Teaching and Assessing Foreign Language Learning through Apps

Languages change and develop together with human race. As time goes on, languages adapt to human beings’ needs and preferences. This also applies to foreign language learning and teaching processes, which keep on renovating their approaches and teaching methods in order to connect to learners’ needs in modern times. Nowadays, information and communication technologies (ICT) play such an important role in our everyday lives that they have also found their way into this field. This has given rise to constant innovations such as Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL). Although MALL has existed for more than twenty years, it still undergoes changes and even faces some challenges. Currently, apps appear as new ways of approaching foreign language learning and teaching. In this paper, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is conducted, in which MALL studies on the use of apps are examined. The purpose of this analysis is to determine if their use is increasing, on the one hand, and, on the other, to present the tendencies these papers reveal. To this end, a total of 35 valid studies published from 2012 to 2015 are thoroughly analysed, focusing on both the different types of learning supported by the apps and on the kind of assessment the papers propose. The results show that the use of apps in MALL is increasing, but also that the type of learning supported by most apps is not very different from that of traditional learning approaches.Las lenguas cambian y avanzan junto con la raza humana, adaptándose a nuestras necesidades y preferencias a medida que el tiempo transcurre. Esta misma idea se puede aplicar a la enseñanza y aprendizaje de idiomas extranjeros, cuyos métodos se renuevan continuamente con el fin de conectar con las necesidades de los alumnos en tiempos modernos. Como resultado del papel tan importante que hoy juegan las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC) en nuestras vidas, estas han sido integradas en el mundo de los idiomas. Esto ha dado lugar a continuas mejoras como el aprendizaje de idiomas mediante tecnología móvil. A pesar de que esta disciplina nació hace más de veinte años, todavía sufre cambios e incluso se enfrenta a algunos desafíos. Actualmente, las apps se han convertido en nuevas formas de enfrentarse a la enseñanza y al aprendizaje de idiomas. En este trabajo, se lleva a cabo un estudio sistemático de la literatura existente, en el que se analizan publicaciones donde se expone el uso o la presentación de apps con este propósito. El objetivo de este análisis es demostrar que su uso está en aumento, así como estudiar las tendencias que se presentan en ellas. Para ello, se pretende estudiar a fondo 35 estudios válidos publicados entre 2012 y 2015, centrándonos especialmente en los diferentes tipos de aprendizaje que las apps soportan y los tipos de evaluación propuestos. Los resultados obtenidos apuntan que el uso de apps en la enseñanza de idiomas está en aumento, pero también que el tipo de aprendizaje que estas soportan no es muy diferente de aquel propuesto por métodos tradicionales

MOBILE ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING (MALL):Teacher uses of smartphone applications (apps) to support undergraduate students’ English as a Foreign Language (EFL) vocabulary development

The purpose of this study is to highlight how smartphones, specifically smartphone applications, can be integrated into the vocabulary development of adult English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or English for Academic Studies (EAS) context. In the literature on Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL), it is largely claimed that the development of language-related technology is on the increase and that the number of tech-savvy students will also grow in the future. These ubiquitous tools, which may also be defined as widely-used, could potentially improve teaching and learning outcomes in vocabulary development, especially through applications installed on smartphones. However, schools and other higher education institutes have not yet fully integrated these devices into their courses and have mostly perceived them as distractors. Moreover, there is limited research on how smartphones could be utilised sensibly, both inside and outside the classroom. This study, therefore, aims to explore methods and approaches which could facilitate vocabulary development and pre-teach EAP words outside the classroom through smartphone applications, while saving in-class time for other activities. The focus in the present study is on vocabulary development, as it is considered to be a priority area in language learning. The majority of language teachers and applied linguistic researchers have recognised the importance of vocabulary learning and aim to promote it further. McCarthy (1990) promotes the idea further, stating that the single, biggest component of any language course through the experience of most language teachers is vocabulary. It is the knowledge of words, which expresses a wide range of meaning. The participants in the present study were required to develop their academic vocabulary, this being a common problem area for EFL learners. Academic vocabulary development is important for them, because when submitting academic assignments, learners have a pressing need to use advanced level academic vocabulary items. This study was conducted using a case-study approach focusing on 20 EFL students at a university in Britain who were attending Pre-sessional EAP classes during the period of the study. Uses of smartphone applications were developed by the teacher, who also acted as the researcher in this study. The focus has been on the students’ perceptions, opinions and overall experience of using these smartphone applications in their EAP vocabulary development, as well as how effective they were. The intention was to discover how the tools can be incorporated into the learning process. The data were collected through questionnaires, a pre-test and a post-test, interviews, diaries and the researcher’s logbook. The latter included a written report of the students’ daily activities and learning experiences, their challenges and success/lack of success in learning. The study provides a rich description and analysis of the effectiveness of smartphone applications in vocabulary development mainly through qualitative data analysis. Limited use of quantitative analysis is made when reporting through numbers and percentages as well as displaying figures. It is anticipated that the results of the study will help to determine the appropriate use of smartphone applications in the vocabulary development of adult EFL students

Developing Learning System in Pesantren The Role of ICT

According to Krashen's affective filter hypothesis, students who are highly motivated have a strong sense of self, enter a learning context with a low level of anxiety, and are much more likely to become successful language acquirers than those who do not. Affective factors, such as motivation, attitude, and anxiety, have a direct impact on foreign language acquisition. Horwitz et al. (1986) mentioned that many language learners feel anxious when learning foreign languages. Thus, this study recruits 100 college students to fill out the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) to investigate language learning anxiety. Then, this study designs and develops an affective tutoring system (ATS) to conduct an empirical study. The study aims to improve students’ learning interest by recognizing their emotional states during their learning processes and provide adequate feedback. It is expected to enhance learners' motivation and interest via affective instructional design and then improve their learning performance

Self-perceptions of communicative competence: exploring self-views among first year students in a Mexican university

This research assessed students’ self-perception of communicative competence in EFL in a Mexican university. I argued there was a gap in the knowledge available in the field at the tertiary education level in Mexico that needed filling because of the impact that self-perception has on individuals’ decisions to act, in this case, to engage in communication acts in the foreign language. The objectives guiding my research were: first, to address the information gap; second, to test the scale created for this study (CCQ); and third, to explore influences on students’ self-perceptions in this context. Self-perception and its cognitive (efficacy) and affective (confidence) elements were proposed as the aspects of the self-concept to be addressed. Evidence supported identifying Language Identity, Attribution Theory, and Ideal and Ought-to Self Theory as emerging frameworks to understand students’ self-perceptions. Willingness to communicate was also related to this research. A mixed methods approach was followed: A quantitative survey (CCQ) assessed self-perception for a sample of first year university students (n=372); PCA was conducted on the scale and reliability was established (Cronbach alpha .950). Descriptive statistics of background variables displayed the characteristics of the sample. Independent samples t-tests explored differences between self-perception and two-group variables, while one-way between groups ANOVA was applied to variables with three or more groups. Effect size (eta square) helped determine the strength of the relationships found. Two focus group sessions (n=5) comprised the qualitative component of the inquiry (investigated with exploratory thematic analysis), designed to explore influences sustaining participants’ self-perceptions and concepts about English in the era of globalisation. CCQ analysis provided an overall mean score (M=2.98), suggesting a moderately positive self-perception among the sample. Contrastingly, qualitative data revealed that participants’ self-perceptions, constructed from social and personal influences, were constantly short of the communicatively competent ideal and ought-to selves. The analysis suggested complex interrelationships between self-confidence and self-efficacy were behind consistently fragile self-perceptions of communicative competence in EFL in this setting. The tension between the data (highlighted by the complementary use of mixed methods of data collection), and the contextual and methodological limitations are discussed. The implications of the investigation include both macro and micro levels of analysis. Further recommendations include longitudinal studies and individual interviews to collect richer data about participants’ personal experiences in EFL. The contributions to knowledge are: First, the inquiry addressed the knowledge gap about students’ self-perceptions of communicative competence at university in the EFL context. Second, a new context-specific scale measuring self-perception (CCQ) was developed and validated for the university setting. Third, I offer a theoretical model relating self-perception, self-efficacy, and self-confidence, and a proposition of the influence of the theories identified on the social context and the self. In conclusion, university students’ self-perceptions of communicative competence were analysed and the outcome showed an overall picture of moderately positive self-perception among the cohort. Further analysis revealed a contrasting story of very low perceptions among individual students and the influences shaping self-perceptions were explored

(non)native Speakering: The (dis)invention Of (non)native Speakered Subjectivities In A Graduate Teacher Education Program

Despite its imprecision, the native-nonnative dichotomy has become the dominant paradigm for categorizing language users, learners, and educators. The “NNEST Movement” has been instrumental in documenting the privilege of native speakers, the marginalization of their nonnative counterparts, and why an individual may be perceived as one or the other. Although these efforts have contributed significantly towards increasing awareness of NNEST-hood, they also risk reifying nativeness and nonnativeness as objectively distinct categories. In this dissertation, I adopt a poststructuralist lens to reconceptualize native and nonnative speakers as complex, negotiated social subjectivities that emerge through a discursive process that I term (non)native speakering. I first use this framework to analyze the historico-political milieu that made possible the emergence of (non)native speakered subjectivities. Then, I turn to the production of (non)native speakered subjectivities in K-12 and higher education language policies, as well as their impact on the professional identity development of pre-service teachers. Next, I consider the relationship between (non)native speakering and other processes of linguistic marginalization in which language is implicit, as well as how teacher educators can resist (non)native speakering and move towards a more equitable paradigm of language and language education. This inquiry draws on qualitative data from teacher education courses at a large US university, including course texts, policy documents, observational field notes, interviews, and focus group data. In the conclusion, I consider the implications of (non)native speakering as a theoretical and analytical frame, as well as applications of the data for teacher education settings, and possible directions for future research. By reconceptualizing (non)native status as socially and discursively produced, this project provides a new lens for the critical examination of teacher education curricula, professional identity formation, and language education policy. Finally, it contributes to a theory of change and encourages a move towards more inclusive language teaching fields

Statistical modelling of lexical and syntactic complexity of postgraduate academic writing: a genre and corpus-based study of EFL,ESL, and English L1 M.A. dissertations

This research is an interdisciplinary study that adopts the principles of corpus linguistics and the methods of quantitative linguistics and statistical modelling to analyse the rhetorical sections of MA dissertations written by EFL, ESL, and English L1 postgraduate students. A discipline-specific corpus was analysed for 22 lexical and 11 syntactic complexity measures using three natural language processing tools [LCA-AW, TAALED, Coh Metrix] to find differences of academic texts by English L1 vs. L2 and to investigate the relationship between these linguistic indices. Structural factor analyses as well as the two statistical modelling methods of linear mixed-effects modelling and the supervised machine learning predictive classification modelling were then employed to verify the existing classification of the complexity indices, to explore their further dimensions, to investigate the effects of English language background and rhetorical sections on the production of lexically and syntactically complex texts, and finally to predict models that can best classify the group membership and the membership to the rhetorical sections based on the values of these measures. This investigation resulted in more than 20 specific findings with important implications for academic writing assessment of English L1 vs. L2, for academic writing research on rhetorical sections of English academic texts, for academic writing instruction especially materials development and syllabus designs in the EFL contexts, and academic immersion programmes, for the measure-testing and selection processes, and for methodological aspects of statistical modelling in corpus-based academic studies

Enhancing Listening and Spoken Skills in Spanish Connected Speech for Anglophones

Native speech is directed towards native listeners, not designed for comprehension and analysis by language learners. Speed of delivery, or economy of effort, produces a speech signal to which the native listener can assign the correct words. There are no discrete words in the speech signal itself therefore there is often a linguistic barrier in dealing with the local spoken language.The creation, development and application of the Dynamic Spanish Speech Corpus (DSSC) facilitated an empirically-based appreciation of speaking speed and prosody as obstacles to intelligibility for learners of Spanish. “Duologues”, natural, relaxed dialogues recorded in such a manner that each interlocutor’s performance can be studied in isolation, thus avoiding problems normally caused by cross-talk and back-channelling, made possible the identification of the key phonetic features of informal native-native dialogue, and ultimately, the creation of high quality assets/ research data based on natural (unscripted) dialogues recorded at industry audio standards.These assets were used in this study, which involved documenting productive and receptive intelligibility problems when L2 users are exposed to the Spanish speech of native speakers. The aim was to observe where intelligibility problems occur and to determine the reasons for this, based on effects of the first language of the subjects, and other criteria, such as number of years learning/using Spanish, previous exposure to spoken Spanish and gender. This was achieved by playing recorded extracts/ snippets from the DSSC to which a time-scaling tool was applied

Towards an Understanding of Presence in Teaching: Having and Being

Abstract The study reported in this thesis investigates the phenomenon of ‘presence' in teaching. Past research suggests that the relationship between the teacher and student is the “keystone in student achievement, motivation and engagement and in their capacity to trust what they know” (Midgley et al, 1989; Pianta, 1999; Roeser et al, 2000; cited in Rodgers & Raider-Roth, 2006: 266). Despite this, a comprehensive review of the literature has revealed that the notion of ‘presence', offering a holistic, relational, situated and dynamic lens through which to explore the essential elements of classroom interaction, has been strangely neglected to date in the educational research domain (Kornelsen, 2006; Meijer et al 2009; Rodgers & Raider-Roth, 2006). Moreover, in many teaching milieus, despite there being so little clarity about what the notion of 'presence' means in teaching terms, it appears as an observational criterion in both initial and developmental teacher education programmes, where it can be used to make judgements about teachers at different stages of their careers. Contextualised within an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) school over a nine month period on site, this phenomenological study employs individual and focus group interviews with teachers, teacher educators and students, alongside classroom observations and post-observation discussions. Findings generated by the study offer a new depth of understanding about the multi-dimensionality and complexity inherent in the notion of 'presence' in teaching and allow a critical interrogation of the ways in which it is currently being used in a school context. This highlights the potential power it has as a pedagogic construct and reveals a paradoxical duality, intrinsic to the ways in which it was construed; making it more suitable for developmental than assessment purposes. In short, this study offers a valuable holistic and existential contribution to understanding the nature of teaching, by augmenting the ways in which teachers and teaching have been construed to date. In addition, by illuminating the inherent ambiguity and paradoxes in the complex, dynamic and multi-layered meaning of ‘Presence in Teaching’, the findings have strong implications for teaching practice, teacher education programmes and in particular for the practice of teacher observation in respect of observer awareness, understanding and development; all of which are discussed in the final chapter of the thesis