Volume 38, Issue 2

This case study on three Chinese EFL learners in junior high school examined the interaction inside and outside learners’ EFL self-concept system, and the findings revealed: (1) inside the self-concept system, the interaction between the global and specific self-concepts is of much complexity; (2) the gap between the global and specific self-concepts would cause imbalance in the self-concept system, and thus trigger efforts to improve learning, while some reconciling elements in the global self-concept may sustain balance in the self-concept system, inhibiting learners’ motivation to improve; and (3) the degree of specificity of learners’ specific selfconcepts that inform learners’ learning efforts contributes considerably to the outcome of these efforts, as does that of learners’ beliefs about EFL learning which mediate the learning efforts.

College EFL learners in Taiwan are often required to do online reading after school to get more exposure to English. Websites designed for EFL learners often provide some post-reading exercises to help them acquire words. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine a series of vocabulary tasks from one English learning website by revealing their induced involvement loads and the effects of the loads on learners’ vocabulary acquisition. Sixty-four sophomore non-English majors were at intermediate English proficient level. They were randomly assigned to four groups representing four learning conditions doing from none to three post-reading activities, respectively. The results showed that similar increase on the retention of word meanings was observed between any two exercises. Furthermore, the significant difference was found between the first and the fourth learning conditions. This suggests that after doing three post-reading exercises, reaching five involvement loads, the EFL learners could make a difference on word gains.

This paper describes how a group of Chinese tertiary-level EFL readers utilized metacognitive knowledge in their academic reading process by contrasting the possible metacognitive differences between two less successful and two successful Chinese EFL readers. Data were collected through think-alouds, interviews and observations. It was found that although vocabulary posed difficulties for both successful and less successful readers, the deployment of strategic knowledge of tackling the unknown words made a difference between successful and less successful readers. The participants’ person knowledge about motivation such as reader interest, goal of reading and reader role could exert influences on their reading. Implications of the findings for tertiary EFL reading pedagogy in China are discussed.

Peer feedback is a key to the quality of group work in foreign language classrooms. In order to better understand the use of peer feedback in spoken English, a ten-week study was conducted by combining peer feedback with group work. Based on Scaffolding Instruction of Constructivism, this study chose three different tools – a checklist, a qualitative feedback sheet and a grading sheet, to guide peer feedback. A questionnaire survey and three interviews were adopted to investigate the students’ views and attitude toward guided peer feedback. We found: (1) Guided peer feedback plays a positive role in improving the quality of group work and its three forms were positively received by the participants; (2) Among the three tools – the checklist, the qualitative feedback sheet and the grading sheet, the grading sheet was most welcomed; (3) Only by designing the appropriate peer feedback forms and the tasks at the same time, could peer feedback achieve good results.

Morphology is said to play a role in word acquisition. English psych adjectives are identified as a category of words with morphological complex gradience, which consists of free morphs, derivatives and inflections. Due to their morphological features, psych adjectives were considered the ideal candidates to test the effect of morphology on word acquisition. This study adopted a within-group research design, where a controlled productive test and a receptive knowledge test were developed and administered to English learners of an intermediate level. Results suggested that acquisition of the inflections was significantly different from that of free morphs and derivatives in the controlled productive test, but no difference was found in the receptive knowledge test. Comparisons of the two tests for the three word groups showed that the only significant difference occurred in the inflection word group. The overall results revealed that learners experienced much more difficulty in acquiring inflectional psych adjectives. In light of the dissociation of associative memory and rule memory, two possible explanations for the learning problems were offered: 1) learners failed to represent the inflections in associative memory, or 2) they have not proceduralized the morphology rules in rule memory.

The past decade has witnessed dramatic changes and impressive progress in interpreter training in China due to technological innovations, policy support from the Ministry of Education, increasing demand for qualified interpreters in the market, and ceaseless efforts from interpreting trainers and researchers. Meanwhile, research efforts have been made in the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into interpreter training. Chinese researchers have explored a wide range of pedagogical factors in this regard, including training models, principles, materials and strategies as well as autonomous learning, assessment and trainer/trainee roles. This paper reviews the major studies in this field and may serve as a reference for international interpreting practice and research. It argues that more attention should be focused on micro-perspectives, more empirical research methods are to be adopted, and more professional training tools are to be developed and tried out.

Many College English teachers complain about work stress. To learn about the actual burnout situation and to seek intervention, a questionnaire survey and written interviews were conducted in a medical university in China. The results of the survey suggest that 29.73% of the participants experienced burnout. No significant differences were found in the aspects of the gender and educational background. However, older teachers experienced significantly more intense reduced personal accomplishment while more-experienced teachers reported significantly more intense depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. Similarly, participants with higher professional titles experienced much more intense depersonalization. Meanwhile, the results of the interviews indicate four causes of burnout: factors related to the job, students, management and teacher development. Internal and external moderations are categorized as the burnout reducers. As for intervention, teachers and the organization should work together to reduce the burnout syndrome.