Volume 61, Issue 4

This study investigated the relationship between task complexity, second language (L2) learners’ response and awareness of corrective feedback provided in the form of recasts during teacher–student interaction. Drawing on Robinson’s Triadic Componential Framework, the study examined how degrees of task complexity created by two specific task characteristics had an impact on learners’ responses (referred to as uptake), and their reported noticing of grammatical and lexical recasts. Data documenting learners’ uptake, operationalized as changes in response to feedback during interactions and noticing of recasts, as indicated in students’ self reports of detection and attention to recasts, were collected during one-on-one interaction sessions and stimulated recall sessions with ESL learners in Canada. Frequency analysis and Cochran’s Q analysis with multiple McNemar post hoc tests were carried out to compare the uptake and noticing of recasts across different tasks. The results revealed that tasks with different degrees of complexity impacted uptake and noticing of recasts differently. The results also showed that linguistic target, i.e., lexical or grammatical features, modulated the relationship between task complexity and recast uptake and noticing. The study calls for a more nuanced approach to investigating task complexity in research, and for practitioners to consider task complexity in decision making related to the use of corrective feedback and the design of classroom-based tasks.

This paper tackles the usefulness of comparing L2 learners against native speakers in empirical SLA studies focusing on grammatical aspect. Adapting the view that interlanguage grammars should be analysed in their own right instead of as a deficient form of the target, we show that expressing perspectivity (fulfilled by grammatical aspect markers) methodologically complicates the analyses of Grammaticality Judgment Tasks in aspect studies. For Spanish past tenses, we show that especially with items constructed as allegedly ungrammatical natives behave heterogeneously. This casts doubt on the question whether these data can be used as a baseline against which learners’ data could be compared. By analysing the interlanguage separately (not only in comparison to the controls), our findings among German learners of L2 Spanish suggest the use of the forms depends essentially on temporal markers which can be related to both their L1 lacking grammatical aspect and the pedagogical input. Crucially, though the interlanguage does not match the target (i.e., past tenses do not necessarily correlate with aspectuality), the systems are not chaotic but follow well-defined rules.

Peer feedback has been widely employed in writing instruction in various contexts. However, studies into its effects on improving students’ writing performance, particularly its long-term effects, are under-represented. To fill the research gap, we adopted a pre-, post-, and delayed post-test quasi-experimental design to investigate the long-term effects of a peer feedback intervention. Two intact classes of EFL students from a Chinese university were recruited, with one class participating in peer feedback activities and the other class receiving collective feedback from their teacher for one semester. Their compositions for the pre-, post-, delayed post-tests were compared in terms of the overall text quality, content, organization, complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). The results show that the experimental group participants made significant improvements in the overall text quality, content, organization, and accuracy in the post-test and they retained the improvements 12 weeks after the intervention. In addition, they outperformed their counterparts receiving collective feedback in the overall text quality and organization in the post- and delayed post-tests, and in accuracy only in the delayed post-test. Results suggest that peer feedback could help Chinese EFL learners make progress in writing.

Reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS) is a process whereby a speaker’s perceived group membership triggers differential perception of aspects of their speech. RLS has been suggested to cause drops in intelligibility and recall, though why perception of a non-existent accent can negatively affect listening outcomes has not been sufficiently elucidated. The current study suggests an explanation may lie in differential levels of engagement among listeners. A sample of 430 Japanese university students listened to a short speech from either a speaker of Chinese Pronunciation of English or Received Pronunciation and rated them on aesthetics, comprehensibility, perceived intelligibility, engagement, and recall. Multiple linear regression suggested that only engagement served as a significant predictor to recall, though the other variables all had significant indirect effects when engagement was included as a mediating variable. These results indicated that listener engagement is a key variable which may help improve our understanding of accented speech perception.

English spatial prepositions posit a great challenge to Spanish learners of English as an L2 due to the broad cross-linguistic differences in how languages structure space. Furthermore, a teaching methodology that could assist these learners in understanding these differences is absent because the pedagogical treatment of spatial language draws on the longstanding assumption that the relation between this kind of language and its meaning is rather arbitrary. Yet, research within the embodiment approach to language and cognition has attested that the use of spatial prepositions is motivated by geometric and functional properties of figure and ground and how these interact in space. This study examines whether instructing Spanish learners on these properties will enhance their performance. 74 participants at a B1 level were randomized to either receive an embodied approach-based training on spatial prepositions ( n  = 37) or to the control group ( n  = 37) without this training. Both groups were presented with a cloze test (60 sentences) on six spatial prepositions, in, on, at, to, into, and onto on pre- and post-test conditions. Scores for both groups were analyzed using ANCOVA with pre-test scores as covariate. Data analysis yields statistically significant results attesting the effectiveness of the Embodiment Approach.

Collocations play an important role in L2 learners’ fluent and idiomatic language production. Previous studies using a frequency-based approach to studying collocations underscored the potential to use association measures for distinguishing L2 writing proficiency. However, studies in this line have largely neglected the syntactic relation of words within a collocation. In addition, most L2 collocation studies have focused on learners at upper-intermediate levels and above, leaving the use of collocations by beginner-level learners understudied. Using the Yonsei English Language Corpus, this study investigated frequency (measured by normalized frequency and normalized deviance of proportions), formulaicity (measured by mutual information and t -scores), and diversity (measured by normalized entropy scores) of seven lexical collocations and four grammatical collocations in argumentative essays from beginning to upper-intermediate levels. Results showed that upper-intermediate L2 learners used more collocations with higher association strength and diversity than did beginning-level learners. In addition, collocations used by upper-intermediate learners were more idiomatic and suitable for L2 academic writing. The findings indicated that specific collocational patterns (i.e. adverb-verb and verb-preposition) could serve as reliable indicators of distinguishing beginning L2 writing from upper-intermediate L2 writing.

The study investigates the efficacy of instructional practices informed by an integration of cognitive linguistics (CL) and concept-based language instruction (C-BLI) on EFL learners’ learning of polysemous English phrasal verbs. Such efficacy is also compared with that of a traditional instruction in which meanings of phrasal verbs are considered as unanalyzable and arbitrary and acquired through rote-learning. In an 8-week quasi-experiment with a pretest, immediate-posttest, delayed-posttest design, 93 intermediate-level Chinese university students were divided into a cognitive, a traditional, and a control group. The results suggested that the CL-C-BLI integrated instruction facilitated the learners’ memorization and recall of the phrasal verbs’ meanings, but it was not so effective in promoting their recognition and distinction of phrasal verbs’ meanings in sentential contexts as the traditional instruction did. This study contributes to the field by adding evidence of innovative instructional practices in ways that are both usage-inspired and grounded in developmental education.

In the past decades, implicature has been recognized as an indispensable topic in L2 pragmatics research. While various instruments have been used to test implicature knowledge, scant research has verified their construct validity of implicature items by examining test takers’ cognitive processes while responding to them. In response to this research gap, Roever, Carsten. 2005. Testing ESL pragmatics: Development and validation of a web-based assessment battery . Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang implicature test was scrutinized. Twelve L2 test takers with high and low proficiency levels were asked to verbalize their thoughts retrospectively. Content analyses were employed to examine whether their cognitive processes were (ir)relevant to what the test intended to elicit and how well their processes aligned with the test results. The findings revealed that relevant processes were associated with idiosyncratic implicature questions, while irrelevant processes were related to formulaic implicature ones. The high-proficiency test takers generally reported engaging in relevant processes, whereas the low-proficiency test takers reported using for the most part irrelevant processes. Moreover, test takers’ cognitive processes aligned with the test results on the whole. In other words, when the respondents’ cognitive processes corresponded to those the test designed to elicit, the test results were normally correct. One the other hand, when the cognitive processes deviated from the expected ones, the test results were generally incorrect. However, fourteen misalignments were identified and classified as irrelevant conceptual blending, contextual judgment, insufficient effort responding, intuition, and wild guessing . These misalignments were seen as construct irrelevant variance and pose potential threats to the construct validity.

This paper reports a longitudinal study of topic continuity in Chinese EFL learners’ English written narratives by tracking their dynamic change of referential choices over two years. The proportional distribution of referential forms were calculated and texts produced by learners were analyzed. The calculation and analysis yielded the following findings. Firstly, while the general distribution of referential forms follows Givón’s cross-linguistic topic continuity scale, indicating the dominant role of discourse context in referring, quite a few instances deviate from this scale, suggesting the modulating effect of multiple factors, including L1 influence and articulators’ cognitive pressure. Secondly, with an increase in English exposure, L2 learners’ use of the typical referring form in each context displayed an increasing tendency over time. Finally, the developmental paths of L2 referential choices exhibited individual variability. These findings pointed to variation in interlanguage and the modulating effect of non-linguistic or internal cognitive factors on reference production.

For second language learners, reference remains a frequent source of error and pragmatic infelicity, even at relatively advanced levels. While most errors will be readily accommodated by the hearer, on some occasions they result in fundamental misunderstandings about what has been stated. This paper presents a case-by-case exploratory study of 22 such miscommunications and explores the discourse conditions under which such otherwise routine errors became problematic. Data are drawn from elicited narratives by 20 high-intermediate English language learners of various language backgrounds and their L1 English interlocutors. The discussion focuses on the two most prominent issues identified: the conditions under which pronoun errors triggered misunderstandings, and the contribution of pervasive over-explicitness to referent introductions being mistaken for referent tracking.

Although native speakers (NSs) of English make plural agreement in preverbal-subject sentences (e.g., A pen and eraser * is/are… ), previous studies have demonstrated that they prefer singular – not plural – agreement between verbs and conjoined noun phrases (NPs) in expletive there constructions (e.g., there is/are a pen and an eraser… ), showing efficiency-driven processing prioritization of agreement between nearest constituents. This paper assesses whether Japanese L2 learners of English (JLE) show this tendency. The results of two self-paced reading experiments together indicated that even though efficiency-driven processing was available to L2 learners, their use was unstable due to the repeated exposure to there are NP pl - and NP pl -type sentences during the task. It seems possible that repeated exposure triggered learners’ knowledge that conjoined NPs are always plural. Hence, it could conceivably be hypothesized that a learner’s specific knowledge intervenes the efficiency-driven processing strategy.

It has been debated for years whether performance-approach goals represents a maladaptive form of students’ motivation. Recently, researchers proposed that students’ reasons underlying their performance-approach goals may further our understanding of the nature of these goals (goal complexes). With a sequential explanatory mixed-method approach, we examined the function of performance-approach goal complexes on students’ L2 self-efficacy and anxiety, by surveying 283 Chinese college EFL-learners and conducting semi-structured interviews with six purposefully-selected students. Quantitative analyses showed that our data partly supported the proposed mediation model. Students’ controlled reasons to have performance-approach goals showed a significant direct effect on both their L2 anxiety (positively) and L2 self-efficacy (negatively). Conversely, students’ autonomous reasons showed a positive effect on their L2 self-efficacy, and a negative effect on their L2 anxiety, indirectly through their performance-approach goals. Qualitative interviews provided further insights into the mechanism of the model. Pedagogical implications and directions for future studies are discussed.

This paper reports on a small-scale experiment conducted to assess two pedagogical approaches to teaching idioms. Using a counter-balanced study design, 30 English-speaking learners of L2 Spanish participated in two pedagogical interventions intended to enhance the students’ cognitive engagement by focusing on the literal-figurative meaning connection of 20 idioms. One treatment invited learners to hypothesize about that connection retroactively after presenting them with the figurative meaning ( retroactive condition ), and the other one invited them to exploit the literal meaning and guess the figurative meaning proactively ( proactive condition ). Results show that both treatments resulted in significant pretest to post-test gains. Although results suggest a trend in which participants obtained higher scores in terms of meaning retention when the correct figurative meaning was given from the start and the literal-figurative connection established retroactively, the difference between both groups’ immediate and delayed recall scores fell short of significance.

This study examined the moderating role of two individual difference factors, metacognitive awareness of listening and motivation, in young second language (L2) learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Participants were 66 fifth-grade English as a Foreign Language learners in South Korea who were randomly assigned to one of two groups: listening to stories or control. A vocabulary meaning recognition test was administered as a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest. Self-reported questionnaires were employed to assess participants’ metacognitive awareness and motivation. Metacognitive awareness of listening, or more specifically, mental translation strategies, were shown to moderate the effects of treatment such that L2 learners who indicated greater awareness of translation strategies learned more vocabulary from listening to stories than L2 learners who had less awareness of these strategies. Motivation also moderated the effects of treatment such that L2 learners who had higher intrinsic motivation to learn English were able to acquire more vocabulary through listening to stories than learners who were less motivated.

Non-native second language (NNL2) teachers’ perceived L2 proficiency loss is a widespread, yet largely underrepresented phenomenon. This study used a sample of 969 Chinese secondary school non-native English teachers (91.6% female, M age  = 37.18, SD = 9.45) to examine their decremental beliefs toward English language proficiency within the framework of mindsets. Both variable-centered and person-centered approaches were adopted to perform data analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis provided validity evidence for the decremental mindset construct. Latent profile analysis categorized the participants into three groups: low decremental mindset, moderate decremental mindset, and moderate-high decremental mindset teachers. Multi-group structural equation modeling demonstrated that the direct effect of a decremental mindset on effort beliefs about English language ability loss was evident across the three groups, whereas only the decremental mindset of certain moderate-high decremental mindset teachers could lead to prevention-focused motivation. As an early attempt to examine people’s decremental beliefs toward language ability, this study extends existing research on language mindsets and provides a new perspective for the analysis of NNL2 teachers’ perceived L2 proficiency loss. Practical implications for NNL2 teacher educators and administrators are discussed on the basis of the findings.

Several studies have evaluated the use of sample texts as models, against which second language (L2) learners can compare their original writing, as a written corrective feedback (WCF) strategy. This study contributes to this literature by investigating whether L2 learners’ working memory capacity, which is posited to play a crucial role in L2 learning, moderates the effects of models in WCF. Sixty-seven L2 college students were assigned to either a model group or a control group. Students in both groups individually engaged in a three-stage writing task (i.e., writing-comparing-rewriting), but only students in the model group received model essays during the comparison stage. Two weeks later, all participants were asked to repeat the same writing task, to investigate the long-term effects of models as well as to perform two working memory tasks: a complex working memory task (a reading span test) and a phonological short-term memory task (a non-word repetition test). Results showed that the model group learners made significant improvements in their writing, and maintained those positive effects after two weeks. In addition, complex working memory and phonological short-term memory were found to be significant predictors of the extent to which L2 learners benefitted from the use of models.

In peer feedback literature, the topic of motivation for feedback is not sufficiently explored, and attention to motivational differences between feedback givers and receivers unbalanced. To address this gap, the present study tracked motivational changes of Chinese students performing consecutively the roles of written-feedback givers and of receivers over eight weeks in their English-speaking class. It employed motivation questionnaires and students’ personal letters to collect their perceptions of each role. The results showed that students generally displayed stronger motivation at the giver role than at the receiver role. In particular, their motivation scores of the communicativeness dimension were significantly different between the two roles because this dimension could easily stimulate their sense of fulfilment and critical thinking when giving feedback. By comparison, for the dimensions of peer accountability and class enjoyment, the students reported similarly modest levels of motivation at both roles because they deemed peer accountability and class enjoyment as sources of extrinsic stimulation and less sustainable than the communicativeness dimension.

Resilience, a psychological individual difference variable, has not received adequate scholarly attention in education contexts. The present study investigated the resilience level among 273 university EFL learners in China with T.-Y. Kim and Kim’s (2017. The impact of resilience on L2 learners’ motivated behaviour and proficiency in L2 learning. Educational Studies 43(1). 1–15) scale, which comprised five sub-components of resilience in the Korean EFL context. Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis showed that self-regulation, one sub-component identified in the Korean context, was also found in the factorial structure of resilience in the Chinese EFL context; accordingly, self-regulation was hypothesised to be a “Resilience Core” that can be found in different learning contexts. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the selected sociobiographical variables (e.g., a global measure of multilingualism, GMM) affected resilience and “Resilience Core” to varying degrees; for example, L2 joy (Δ R 2  = 14.2–23.3%) and GMM (2.9–7.8%) emerged as important predictors for resilience because their minimum Δ R 2 exceeded the “typical” effect size benchmark (1%).

Teachers’ oral corrective feedback (CF) may be influenced by the communication orientation of the lessons, but little research has taken lesson focus into account when examining the relationship between teachers’ CF beliefs and practices. This study explores teachers’ CF beliefs, practices, and the relationship between the two constructs in Vietnamese high school EFL classrooms. The study also compares and contrasts the teachers’ CF practices in relation to two opposing lesson types in terms of communication orientation. The participants were ten experienced EFL teachers from two public high schools. Analysis of audio-recorded in-depth interviews and video and audio-recorded classroom observations ( n  = 20 lessons, 15 h) showed a strong relationship between the lesson focus and the teachers’ practices in various aspects of feedback provision. The teachers’ beliefs were reflected more consistently in grammar lessons (where the teaching is more form-focused) than in speaking lessons (where the teaching is more meaning-focused). There was also a difference in the teachers’ CF strategies used between the two lesson types. This difference could be explained by the teachers’ background and the difference in the predictability of the learning activities and learner contributions.

Research has shown that many factors influence the transfer process in L3 acquisition (e.g., language distance, L2-status, proficiency in the L2/L3). Regarding the L2/L3 acquisition of aspect, a lot of research on the influence of the L1 has been conducted; however, to date, only a very limited amount of studies has analysed the influence an L2 exerts on the acquisition of aspect in an L3. The present study, therefore, focuses on L3 acquisition of perfective/imperfective aspect. We investigated 109 German-speaking learners of L3 Spanish with previous linguistic L2 knowledge in English. Data were elicited by means of a language background questionnaire, a c-test for overall proficiency measures in the L3, an oral retelling of two picture-based narratives, and two semantic interpretation tasks to measure the participants’ knowledge of aspect in the L2 and the L3 (i.e., analytic proficiency). The findings provide empirical evidence that L2 English positively influences the acquisition of aspect in L3 Spanish if structural similarities between the L2 and the L3 exist. However, positive L2 transfer seems to depend on L2 and L3 proficiency levels.