Abstract
The current issue of Language Teaching Research comprises seven articles, six of them full research articles and one belonging to the practitioner research section of the journal. The former consider relevant issues in the acquisition of second/foreign languages such as vocabulary development in two subsequent contexts and two different modalities (Zaytseva, Miralpeix and Pérez-Vidal) as well as its acquisition in a synchronous mode with immediate and delayed feedback provided (Henderson); feedback in the oral (Li and Iwashita) and written (Kim and Emeliyanova) mode, and the impact of training on the understanding of collaborative writing (Chen and Hapgood) and on learner motivation (Safdari). The practitioner research piece (Sato and Chen) focuses on the trajectory of a novice teacher in her first online teaching experience.
In their article ‘Because words matter: Investigating vocabulary development across contexts and modalities’, Zaytseva, Miralpeix and Pérez-Vidal study the effects of two subsequent learning contexts, namely formal instruction (FI) at home and a 3-month stay abroad (SA), on vocabulary acquisition in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing and speaking. Their study fills a void in the field because if assessment of both written and oral skills in different types of learning contexts is rare, the study of the development of a crucial component of written and oral production such as the use of vocabulary is even more scant. Although previous research has reported positive effects of SA programs on receptive vocabulary knowledge, little is known about how those programs affect productive knowledge. Moreover, some studies reported mixed findings, and the only lexical measure analysed was the Guiraud’s index (GI). Thus, Zaytseva et al.’s contribution has a twofold aim: on the one hand, to track EFL vocabulary development in learners’ written and oral production separately and in contrast with native-speaker performance over time and after two subsequent learning environments (FI and SA), and, on the other, to examine the amount of lexical gains achieved as a result of the different contexts and modalities.
Thirty Catalan–Spanish intermediate EFL learners (age range 17–21 years) participated in the study, and their written (argumentative essay) and oral (semi-guided interview) data were collected longitudinally over a 15-month period before and after each learning period (FI and SA). Both the written and oral output were analysed in terms of quantitative measures in the domains of lexical diversity, sophistication, density and accuracy. Baseline data from native speakers of English were also gathered for comparison purposes. The findings of the study provide evidence for different developmental trends, both context- and modality-dependent: in written production EFL vocabulary improved after SA in terms of lexical diversity, academic vocabulary, and spelling accuracy. In oral production, overall development was less pronounced and affected lexical sophistication, which improved after SA. In short, the findings support the Combination and Complementary of Contexts Hypothesis (Pérez-Vidal, 2014): the FI and SA contexts supplement each other; that is, the declarative and procedural linguistic knowledge gained in an FI context may result in automatized language use in immersion abroad. Both the FI and the SA experience may have complementary effects providing learners with a solid lexical foundation.
Vocabulary acquisition is also the topic of Henderson’s contribution ‘The effect of feedback timing on second language (L2) Spanish vocabulary acquisition in synchronous computer-mediated communication’. As is well known in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), research has shown that corrective feedback (CF) facilitates the process of L2 learning (for updated information, see Nassaji & Kartchava, 2021), although there are numerous factors that mediate its effectiveness, timing being one of them. In oral CF research most studies have focused their attention on immediate correction and little attention has been paid to delayed CF even though it occurs naturally in L2 classrooms. Most comparisons have reported no differences between immediate and delayed oral CF and, thus, the aim of Henderson’s study is to compare the effectiveness of both types of oral CF for promoting Spanish vocabulary learning in text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). Vocabulary was chosen as the linguistic target because previous research had shown that both face-to-face interaction and CF as well as SCMC interaction fostered its development. The CF move consisted of an error repetition followed by a recast on vocabulary errors produced immediately after the error or right after the task, a one-way information-gap task completed via text-based SCMC.
The study followed a pretest–posttest experimental design. Thirty English learners of Spanish as a foreign language (university level) participated in the study. They were placed into three groups with 10 members each: immediate CF group, delayed CF group and a comparison group. The target vocabulary items were 10 kitchen-related Spanish words. In the immediate group, when a vocabulary error was committed, the researcher typed out the entire erroneous utterance and framed it with question marks, then she typed the correction and prompted the learners to continue with the task, that is, the CF move consisted of a repetition of the error followed by a recast to make the CF more salient. In the delayed CF group no CF was given during the task but, rather, when the task was finished. Findings revealed no significant differences between the two CF modes and that both were equally effective for vocabulary learning. Henderson acknowledges that the salient nature of the modality, type and target of the CF may have played a role in neutralizing a timing effect. Much more research on this topic is clearly warranted.
Li and Iwashita provide further insights into the role of CF in L2 learning in their article ‘The role of recasts and negotiated prompts in a foreign language learning context in China with non-English major university students’. The researchers point out that there has been considerable interest in recasts (input-providing) and prompts (output-promoting) as CF types but their role in L2 learning in classroom settings is not clear. Moreover, there has been limited research not only in classroom contexts that emphasize grammar and accuracy, such as the foreign language context exemplified in the study, but also on the acquisition of different structures. Thus, the main goal of the study was to examine the effectiveness of recasts and negotiated prompts in the development of questions (wh-questions and interrogative questions) and past tense (irregular and regular) forms in English in an EFL context.
Ninety 17–18-year-old first language (L1) Mandarin L2 English students in the physics department of a university in China participated in the study. They were classified into the recast group, the negotiated prompt group, and the control group in a random manner. The teacher participant was a native speaker of English who was instructed to use recasts or negotiated prompts depending on the group. The study design contained a pre-test, three treatment lessons, and two post-tests and the task types used were based mainly on previous studies on question and past tense forms. The findings showed that both types of CF were effective for the accuracy development of three structures (recasts for wh-questions, interrogative questions and irregular past verbs; negotiated prompts for interrogative questions, irregular and regular past verbs) but not effective for one structure. However, recasts generated strong effects, whereas negotiated prompts yielded medium effects. Li and Iwashita provide some pedagogical implications of their findings and point out some of the limitations of the study that have to do with the involvement of the control group, the delivery of the two types of CF, and the unpredictability of target structure production, which resulted in an imbalance of CF provision.
Corrective feedback is also the topic of
Thirty-six intermediate learners of English as a second language (ESL) from different nationalities and ranging in age from 17 to 45 years participated in the study. They were enrolled in an intensive program in the USA and the data were collected in their Introduction to Academic Writing course. This classroom-based study followed a quasi-experimental design with two different revision conditions: collaborative vs. individual processing of the teacher’s WCF. A total of four intact classes were randomly assigned to one of the following: (1) self-correction group or (2) pair-correction group, with the former writing essays, processing WCF and making corrections individually, whereas the latter wrote the essays individually but processed WCF and made corrections in pairs. The authors report that students in both groups improved overall accuracy at a similar rate, with the self-correcting group outperforming the pair-correction group in terms of the number of error-free T-units. Regarding the benefits of collaborative writing tasks, the collaborative correction group did not outperform the self-correction group in accuracy on the subsequent new writing task. It seems that learners might be more engaged when processing WCF on their own writing than when processing their partners’ writing. A positive finding was that the number of correctly revised errors in the pair-correction group increased, whereas it decreased in the individual-correction group. As this study focuses both on how students respond to teachers’ WCF as well as on the students’ learning outcomes in writing in an intensive course, Kim and Emeliyanova offer several pedagogical recommendations, one being training learners to become active participants during collaborative tasks.
The study by Chen and Hapgood ‘Understanding knowledge, participation and learning in L2 collaborative writing: A metacognitive theory perspective’ deals precisely with the benefits of teaching students explicit collaborative writing (CW) knowledge. Research on CW has seen an enormous increase in the past decade but little attention has been paid to how psychological factors such as cognitive knowledge may play a role in this activity. Previous studies have shown the crucial role of metacognitive knowledge or awareness for successful learning and, therefore, it is interesting to examine whether and how L2 learners’ knowledge about CW writing shapes their patterns of interaction and languaging opportunities. Current definitions of metacognition include two components, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Metacognitive knowledge is comprised of declarative knowledge (operationalized in the study as what the students knew procedural knowledge (how they used it to help learning), and conditional knowledge (when and why they used CW). Metacognitive regulation was operationalized in the study as planning, monitoring and evaluating and regulating the writing activity.
Forty intermediate ESL learners enrolled in an intensive program in the USA participated in the study. They were divided into two classes, class 1, which was explicitly introduced to the concept of CW, and class 2, which was not. The data collection, which included multiple sources (audio recording of pair talk, semi-structure interviews and reflective journals) lasted for 7 weeks. The findings showed that students with similar intermediate L2 proficiency and engaged in the same tasks may interact differently due to their different levels of explicit knowledge about CW. Thus, students in class 1 produced significantly more language-related episodes (LREs), resolved them on their own and demonstrated collaborative patterns of interaction more often than students in class 2. The study adds to the current knowledge of CW indicating the importance of attitudes/beliefs about CW in affecting patterns of interaction and language learning opportunities. Chen and Hapgood highlight the important role of carefully designed training in changing students’ beliefs about language learning and the relevant role of a model of contextualized metacognition in L2 CW.
Safdari also considers the importance of interventions to contribute, in this case, to improving EFL learners’ motivation in his contribution ‘Operationalizing L2 motivational self-system: Improving EFL learners’ motivation through a vision enhancement program’. Within the framework of Dörnyei’s (2005) theory of L2 motivational self-system (L2MSS), which includes the ideal L2 self, the ought-to L2 self and the L2 learning experience – and also following Dörnyei’s (2009) framework for vision enhancement programs – Safdari designed a three-phase study: pretest, intervention, and posttest. The first stage included the administration of a five-point Likert scale 41-item-questionnaire, which was completed by 51 Iranian intermediate EFL learners (mean age 23.75 years). These participants were divided into two experimental groups (one male and one female) and two control groups (one male and one female). The second phase was comprised of six major steps with activities and techniques whose goal was to build vision and strengthen it through visionary and imaginary practices. After the intervention, in the posttest, the same questionnaire was administered to the participants and qualitative data was also collected by having the members of the experimental group write a short passage on their comments regarding the intervention program.
Both the quantitative and qualitative findings of the study showed that the intervention program was successful and effective as there was a notable increase in the strength of learners’ ideal L2 self, improvement in attitude toward L2 learning, imagery capacity and intended effort. The ought-to L2 self remained unchanged, though. By using a fully-fledged program that covered more dimensions than previous work on the topic and by including control groups, Safdari concludes that a vision-based intervention program can be successfully implemented and provides several pedagogical implications.
The final contributor belongs to the ‘Practitioner Research’ section of the journal, which includes articles written by practitioners about their own experiences. Sato and Chen draw on Action Research to report on how a novice teacher of Japanese as a foreign language in the USA negotiates her professional development by means of a two-way ongoing dialogue with her mentor in her first experience teaching online. The study fits very well considering the Covid-19 times that the world is going through, which have moved traditional face-to-face teaching to full online teaching. As the authors state, it is also very relevant because we need to be aware of the difficulties faced by novice teachers in online instructional environments.
The participants in the study were two instructors of Japanese, both were native speakers of the language, one was a novice teacher and the other an experienced teacher in face-to-face contexts, both new to online teaching. The researchers collected qualitative data throughout a six-week intensive online course with 27 students enrolled. After each lesson the novice teacher used Google Drive to reflect on the challenges encountered and the experienced teacher replied with suggestions. The researchers analysed the data using a thematic analysis approach which included issues such as attitudes toward incorporating digital tools in Japanese instruction and the enrichment of the teaching repertoire through reciprocal mentorship and apprenticeship. The findings showed that the psychological distance between instructor and students in online environments can be mitigated using appropriate digital tools. Moreover, the study highlighted the importance of the novice–mentor dialogue to transform their professional lives and the importance of the new knowledge that both participants gained in the process.
Five of the studies in this issue deal with the learning of foreign languages (English in China, Iran and Spain; Spanish and Japanese in the USA) and two with the study of English as a second language in the USA; most importantly, three are classroom-based (Li and Iwashita, Kim and Emeliyanova, We and Hapgood). The issue also features some research that has used synchronous and asynchronous tools and has included a longitudinal component. Also worth mentioning is the importance of intervention studies to change learners’ attitudes/beliefs about L2 learning and their attitudes to it. Moreover, all the studies have clear pedagogical implications that teachers may want to consider.