Volume 63, Issue 2

Given the significance of creating an inclusive academic environment for international students, our study examines how three newly arrived international students (a Chinese female and two Korean males) navigated the institutional and interactional norms in an academic orientation class at a U.S. university. Drawing on nexus analysis, we examine student class disengagement at the intersection of discourses in place, interaction order, and historical body. In particular, we focus on how the Chinese international female student was perceived as being “disengaged” and “disrespectful” in class by her Korean graduate male classmates and her female instructor. Such discursive positioning, we argue, was attributed to the interplay of various factors, such as our student participants’ navigation of U.S. classroom participation expectations. Furthermore, we argue that class disengagement should be understood within a wider sociocultural space as such disengagement is interwoven with the broader U.S. classroom discourses and individual participants’ past experiences.

Since collocation knowledge is integral to second language vocabulary depth, it necessitates a careful examination of various measurement approaches. To this end, the current paper provides an overview and evaluation of extant collocation measurements used in empirical studies on L2 English ( N = 153) published between 1980 and 2023 indexed in the SSCI, SCIE, AHCI, SCOPUS, and ERIC databases. Six instruments, seven item formats, and three other assessment tools were identified and reviewed for the assessment of receptive and productive collocation knowledge. The review focused on the collocation knowledge measured by each tool, the instrument and/or item format employed, item design, reported reliability, and potential drawbacks of employing each instrument and item format in research or practice. The review proposes several theoretical and practical considerations for future assessments of and research on English collocation knowledge.

This study investigates the initial incidental acquisition of two L2 morphosyntactic rules and their immediate usage in production. Using a miniature artificial language paradigm, multiple exposure sessions, realistic exposure, non-salient linguistic features, as well as multiple outcome measures, we demonstrate that adult learners can learn animacy with low levels of awareness, but not case. Forty adult native speakers of English participated in the experiment. Participants were exposed to audio sentences in the artificial language paired with pictures on the computer screen for three sessions. Knowledge of animacy and case was measured with production and grammaticality judgment tests. Results demonstrated that concrete, contiguous and easily trackable L2 properties that lend themselves to distributional learning, such as animacy marking, can benefit from incidental exposure. However, more abstract L2 properties, like the morphological paradigm of case, seem not to be learnable by incidental means, and opportunities for explicit learning must be provided.

Preliminary studies suggest a positive effect of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) on young learners’ (YLs) L2 motivation. However, much more research with larger samples is necessary to gain a more detailed understanding of the interaction between CLIL exposure and L2 motivation. This study specifically explores the effect of different levels of CLIL exposure on YLs’ L2 motivation. To do so, five measures of motivation were analysed in 895 L1-Spanish YLs of English (mean age = 10.61) comprising a non-CLIL group ( n  = 289) who had received five EFL weekly lessons; a low-CLIL group ( n  = 152) who had received five EFL and two CLIL weekly lessons, and a high-CLIL group ( n  = 454) who had received five EFL and seven CLIL weekly lessons. Normality, Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn-Bonferroni post-hoc tests were conducted. The results revealed significantly higher motivation levels for the high-CLIL learners over the low-CLIL group in all five measures, and higher motivational levels of the high-CLIL group over the non-CLIL group in four of the measures. The study provides evidence of the motivational benefits of high-CLIL exposure and underscores the need for further research on the motivational implications of low-CLIL programmes.

A global push to start learning English early has heightened interest in effective pedagogical practices for young learners. In many parts of the world, however, teachers feel constrained by the educational system in which they work. Coursebooks are mandated, tests and examinations dominate, and teacher education may not consider the particularities of teaching young learners. Such factors have all been identified in Vietnam, where this study was conducted. A storytelling innovation based on coursebook texts was introduced and taught for one school term. Pre- and post-tests of speaking found that learners who experienced the storytelling innovation significantly outperformed the learners who followed the textbook when measured by English tokens, English types, idea units in English, and idea units in English and Vietnamese. The study demonstrates how a relatively modest course book adaptation can lead to improved learning outcomes in an EFL context where change is often considered difficult to achieve.

Due to the bewildering array of spatial configurations that languages build around spatial relations, the acquisition of English spatial prepositions is a daunting task for learners of English as L2. For instance, while the embodied meanings of contact and containment are expressed in English through on and in , respectively, Spanish conveys such configurations through en (in). Furthermore, spatial prepositions bear non-geometric senses, especially those imbued with metaphorical configurations. Accordingly, in addition to its spatial configuration of motion, to , for example, may denote a metaphorical ( He gave a questioning look to someone ) or attachment sense ( The building next to the hospital ). Teaching English as L2, however, does not provide learners a conceptual guide to how these senses are related and thus does not render them amenable to systematic, enduring learning. Premised on the assumption that these senses are schematically related through the Principled Polysemy model (PPM), this study assesses whether instructing Spanish learners of English at B1 level on the usages of on and to applying this model will lead to learning benefits. Participants ( n  = 90) were randomized to receive instruction on the usage of such prepositions based on Collocation Approach (experimental group 1), PPM (experimental group 2), or not receive such instruction (control group). Then they completed a cloze test containing different usages of the target prepositions on three instructional conditions: pre-, post-, and delayed post-test. Differential mean scores were computed using planned contrasts, which indicates a statistically significant effect for PPM.

Previous research on phrasal verbs has focused on the effectiveness of exercises requiring learners to provide the missing particle for a given verb. However, this research does not address other common exercise formats, such as those requiring learners to complete entire phrasal verbs. This study aims to bridge this gap by exploring such an exercise format and its two principal implementations. The participants were 134 Japanese EFL learners. Both exercise setups present the definition and initial letter of a phrasal verb as a prompt. In the guessing method, students attempt to fill in the missing phrasal verb based solely on the prompt and then receive corrective feedback. In contrast, in the error-free retrieval method, students study the phrasal verb and its definition before attempting the same gap-fill exercise. Retention of phrasal verbs improved more with the guessing method. Further, across both methods, participants struggled more with recalling particles than verbs.

The study reported in this paper examined the differentiating effects of rehearsal and repetition, as two distinct task-readiness conditions, on L2 performance, and examined how such effects interact with modality (i.e., oral and written). To do so, 104 EFL learners were randomly divided into four groups, each with a unique readiness condition (rehearsal versus repetition) and a different performance mode (oral versus written). All groups performed orally or in writing a task twice either with awareness of the second performance (rehearsal) or without such anticipation (repetition). The task performances were assessed in terms of complexity, accuracy, lexis, and fluency (CALF). Findings indicated that while both readiness conditions showed beneficial effects, only rehearsal led to statistically significant enhancements in all CALF dimensions over time. Results also revealed that rehearsal yielded significant improvements across both modalities; however, the benefits were more evident in the writing mode. The study provides teachers with more insights into task implementation.

Cohesion is vital for connecting messages in writing, but there has been a dearth of studies focusing on the development of cohesion. Taking a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) perspective, this longitudinal case study investigated the development of L2 learnersʼ use of global cohesion and its relationship with their argumentative writing quality over an academic year. Four English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners at a university in Western China were invited to participate in this study and requested to write 31 argumentative essays each over an academic year from March 2019 to January 2020. The resampling and Monte Carlo simulations were utilized to examine the characteristics demonstrated in the development path of and the interaction between global cohesion devices as well as the relationship between global cohesion and the text quality of argumentative essays. Statistical results showed inter- and intra-individual variability in the learnersʼ development of global cohesion devices and their interactions, as well as the relationship between global cohesion and L2 writing quality. The findings suggest that the studentsʼ development of global cohesion in argumentative writing is a slow process and necessitates teaching interventions.

Integrated group discussion (IGD) tasks represent a new type of integrated speaking task that requires students to communicate with their peers after comprehending and using provided source materials. With its potential to enhance effective communication and information literacy, IGD stands at the core of language education. Although the IGD task type has become increasingly popular, its construct is still unexplored. In this study, 124 Hong Kong undergraduate students completed an IGD task and a group discussion (GD) task (i.e., without source materials) in Putonghua. Four factors, speech and expression , content with source use , interaction , and language usage , were extracted to represent IGD performance. Two indicators of GD performance ( linguistic expression and engagement in interaction ) significantly predicted IGD performance, explaining 21.9 % of its total variance. The large proportion of unexplained IGD performance variance suggests that IGD tasks may be worth implementing. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in details.

This study examines discipline-specific attitudinal differences in translanguaging when studying through English Medium Instruction following a mixed methods research design. The quantitative data for this study came from the Mathematics, Physical and Life Sciences ( n  = 173) and Social Sciences ( n  = 172) divisions of a major public university in Turkey. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted ( n  = 20). After conducting exploratory factor analysis to validate the questionnaire, we ran two independent samples t -tests to investigate the differences in the attitudes of the participants. Results revealed a statistically significant difference in the general attitudes towards translanguaging in the two divisions but not regarding their attitudes towards teachers’ and their own use of translanguaging in class. The qualitative analysis provided partial support for the quantitative analysis. The research suggests important implications by validating the translanguaging questionnaire in the Turkish setting and by highlighting discipline-specific differences observed towards translanguaging practices.

This study examined the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs). We conducted a meta-analysis and integrated 159 effect sizes from 25 studies on the correlation between vocabulary knowledge and VLS use. These effect sizes were subjected to a quantitative analysis that measured the extent to which the correlation differed by type of vocabulary knowledge (size vs. depth), vocabulary measurement (size vs. level), and strategy (direct vs. indirect). The results show a small correlation between vocabulary knowledge and VLS use ( r  = 0.24). The relationship also differed by type of vocabulary knowledge ( r  = 0.03–0.35 for size; r  = 0.15–0.40 for depth), vocabulary measure ( r  = 0.03–0.43 for size; r  = 0.10–0.50 for level), and strategy type ( r  = 0.03–0.50). The discussion provides possible justifications for the meta-analysis results and recommendations for future VLS studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the use of attitudinal language stands as a potential source of effectiveness in undergraduate academic writing in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In order to achieve this purpose, interpersonal features of a corpus of essays written by Mexican undergraduate students of English Language and Literature were analyzed. The model of appraisal (Martin, James R. & Peter R. R. White. 2005. The language of evaluation: Appraisal systems in English . Basingtoke: Palgrave Macmillan) was used to trace and contrast attitude resources of affect, judgement and appreciation in academic essays in relation to the grades they were granted by university professors at different levels of instruction. The results of the study confirm a significant relation between the use of resources of attitude and the perceived (in)effectiveness of the analyzed texts, as well as factors which potentially determine the nature of such relation and pose relevant implications for academic writing instruction in EFL in the context of the analyzed corpus.

Research investigating lag effects in second language (L2) collocation learning is very limited. To date, no intervention study has examined the relationship between intersession intervals (ISIs) and retention intervals (RIs) in relation to incidental acquisition of collocations. To fill this gap, the current study collected data from two groups of students in Saudi Arabia (Experiment 1, n = 73; Experiment 2, n = 69), using a pretest-treatment-delayed posttest design. The participants learned 25 incongruent adjective-noun collocations incidentally during five reading sessions at either a 3.5-day ISI (Experiment 1) or a 7-day ISI (Experiment 2). Two control groups received no treatment. Learning rates were assessed at the form recall and meaning recall levels of sensitivity following an RI of 14 days in Experiment 1 and an RI of 28 days in Experiment 2. Results show that both spacing schedules were equally effective for the incidental acquisition of collocations.

This research explored the mediation of self-efficacy and moderation of gender between socioeconomic status (SES) and foreign language (FL) achievement. A total of 8,906 Chinese secondary students (50.7 % males) completed socioeconomic status (SES) questionnaire, English self-efficacy scale, English achievement test, and demographic questionnaire. Multilevel regression model showed that SES was positively associated with English achievement both at student and school levels. The multilevel mediation model demonstrated that English self-efficacy partially mediated the link between SES and English achievement only at student level, and the mediation effect accounted for 30 % of the total effect. Moreover, the link between SES and English achievement was moderately influenced by gender. Specifically, boys’ English achievement was more significantly impacted by SES compared to that of girls. These findings underscore a gender disparity in the impact of SES on FL achievement, advocating for targeted interventions specifically aimed at students from low-SES backgrounds, particularly males.

An effective literature review (LR) should evaluate relevant sources to justify the author argument; this important sub-genre has challenged many graduate students. Appraisal Theory has been applied to examine evaluations in academic writing, but seldom have studies probed into its pedagogical benefits. To improve graduate students’ competence of source evaluation in LRs, we integrated Attitude, an essential component of Appraisal Theory, with instruction of rhetorical moves in LRs. We offered asynchronous workshops on how Attitude is realized across various LR rhetorical moves and provided high frequency evaluative lexis and sentences to scaffold students’ learning. Analyses of the participants’ reflection posts and their original and revised LR papers revealed multiple benefits and some challenges and suggestions regarding this novel instructional approach. This SFL-informed, genre-based pedagogical exploration showcases the value of integrating Appraisal Theory-Attitude and rhetorical moves in LR instruction to help novice academic writers compose stronger LRs with meaningful source evaluation.

The facilitative role of scaffolding has been highlighted by research with empirical evidence on learners’ engagement in classroom interaction and their uptake of teacher instruction but the body of empirical research focusing on genre-based pedagogical approaches for Vietnamese learners as second language (L2) writers remains relatively limited. The present study extends this line of enquiry by investigating how five experienced EFL teachers at two Vietnamese colleges apply scaffolding strategies in genre-based L2 writing classes and how teacher professional development workshops shifted the teachers’ beliefs about such an approach to teaching EFL writing. Data were collected from 30 classroom observations (10 before and 20 after the workshops) and five individual semi-structured interviews with the teachers. A content-based approach was adopted for qualitative data analysis. Findings show that the teachers used a much wider range of scaffolding strategies, with questioning and giving feedback being the most frequently-used strategies, in their EFL writing classes compared to those observed before the workshops. The study further shows that there were remarkable changes in the teachers’ beliefs about genre-based L2 writing pedagogy and that they highly valued the potential impact of this approach on learners’ uptake in writing skills. Implications for second language writing pedagogy and teacher professional development will be discussed.

While English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has developed theoretically and empirically over the past decades, there are few documented studies on EAP practitioners’ identities. Our study examined 12 Iranian EAP practitioners’ role identities (as one type of identity) in light of the conceptualization of English for specific purposes (ESP) practitioner roles. Adopting a qualitative approach, the study revealed the role of various contextual factors shaping the practitioners’ role identities as being EAP practitioner agents of transformative education, being a course designer and the quest for needs analysis, being a materials provider and managing the oscillations, being a collaborator and the lack of collegiate connection, being a researcher and dispositional variations, and finally being an evaluator and dynamic assessors. The study provides implications regarding how policy and planning shape practitioners’ role identities and suggests future lines of inquiry to build the associated scholarship.

Given the benefits of task repetition, post-task transcribing and teacher corrective feedback, examining the combined effects of task repetition and post-task teacher-corrected transcribing is promised to produce gains in L2 oral performance. In recognition of this potential, this study examined the effects of task repetition combined with post-task teacher-corrected transcribing (TRPTCT) on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of L2 oral performance and CAF gains over time. On a sample of 27 second year English-majors in a Vietnamese university, they were randomly divided into three groups including TRPTCT, task repetition (TR), and control groups. They later orally performed three picture description tasks, which were measured in terms of CAF. Results showed that the TRPTCT condition was superior to the TR condition at increasing complexity and fluency for the students’ repeated task performances. Additionally, the TRPTCT condition was better at fostering accuracy in verb forms and complexity in terms of clause subordination and length of language production as learning gains in the new task performance.

Feedback is essential for student learning and engagement is key for its efficacy. Yet research on student engagement with feedback predominantly attributes it to learner factors, overlooking teacher influence. This case study explored how one writing teacher’s behaviours shaped a motivated undergraduate’s engagement with various types of feedback in a writing course over one semester. Data sources included interviews, class observations, and text analysis. Findings revealed the pivotal role of teacher feedback behaviours in shaping student engagement, often through complex interactions with learner factors and teacher non-feedback behaviours. While some feedback behaviours enhanced student engagement, most had negligible or detrimental effects, highlighting the contextual nature of “best practices”. Certain teacher behaviours also exerted lasting impacts on student engagement. Additionally, some teacher non-feedback behaviours, both teaching and non-teaching, also contributed to shaping student engagement. These findings have implications for both research and teacher education.

The present study aims to explore the effect of an experimental intervention based on academic writing instruction and scientific argumentation on the argumentative multilingual writing of secondary school students. Complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) measures were used to evaluate the texts. A quasi-experimental study with a pre-test/post-test design was carried out with a control group ( n  = 49) and an experimental group ( n  = 63) of Basque-Spanish bilingual Year 8 students. The students composed scientific argumentative texts before and after a science unit was taught. Participants in the experimental group received instruction on academic writing and the discourse aspects of argumentation. The corpus of 678 texts was processed using MultiAzterTest and CAF measures were retrieved. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to compare pre-test and post-test results. The control group exhibited a significant decrease in some fluency, syntactic complexity and accuracy measures, while the experimental group showed a significant improvement in some syntactic complexity and accuracy measures. These results suggest that the experimental intervention might have had a positive impact on written CAF measures. This study emphasises the importance of teaching academic language in multilingual contexts.

This study examined the effects of a 10-week metacognitive instruction on low-proficiency Chinese EFL learners’ listening performance. It also explored the relative effectiveness of metacognitive instruction, bottom-up instruction and a combination of the two types of instructions on learners’ listening performance. Eighty low-proficiency Chinese college students were assigned to one control group and three experimental groups. One experimental group received metacognitive instruction, another experimental group received bottom-up listening strategy training and the third experimental group was exposed to a combination of the aforementioned trainings. The control group did not receive any training. The linear mixed effects model (LMM) results indicated that the integrated approach was the most effective at improving low-proficiency listeners’ listening performance, followed by bottom-up training. The metacognitive instruction alone did not prove useful at promoting the development of listening performance. The pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed.

The present study seeks to investigate the effect of repeated pre-task planning on young learners’ written production of three problematic aspects of English grammar (the present simple third-person singular -s ; the possessives his/her ; and the personal pronouns he/she ), and the overall quality of their writings. Thirty-three dyads of Basque-Spanish learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) from the sixth year of the primary education level (aged 11–12) performed a series of picture-prompted narration tasks in three different planning conditions: guided-planning (GP), unguided-planning (UP) and no-planning (NP). Their written production was compared in pre-, post- and delayed post-tests. Results showed statistically significant gains for the GP group, supporting the claim that repeated practice involving pre-task explicit grammar instruction might benefit young EFL learners, even though not all the target forms under analysis improved.

Language learning is a dynamic process involving fluctuating resources (e.g. resilience, motivation, and engagement) and stressors (e.g. burnout). With the guidance of Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources Theory, the current study explored the mediating roles of resilience and motivation between burnout and engagement among 640 Chinese senior high school students. The results show that English learning burnout as a psychological stressor significantly and negatively predicted the psychological resources of engagement; resilience and motivation both mediated the relationship between burnout and engagement; and resilience and motivation jointly mediated the chain between burnout and engagement. Indeed, the mediating process could be deemed a process by which students’ psychological resources fluctuate. In this mediating process, students suffering from stress rely on their resource caravans and employ the resources they possess to avoid the psychological stressor’s consequences and replenish what has been lost.

Beliefs about oral corrective feedback, especially those held by young EFL learners, are under-researched. This paper reports on a study designed to investigate whether Chinese junior secondary students and teachers share similar beliefs about oral corrective feedback (OCF) in English instruction and how students’ English proficiency may relate to their OCF beliefs. A questionnaire was completed by 87 teachers and 597 students, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 students with varying English proficiency. Statistical analyses of the questionnaire data found significant differences between student and teacher beliefs with respect to general attitude toward OCF, uptake of OCF, preference for certain types of OCF, and provision of OCF based on the gravity of errors. Students at different proficiency levels were also found to hold different beliefs about the timing and uptake of OCF. A content analysis of the interviews revealed more detailed similarities and differences between the OCF views held by students with varying English proficiency. These findings suggest that student beliefs are shaped by various individual, situational, contextual and cultural factors. Pedagogical efforts that can be made to maximize the effects of OCF in the classroom are discussed in light of these findings.

What factors may influence word learning from reading has long been a research topic of interest without definitive results. To contribute to the understanding of this important topic, this study, with the design of the same group of participating students with different proficiency levels and treated with different conditions, investigates the effects of context (reading the same story repeatedly vs. reading several different stories), story-type (humor vs. non-humor stories), and language proficiency on Chinese EFL students’ word learning in the form of pseudowords (measured by two different types of vocabulary immediate posttests) and word retention (assessed by the same but delayed vocabulary posttests). Mixed effects model analyses show multiplex effects of the variables and their interactions across the conditions examined. First, while language proficiency had a significant modulating effect supporting previous research findings, the effects of the context and story-type variables differed across vocabulary test types and testing time. In the meaning-recall test, the reading-different-stories condition yielded significantly better learning than the reading-the-same-story-repeatedly condition. However, in the form-recognition test, the effect of context was conditioned by story-type and proficiency with lower-proficiency students gaining more in reading humor stories in the same-story-repeatedly context while higher-proficiency students performed better in the reading-different-stories context. Overall, higher-proficiency students were less sensitive to the context and story-type variables than lower-proficiency students. Pedagogical and research implications are also discussed.