodologies utilized to conduct 33 original studies. The results help to explain why research is both lacking and sorely needed, and provide a basis for researchers to identify desiderata in research foci and research designs. Recommendations for educational research with DMLs are proposed.

Context or the teaching/learning environment has only recently been recognized as a mediating variable in L2/FL written performance. These studies are multisite and have not yet targeted another feature of context: the sociolinguistic status of the target language. Likewise, scarce research exists examining the prolonged effects of collaboration. The present classroom-based study fills this void by investigating the effects of collaboration on the (a) jointly written texts; (b) subsequent individual texts; and (c) texts written in two distinct sociolinguistic status target languages of two groups of 11–12-year-old Spanish primary education students. Distributed into a control (CG) ( N  = 17) and an experimental group (EG) ( N  = 10 pairs), they wrote three descriptive texts in each language, L2 Basque and FL English: the first and third individually and the second one individually by the CG and in pairs by the EG. The texts were examined qualitatively with a rubric and quantitatively for fluency and accuracy measures. Immediate and prolonged effects of collaboration were observed on accuracy, while fluency decreased and global qualitative scores varied very little. Additionally, unlike in the CG, language-dependent differences were not attested in the EG which suggests that collaborative writing is an expedient tool to increase attention to language and limit the mediating effects of the learning context.

Previous studies on prosodic disambiguation have found Chinese EFL learners capable of using prosodic cues for both boundary marking and focus encoding in English, but somewhat differently from native English speakers. No clear understanding has yet been obtained about their overall use of prosodic strategies in speech production for disambiguation. In this study, we conducted a contextualized production task followed by perception judgments and acoustic analyses to investigate their prosodic disambiguation, with native English speakers as the contrast group. We considered three types of prosodic cues (duration, pitch, and intensity), and examined ambiguities in both syntactic structure and information structure. We found that Chinese EFL learners did alter their prosodic cues to disambiguate two readings, but differently from native English speakers in both cue number and cue combination. Specifically, they used a narrower range of cues and provided insufficient prosodic information, consequently leading to poor perception by native listeners. Our findings argue for prosodic disambiguation training in foreign language teaching.

We present a thematic review and analysis of the variables affecting language learning motivation (LLM) (2008–2022). The second-language motivational self-system (L2MSS) model was found to be the most applied construct in measuring LLM. Complex systems theory was also another method gaining prominence in LLM research to explain the interactions between micro- and macro-structures surrounding the learner in influencing motivation. Other factors such as socioeconomic status, dialogism and anagnorisis were also identified as variables relating to LLM. For instance, research on dialogism and dialogue has indicated the role of conversation in shaping identity, motivation, and meaning for learners. However, our review found that much of the focus in LLM research has been on the L2MSS learning or teaching experience, while daily living has been largely neglected. We further conducted a reliability generalization meta-analysis. Our analysis found an average reliability of 0.84 (CI = 0.816–0.856), with 34% of reliability coefficients falling below the lower bound of CI. A meta-regression analysis revealed that 16% of the variance in the reliability coefficients was predicted by the number of items in the instruments. Questionnaires with an internal consistency below the lower bound of 0.816 had an average of 4.14 items, while the rest had an average of 5.71 items. We further found significant publication bias. Based on our findings, we suggest areas for future research in LLM.

This study examines Japanese complaint responses appearing in naturally occurring interaction and textbook dialogues. The comparative analysis highlights that complaint responses in textbooks differ from those in mundane conversation. The inevitable difficulty for textbooks to reflect temporal and multimodal features of interaction results in the designs of affiliative responses being minimal and disaffiliative responses being more explicit. In contrast, conversation data indicates that complaint response turns are more intricately designed with multimodal semiotic resources and are precisely positioned according to the sequential development of complaints. By conducting empirical analyses, the study identifies interactional repertoires that are not observed in textbooks but employed in actual conversations. In doing so, it aims to expand the variety of the analysis of textbook dialogues to help calibrate the input for Japanese language pedagogy, while presenting a reference point for Japanese language learners to better understand the interactional organization of complaint sequences in mundane conversations.