Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de lenguas

Resumen:

Writing has long been seen as a challenging skill that language learners need to learn. In addition, by guaranteeing participant engagement in significant communication processes, visual methods such as photovoice can be utilized in language instruction to enhance language learning. Thus, the present study attempted to examine the effects of utilizing Photovoice as an innovative instructional method on Iranian intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing skills. The study also examined the participants’ attitudes toward the implementation of photovoice in language learning. The research followed a mixed-methods design to collect and process the data. Sixty female intermediate learners from a private English language institute in Isfahan, Iran, were selected through convenience sampling and then randomly assigned...

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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:

This study examined the combined effects of written corrective feedback (WCF) and think-aloud protocols (TAPs) as two types of pedagogical intervention for improving the revision quality of second language (L2) writing. With a quasi-experimental design, it explored whether TAPs trigger deeper processing of WCF under two WCF-type conditions: direct or indirect WCF. Participants were 80 high-intermediate learners of English as a second language (ESL) at a US university who were divided into (1) direct WCF+TAPs; (2) direct WCF-only; (3) indirect WCF+TAPs; and (4) indirect WCF-only. The impacts of the interventions were gauged by changes in seven subsystems of complexity–accuracy–lexis (CAL) between the first and final drafts of narrative essays. Results showed differential impacts of the four conditions depending on the linguistic...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de lenguas

Resumen:

This study explores the development of intercultural competence among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners through critical incident task discussions. Participants included 72 intermediate-level students in a control group and 69 in an experimental group. Both groups completed a presurvey on intercultural competence, whereas the experimental group additionally engaged in weekly critical incident discussions and submitted their reflections. At the end of the intervention, both groups completed a postsurvey, and the experimental group provided open-ended responses about their experiences. Results revealed significant gains in intercultural competence for the experimental group, with no comparable improvement in the control group. Learners reported increased awareness of cultural values, norms, and differences, recognition of...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de vocabulario

Resumen:

This study investigates the effect of personal investment in the form of learner-generated content (LGC) on the lexical recall of beginning-level learners of Chinese. The study employed a 2 × 2 repeated-measures design with content at two levels – teacher-generated content or TGC, and learner-generated content or LGC – and time at two levels (immediate, delayed). Quantitative results were triangulated with qualitative thematic analyses of follow-up interviews. The study was conducted at an Australian university and aimed to identify a way of modifying current intentional vocabulary learning activities to increase learner investment in the learning process and improve retention. Participants completed two versions of a picture description activity that was commonly used to introduce and practice new vocabulary in the program. The first...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de vocabulario

Resumen:

Although research shows that second language (L2) learners have major difficulties in developing their productive vocabulary skills, little research has been conducted on how to facilitate productive mastery of learned words. With this in mind, this study investigated the effects of task type and repetition frequency on improving receptive word knowledge to productive mastery. The 146 university students enrolled in an EFL course were assigned to four groups, each doing a different form of vocabulary exercises (multiple-choice, gap-filling, sentence translation and sentence writing) for 12 successive weeks. The 18 targets the participants knew receptively were divided into three sets that were repeated two, four and six times respectively. Productive knowledge of the targets was measured two weeks after the treatment. The results...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: pragmática

Resumen:

This study investigates the effect of task choice for Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) on pragmatic performance in producing, processing, and negotiating refusal speech acts during interactive role-plays involving refusals to requests and invitations. Task choice was manipulated by varying the degree of cognitive autonomy support provided in generating the content of refusals, resulting in two distinct task conditions. In the ‘non-constraint’ condition, learners independently brainstormed refusal content, whereas in the ‘constraint’ condition, they formulated refusals following predetermined scripts provided by the researcher. Refusal performance was analysed across three dimensions: pragmatic knowledge, processing, and interaction. The findings reveal that task choice exerted a mixed effect on these dimensions...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: feedback/retroalimentación

Resumen:

This study investigates whether gesture-enhanced recasts lead to better production of the English regular past tense. Fifty-nine low-intermediate ESL students at a US university took part in communicative activities in class, during which they received, respectively, no feedback, verbal recasts, or gesture-enhanced recasts, the latter being a verbal recast accompanied by a point-back gesture indicating the non-target-like use or absence of the past tense. All learners also completed two assessments, a grammar test about the regular past tense and an oral production test that was designed to elicit the regular past tense, as a pre-test, an immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test a week later. Then, a repeated-measure ANOVA was used to analyse the linguistic development, using the obtained test scores. The results showed that there...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: multimodalidad

Resumen:

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Studies have generally found benefits of multimodal presentation for comprehension and memory. However, although learner-related and design-related factors have received increasing attention in bilingual and L2 research, the role of visual continuity in naturalistic reading and its interaction with attentional control remains less well understood. This study investigated how the presence and continuity of visual inputs affect word recognition memory in bilingual Chinese-English university students. We also examined whether components of the attention network moderate word recognition performance. Participants read short passages in either their first language (L1) Chinese or second language (L2)...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: comunicación no verbal

Resumen:

Instructional videos for teaching second language (L2) vocabulary often feature an instructor onscreen. The instructor in the video may involuntarily produce beat gestures with their hands, as occurs in real teaching settings. Beat gestures highlight key information in speech by conveying the rhythm of the language, but do not themselves convey semantic meaning. However, little is known about how the instructor’s beat gestures affect L2 vocabulary learning. We conducted two experiments on the effects of the instructor’s purposeful (scripted) beat gestures in instructional videos that included an instructor and slides, with English L2 vocabulary as the topic. In Experiment 1, using a within-participant design, we tested the hypothesis that an instructor’s gestures (beat gesture vs. no gesture) would improve learning performance. The...

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