Language Teaching Research

Tasks with different design factors may dissimilarly affect oral production, and thus can be adopted for different pedagogical purposes. However, the functions of task types are not fully explored. To address this gap, this study investigates the influence of content familiarity and task repetition on sixty English as a foreign language learners’ speaking performance, in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Participants twice performed four monologic tasks, and received stimulated recall interviews. The findings indicate that participants produced structurally more complex speech under familiar conditions, and increased their CAF in task repetition. Furthermore, content familiarity and task repetition may facilitate conceptualization. Task repetition may also direct participants’ attention towards lexical choices and grammatical encoding. Moreover, repeating unfamiliar topics effectively increased CAF. The findings suggest content familiarity and task repetition are two dimensions of topic familiarity, and that teachers might consider implementing task repetition when presenting unfamiliar topics to learners.

This study explored the teaching and learning of vocabulary through listening among 137 senior high-school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in China. It compared different types of Lexical Focus-on-Form delivered to four treatment groups: post-listening vocabulary explanations in the L2; codeswitched explanations; explanations providing additional crosslinguistic information (Contrastive Focus-on-Form; CFoF); and no explanations (NE). It also investigated the impact of the intervention on learners’ listening comprehension. Learners completed aural vocabulary tests at pre-, post- and delayed post-test and listening assessments at pre- and post-test. For short- and long-term vocabulary acquisition, the three groups receiving explanations significantly outperformed the NE group. Gains for the CFoF group were significantly greater than for the L2 and Codeswitching groups, for both short-term and long-term learning. For listening comprehension, only the NE group made significant improvement from the pre-test to the post-test, as well as making significantly greater pre- to post-test improvement than the CFoF and the L2 groups did. The article concludes by discussing these findings in relation to theories of vocabulary acquisition and listening comprehension, as well as their pedagogical implications.

This article examines the influence of different reading conditions (i.e. reading only and reading with first language marginal glosses), number of word encounters (one, three, and seven) while reading, and combinations of these two variables on new word retention. This study considered a total of six possible combinations. Six groups of Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) (n = 240) were randomly selected and each assigned to a condition including 15 target lexical items. Each treatment session lasted for 5 weeks. One delayed test, containing four dimensions of vocabulary knowledge, was intended to measure learners’ retention of unknown words. The delayed test was administered 2 weeks after the experiment and was not disclosed to the learners in advance. The groups whose reading was accompanied by first-language (L1) marginal glosses scored significantly higher than the reading-only groups. The increased effectiveness of repeatedly encountering target lexical items was more pronounced in the reading experiment including L1 marginal glosses. The combination of L1 marginal glosses and seven encounters was found to be the most effective combination for lexical item retention. This study highlighted the effectiveness of repeatedly encountering target words and being provided with L1 marginal glosses to retain new words incidentally learned from reading. The conditions and relevant teaching implications are discussed in this study.

This quantitative study examines whether and to what extent affective factors (i.e. motivation, self-confidence, risk-taking, L2 speaking anxiety, and grit) and virtual intercultural experiences are linked to willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) in in-class, out-of-class, and digital settings. Participants included 176 Korean undergraduate and graduate students of English as a foreign language (EFL). After adjusting for demographic factors, hierarchical regression analyses revealed three major results: first, those with higher levels of L2 motivation and grit as well as a lower level of L2 speaking anxiety had higher L2 WTC inside the classroom. Second, students who majored in English and had higher levels of L2 self-confidence and risk-taking had higher L2 WTC outside the classroom. Third, individuals who were younger, had a higher level of L2 self-confidence and engaged more frequently in virtual intercultural experiences had higher L2 WTC in digital settings. Results suggest that demographic and affective variables as well as involvement in virtual intercultural activities play distinct roles in influencing EFL students’ WTC in three different L2 communication contexts. Based on these findings, this study provides pedagogical suggestions for L2 practitioners.

Research has supported the benefit of cognitive vocabulary learning approaches, such as dual-coding (i.e. visual-verbal approach), on Chinese language learners’ vocabulary attainment. However, few studies have systematically examined how to maximize Chinese word retention. Therefore, the goal of this study was to investigate the effects of two types of visual-verbal approaches, i.e. pictographic-verbal coding approach and pictorial-verbal coding approach, on Chinese language learners’ word attainment. The visual support in our proposed pictographic-verbal coding approach uses pictograms, while pictures are used as the visual support in the pictorial-verbal coding approach. Further, we tested whether repetition would impact learners’ Chinese word retention. One-hundred fourth and fifth grade English-speaking Chinese language learners participated in the study. A series of two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures was conducted. Results showed that the pictographic-verbal coding approach assisted learners in acquiring as well as retrieving more Chinese words compared to the pictorial-verbal coding approach. We also found that learners taught by the pictographic-verbal coding approach demonstrated higher learning motivation. Instructional implications were discussed.

The study investigated the beliefs expressed by a sample of 206 Polish and Spanish teacher-trainees about the use of learners’ native language (L1) in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). Quantitative and qualitative data from a questionnaire revealed considerable differences between the two nationality groups in their beliefs about both medium-oriented and framework-oriented functions of the L1 in an L2 classroom. Moreover, significant differences were found in the participants’ accounts of their prior EFL learning experience in terms of the L1–L2 proportion in teachers’ classroom language use. A possible interpretation of these findings relates trainees’ beliefs to the L2 educational cultures prevalent in different countries, pointing to a contextually-mediated complexity of teacher-trainees’ belief systems. The study adds to the existing research on the issues underlying L1 use in L2 teaching that are currently under debate by offering a cross-national comparison of teacher-trainees’ beliefs about the place of the L1 in L2 instruction.

Collaborative writing (CW) has been proven advantageous to enhance the second and foreign language skills of university students. However, little research to date has explored whether CW practices are fruitful for secondary school learners in foreign language (FL) contexts, a population characterized by low language proficiency levels, and few opportunities to engage with the FL. The present classroom-based study examines CW in this setting and aims to determine whether CW fosters language opportunities, operationalized as language-related episodes (LREs), which will allow learners in low-input scenarios to compose better texts. Two parallel intact classes were studied: a control group (n = 16) which produced an argumentative essay individually, and an experimental group (n = 16) which did so in pairs while recording their interactions. The findings revealed that the pairs produced shorter but more accurate and slightly more lexically and grammatically complex texts and obtained higher scores in content, structure and organization. Collaboration afforded students the opportunity to pool ideas, deliberate over language use, and provide each other with feedback (collective scaffolding). Most importantly, collaborating seemed to be beneficial for all intermediate secondary learners and, thus, a useful strategy for improving FL writing skills in the secondary school context.