Volume 13, Issue 1

To date, the majority of task-based instructed second language acquisition studies have investigated the effects of tasks on second language morphosyntactic development, and little attention has been paid to the effectiveness of dialogic tasks on the learning of pragmatics in classroom contexts (Plonsky, L. & Y. Kim. 2016. Task-based learner production: A substantive and methodological review. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 36. 73–97). The present study is a partial replication study of Taguchi and Kim (2016. Collaborative dialogue in learning pragmatics: Pragmatic-related episodes as an opportunity for learning request-making. Applied Linguistics 37. 416–437) and aims to compare learning outcomes between collaborative and individual task groups while written corrective feedback is provided. Thirty-two high beginner learners of Korean from two classes participated in this study. Each class was randomly assigned to either a collaborative or an individual group to complete e-mail writing tasks. In the collaborative group, students wrote e-mails with a partner, whereas the individual group wrote e-mails independently to introduce their professors during study abroad using four types of Korean honorifics. Both groups received indirect corrective feedback on honorifics used during task performance. Written description tests (WDT) were designed to investigate the short-term and long-term learning of Korean honorifics in line with the instructional tasks. Students’ responses on the WDT were analyzed in terms of the number of suppliance and accurate production of each target feature. Students’ responses to teacher feedback were analyzed using the following categories: resolved correctly, resolved incorrectly, and unresolved. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the production of target features during task performance when indirect WCF was provided to both conditions. Furthermore, both groups significantly outperformed in the immediate and delayed posttest than the pretest. However, the results found no difference in learning of Korean honorifics between the two groups.

Combining reading with auditory input has been shown to be an effective way of supporting reading fluency and reading comprehension in a second language. Previous research has also shown that reading comprehension can be further supported by pictorial information. However, the studies conducted so far have mainly included adults or adolescents and have been based on post-reading tests that, although informative, do not contribute to our understanding of how learners’ processing of the several sources of input in multimodal texts changes with the presence of auditory input and the effect that potential differences could have on comprehension. The present study used eye-tracking to examine how young learners process the pictorial and textual information in a graded reader under reading only and reading-while-listening conditions. Results showed that readers spent more time processing the text in the reading only condition, while more time was spent processing the images in the reading-while-listening mode. Nevertheless, comprehension scores were similar for the readers in the two conditions. Additionally, our results suggested a significant (negative) relationship between the amount of time learners spent processing the text and comprehension scores in both modes.

This study, drawing upon data triangulated from interviews, classroom research reports, and school documents, sheds light on how cross-border teachers from mainland China to Hong Kong construct and negotiate their identities when teaching English creative writing. Using identity control theory (ICT) this study examines discursive and complex identity development and reveals contextual and interpersonal factors that hinder identity construction among teachers of English creative writing. Factors include isolation from local colleagues, failure to integrate into the host community due to cultural and linguistic differences, standardized school instruction, heavy workloads, students’ distrust, and students’ low English proficiency. Cross-border teachers were found to experience negative emotions including stress, anger, and unease due to failed teacher identity verification in a new land. This study contributes to theoretical knowledge of ICT, suggesting inaction and secondary emotions as outcomes of the incongruence between the meanings of identity standard and input. Relevant theoretical and pedagogical implications are also discussed.

This study examined whether an interlocutor’s attitudinal bias affects second language (L2) speakers’ recall of narratives and their responses to corrective feedback (recasts) and whether the role of attitudinal bias depends on individual differences in speakers’ background and personality characteristics. After receiving a positive or negative attitudinal bias orientation, 70 L2 English speakers completed tasks with an interlocutor who provided recasts in response to language errors. Speakers also completed questionnaires targeting individual differences in their motivation and acculturation to the home and target cultures. There were no general effects for positive or negative attitudinal bias on speakers’ recall of personal narratives or responses to feedback. However, under negative bias, motivation scores were associated with speakers’ accurate reformulation of errors. Under positive bias, there was an association between accurate narrative recall and greater psychological adaptation and motivation. Results imply that attitudinal bias plays a subtle role in L2 speakers’ interactional performance.

This study aimed to explore the effects of SRL strategy use on primary school students’ motivation (i.e. self-efficacy and interest) in EFL writing and to compare the differences in such effects between high and low achievers. Participants were 374 4th graders in Hong Kong. Results of t-tests indicated that the high achievers reported significantly a higher level of SRL strategy use (i.e. planning, self-monitoring, and revising) and motivation (i.e. self-efficacy and interest) in EFL writing than their low-achieving peers. Results of two-group structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that the high achievers’ motivation increased through the use of planning and self-monitoring strategies in writing, while the low achievers’ motivation increased through the use of self-monitoring and revising strategies. The high achievers showed a high level of self-efficacy and the low achievers a low level. However, both groups of students did not show a high level of interest in EFL writing. Implications for future research and English teachers to improve students’ motivation in writing through use of SRL strategies are discussed.

How infant and adult humans learn languages and what this tells us about the various aspects of the language system is currently a central topic in linguistic research, one that more and more includes bilingualism and language attrition in its embrace. Despite the centrality of the problem of language acquisition for Generative Grammar, it is fair to say that other modes of language learning are now entering the arena of discussion, having shown their potential for discovery in Cognitive Science at large. Some aspects of grammatical knowledge that are hard to acquire and yield differences between native and non-native speakers reveal that language learning is indeed a special type of learning, which in turn reveals that knowing more about these entails knowing more about language.