Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de vocabulario

Resumen:

This article aims to uncover how alignment affects second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition by Chinese-speaking learners of English as they interact with various interaction loads (i.e. input text, peers and video). It also explores how tasks with varying interactional intensity in relation to the interaction loads influence the alignment magnitude and vocabulary learning outcomes. To this end, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, three groups of L2 learners were instructed to learn and use the target words while performing paraphrase, summary or continuation task. The results indicated that task-induced interactional intensity had robust effects on alignment magnitude as well as receptive and productive lexical knowledge. In Study 2, three groups of L2 learners were asked to complete a continuation task while interacting with...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: feedback/retroalimentación

Resumen:

In this study, 118 native speakers of Japanese watched 48 separate video clips in which a teacher provided recasts on phonological or lexical errors to students in Portuguese, a language with which the participants were unfamiliar. In the video clips, six recast characteristics were manipulated: length, segmentation (segmented/whole), prosodic emphasis (stressed/non-stressed), intonation (declarative/interrogative), head movements (nodding/shaking), and gestures (beat/deictic/metaphoric). Participants judged whether or not the teacher had corrected errors and stated the reasons for their decisions. Multiple regressions extracted segmentation and gestures as being significant variables for both phonological and lexical errors. Precisely speaking, recasts were more likely to be accurately perceived as correction when they were provided...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: revisión bibliográfica

Temas: storytelling/narración

Resumen:

Although digital storytelling (DST) has been a potent pedagogical approach in language learning, robust statistical evidence of its effect has yet to be determined. As such, in an attempt to assess the influence of DST on language learning and explore factors modulating its effectiveness, the current study conducted a thorough meta-analysis to address the research gap. The current meta-analysis consisted of 34 experimental studies published between 2006 and 2023 with 3,208 participants and 45 independent effect sizes. The results of the Bayesian meta-analysis showed a moderate-to-large effect size of 0.74 that confirmed the facilitative effect of DST in language learning. Furthermore, the results of moderator analyses revealed that multimodality, learning activities, intervention duration, and assessment format significantly modulate...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: adquisición de segundas lenguas

Resumen:

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This study investigates whether a targeted grammar training session enhances English as a second language (ESL) learners’ sentence comprehension, focusing on garden-path sentences as a test of syntactic ambiguity resolution. Chinese ESL learners were assigned to a grammar training group or a control group before completing a self-paced sentence reading experiment. The training session followed a multiple-step progression from simple to complex sentence structures to raise the grammatical awareness in the learners for improving their syntactic parsing skills. Mixed-effects modeling of the data showed that ESL learners with grammar training outperformed those without training, as shown in both...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enfoque por tareas

Resumen:

This study investigates the effects of two task factors (i.e. task complexity and task sequence) and an interlocutor factor (i.e. interlocutor familiarity) on Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ self-repair strategies during synchronous online task-based interaction. Four decision-making tasks were conducted to elicit oral interactions from 44 low-level proficiency EFL learners, who were required to complete the tasks in pairs in either a simple-to-complex sequence or a complex-to-simple sequence. Information about the learners’ familiarity with their partners was collected through interviews. Learners’ self-repair was analysed in terms of various recycling and replacement strategies. The results revealed that complex tasks facilitated learners in replacing items to solve problems, while the simple-to-complex task...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: feedback/retroalimentación

Resumen:

Given much attention associated with learner engagement in second language (L2) writing, an increasing body of studies has reported that learner engagement with feedback is a critical construct to enhance English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing achievement. However, little research has been conducted to explore the predictive effect of grit and examine the mediating role of learner engagement with feedback in the relationship between grit and English writing achievement (EWA) in the underlying mechanism of L2 writing. Therefore, the current study aims to address these under-researched issues by investigating a mediation model of L2 grit, learner engagement with feedback, and EWA among English major students. The findings demonstrated that: (1) perseverance-of-effort variation in L2 grit predicted variance in learner...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: uso de la L1 en el aula

Resumen:

The present study examined the interaction effects between teachers’ choice of language in lexical explanation and second language (L2) learners’ proficiency level on the learning of phrasal verbs and listening comprehension in a meaning-focused listening activity. Undergraduate L2 learners with two different levels of proficiency (intermediate and advanced) were assigned to three different conditions. These conditions included (1) code-switching, in which teachers briefly switched to learners’ first language for vocabulary teaching purposes, (2) L2-only, in which teachers maintained L2 for overall instruction and vocabulary teaching, and (3) control condition, in which learners were not given instruction about target vocabulary. The results revealed that teachers’ instruction about target vocabulary brought about more gains in...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de lenguas

Resumen:

Although boredom can be regarded as a ubiquitous emotion in most educational settings, including foreign and second language classrooms, and this condition can have a detrimental effect on the process of learning, it has to a large extent escaped the attention of second language acquisition researchers dealing with individual learner differences. The study reported in this article sought to fill this gap by investigating the trajectories of boredom exhibited in a practical English class by 11 Polish university students majoring in English. The data were collected by means of a background questionnaire, the Boredom in Practical English Language Classes Questionnaire (BPELC), and an in-class boredom questionnaire, including a self-report boredom grid, an open-ended query and an evaluation of the class based on a semantic differential...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: expresiones idiomáticas

Resumen:

Learners of a second language often vocalize newly learned items, and previous studies have shown that this practice facilitates the learning of single words and multiword expressions. However, these effects have been demonstrated only in mixed-list designs, where a single list of items is learned using multiple learning methods, and have not been tested in pure-list designs, where each list is learned with one consistent method. Moreover, prior research has relied almost exclusively on written recognition tests, leaving spoken-modality tests and recall measures largely unexamined. This study employed a within-participant, pure-list design in which each list was associated with a single learning condition, and each participant studied a total of four lists. The participants were 68 Japanese learners of English. Participants learned 64...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enfoque por tareas

Resumen:

This study assesses a range of task-based interaction (i.e. structured vs. unstructured tasks) between lower-English-proficiency middle school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in a task-based learning (TBL) class employing conversation analytic methodology. From the video data, which allowed for an emic analysis of the students’ vocal and non-vocal actions when engaging in the different task types, it was found that in both the structured and unstructured task interactions, because the students were mainly focused on task completion, there were frequent minimal turns and sequences. A deviant case analysis revealed that the participants prioritized task completion as the focus of activities even when engaging in social talk by evoking various types of roles (e.g. students, friends). The study proposes several pedagogical...

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