Learner Corpus Research Meets Chinese as a Second Language Acquisition: Achievements and Challenges

The article sheds light on Chinese Learner Corpus Research (CLCR), emphasizing advances and lacks in this field. First, the paper describes the potentials of learner corpora in the investigation of learner language. The specificity of learner corpus data compared to learner data in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies will be also analyzed. Second, it provides an overview of Chinese learner corpus-based research and reviews existing L2 Chinese learner corpora. The paper highlights the lack of L2 Chinese learner corpora collecting data from Italian learners and discuss the challenges and the needs of compiling L2 Chinese corpora to conduct studies on the acquisition of L2 Chinese by learners whose L1 is other than English or an Asian language. This issue is addressed by taking into account recent projects integrating the LCR methodology with L2 Chinese studies for Italian-speaking learners. Finally, the paper encourages a concrete integration between the application of the methodological framework of LCR and the implementation of the theoretical interpretation of data of SLA research in the design of Chinese acquisitional studies

Assessing Confidence in the Chinese Learner

This short paper firstly examines the cultural issues of confidence-based assessment by observing a Chinese learner group completing a multiple choice test in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The results show no indication that the Chinese students behaved differently from their UK counterparts. The second aim of this pilot study is to examine whether good confidence judgement is a measure, and so potentially a positive mediator of academic self-concept. Student responses to the confident-based test were compared with their responses to an academic self-description questionnaire. Scores from the ‘perception of ability & achievement in EFL’ scale show a positive correlation with the number of correct answers selected with high confidence. Initial results indicate that as a learning tool, confidence-based assessment may have a valuable role in the development of positive academic behaviours, for younger learners in particular

Misalignment of Learning Contexts - an explanation of the Chinese Learner Paradox.

There is considerable research evidence (e.g. Biggs 1991, Watkins et al 1990, Kember et al 1991) to suggest that East Asian learners exhibit superior learning styles and academic performance to their western counterparts at secondary and tertiary levels. This is a surprising outcome given the less favourable educational environment of most East Asian societies (such as large class size, expository teaching methodology, highly competitive exam system and exam-oriented curriculum) which, according to educational literature, is more conducive to surface learning and atomistic learning outcome. This seemingly contradictory situation, known as the Chinese Learner Paradox (Marton et al, 1993), has been the subject of quantitative and qualitative educational researches since the late 1980s. However, existing research has tended not to examine the impacts of different assessment regimes (i.e. exam essay, short answer question, MCQ test, term essay, reflective journal, practicum etc) on the learning process. More specifically, they did not investigate the interaction of learning approaches with assessment types in influencing learning outcomes in cross-cultural studies. In this study intensive semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 tertiary students, consisting of 5 East Asian and 5 local Australian students in Brisbane, the overriding aim being to investigate their ideas of learning, and their approaches to learning for written assignments and for exams, to establish whether cultural difference is a determining influence on the learning process. Preliminary results suggest a different way of interpreting and explaining the paradox.

What Can Sla Learn From Contrastive Corpus Linguistics? the Case of Passive Constructions in Chinese Learner English

This article seeks to demonstrate the predictive and diagnostic power of the integrated approach that combines contrastive corpus linguistics with interlanguage analysis in second language acquisition research, via a case study of passive constructions in Chinese learner English. The type of corpora used in contrastive corpus linguistics is first discussed, which is followed by a summary of the findings from a published contrastive study of passive constructions in English and Chinese based on comparable corpora of the two languages. These findings are in turn used to predict and diagnose the performance of Chinese learners of English in their use of English passives as mirrored in a sizeable Chinese learner English corpus in comparison with a comparable native English corpus

Intensifier-Verb Collocations in Academic English by Chinese Learners Compared to Native-Speaker Students

It is difficult for L2 English learners in general, and especially Chinese learners of English, to form idiomatic collocations. This article presents a comparison of the use of intensifier-verb collocations in English by native speaker students and Chinese ESL learners, paying particular attention to verbs which collocate with intensifiers. The data consisted of written production from three corpora: two of these are native English corpora: the British Academic Written English (BAWE) Corpus and Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The third one is a recently created Chinese Learner English corpus, Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners (TECCL). Findings suggest that Chinese learners of English produce significantly more intensifier-verb collocations than native speaker students, but that their English attests a smaller variety of intensifier-verb collocations compared with the native speakers. Moreover, Chinese learners of English use the intensifier-verb collocation types just-verb, only-verb and really-verb very frequently compared with native speaker students. As regards verb collocates, the intensifiers hardly, clearly, well, strongly and deeply collocate with semantically different verbs in native and Chinese learner English. Compared with the patterns in Chinese learner English, the intensifiers in native speaker English collocate with a more stable and restricted set of verb collocates.Peer reviewe

Understanding the Chinese learner and teacher today

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WHAT CAN SLA LEARN FROM CONTRASTIVE CORPUS LINGUISTICS? THE CASE OF PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE LEARNER ENGLISH

This article seeks to demonstrate the predictive and diagnostic power of the integrated approach that combines contrastive corpus linguistics with interlanguage analysis in second language acquisition research, via a case study of passive constructions in Chinese learner English. The type of corpora used in contrastive corpus linguistics is first discussed, which is followed by a summary of the findings from a published contrastive study of passive constructions in English and Chinese based on comparable corpora of the two languages. These findings are in turn used to predict and diagnose the performance of Chinese learners of English in their use of English passives as mirrored in a sizeable Chinese learner English corpus in comparison with a comparable native English corpus. Keywords: contrastive analysis, corpus, learner English, passive construction, Chinese