An Overview of Studies Conducted on Washback, Impact and Validity

This article aimed at presenting a comprehensive overview of three interrelated concepts of washback, impact and validity in language testing and a myriad of studies conducted at different places to investigate the influence of testing on teachers and teaching, textbooks, learners and learning, attitudes toward testing, test preparation behaviors, etc.. Some of these studies present the results of various investigations on the influence of a national English examination on the local English language teaching and learning due to its high-stakes nature in particular countries such as Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Iran, Israel, Japan, Romania, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan. Some others cover a wide range of worldwide investigation on English testing such as the IELTS, TOEFL, and MECC. Moreover, there is a complete report of several important projects appointed by major testing agencies such as Cambridge ESOL and Educational Testing Services (ETS) on washback and impact studies. The article proceeds by reviewing the relevant literature on test validation which is a key concept in language testing domain since it is concerned with test interpretation and use. This domain is characterized and enriched by studies of washback and impact

Interpreters’ Perceptions on Their Profession and Quality in Malaysian Conference Interpreting

Interpreters’ perceptions about their profession and quality of interpreting were explored by a survey in five international conferences to fill in the gap between research and practice in conference interpreting and quality expectations in a Malaysian setting. Open-ended questions formed the main part of the questionnaire, adapted from Moser (1995). Analysis of the eleven participants’ responses showed that interpreters describe their profession as “communication facilitators”. Interpreters indicated adapting with the speaker’s speed as the most difficult aspect of interpreting. Time constraints, lack of knowledge, familiarity with the terminology, and technical problems were the most problematic issues and main difficulties in conference interpreting. Environmental conditions, interpreters’ insufficient technical knowledge, incorrect terminology, and mistranslation were marked as other important problems of conference interpreting

Language Trajectory through Corrective Feedback

This quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the effects of corrective feedback on SLA/EFL to determine the potential benefits of two different corrective feedback techniques, namely recasts and elicitation. The research hypotheses were: 1) Learners who are exposed to interactive focused task that requires CR will benefit more than those who are exposed to communicative activities only; 2) Elicitation will be more effective than recasts in leading to L2 development; Three intensive EFL classes in a language center in Songkhla province, Thailand were selected to participate in the study. Based on the study design, two class were assigned to the treatment conditions elicitation group and recasts group and the third was used as a control group. The treatment took place over a period of 9 meetings focusing on teaching third person singular –s morpheme and the provision of CF where it was necessary. The participants' knowledge of the intended syntantic point was tested before treatment and post tested after receiving the treatment. A multiple choice and focused-cloze reading grammar test was used in the pre-test and the post-test to evaluate the effects of the treatments on the learners' acquisition of third person singular morpheme. This classroom-based study showed that the two treatment groups benefited from CF strategies, but according to the study, elicitation group outperformed the recast one

Conference Interpreting In Malaysia: A Study On Users, Interpreters, And Clients’ Quality Expectations

Interpretasi persidangan perlu dikaji dengan teliti untuk menghasilkan kualiti yang optimum dalam konteks Malaysia. Jangkaan pengguna, jurubahasa, dan pelanggan dikaji menggunakan kaedah tinjauan soal selidik yang diadaptasikan dari kajian oleh Zwischenberger & Pöchhacker (2010), Bühler (1986), dan Moser (1995) dalam tesis ini. Matlamat kajian ini adalah menghasilkan profil pengguna, jurubahasa, dan pelanggan; mengenal pasti jangkaan berkenaan kualiti interpretasi dan sama ada terdapat perbezaan yang ketara antara jangkaan berdasarkan jantina, jenis persidangan, umur, pengalaman, bahasa pertama, dan tahap pendidikan; mengenal pasti masalah utama yang dihadapi jurubahasa persidangan, dan mengemukakan cadangan untuk meningkatkan kualiti. Selaras dengan teori Terjemahan yang menekankan fungsi dan tujuan (Scopos), teras kajian ini adalah daripada data pengguna. Analisis kuantitatif dan kualitatif terhadap soal selidik daripada 256 pengguna, 42 pelanggan, dan 11 jurubahasa menunjukkan setiap kumpulan mempunyai jangkaan yang berbeza, dan jangkaan individu daripada kumpulan yang sama berkemungkinan berlainan. Jurubahasa meletakkan kriteria linguistik sebagai yang terpenting. Conference interpreting needs to be explored thoughtfully to obtain optimum quality in Malaysian setting. Expectations of users, interpreters, and clients are explored by a questionnaire-based survey adapted from Zwischenberger & Pöchhacker (2010), Bühler (1986), and Moser’s (1995) studies in this thesis. The objectives of the study are producing users, interpreters, and clients’ profile; identifying their expectations of interpreting quality and any significant difference between those expectations based on gender, conference typology, age, experience, first-language, and educational level; determining the key problems that conference interpreters encounter; and putting forward suggestions for improving quality. In line with Translation theories that emphasise the function and purpose (Scopos) of translation, the core of the study is the users’ data. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of questionnaires from 256 users, 42 clients and 11 interpreters suggest that different groups have different expectations, and expectations of an individual from the same group might be different from the expectations of the others. Interpreters attach the utmost importance to linguistic criteria

Teaching critical thinking to Chinese students in English as a foreign language writing class: A review

Critical thinking (CT) is important for English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. However, the EFL writings of Chinese students are usually negatively commented on in terms of CT in writing. The study reviewed relevant studies on how CT in writing was taught to Chinese EFL learners at the tertiary education level. It shows most EFL writing teachers adopted existing western CT definitions in a general knowledge background and mainly used teacher-centered assessment techniques to teach CT. Students’ CT development was mostly assessed by self-designed CT assessments. Facing the globalization of CT teaching, the study thus updates the assessment techniques to meet the increasing needs of CT teaching in EFL writing in China. Relevant suggestions are also given to education practitioners

Translation of Onomatopoeia: Somewhere between Equivalence and Function

English-Persian translation of novels deals with the challenges of understanding and transferring different linguistic aspects such as those of onomatopoeias. These elements are expected to create difficulties for translators as they are realized differently in English and Persian. Although some studies have been done to identify onomatopoeias in different languages, they are less debated in the area of translation. This study concentrates on English translation of 125 onomatopoeias in the novel A Tale of Two cities written by Charles Dickens and their Persian translations done by two translators. It aims at identifying English onomatopoeias in the corpus and the translation techniques used for translating them by the two translators. Furthermore, taking prospective approach, it comparatively assesses the two translated versions in terms of their success of translation of onomatopoeias from English into Persian. Finally this study aims at proposing a guideline which helps the translators to translate onomatopoeias in English Novels into Persian

English Language Anxiety: A Case Study on Undergraduate ESL Students in Malaysia

The level of foreign language anxiety and the factors leading to the English anxiety level among English students were explored using a sequential mixed method with semi-structured interviews and survey. The interview was the main research tool to learn about students’ coping strategies in dealing with English language anxiety, while the survey was aimed to provide additional information to support the qualitative data. The questionnaire and the interview questions were adapted from Horwitz et al.’s (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). The participants of the study (11 interviewees and 33 questionnaire respondents) were selected purposively from the “Basic English” of a private university students in Malaysia. Analysis of the findings revealed that the students’ of Basic English were “slightly anxious” because of Fear of Negative Evaluation (m=3.16), “slightly anxious” about Communication Apprehension (m=3.07), “slightly anxious” about tests (Test Anxiety, m=3.02), and “not very anxious” about being in the Basic English class (m=2.9). Therefore, overall, the students were “slightly anxious”. The most common coping strategies used by Basic English students were “enquiring friends and lecturer”, “referring to sources such as Google and dictionaries”, “self-helping”, “self-motivation”, “positive thinking”, “shifting focus”, “doing revision”, “listening and understanding”, “self-reflect”, “trying to perform”, “calming down”, “acceptance, exercise”, “taking time to think”, “entertainment”, and “land laugh back to hide embarrassment”. Language educators are advised to prioritize their students’ social and emotional needs by removing or lessening the obstacles and challenges that the students go through when learning English by creating relaxed and non-threatening setting for the teaching and learning

The Effect of Flow State on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Learning

Flow is an optimal psychological state that has been described at length by Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 1993) as a state in which people become totally immersed in an activity and enjoy it intensely. According to Csikszentmihalyi, such a peak experience can emerge in any situation in which there is an activity to do. Researchers have indeed found evidence for flow during the execution of a large number of different activities including sports, work, and playing music. However, state of flow during language learning activities has hardly been studied. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between task-induced state of flow during vocabulary acquisition activities and the achievement in terms of short-term and long-term vocabulary acquisition. Sixty five learners at an English Language Institution took part in vocabulary acquisition tasks aimed at engaging learners cognitively and affectively in the state of flow. To measure flow state the “Flow Perceptions Questionnaire” in the Likert format (Egbert, 2003) was used. It was an instrument for gathering the data concerning students’ affective responses during task engagement. The researcher-made retention measurement was used to determine vocabulary learning efficiency. The result indicated that flow existed in the vocabulary learning classroom and that there was a significant relationship between the level of flow state and vocabulary retention both in immediate and delayed measurements. Also male and female learners of EFL were different in terms of vocabulary retention resulting from flow state

L2 Learners’ Proficiency Development through Noticing Feedback

This experimental study investigated the relationship between noticing of corrective feedback and L2 development considering the learners’ perspective on error correction. Specifically, it aimed to uncover the noticeability and effectiveness of recasts, prompts, a combination of the two, to determine a relationship between noticing of CF and learning of the past tense. The participants were four groups of college ESL learners (n = 40). Each group was assigned to a treatment condition, but the researcher taught the control group. CF was provided to learners in response to their mistakes in forming the past tense. While noticing of CF was assessed through immediate recall and questionnaire responses, learning outcomes were measured through picture description administered via pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test design. Learner beliefs about CF were probed by means of a 40-item questionnaire. The results indicated that the noticeability of CF is dependent on the grammatical target it addresses and that the feedback techniques that push learners to self-correct alone or in combination with target exemplars are more effective in. In relation to the learning outcomes, the overall past tense accuracy increased more than that for questions, but there were no significant differences between the groups. Finally, in relation to the beliefs about CF, the participants’ responses centered on the importance of oral CF, recasts as CF technique, prompts as CF technique, and affective consequences of CF, two of which mediated the noticeability of the supplied CF, but none impacted the learning outcomes

English to Malay Translation of Culture-Specific Items in Selected Penang Tourist Brochures

Translation of Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) is one of the challenges translators face in choosing the appropriate strategies and finding solutions to the translation problems. In this descriptive study four tourist brochures that promoted the UNESCO-heritage Penang Island in Malaysia were analysed. The texts were selected purposefully from Malaysian tourist websites. Based on Newmark’s (1988) model, the CSIs were categorised, and the problems in translation process were described after employing Venuti’s domestication and foreignisation strategies for translating the items. Overall, 76 CSIs were identified in the four brochures among which the most frequent items were Material Culture (65%) with the subcategories of House/City (39%), Food (10%), Transport (15%), and Traditional Weapons (1%). Ecology category built up 13% of the whole items where 5% were related to Fauna and Geographical features, 3% to Flora and 5% to Geographical location. CSIs related to the subcategory of Artistic Thing and Craft formed 8% of the total items. The CSIs related to Social Culture consisted of 13%, including Work (11%), Names and Terms of Address (1%), and Kinship (1%). One outstanding problem during the translation process was finding dynamic equivalence for the words or phrases in the target language (Malay). The findings revealed that domestication strategy and formal equivalence is more appropriate for translating the tourist brochures from English to Malay, which may enhance understanding of linguistically accurate and culturally interesting translation