Volume 10, Issue 2 -

The present study investigates the effects of two concept mapping strategies, guided concept mapping and concept map correction, on second language (L2) reading comprehension during eight instructional sessions. The study also aims to examine the effects of these concept mapping techniques on learners’ awareness of other reading strategies. The participants included 56 intermediate level Persian EFL learners enrolled in three intact EFL classrooms. The three intact classes were designated as two experimental groups and one control condition. Learners in one experimental group were asked to do guided concept mapping by reading a text in each session and completing a partially filled concept map of the text afterwards. The participants of the second experimental group were provided with a similar text in each session along with its concept map in which some concepts were wrongly incorporated and were asked to revise the concept map. Participants of the control group were asked to read the same texts without doing any concept mapping activity. Reading comprehension pre- and post-tests and a strategy awareness questionnaire were used as dependent measures. Analysis of the participants’ post-test comprehension scores revealed that both concept mapping techniques were effective for promoting the participants’ reading comprehension skill. Meanwhile, the results indicated that map correction was more effective than guided concept mapping for promoting reading comprehension. The findings also revealed that drawing concept maps enhances learners’ awareness of other reading strategies.

The research reported here investigated the effects of contextual factors on Chinese students’ use of language learning strategies in English learning. The study differed from most of the previous studies on learning strategies in that the data were examined within Biggs (1993. What do inventories of students’ learning processes really measure? A theoretical review and clarification. British Journal of Educational Psychology 63. 3–19.) 3P (Presage, Process and Product) model of learning. Using a Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford, R. L. 1990. Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know . New York: Newbury House Publishers.) and interview, the researchers discovered the disparities in the use of learning strategies in English learning between the students from urban schools and those from rural schools. The former made a more frequent use of the strategies leading to the improvement of communicative competence and active involvement in classroom activities, whereas the latter showed a strong preference for the strategies relevant to the analysis of grammatical rules and linguistic details. An in-depth analysis of the data revealed that the differences in strategy use between the two groups might stem from some social and economic factors and could be linked to three elements in Biggs’ 3P model: value and expectation, teacher competence and teaching facilities. The article concludes by discussing some implications for English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching in Chinese schools and other similar education settings worldwide.

Drawing on concepts such as convergence, divergence and maintenance associated with Communication Accommodation Theory, this article examines a group of Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in relation to their identity and social distance between them and their interlocutors. Our analysis suggests that the strategies of accommodation deployed by individuals can be related to common values/tendencies that are maintained by the groups and communities to which they belong, raising issues about structural influence on individual language choice and agency. We observe that enhancing the ethnolinguistic vitality of the home and the community in which senior members hold the key to language maintenance should be considered vital in reducing the new in-group distance created by young members. Moreover, multilingual policies which enable flexible attainment goals for all languages may provide a way forward for equity and reduction of social distance between different ethnic groups in society.

In the twenty years since the publication of Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech , more so since Gender Trouble (1990), political and cultural landscapes have changed considerably. One general aspect of this change has been a move away from binary oppositions and discrete categories, and towards recognition of multiplicity and plasticity across many areas, including Butler’s central focus of gender, but also perceptions of race, nationality, and language. Butler’s recent publication, ‘Rethinking vulnerability and resistance’ (2016), may also have significance for the field of Applied Linguistics. It is not only the intentional act, for example of promising (Austin 1962) or incitement (Butler 1997), but any utterance has elements of performativity in that it situates a speaker vis-à-vis their surroundings. In any situation that crosses some socio-linguistic boundary, be it across languages, dialects, or markers of class, a delicate calculus of identification and subjectivity is in play. There are echoes here of Bourdieu’s (1991) notion of the types of personal capital, and of Claire Kramsch’ observation that language indexes social relations; ‘Any harmony or disharmony … is registered on this most sensitive of Richter scales.’ (Kramsch 1998: 77) (Italics in original). This paper will discuss the possible application, to language-centred issues facing second generation migrants and others, of Judith Butler’s theory of vulnerability in resistance (Butler 2016). In this theory, vulnerability is framed not as a prima facie need for protection, but as the very ground for resistance.

Review of psychological and language acquisition research into seeing faces while listening, seeing gesture while listening, illustrated text, reading while listening, and same language subtitled video, confirms that bi-modal input has a consistently positive effect on language learning over a variety of input types. This effect is normally discussed using a simple additive model where bi-modal input increases the total amount of data and adds redundancy to duplicated input thus increasing comprehension and then learning. Parallel studies in neuroscience suggest that bi-modal integration is a general effect using common brain areas and following common neural paths. Neuroscience also shows that bi-modal effects are more complex than simple addition, showing early integration of inputs, a learning/developmental effect, and a superadditive effect for integrated bi-modal input. The different bodies of research produce a revised model of bi-modal input as a learned, active system. The implications for language learning are that bi- or multi-modal input can powerfully enhance language learning and that the learning benefits of such input will increase alongside the development of neurological integration of the inputs.

The study probed into the relationship between word knowledge and academic literacy skills in college-level English as a second language (ESL) learners. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge were included in the word knowledge measures. In addition, reading comprehension and academic writing were the outcome variables. Using the data from 118 ESL students in Hong Kong, we found that both morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge contributed to academic literacy skills. More important, direct and indirect effects of word knowledge on academic literacy skills were tested to provide insight into how two facets of word knowledge interact in shaping academic literacy acquisition. The results demonstrated that vocabulary knowledge mediated the relationship between morphological awareness and academic literacy skills. The study suggests that morphological sensitivity could enhance word meaning extraction and local meaning construction, which subsequently facilitates academic literacy skills.

This paper focuses on consequences for linguistic theory of a set of experiments on the L2 acquisition of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM), with three experimental groups: a native control group, a group of L2 learners whose L1 is English, and a group of L2 learners whose L1 is Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The results of the experiments shed light on two questions of theoretical import: (a) how best to characterize the syntax of Spanish DOM, and (b) whether BP should be classified as a DOM language. We argue that our results support López’s (2012, Indefinite objects: Scrambling, choice functions, and differential marking . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) syntactic theory account of DOM over that of Torrego (1998, The dependencies of objects . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), in particular due to the more fine-grained distinctions between non-specific objects made by López (2012) compared to Torrego (1998). We also argue that although BP is a DOM language (as suggested by Schwenter 2014, Two kinds of differential object marking in Portuguese and Spanish. In Patricia Amaral & Ana Maria Carvalho (eds.), Portuguese-Spanish interfaces: Diachrony, synchrony, and contact , 237–260. Amsterdam: John Benjamins), our BP subjects do not show a clear acquisitional advantage over English speakers with regard to Spanish DOM, due to independent reasons that include the morphological realization of DOM in Spanish.

This study aimed to examine the role of L1 in the acquisition of L2 by comparing the acquisition of the three spatial prepositions ( in, on, at ) in English by native speakers of Russian and Turkish. The study, adopting a comparative approach suggested by Jarvis (2000, Methodological rigor in the study of transfer: Identifying L1 influence in the interlanguage lexicon. Language Learning 50. 245–309), compared interlanguages of L2 learners with Russian and Turkish L1 backgrounds, and examined the interlanguages of the L2 learners in relation to their native languages. The data for the analysis were collected via utilizing two diagnostic tests and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings demonstrated that that the acquisition of the prepositions differed not only quantitatively but also qualitatively between the groups. The study adds to the comparative research examining the role of L1s in the acquisition of L2 and the effect of cross-linguistic influence taking place from background languages.

The term “fluency” is used in two different ways in relation to second language speech. Whereas laypeople often equate fluency with proficiency in a given language, researchers define fluency as a speaker’s ease or fluidity in producing spoken language at a specific time point. This discrepancy in definitions has been problematic, especially when relying on ratings provided by naïve raters. This study seeks to determine whether “fluency” ratings differ from “fluidity” ratings assigned to 48 speech stimuli produced by native and non-native speakers of German. Samples were rated by participants from three distinct listener groups: native German listeners, second language (L2) German listeners, and non-speakers of German. On the surface, results reveal no significant differences along the two continua (“fluency” or “fluidity”). All groups rated native speakers as more fluent, and second language listeners were harshest in their ratings. Nonetheless, L2 listeners who rated speech samples along the “fluency” scale relied upon speech measures not associated with ease of speaking when compared with L2 listeners who rated the same samples for “fluidity.” Although listeners in all groups were most sensitive to speakers’ speech rate and use of filled pauses, native listeners and non-speakers relied more on temporal measures when they rated speech along the “fluidity” scale. These combined results thus indicate that “fluidity” may be the better term to use in future research relying on naïve listeners’ ratings of perceived fluency.