Search results for: second language reading assessment

Authors: Vera Lucia Teixeira da Silva, Sandra Regina Buttros Gattolin de Paula

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The present study focuses on academic literacy and addresses the impact of semantic-discursive resources on the constitution of genres that are produced in such context. The research considers the development of writing in the academic context in Portuguese. Researches that address academic literacy and the characteristics of the texts produced in this context are rare, mainly with focus on the development of writing, considering three variables: the constitution of the writer, the perception of the reader/interlocutor and the organization of the informational text flow. The research aims to map the semantic-discursive resources of the written register in texts of several genres and produced by students in the first semester of the undergraduate course in Letters. The hypothesis raised is that writing in the academic environment is not a recurrent literacy practice for these learners and can be explained by the ontogenetic and phylogenetic nature of language development. Qualitative in nature, the present research has as empirical data texts produced in a half-yearly course of Reading and Textual Production; these data result from the proposition of four different writing proposals, in a total of 600 texts. The corpus is analyzed based on semantic-discursive resources, seeking to contemplate relevant aspects of language (grammar, discourse and social context) that reveal the choices made in the reader/writer interrelationship and the organizational flow of the Text. Among the semantic-discursive resources, the analysis includes three resources, including (a) appraisal and negotiation to understand the attitudes negotiated (roles of the participants of the discourse and their relationship with the other); (b) ideation to explain the construction of the experience (activities performed and participants); and (c) periodicity to outline the flow of information in the organization of the text according to the genre it instantiates. The results indicate the organizational difficulties of the flow of the text information. Cartography contributes to the understanding of the way writers use language in an effort to present themselves, evaluate someone else’s work, and communicate with readers.

Keywords: academic writing, Portuguese mother tongue, semantic-discursive resources, academic context

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Authors: Loghman Ansarian, Teoh Mei Lin

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In an attempt to increase oral proficiency of Iranian EFL learners, the researchers compared the effect of problem-based mobile-assisted language learning with the conventional language learning approach (Communicative Language Teaching) in Iran. The experimental group (n=37) went through PBL instruction and the control group (n=33) went through conventional instruction. The results of quantitative data analysis after 26 sessions of treatment revealed that PBL could positively affect participants' knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, spoken fluency, and pronunciation; however, in terms of task achievement, no significant effect was found. This study can have pedagogical implications for language teachers, and material developers.

Keywords: problem-based learning, spoken intelligibility, Iranian EFL context, cognitive learning

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Authors: Hebe Wong, Luz Fernandez Calventos

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Tandem language learning, a language exchange process based on the principles of autonomy and reciprocity, provides opportunities for interlocutors to learn each other’s language by communicating online or face-to-face. While much attention has been paid to the process and outcomes of tandem learning via email, little has been discussed about the effectiveness of face-to-face tandem learning on language and culture exchange for university students. The LACTS (Language and Culture Tandem Scheme), an 8-week project, was set up to study students’ perceptions of conducting tandem learning to assist their language and culture exchange. Students of both post-graduate and undergraduate programmes (N=103) from a Hong Kong SAR university were put in groups of 4 to 6 according to their availability and language preferences and met for an hour a week. While sample task sheets on a range of topics were provided to assist the language exchange, all groups were encouraged to take charge of their meeting format and choose their own topics. At the end of the project, a 19-item questionnaire, which included both open-and closed-ended questions investigating students’ perceptions of reciprocal teaching and cultural exchange, was administered. Thirty-minute individual interviews were conducted to elicit students’ views and experiences in the LACTS activities. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis showed that most students agreed that the project had enhanced their cultural awareness and helped create an inclusive and participatory learning environment. Significant differences were found in students’ confidence in speaking their targeted language after joining the scheme. The interviews also provided rich data on the variety of formats and leadership patterns in student-led meetings, which could shed light on student autonomy and future tandem language learning projects.

Keywords: autonomy, reciprocity, tandem language learning, university students

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Authors: Legkikh Victoria

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The purpose of keeping bi/multilingualism is usually a way to let the child speak two/three languages at the same level. The main problem which normally appears is a mixed language or a domination of one language. The same level of two or more languages would be ideal but practically not easily reachable. So it was made an experiment with a girl with a natural multilingualism as an attempt to avoid a dominant language in the preschool age. The girl lives in Germany and the main languages for her are Italian, Russian and German but she also hears every day English. ‘One parent – one language’ strategy was used since the beginning so Italian and Russian were spoken to her since her birth, English was spoken between the parents and when she was 1,5 it was added German as a language of a nursery. In order to avoid a dominant language, she was always put in international groups with activity in different languages. Even if it was not possible to avoid an interference of languages in this case we can talk not only about natural multilingualism but also about balanced bilingualism in preschool time. The languages have been developing in parallel with different accents in a different period. Now at the age of 6 we can see natural horizontal multilingualism Russian/Italian/German/English. At the moment, her Russian/Italian bilingualism is balanced. German vocabulary is less but the language is active and English is receptive. We can also see a reciprocal interference of all the three languages (English is receptive so the simple phrases are normally said correctly but they are not enough to judge the level of language interference and it is not noticed any ‘English’ mistakes in other languages). After analysis of the state of every language, we can see as a positive and negative result of the experiment. As a positive result we can see that in the age of 6 the girl does not refuse any language, three languages are active, she differentiate languages and even if she says a word from another language she notifies that it is not a correct word, and the most important are the fact, that she does not have a preferred language. As a prove of the last statement it is to be noticed not only her self-identification as ‘half Russian and half Italian’ but also an answer to the question about her ‘mother tongue’: ‘I do not know, probably, when I have my own children I will speak one day Russian and one day Italian and sometimes German’. As a negative result, we can notice that not only a development of all the three languages are a little bit slower than it is supposed for her age but since she does not have a dominating language she also does not have a ‘perfect’ language and the interference is reciprocal. In any case, the experiment shows that it is possible to keep at least two languages without a preference in a pre-school multilingual space.

Keywords: balanced bilingualism, language interference, natural multilingualism, preschool multilingual education

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Authors: Marta Tryzna, Shahd Al Shammari

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Though Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the only official language in GCC states, including Kuwait, and traditionally the preferred vehicle for literacy in the Arab countries, recent studies in Qatar and the UAE observe a growing role of English, particularly in literacy and knowledge transmission contexts. The present study examines the attitudes to Arabic and English and the use of both languages in literacy-related domains based on a sample of bilingual Arabic-English undergraduates (N=522) at a private university with EMI in Kuwait. The results indicate that Arabic (Kuwaiti dialect) is associated with familial interactions, Arabic-English bilingualism predominates in interactions with classmates, friends, on social media and at work, while English is prevalent in literacy-related contexts such as reading books, magazines, or online material, domains traditionally associated with MSA. Attitudes towards Arabic and English are equally positive according to the majority of the respondents, who report being comfortable expressing themselves and projecting their identity in both languages. No statistically significant differences were found comparing the importance of Arabic and English in the sample. Future trends were identified based on high agreement on the importance of speaking English with children and low agreement on speaking only Arabic at home. The study corroborates recently observed trends in the GCC favoring bilingualism across personal, academic and professional domains, with English becoming the preferred language of literacy among young bilingual Kuwaitis.

Keywords: bilingual, English, Arabic, EMI, identity

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Authors: Mutwakel Abdalla Ali Garalzain

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The aim of this study is to develop university EFL students’ communicative competence. The descriptive, analytical method was used in this study. To collect the data, the researcher designed two questionnaires, one for university EFL students and the other for English language teachers. The respondents of the study were eighty-eight; 76 university EFL students, and 12 English language teachers. The data obtained were analyzed by using statistical package for social science (SPSS). The findings of the study have revealed that most of the university EFL students are unable to express their ideas properly, although they have an abundance of vocabulary. The findings of the study have also shown that most of the university EFL students have positive attitudes towards communicative competence. The results of the study also identified the best strategies that can be used to enhance university EFL students’ communicative competence in English language teaching. The study recommends that English language textbooks should be compatible with the requirements of the student-centered approach. It also recommends that English language teachers should adopt the communicative approach’s strategies in the EFL classroom.

Keywords: applied linguistics, communicative competence , English language teaching, university EFL students

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Authors: Hanan K. Hassanein

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Task-based language teaching (TBLT) and focus on form instruction (FFI) methods were proven to improve quality and quantity of immediate language production. However, studies that compare between the effectiveness of the language production when using TBLT versus FFI are very little with results that are not consistent. Moreover, teaching Arabic using TBLT is a new field with few research that has investigated its application inside classrooms. Furthermore, to the best knowledge of the researcher, there are no prior studies that compared teaching Arabic as a foreign language in a classroom setting using computer-assisted task-based language teaching (CATBLT) with computer-assisted form focused language instruction (CAFFI). Accordingly, the focus of this presentation is to display CATBLT and CAFFI tools when teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as demonstrate an experimental study that aims to identify whether or not CATBLT is a more effective instruction method. The effectiveness will be determined through comparing CATBLT and CAFFI in terms of accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency of language produced by students. The participants of the study are 20 students enrolled in two intermediate-level Arabic as a foreign language classes. The experiment will take place over the course of 7 days. Based on a study conducted by Abdurrahman Arslanyilmaz for teaching Turkish as a second language, an in-house computer assisted tool for the TBLT and another one for FFI will be designed for the experiment. The experimental group will be instructed using the in-house CATBLT tool and the control group will be taught through the in-house CAFFI tool. The data that will be analyzed are the dialogues produced by students in both the experimental and control groups when completing a task or communicating in conversational activities. The dialogues of both groups will be analyzed to understand the effect of the type of instruction (CATBLT or CAFFI) on accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency. Thus, the study aims to demonstrate whether or not there is an instruction method that positively affects the language produced by students learning Arabic as a foreign language more than the other.

Keywords: computer assisted language teaching, foreign language teaching, form-focused instruction, task based language teaching

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Authors: Yousra Drissi

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This research explores language teacher identity in a multilingual context where both teachers and students come from different linguistic backgrounds. It seeks to understand how teachers perceive themselves as language teachers in this context in relation to different influencing factors, both internal and external. This study is being conducted due to the importance of language teacher identity (LTI) in the university context, which is being neglected in the present literature (in an attempt to address the gap in the present literature). The broader aim of this study is to bring attention to language teacher identity along with the different influencing elements which can either promote or hinder its development. In this research, we are using the sociocultural theory and post-structural theory. This research uses the mixed methods approach to collect and analyse relevant data. A structured survey was distributed to language teachers from different universities around Algeria, followed by in-depth interviews. Results are supposed to show the different points in self-perception that these teachers share or differ in. they will also help us identify the different internal and external factors that can be of influence. However, the results of this research can be used by institutions as well as decision-makers to better understand university teachers and help them improve their teaching practices by empowering their language teacher identity, starting from teacher education programs to continuous teacher development programs.

Keywords: identity, language teacher identity, multilingualism, university teacher

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Authors: Timur Zhukov, Yuko Yamashita

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Music as a product of hedonic consumption has been researched at least since the early 20th century, but little light has been shed on how language affects its consumption process. At the intersection of music consumption, language impact, and consumer behavior, this research explores the influence of language on music consumption in Japan. Its aim is to clarify how listening to music in different languages affects the listener’s purchase intention and sharing intention by conducting a survey where respondents listen to three versions of the same song in different languages in random order. It uses an existing framework that views the flow of music consumption as a combination of responses (emotional response, sensory response, imaginal response, analytical responses) affecting the experiential response, which then affects the overall affective response, followed by the need to reexperience and lastly the purchase intention. In this research, the sharing intention has been added to the model to better fit the modern consumption model (e.g., AISAS). This research shows how positive and negative emotions and imaginal and analytical responses change depending on the language and what impact it has on consumer behavior. It concludes by proposing how modern music businesses can learn from the language differences and cater to the needs of the audiences who speak different languages.

Keywords: AISAS, consumer behavior, first language, music consumption, second language

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Authors: Canan Duzan

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For most language learners, mastery of the speaking skill is the proof of the mastery of the foreign language. On the other hand, the speaking skill is considered as the most difficult aspect of language learning to develop for both learners and teachers. Especially in countries like Turkey where exposure to the target language is minimum and resources and opportunities provided for language practice are scarce, teaching and learning to speak the language become a real struggle for teachers and learners alike. Data collected from students, instructors, faculty members and the business sector in needs analysis studies conducted previously at Middle East Technical University (METU) consistently revealed the need for addressing the problem of lack of confidence in speaking English. Action was taken during the design of the only EAP speaking course offered in Modern Languages Department since lack of confidence is considered to be a serious barrier for effective communication and causes learners to suffer from insecurity, uncertainty and fear. “Confidence building” served as the guiding principle in the syllabus design, nature of the tasks created for the course and the assessment procedures to help learners become more confident speakers of English. In order to see the effectiveness of the decisions made during the design phase of the course and whether students become more confident speakers upon completion of the course, a case study was carried out with 100 students at METU. A questionnaire including both Likert-Scale and open-ended items were administered to students to collect data and this data were analyzed using the SPSS program. Group interviews were also carried out to gain more insight into the effectiveness of the course in terms of building speaking confidence. This presentation will explore the specific actions taken to develop students’ confidence based on the findings of program evaluation studies and to what extent the students believe these actions to be effective in improving their confidence. The unique design of this course and strategies adopted for confidence building are highly applicable in other EAP contexts and may yield similar positive results.

Keywords: confidence, EAP, speaking, strategy

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Authors: Rendani Mercy Makhwathana

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This paper intends to explore teachers' encounters when teaching English First Additional Language in rural public schools. Teachers are pillars of any education system around the globe. Educational transformations hinge on them as critical role players in the education system. Thus, teachers' encounters are worth consideration, for they impact learners' learning and the well-being of education in general. An exploratory qualitative approach was used in this paper. The population for this paper comprised all Foundation Phase teachers in the district. A purposive sample of 15 Foundation Phase teachers from five rural-based schools was used. Data were collected through classroom observation and individual face-to-face interviews. Data were categorized, analyzed, and interpreted. Amongst the revealed teachers' encounters are learners' inability to read and write and learners' lack of English language background and learners' lack of the vocabulary to express themselves. This paper recommends the provision of relevant resources and support to effectively teach English First Additional Language to enable learners' engagement and effective use of the English language.

Keywords: first additional language, english second language, medium of instruction, teacher professional development

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Authors: Dielleza Namani, Laureta Kadrijaj-Qerimi

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Neurolinguistics studies the relationship between the brain and language. It is a subject not often found in the syllabus of universities in the Balkans but more spread in Europe and especially the United States of America. The purpose of this study is to see what importance this subject has for studies in the English language department. It contains an analysis of other research papers written regarding neurolinguistics, a questionnaire made for professors and deans at private and public universities in Kosovo, and an interview with a neurolinguistics professor in England. Since this subject is not found in the syllabus of any of the universities in Kosovo, the researchers wanted to find out why this happens but, at the same time, provide reasons why they should consider having it in the future. The results showed that for this subject, there had been researching made, but not enough so far, which gives more information and feedback on why it needs to be in the syllabus, and how linguists can use the knowledge they receive from this subject in their workplace. Also, the professors and deans see this subject as too medical for their students to learn and not necessary for their future jobs. Hopefully, in the near future, there will be more research done on why this is important and how English language students can benefit from it.

Keywords: English language department, neurolinguistics, second language acquisition, teaching methods

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Authors: Chu-Ching Hsu

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This paper focuses on how the government-led language policies and the political changes in Taiwan manipulate the languages choice in translations and what translation strategies are employed by the translator to show his or her language ideology behind the power struggles and decision-making. Therefore, framed by Lefevere’s theoretical concept of translating as rewriting, and carried out a diachronic and chronological study, this paper specifically sets out to investigate the language ideology and translator’s idiolect of Chinese language translations of Anglo-American novels. The examples drawn to explore these issues were taken from different versions of Chinese renditions of Mark Twain’s English-language novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in which there are several different dialogues originally written in the colloquial language and dialect used in the American state of Mississippi and reproduced in Mark Twain’s works. Also, adapted corpus methodology, many examples are extracted as instances from the translated texts and source text, to illuminate how the translators in Taiwan deal with the dialectal features encoded in Twain’s works, and how different versions of Chinese translations are employed by Taiwanese translators to confirm the language polices and to express their language identity textually in different periods of the past five decades, from the 1960s onward. The finding of this study suggests that the use of Taiwanese dialect and language patterns in translations does relate to the movement of the mother-tongue language and language ideology of the translator as well as to the issue of language identity raised in the island of Taiwan. Furthermore, this study confirms that the change of political power in Taiwan does bring significantly impact in language policy-- assimilationism, pluralism or multiculturalism, which also makes Taiwan from a monolingual to multilingual society, where the language ideology and identity can be revealed not only in people’s daily communication but also in written translations.

Keywords: language politics and policies, literary translation, mother-tongue, multiculturalism, translator’s ideology

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Authors: Hamed Alizadeh Dashagholi, Hossein Yousefi-Banaem, Mina Naeimi

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Current study established for EEG signal analysis in patients with language disorder. Language disorder can be defined as meaningful delay in the use or understanding of spoken or written language. The disorder can include the content or meaning of language, its form, or its use. Here we applied Z-score, power spectrum, and coherence methods to discriminate the language disorder data from healthy ones. Power spectrum of each channel in alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and theta frequency bands was measured. In addition, intra hemispheric Z-score obtained by scoring algorithm. Obtained results showed high Z-score and power spectrum in posterior regions. Therefore, we can conclude that peoples with language disorder have high brain activity in frontal region of brain in comparison with healthy peoples. Results showed that high coherence correlates with irregularities in the ERP and is often found during complex task, whereas low coherence is often found in pathological conditions. The results of the Z-score analysis of the brain dynamics showed higher Z-score peak frequency in delta, theta and beta sub bands of Language Disorder patients. In this analysis there were activity signs in both hemispheres and the left-dominant hemisphere was more active than the right.

Keywords: EEG, electroencephalography, coherence methods, language disorder, power spectrum, z-score

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Authors: Sannikumar Patel, Brian Nolan, Markus Hofmann, Philip Owende, Kunjan Patel

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Sentiment analysis and opinion mining have become emerging topics of research in recent years but most of the work is focused on data in the English language. A comprehensive research and analysis are essential which considers multiple languages, machine translation techniques, and different classifiers. This paper presents, a comparative analysis of different approaches for multilingual sentiment analysis. These approaches are divided into two parts: one using classification of text without language translation and second using the translation of testing data to a target language, such as English, before classification. The presented research and results are useful for understanding whether machine translation should be used for multilingual sentiment analysis or building language specific sentiment classification systems is a better approach. The effects of language translation techniques, features, and accuracy of various classifiers for multilingual sentiment analysis is also discussed in this study.

Keywords: cross-language analysis, machine learning, machine translation, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Sugandhi, Parteek Kumar, Sanmeet Kaur

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Sign Language (SL) is used by deaf and other people who cannot speak but can hear or have a problem with spoken languages due to some disability. It is a visual gesture language that makes use of either one hand or both hands, arms, face, body to convey meanings and thoughts. SL automation system is an effective way which provides an interface to communicate with normal people using a computer. In this paper, an avatar based dictionary has been proposed for text to Indian Sign Language (ISL) generation system. This research work will also depict a literature review on SL corpus available for various SL s over the years. For ISL generation system, a written form of SL is required and there are certain techniques available for writing the SL. The system uses Hamburg sign language Notation System (HamNoSys) and Signing Gesture Mark-up Language (SiGML) for ISL generation. It is developed in PHP using Web Graphics Library (WebGL) technology for 3D avatar animation. A multilingual ISL dictionary is developed using HamNoSys for both English and Hindi Language. This dictionary will be used as a database to associate signs with words or phrases of a spoken language. It provides an interface for admin panel to manage the dictionary, i.e., modification, addition, or deletion of a word. Through this interface, HamNoSys can be developed and stored in a database and these notations can be converted into its corresponding SiGML file manually. The system takes natural language input sentence in English and Hindi language and generate 3D sign animation using an avatar. SL generation systems have potential applications in many domains such as healthcare sector, media, educational institutes, commercial sectors, transportation services etc. This research work will help the researchers to understand various techniques used for writing SL and generation of Sign Language systems.

Keywords: avatar, dictionary, HamNoSys, hearing impaired, Indian sign language (ISL), sign language

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Authors: Hevriani Sevrika Mayuasti

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This research deals in improving college students’ critical thinking at English for Specific Purposes Subject. The strategy that is applied is Bloom’s Critical Thinking Questioning Strategy. The positive side of this strategy is that the given questions are developed based on Bloom’s taxonomy level. It is an action research because the researcher uses own class in doing this research. The processes of this research have been done from April to Mei 2014. There are two cycles and each cycle consists of two meetings. After doing the research, it is gotten that Bloom’s Critical Thinking Questioning Strategy improves college students’ critical thinking. It helps the students to build and elaborate their ideas. Hence, it increases students’ reading comprehension.

Keywords: critical thinking, blooms’ critical thinking, questioning, strategy

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Authors: Jiao Li

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Language teachers have been expected to play diversified new roles in times of educational changes. Considering the critical role that materials play in teaching and learning, language teachers have been increasingly involved in developing materials. Using identity as an analytic lens, this study aims to explore language teachers’ experiences as materials developers in China, focusing on the challenges they face and responses to them. It will adopt a multimethod approach. At the first stage, about 12 language teachers who have developed or are developing materials will be interviewed to have a broad view of their experiences. At the second stage, three language teachers who are developing materials will be studied by collecting interview data, policy documents, and data obtained from online observation of their group meetings so as to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences in materials development. It is expected that this study would have implications for teacher development, materials development, and curriculum development as well.

Keywords: educational changes, teacher development, teacher identity, teacher learning, materials development

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Authors: Mary Jane Suarez

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A massive educational overhaul has taken place at the onset of the 21st century addressing the mismatches of employability skills with that of scholastic skills taught in schools. For a community to thrive in an ever-developing economy, the teaching of the necessary skills for job competencies should be realized by every educational institution. However, in harnessing 21st-century skills amongst learners, teachers, who often lack familiarity and thorough insights into the emerging 21st-century skills, are chained with the restraint of the need to comprehend the physiognomies of 21st-century skills learning and the requisite to implement the tenets of 21st-century skills teaching. With the endeavor to espouse 21st-century skills learning and teaching, a United States-based national coalition called Partnership 21st Century Skills (P21) has identified the four most important skills in 21st-century learning: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation with an established framework for 21st-century skills standards. Assessment of skills is the lifeblood of every teaching and learning encounter. It is correspondingly crucial to look at the 21st century standards and the assessment guides recognized by P21 to ensure that learners are 21st century ready. This mixed-method study sought to discover and describe what classroom assessments were used by English teachers in a public secondary school in the Philippines with course offerings on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The research evaluated the assessment tools implemented by English teachers and how these assessment tools were congruent to the 21st assessment standards of P21. A convergent parallel design was used to analyze assessment tools and practices in four phases. In the data-gathering phase, survey questionnaires, document reviews, interviews, and classroom observations were used to gather quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously, and how assessment tools and practices were consistent with the P21 framework with the four Cs as its foci. In the analysis phase, the data were treated using mean, frequency, and percentage. In the merging and interpretation phases, a side-by-side comparison was used to identify convergent and divergent aspects of the results. In conclusion, the results yielded assessments tools and practices that were inconsistent, if not at all, used by teachers. Findings showed that there were inconsistencies in implementing authentic assessments, there was a scarcity of using a rubric to critically assess 21st skills in both language and literature subjects, there were incongruencies in using portfolio and self-reflective assessments, there was an exclusion of intercultural aspects in assessing the four Cs and the lack of integrating collaboration in formative and summative assessments. As a recommendation, a harmonized assessment scheme of P21 skills was fashioned for teachers to plan, implement, and monitor classroom assessments of 21st-century skills, ensuring the alignment of such assessments to P21 standards for the furtherance of the institution’s thrust to effectively integrate 21st-century skills assessment standards to its curricula.

Keywords: 21st-century skills, 21st-century skills assessments, assessment standards, congruency, four Cs

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Authors: S. Tarighat, F. Shateri

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This study explored the relationship between L2 Willingness to Communicate (WTC) of bilinguals and monolinguals in a foreign language using a snowball sampling method to collect questionnaire data from 200 bilinguals and monolinguals studying a foreign language (FL). The results indicated a higher willingness to communicate in a foreign language (WTC-FL) performed by bilinguals compared to that of the monolinguals with a weak significance. Yet a stronger significance was found in the relationship between the age of onset of bilingualism and WTC-FL. The researcher proposed that L2 WTC is indirectly influenced by knowledge of other languages, which can boost L2 confidence and reduce L2 anxiety and consequently lead to higher L2 WTC when learning a different L2. The study also found the age of onset of bilingualism to be a predictor of L2 WTC when learning a FL. The results emphasize the importance of bilingualism and early bilingualism in particular.

Keywords: bilingualism, foreign language learning, l2 acquisition, willingness to communicate

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Authors: Nur Amalina Dayana Abd Aziz

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Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning in any syllabus in the world. Recently, a new assessment system, School-Based Assessment (SBA) was introduced and implemented in the Malaysian education system to promote a more holistic, integrated and balanced assessment system. This effort is part of the reformation made in the Government Transformation Plan (GTP) to produce a world-class human capital as we are reaching and achieving the Vision 2020 in the near future. However, this new change has raised awareness and concerns from teachers, students, parents and non-profit organizations on how the new assessment is to be implemented and how it is affecting the students and teachers particularly. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the issues that teachers face in implementing SBA in primary schools, the measures taken to address the issues and to propose ways of managing school-based assessment. Five national primary schools focusing in the urban areas in the Selangor state are chosen for this study to carry out. Data for the study will be gathered from interviews with teachers from each school, surveys and classrooms observation will be conducted in each school, and relevant documents are collected from the selected schools. The findings of this study will present the current issues that teachers from various types of national primary schools are facing and what actions they took to overcome the problems in carrying out SBA. Suggestions on how to better manage school-based assessment for teachers are also provided in this paper.

Keywords: community of practice, curriculum, managing change, school-based assessment

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Authors: Feiying Wu

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Chatbots are computer programs that attempt to engage a human in a dialogue, which originated in the 1960s with MIT's Eliza. However, they have become widespread more recently as advances in language technology have produced chatbots with increasing linguistic quality and sophistication, leading to their potential to serve as a tool for Computer-Assisted Language Learning(CALL). The aim of this article is to assess the feasibility of using two chatbots, Mitsuku and CleverBot, as pedagogical tools for learning English as a second language by stimulating L2 learners with distinct English proficiencies. Speaking of the input of stimulated learners, they are measured by AntWordProfiler to match the user's expected vocabulary proficiency. Totally, there are four chat sessions as each chatbot will converse with both beginners and advanced learners. For evaluation, it focuses on chatbots' responses from a linguistic standpoint, encompassing vocabulary and sentence levels. The vocabulary level is determined by the vocabulary range and the reaction to misspelled words. Grammatical accuracy and responsiveness to poorly formed sentences are assessed for the sentence level. In addition, the assessment of this essay sets 25% lexical and grammatical incorrect input to determine chatbots' corrective ability towards different linguistic forms. Based on statistical evidence and illustration of examples, despite the small sample size, neither Mitsuku nor CleverBot is ideal as educational tools based on their performance through word range, grammatical accuracy, topic range, and corrective feedback for incorrect words and sentences, but rather as a conversational tool for beginners of L2 English.

Keywords: chatbots, CALL, L2, corrective feedback

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Authors: Sajjad Hussain

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Technology has revolutionized the way of communication around the globe. Its use and users are multiplying with every passing minute. The current study reveals the effect of SMS on the formal writing of the students. Students are the regular users of this service and have become addict to short language. This short language is understandable to a particular community and not to the whole as it does not adhere to the Standard English writing practices. Data has been collected from quiz, assignments text and through questionaries’ which supports this postulate that students are frequently practicing it in their formal writing. Certain corrosive measures needs to be taken to address the issue. Second language learners have been found it practicing to greater extent.

Keywords: information technology, SMS, messaging, communication, social media, internet, language

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Authors: Moquan Gong

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In recent years, with the rapid development of deep learning, pre-training technology for natural language processing has made great progress. The early field of natural language processing has long used word vector methods such as Word2Vec to encode text. These word vector methods can also be regarded as static pre-training techniques. However, this context-free text representation brings very limited improvement to subsequent natural language processing tasks and cannot solve the problem of word polysemy. ELMo proposes a context-sensitive text representation method that can effectively handle polysemy problems. Since then, pre-training language models such as GPT and BERT have been proposed one after another. Among them, the BERT model has significantly improved its performance on many typical downstream tasks, greatly promoting the technological development in the field of natural language processing, and has since entered the field of natural language processing. The era of dynamic pre-training technology. Since then, a large number of pre-trained language models based on BERT and XLNet have continued to emerge, and pre-training technology has become an indispensable mainstream technology in the field of natural language processing. This article first gives an overview of pre-training technology and its development history, and introduces in detail the classic pre-training technology in the field of natural language processing, including early static pre-training technology and classic dynamic pre-training technology; and then briefly sorts out a series of enlightening technologies. Pre-training technology, including improved models based on BERT and XLNet; on this basis, analyze the problems faced by current pre-training technology research; finally, look forward to the future development trend of pre-training technology.

Keywords: natural language processing, pre-training, language model, word vectors

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Authors: Vishal D. Pandya

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A great deal of perceptible change has been taking place in the way our institutions of higher learning are being managed in India today. It is believed that managers, whose intuition proves to be accurate, often tend to be the most successful, and this is what makes them almost like entrepreneurs. A certain entrepreneurial spirit is what is expected and requires a degree of insight of the manager to be successful depending upon the situational and more importantly, the heterogeneity as well as the socio-cultural aspect. Teachers in Higher Education have to play multiple roles to make sure that the Learning-Teaching process becomes effective in the real sense of the term. This paper makes an effort to take a close look at that, especially in the context of the management of English language teaching in Higher Education and, therefore, focuses on the management of English language teaching in higher education by understanding target situation analyses at the socio-cultural level.

Keywords: management, language teaching, English language teaching, higher education

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Authors: Minseock Seo

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Dental education consists of both theoretical and practical learning for students. When dental students encounter practical courses as a new educational experience, they must also learn to evaluate themselves. The aim of this study was to investigate the self-assessment scores of third-year dental students and compare with the scores graded by the faculty in preclinical endodontic practice in a dental school in Korea. Faculty- and student-assigned scores were calculated from preclinical endodontic practice performed on phantom patients. The students were formally instructed on grading procedures for endodontic treatment. After each step, each item was assessed by the student. The students’ self-assessment score was then compared to the score by the faculty. The students were divided into 4 groups by analyzing the scores of self-assessment and faculty-assessment and statistically analyzed by summing the theoretical and practical examination scores. In the theoretical exam score, the group who over-estimated their performance (H group) was lower than the group with lower evaluation (L group). When comparing the first and last score determined by the faculty, H groups didn’t show any improvement, while the other group did. In H group, the less improvement of the self-assessment, the higher the theoretical exam score. In L group, the higher improvement of the self-assessment, the better the theoretical exam score. The results point to the need to develop students’ self-insight with more exercises and practical training.

Keywords: dental students, endodontic, preclinical practice, self-assessment

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Authors: Raluca-Ioana Antonescu

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The field research of the paper stands at the intersection between Linguistics and Sociology, while the problem of the research is the importance of language in the modernization process and in a globalized society. The research objective is to prove that language is a stimulant for modernity, while it defines the tradition and the culture of a specific society. In order to examine the linguistic change of the Korean language due to the modernity and globalization, the paper tries to answer one main question, What are the changes the Korean language underwent from a traditional version of Korean, towards one influenced by modernity?, and two secondary questions, How are explored in specialized literature the relations between globalization (and modernity) and culture (focusing on language)? and What influences the Korean language? For the purpose of answering the research questions, the paper has the main premise that due to modernity and globalization, the Korean language changed its discourse construction, and two secondary hypothesis, first is that in literature there are not much explored the relations between culture and modernity focusing on the language discourse construction, but more about identity issue and commodification problems, and the second hypothesis is that the Korean language is influenced by traditional values (like Confucianism) while receiving influence also of globalization process (especially from English language). In terms of methodology, the paper will analyze the two main influences upon the Korean language, referring to traditionalism (being defined as the influence of Confucianism) and modernism (as the influence of other countries’ language and culture), and how the Korean language it was constructed and modified due to these two elements. The paper will analyze at what level (grammatical, lexical, etc.) the traditionalism help at the construction of the Korean language, and what are the changes at each level that modernism brought along. As for the results of this research, the influence of modernism changed both lexically and grammatically the Korean language. In 60 years the increase of English influence is astonishing, and this paper shows the main changes the Korean language underwent, like the loanwords (Konglish), but also the reduction of the speech levels and the ease of the register variation use. Therefore the grammatical influence of modernity and globalization could be seen at the reduction of the speech level and register variation, while the lexical change comes with the influence of English language especially, where about 10% of the Korean vocabulary is considered to be loanwords. Also the paper presents the interrelation between traditionalism and modernity, with the example of Konglish, but not only (we can consider also the Korean greetings which are translated by Koreans when they speak in other languages, bringing their cultural characteristics in English discourse construction), which makes the Koreans global, since they speak in an international language, but still local since they cannot get rid completely of their culture.

Keywords: Confucianism, globalization, language and linguistic change, modernism, traditionalism

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Authors: Yigal Rosen, Garrett Jaeger, Michelle Newstadt, Ilia Rushkin, Sara Bakken

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All children are capable of advancing their creative thinking skills and engaging in creative play. Creative play puts children in charge of exploring ideas, relationships, spaces and problems. Supported by The LEGO Foundation, the creative thinking formative assessment is designed to provide valid, reliable and informative measurement to support the development of creative skills while children are engaged in Learning through Play. In this paper we provide an overview of the assessment framework underpinned the assessment of creative thinking and report the results from the 2022 pilot study demonstrating promising evidence on the ability to measure creative skills in a conceptually and ecologically valid way to inform the development of creative skills.

Keywords: creativity, creative thinking, assessment, learning through play, creative play, learning progressions

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Authors: Maaly Jarrah

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In a study abroad context, students have the advantage of immersing themselves in the environment of the target language and being exposed to it. However, in and a stay home context, where English is not the mother tongue, students’ exposure to the second language is often times restricted to the classroom. Although language teachers are keen to develop inside class room activities and practices that increase the suitability of students to acquire a second language (Cook & Singleton, 2014), many would agree that class time is too limited to enhance students’ oral fluency skills. Consequently, creating opportunities outside the classroom for students to speak English is an effective strategy in compensating for students’ limited use of the L2. In an argument by Ortega (2012) external classroom activities have equal significance in enabling students learn English as a second language. The author further asserts that the activities provide a non-educational environment from which a student may feel free and comfortable to acquire new language skills. This study investigates the significance of outside classroom activities in promoting students’ oral proficiency. In addition, it reports on students’ perceptions of such activities. 15 participants from the American University of Kuwait took part in this study. Open-ended interviews were done to find out what the participants thought of these activities, and what they gained from them. Interview results show that students found outside classroom activities very effective in improving not only their oral fluency skills, but their confidence and critical thinking skills as well. The implications of this research study are for language practitioners and language programs in the EFL context to be aware of the benefits of incorporating outside classroom activities in language teaching.

Keywords: language teaching, oral fluency, outside classroom activities

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Authors: Rabih Joseph Nabhan

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This case study explores the impact of two major computer software programs Learn to Speak English and Learn English Spelling and Pronunciation, and some Internet search engines such as Google on mending the decoding and spelling deficiency of Simon X, a dyslexic student. The improvement in decoding and spelling may result in better reading comprehension and composition writing. Some computer programs and Internet materials can help regain the missing awareness and consequently restore his self-confidence and self-esteem. In addition, this study provides a systematic plan comprising a set of activities (four computer programs and Internet materials) which address the problem from the lowest to the highest levels of phoneme and phonological awareness. Four methods of data collection (accounts, observations, published tests, and interviews) create the triangulation to validly and reliably collect data before the plan, during the plan, and after the plan. The data collected are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Sometimes the analysis is either quantitative or qualitative, and some other times a combination of both. Tables and figures are utilized to provide a clear and uncomplicated illustration of some data. The improvement in the decoding, spelling, reading comprehension, and composition writing skills that occurred is proved through the use of authentic materials performed by the student under study. Such materials are a comparison between two sample passages written by the learner before and after the plan, a genuine computer chat conversation, and the scores of the academic year that followed the execution of the plan. Based on these results, the researcher recommends further studies on other Lebanese dyslexic learners using the computer to mend their language problem in order to design and make a most reliable software program that can address this disability more efficiently and successfully.

Keywords: analysis, awareness, dyslexic, software

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