Earticle

This present study tries to find out the reasons why Taiwanese learners of English language behave passively in the classroom participation. A classroom-centered multiple-case approach was employed. Data were collected from a variety of sources: video-recorded classroom observation, interviewing with teachers and students, and a questionnaire to the students. In the data elicitation process, in order to obtain detailed information from learners, when interviewing with the subject students, the researcher used learners’ answers on the questionnaire as prompts to ask for more explanations. This study identifies that learners’ reticence can be explained by a variety of reasons including keeping group harmony, the fear of losing face, the fear of showing off, the teachers’ intolerance of silence, and the insufficient wait-time. Based on these findings, suggestions are made for language teachers and educators to encourage more verbal contributions from learners.

Although writing is considered to be an indispensable language skill and is being tested in almost all important English proficiency tests, it is notoriously difficult to design a good writing task. Over the past decades, a number of studies have been done concerning the relationship between writing tasks and writing performance, with the former usually classified in terms of rhetorical mode, topic effect, features of prompts, etc. Researches so far have concluded that students’ writings are more or less affected by the writing task. However, as there are still variables left unexplained, more studies are called for. The present study examines students’ perception of two writing topics and how the writing topics actually affect writing performance. The first task (Education Essay) features a broad topic, while the second (Golf Course Essay) a more focused topic. The two sets of essays are compared in fluency, syntactic complexity, linguistic accuracy and lexical complexity as well as writing quality. It is found the majority of the students prefer the Golf Course topic, because they have more to say about it and the topic is more thought-provoking. The Golf Course topic is also found to generate better essays in terms of fluency, syntactic complexity, and lexical sophistication, a pattern consistent with students’ perceptions. The analytic rating also indicates that the participants perform significantly better in the Golf Course task. The findings of the study therefore highlight the importance of designing a writing task that can motivate students and encourage more critical thinking.

This paper investigates how different linguistic features (i.e., phonological vs. lexicogrammatical aspects of language) affect both native speaking (NS) and non-native speaking (NNS) listeners’ perceptions of comprehensibility. In the experiment, seven NS and near-native NNS listeners rated the comprehensibility of two types of NNS extemporaneous speech samples: one was carefully transcribed by the researcher and read by NSs, while the other was an unaltered collection of speech tokens recorded by NNSs. The results demonstrated two possible patterns: (a) That NNS listeners tended to show high awareness towards phonological aspects of language rather than lexicogrammatical aspects of language; and (b) the comprehensibility ratings of NS listeners were equally influenced by all kinds of linguistic errors. These findings were carefully discussed in order to inform both theoretical argument and pedagogical inquiries in practice, establishing better understanding of second language acquisition processes.

This study investigates the processing of literal and figurative meanings of L2 idioms by Korean learners of English. Based on Cieslicka’s (2006) literal-salience resonant model, which proposes that literal meanings of idioms are accessed before figurative meanings in L2 idiom processing, the present study examines the model using a different experimental task (cross-modal lexical priming vs. self-paced sentence processing in context) and learners with different L1 background (Polish L1 vs. Korean L1). Ten English idioms were embedded in sentences (e.g., He kicked the bucket) and presented in conversation-based contexts biased toward either literal or figurative meaning (He kicked the bucket = He died). A novel non-idiom sentence (He filled the bucket) was also presented for each idiom in an appropriate context. Sixty seven Korean learners of English read the contexts line by line and their reading times were measured for each line. Literal sentences were read faster than figurative sentences. This suggests that, in L2 idiom processing, the literal meaning of an idiom was processed before its figurative meaning and that figurative meaning was more difficult to compute than both literal and novel non-idiom meanings even in the presence of strong contextual cues. In general, the results of the present study are in accordance with the literal-salience resonant model when different methods and learners with different L1 background were employed.

Textbooks play a very crucial role in the process of language teaching and learning. The present study carries out an evaluation of two series of ELT textbooks used for teaching English language in Iranian high schools from 1970 to the present. For this purpose, Tucker’s (1975) textbook evaluation model is employed. Graded English and Right Path to English series were compared and contrasted. The advantages and disadvantages of each series were evaluated for pronunciation, grammar, content, and some general criteria on the basis of Tucker’s (1975) evaluation system. At the beginning of the two series, there is an introduction that attempts to clarify the intended teaching objectives, but as the results of the study show these objectives have not been realized. Based on the analysis of the two series, there are not considerable differences among Graded English and Right Path to English as far as the pronunciation criteria are concerned. Graded English and Right Path to English fall on the positive side of the continuum when it comes to the grammar criteria. This reveals, on the one hand, the fact that they are fundamentally based on the structural views of syllabus design, on the other, that Right Path to English does not completely correct the inadequacies of Graded English as far as the fundamental concepts of syllabus design are concerned. The shortcomings of Graded English and Right Path to English to accord with the communicative aspects of language teaching – or specifically syllabus design and text construction – are much more revealed in applying the content criteria and especially the criterion which focuses on the appropriateness of contexts and situations. Graded English and Right Path to English are found to have overemphasized the practice of the linguistic forms, while not many of their language learning activities actually include activities which stimulate or lead to authentic communication and language use. The researchers suggest that in the textbooks, there should be enough opportunity for the learners to communicatively practice the language they are learning.

The worldwide spread of English as an International Language (EIL) is obvious. In particular, parallel with the increasing popularity of English teaching and learning in countries where English is regarded as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL), Anglo-American culture has likewise been spread. A case in point is China, the country with the world’s largest population of English learners, where English has gained a remarkable and high status. Using a questionnaire, this study first investigates views on teaching and learning culture among students of a key provincial public university in Southern China. Following up with triangulation through selected interviews and focus group discussion, the paper furthermore presents certain reasonable models for teaching culture in China today. The findings will be analysed and discussed in terms of teaching and learning culture within the framework of World Englishes (WE) in China. This paper finally concludes that it is important to teach both the international cultures of ‘Englishes’ and the source culture alongside each other.

This study challenged the widely accepted theory that shadowing is most effective when using easier materials. This is experiment-based research with 73 learners in total. To examine if difficult materials can improve learners’ listening comprehension skills, two experiments were conducted. The first study investigated whether learners’ listening comprehension skills would improve by shadowing with difficult high school materials and what aspects of listening comprehension skills they would improve by the shadowing training. 44 Japanese first year high school students participated in the first study. 13 lessons were taught using a high level English textbook from a Japanese publisher, Crown I. The second study used authentic difficult materials to support the result of the first study and examine the effectiveness of difficult materials from a different perspective. 29 high school third year students participated in the second study and practiced 17 sets of passages in Obama speech collection. Furthermore, potential problems of shadowing were analyzed qualitatively. The results suggest that shadowing with difficult textbooks can improve students’ listening comprehension skills, and the problems the students have in listening after short-term shadowing training are addressed.