Stress typicality effect in Chinese advanced and intermediate ESL learners

In English, positions of lexical stress in disyllabic words are associated with word categories; that is, nouns tend to be stressed more often on the first syllable, whereas verbs are more likely to be stressed on the second syllable (i.e. subject (noun) vs. subject (verb)). This phenomenon, which is called the stress typicality effect, has been shown to facilitate word recognition to native English speakers. However, there is little research on whether it also facilitates word recognition to non-native speakers of English, in particular, to English learners with a tonal first language. To fill this research gap, the present study investigated whether the stress typicality effect modulated word recognition in native speakers of Chinese who learned English as a second language. Both visual grammatical classification and lexical decision tasks were administered to ESL learners with intermediate and advanced English proficiency. The results revealed that Chinese intermediate ESL learners were not sensitive to stress typicality in English; however, the advanced learners were. The findings suggest that different performances in stress assignment among Chinese ESL learners were influenced by their English proficiency levels.     

Using the known to chart the unknown: A review of first-language influence on the development of English-as-a-second-language spelling skill

Currently, there is a practical demand and necessity for research on how English-as-a-second language (ESL) learners acquire literacy skills, such as spelling. One important issue of this research agenda is how ESL learners apply first-language knowledge to learning to spell in English. Twenty-seven studies were reviewed that investigated the influence of the first language on ESL learners’ development of English spelling skill. Evidence was found for both positive and negative transfer of first-language knowledge and processes to ESL learners’ English spelling. These results are in agreement with theoretical propositions about the interdependence between first- and second-language academic skills [e.g., Cummins, J. (1981). In California State Department of Education (Ed.), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3–49). Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination, and Assessment Center, California State University, Los Angeles]. The findings are discussed in relation to the ESL learner’s first-language proficiency level and distance between first language and English. Comparisons are drawn between ESL learners’ and English monolinguals’ spelling development and suggestions for future research are provided.     

A Structural Equation Model of Second Language Acquisition for Adult Learners

Abstract

This study constructs and empirically evaluates a model of second language acquisition for adult learners. The proposed structural equation model describes the relationships between latent variables representing sociocultural background, cognitive ability (in the first language), functional language proficiency, cognitive language proficiency, attitudes, motivation, and instructional approach. Tentative empirical estimates, which are somewhat unreliable due to a small sample size, were obtained using a methodology developed by JÖreskog known as the linear structural relationship (LISREL) model. The data used for estimation are drawn from a Chicago bilingual teacher training program that utilized two radically different English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching methods. Though primarily illustrative in nature, the results showed that an “integrative” approach to second language instruction was shown to be more effective than a strictly “behaviorist” approach, and functional language ability was shown to be an important component of the language acquisition process.     

Predictors of English spelling in bilingual and monolingual children in Grade 1: the case of Cantonese and Tagalog

In order to examine the effect of the home language on the spelling development in English in children who are learning English as a second language (ESL learners), it is best to directly compare groups of ESL learners from various home language backgrounds. This study compared the oral language, phonological awareness, reading, and spelling performance of Tagalog–English bilingual, Cantonese–English bilingual, and monolingual English-speaking children in Grade 1. The bilingual children had lower scores than the monolinguals on measures of oral proficiency, but demonstrated similar or better performance on most phonological awareness, reading, and spelling tasks after controlling for vocabulary size in English. A series of moderated regression analysis revealed that although phonological awareness was associated with English spelling performance regardless of language background, the associations between specific spelling tasks and related underlying skills seemed to differ across language groups.     

Integrating philosophy into English curriculum: The development of thinking and language competence

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study that assesses the effectiveness of a Philosophy in Schools (PIS) program in developing English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ thinking skills and English competence in Hong Kong. In the study, training and support were provided for two English teachers to enable them to teach PIS to their Secondary 4 ESL students during English lessons. The students were found to be capable of reasoning and arguing about philosophical problems arising from various stimuli prepared by their teachers according to the English curriculum. Also, PIS was found to play an important role in promoting the students’ critical and creative thinking and enhance the development of their English language proficiency to a significant extent. The findings of this study suggest that integrating philosophy into the English curriculum can promote critical thinking, creative thinking, and English language proficiency in ESL students.     

Learning to teach writing through tutoring and journal writing

Structured reflection on practical teaching experiences may help pre‐service teachers to integrate their learning and analyze their actions to become more effective learners and teachers. This study reports on 12 pre‐service English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ individual tutoring of learners of English language writing. The data of the study are the writing journal entries that the pre‐service ESL teachers maintained during their tutoring experience. These journals had common elements: all were used by the pre‐service teachers to consider what funds of knowledge they bring to their teaching of ESL learners, to evaluate their roles as writers, learners and teachers and to reflect on the educational, social and cultural implications of teaching writing in English to speakers of other languages. This article describes ways in which both native and non‐native English speaking pre‐service teachers adapted their instruction to meet the particular needs of individual ESL writers and what they learned in the process. It provides insight regarding the value of using tutoring and reflection generally in teacher education and specifically in the preparation of teachers of ESL.     

英语ESL差异教学行动策略初探

英语 ESL（English Studyas Second Language）是上海中学国际部以英语为非母语的学生为教育对象,关注学生基础英语素养在最快的时间内夯实与培育,旨在帮助来自不同国家与地区的学生,英语学习背景有巨大差异的学生提升基础的英语素养。通过长期的教育教学实践,英语ESL差异教学行动策略有：创设富有层次性的情境,提高学生英语学习兴趣;加强语言教学比较研究,关注英语教导多样性;习题安排突出开放性,注重对学生及时分类指导;促进英语教学评价多元,对学生进行针对性辅导反馈。其差异教学的行动策略对于我国的英语差异教学能提供借鉴与启迪。     

Troubling literacy: monolingual assumptions,multilingual contexts,and language teacher expertise

The current educational context in many English speaking countries is one where literacy is understood to be essentially monolingual in orientation; that is, an understanding of literacy around a single common language, with the emphasis on identifying universal, normative ‘standards’ and ‘benchmarks’, such as the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy in Australia, the Primary National Strategy in the United Kingdom, and No Child Left Behind in the United States. This paper aims to problematise such assumptions by examining how teachers, themselves, understand “teaching literacy” when their students come to the teaching/learning relationship with a first language other than English. With a focus on teachers working with bilingual and multilingual students in their early stages of acquiring English as a second language (ESL), the study thus acknowledges the increasingly diverse sociolinguistic profile of students in Australia and elsewhere in the varying degrees of communicative competence they bring to the mainstream in their use of ESL. Moreover, it draws on ESL teacher knowledge and expertise which has been identified as increasingly marginalised within mainstream educational discourse. Through case studies of three ESL teachers in the middle years, salient themes around the interrelated notions of literacy as learning, language for literacy and language as literacy were identified with respect to the literacy needs of second language learners.     

Take词汇深度习得影响因素研究

随着外语教学研究的进一步发展,越来越多的研究者发现,学习者的词汇能力主要取决于学习者对词汇深度的掌握程度。文章对英语专业和非英语专业学生的词汇深度进行了测试和研究,得出词汇深度习得受专业限制,它与学习者学习水平呈正相关的结论。     

Toward a set of design principles for decoding training: A systematic review of studies of English as a foreign/second language listening education

Listening is a major challenge for many English as a foreign language (EFL)/English as a second language (ESL) learners. Many learners find it difficult to immediately process and segment an ongoing stream of sounds. Decoding training is one of interventions that have been used to assist EFL/ESL learners. This paper reviewed empirical studies of the effectiveness of decoding training in developing EFL/ESL learners' listening. We examined the following four major factors: (a) the types of instructional activities used; (b) the effects of decoding training on student listening outcomes; (c) the main instructional enablers of decoding training; and (d) the main instructional barriers to decoding training. The two activities most frequently used for decoding training were dictation and pronunciation instruction. A meta-analysis of 13 intervention studies showed an overall significant effect in favor of decoding training over non-decoding instruction for listening education (Hedges's g = 0.553, CI = 0.348–0.759, 95% confidence interval, p = 0.000), with no evidence of publication bias. Two theoretical frameworks, cognitive learning theory and the attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction model, were used to synthesize 33 studies to analyze the common elements that promote and hinder the development of learners' decoding skills. We proposed a set of design principles for decoding training that are expected to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of decoding training in EFL/ESL listening education.     

课堂互动与二语学习的关系

课堂互动为二语学习者提供了类似母语的教学环境，增加了学习者的可理解输入，有利于二语学习。对课堂互动中教师话语、纠错方式，国外有不少实证研究。课堂互动的实施方式以任务型教学、小班授课和小组活动为主。课堂互动是二语学习的方式之一，但不是惟一的方式。同时这种方式并不适合各种层次的学习者。了解这一点对我们英语教师十分必要。     

英语教学中的ESL与EFL的差异

英语教学在我国受到越来越多的重视,很多语言学家和教育工作者为选取适合我国国情的英语教学模式进行了诸多探讨,ESL和EFL成了主要研究课题。就其本质来说,ESL和EFL是两种截然不同的英语教学模式。     

Emergent Target Language Identities Among Latino English Language Learners

During 2nd language acquisition, a learner’s identity is consigned, juxtaposed, coconstructed, and reified through various affective positions and mitigating linguistic behaviors. Our study of adult Latino ESL students in Dallas, Texas, shows how language socialization experiences are shaped by the learners’ affective stances toward the project of learning and using the English language. Students reflected on how their specific social barriers created conditions that impeded interaction with interlocutors who could potentially aid their socialization process in English.     

ESL TEACHER EDUCATION ABROAD AND AT HOME: A CAUTIONARY TALE

In this article, we compared teacher attitudes and beliefs about culturally appropriate language teaching resulting from an examination of two groups of preservice teachers. One group of preservice teachers enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL) study abroad program in Mexico; the other enrolled in a traditional on-campus ESL program. Our findings indicate that study abroad students gained a more empathetic understanding of language and cultural issues that affect language learners than their on-campus counterparts, but that they also developed some misconceptions about language learning based on their study abroad experience.     

Eight Factors Applied in Teaching English Listening

English listening proficiency is always the most difficult part for English learners as the second language especially in China-mainland. Meanwhile, English teacher always take challenges in how to teach student the skills. This paper studies different learners and their different learning type, then put forward 8 necessary factors which should be concluded in the whole teaching step.     

Do secondary school-leaving English examination results predict university students’ academic writing performance? A latent profile analysis

Abstract

Secondary school-leaving English examination results are often regarded as indicators of students’ competence to study in English-medium universities, which is usually demonstrated through source-based academic writing. In English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts, many English-medium universities require local undergraduates to enrol in an academic writing course, unless they received outstanding English results in secondary school-leaving examinations. This study investigates the relationship between ESL undergraduates’ secondary school-leaving English examination results and their academic writing performance through latent profile analysis. Results show that students can be grouped into four classes of academic writing performer (AWP), namely Complex-AWP, High-AWP, Medium-AWP and Low-AWP. Surprisingly, the Complex-AWP group had the highest means in structure, argument and language, but the lowest in citation. Secondary school-leaving English examination results can generally predict students’ class membership in language, argumentation and, to some extent, structure, but not citation. An important implication is that students with high English proficiency do not necessarily do well in all aspects of academic writing. This study can inform university senior management on how to set policies about who needs an academic writing course and provide appropriate training in various aspects of academic writing for university students with diverse English proficiency.     

Learning Strategies in Chinese ESL Learners' Acquisition of Spoken English

As for Chinese ESL (English as a second language) learners, one of the major problems in English learning is their poor performance of spoken English. Among various factors that improve spoken English skills, it is believed, learning strategies play an important role in acquisition of oral English. Beginning with the learning purpose and style of spoken English, this paper discusses the application of socioaffecrive, cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies in Chinese ESL learners' acquisition of spoken English.     

Language Acquisition Assisted by the Internet

Abstract

The authors focus on exploiting new methods of language acquisition with the help of the possibilities offered by the Internet. As a new option for computer‐assisted language learning, the Internet is considered to be a source for individual learning and problem oriented teaching in many other areas. Expanding knowledge in parallel in informatics and the English language is an asset. In addition to pointing out starting off sites for ESL teachers and introducing some interesting examples, some criteria of constructing language teaching WWW pages of our own are also listed.     

论实践教学对英语学习动机的激发与培养

学习动机是激发学生学习的直接动力,它制约着学生学习的倾向性、持久性和效果。实践教学本身具有激发和培养学生学习动机的优势。英语教育者若能有机结合各实习要素,可以从学习情境、学习者、英语目的语等层面来激发和培养英语学习动机,并把实践教学激发和培养学习动机的优势最大化。     

网络环境下混合式教学法在高职高专学生英语写作教学中的应用

基于建构主义学习理论、社会文化学习理论和认知理论的混合式学习方法正日益受国内外教育的关注,混合式学习方法(Blended Learning)结合了基于网络平台的自主学习和以教师为协助者的课堂教学的优势。该文通过教学实践来探究写作教学中应用混合式教学模式的可行性和有效性。此次研究通过测试收集数据,采用SPSS统计软件进行数据分析,分析结果表明接受混合式教学模式的学生通过写作课堂教学后在认知学术语言水平(CALP)方面优于接受传统教学法的学生。笔者期望本研究能对教师在日常写作教学中设计和使用混合式教学模式有所启示。