Cortes, V., & Csomay, E. (Eds.) (2015). Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honor of Doug Biber

Book review: Cortes, V., & Csomay, E. (Eds.) (2015). Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honor of Doug Biber. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjaminspostprin

Assessing in-class participation for EFL: Considerations of effectiveness and fairness for different learning styles

This study investigates the effectiveness and fairness of teacher-led assessment of students' in class participation and its effect on language test scores, taking into account the diversity of second language learners' learning styles. The level of participation was measured across ten criteria over a one-semester period in four classes of beginner and intermediate level adult Korean students of English as a foreign language (EFL). The classes were divided into two test groups who had their level of participation assessed as part of their overall grade (n=76) and two control groups whose participation was measured covertly according to the same criteria (n=65), alongside a pre- and post-course general English proficiency test (the Oxford Quick Placement Test), and a questionnaire designed to ascertain a learner’s general learning style orientation. The results suggest a broad range of learning styles may be found even in mono-cultural language learning groups, dispelling the stereotype of the 'quiet', 'rote-learning' Asian student. There were only minor differences between test and control groups in terms of proficiency test scores and participation levels, suggesting that including participation as a measure of course achievement has little impact on performance. Learners with individualistic learning styles generally achieved lower proficiency test and participation scores than those with styles suited to in-class interaction. However, we also report partial evidence of improved proficiency test scores for learners with group-oriented learning styles at the expense of learners with individualistic learning styles in the test group (and vice-versa in the control group), an effect of pedagogy known as the 'meshing hypothesis' - a hypothesis that has often been criticised in the learning styles literature. The results suggest that including in-class participation as part of a measure of achievement for EFL courses may be both ineffective and unfair for those with certain learning styles, and greater care must be afforded to promote inclusivity of assessment practices given the diversity of learning styles that might be present within a given cohort.published_or_final_versio

Grammatical Complexity in Academic English

Book Revie

An Investigation of English Learning Motivation Disposition in Chinese Universities

This paper employed Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System to investigate the correlation between motivational variables and L2 English learning, both within and between university students at different levels of study. 210 university students (including undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students) from two mainland Chinese universities completed online questionnaires and interviews based on the L2 Motivational Self System. The results showed that students at all levels of study had a generally favorable disposition toward English learning, although the higher the education level of the student, the higher the importance of the Ideal L2 Self domain (and the notion of Instrumentality-Promotion within this domain) for English learning. Significant correlations were also found (for undergraduate students) between English learning achievement and Ideal L2 Self, as well as English learning achievement and Attitudes to L2 Learning, suggesting the clearer L2 self-image and more positive L2 learning attitude an undergraduate has, the higher the level of achievement in English learning they are likely to obtain.published_or_final_versio

The effects of assessment on stakeholders within an elementary-grade EFL program

This paper will explore which aspects of English language assessment could be said to have affected the teaching and learning that took place within the context of an elementary grade EFL program, from the point of view of the different stakeholders involved. This paper presents, by way of a case study, an exploration of the effects of summative, formative and criterion-based aspects of assessment and the impact that they had on the stakeholders in the EFL program. The case study explores attitudes towards the introduction of explicitly defined learning outcomes in the EFL program’s curriculum to see how they affected approaches and attitudes towards learning and teaching. The second area to be explored was how the inclusion of monthly spoken language tests affected the test stakeholders’ perceptions of learning and teaching English as a foreign language.postprin

Validating an academic group tutorial discussion speaking test

coming_160627This study attempts to validate an academic group tutorial discussion speaking test for undergraduate freshmen students taking initial EAP training at a university in Hong Kong in terms of task, rater and criterion validity. Three quantitative measures (Cronbach’s Alpha, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, and Exploratory Factor Analysis) are used to assess validity of rater scores for the test using a rubric with considerations for assessment of academic stance presentation, inter-candidate interaction, and individual language proficiency. These results are triangulated with post-hoc interview data from the raters regarding the difficulties they face assessing individual proficiency and group interaction over time. The results suggest that current provisions of the rubric in dealing with the assessment of interaction in group settings (namely visual cues such as ‘active listening’ as well as provisions for interruptions in the form of ‘domination’) are problematic, and that raters are unable to separate the grading of academic stance from the grading of language concerns. We also note affective and cognitive difficulties involved with assessing extended periods of interactional discourse including student talking time (or lack of it), the group dynamic, and raters’ personal beliefs and practice as threats to validity that the statistical measurements were unable to capture. A new sample rubric and further suggestions for improving the validity of group tutorial assessments are provided.published_or_final_versio

Exploring rater conceptions of academic stance and engagement during group tutorial discussion assessment

The present study uses concurrent think-aloud verbal protocols alongside post-hoc interviews to explore how six teacher-raters determine a students' ability to explain academic concepts and argue for an academic stance supported by sources during a 25-minute group tertiary academic tutorial oral assessment. We explored how the raters arrived at decisions regarding the quality of students' academic stance and engagement in light of difficulties with rater attention in real-time, L2 language concerns, assessing engagement in a group oral setting, and the use of spoken citation to support speakers’ claims. Substantial differences in rater practice, beliefs and interpretation of assessment criteria were all found during the assessment of student performance, confirming a number of difficulties faced by raters assessing the academic ability of multiple participants over lengthy extended, interactional discourse. The findings shed real-time conceptions of (un)successful academic stance and engagement in group oral contexts, as well as confirm the usefulness of verbal protocols in revealing previously hidden complications for group oral assessments in an academic context, with accompanying suggestions for resolving such complications

Definite discourse-new reference in L1 and L2: The case of L2 Mandarin

Definite discourse-new bridging reference (e.g., a school … the teacher; Clark, 1975) is a complex syntax-pragmatic component of referential movement, one that is subject to relatively opaque form-function contingency compared with forms used for discourse-old reference, and one that is especially prone to crosslinguistic influence. Research shows Asian second language (L2) learners of English struggle to produce bridging reference appropriately, yet little research has been done on the L2 production of bridging in Asian languages. We collected oral picture sequence narrative data from 80 lower-intermediate L2 Mandarin learners from first language (L1) English (+ article, n = 23) and L1 Korean and Japanese (- article, n = 57) backgrounds, alongside equivalent L1 data. Speakers of article-L1s were more likely than those from article-less L1s to use numeral + classifier noun phrases (NPs) for nonbridging referents and demonstrative + classifier NPs when introducing bridging referents, essentially (and infelicitously) using these constructions as de facto English-like indefinite/definite articles in their L2 Mandarin production. Speakers of article-less languages infelicitously marked bridging relations with nonbridging forms. These findings confirm substantial crosslinguistic difficulties for the L2 marking of this complex syntax-pragmatic phenomenon across relatively underexplored L1/L2 pairs.postprin

Writing with attitude: Stance expression in learner and professional dentistry research reports

Medical students often lack key skills in academic writing, yet good academic writing is often a pre-requisite for employment, promotion and enculturation into the profession. This article focuses on the rhetorical strategies used for the presentation of academic stance by student writers of dentistry research reports. Adopting a contrastive, corpus-based approach, we compare student writing with that of comparable professionally-written research reports for evidence of hedging, boosting, self-mention and attitude markers. Our findings indicate that professional reports exhibit a narrower set of linguistic devices than used by student writers, who tend to use a much wider range of the four stance feature types analysed for discussion of both others’ and their own personal stance, both across whole texts and by section. We discuss pedagogical implications for ESP professionals working to more closely align student writing with that of professional norms

The effect of in-class participation as a measure of achievement on tertiary EFL courses with L2 learners of different learning styles

Conference Theme: Colorful ELT for ASEAN IntegrationThis study investigates the effectiveness and fairness of teacher-led assessment of students' in-class participation and its effect on language test scores, taking into account the diversity of L2 learners' learning styles as measured by the Learning Styles Instrument of Wintergerst & DeCapua (1999). The level of participation was measured across ten criteria over a one-semester period in four classes of beginner and intermediate level adult Korean EFL students. The classes were divided into two test groups who had their level of participation assessed as part of their overall grade (n=76) and two control groups whose participation was measured covertly according to the same criteria (n=65), alongside a pre- and post-course general English proficiency test (the Oxford Quick Placement Test). The results from the Learning Styles Indicator suggest a broad range of learning styles may be found even in mono-cultural L2 groups, dispelling the stereotype of the 'quiet', 'rote-learning' Asian student. There were only minor differences between test and control groups in terms of proficiency test scores and participation levels, suggesting that including participation as a measure of course achievement has little impact on performance. Learners with individualistic learning styles generally achieved lower proficiency test and participation scores than those with styles suited to in-class interaction. However, we also report partial evidence of improved proficiency test scores for learners with group-oriented learning styles at the expense of learners with individualistic learning styles in the test group (and vice-versa in the control group), an effect of pedagogy known as the 'meshing hypothesis' - a hypothesis that has often been criticised in the learning styles literature. The results suggest that including in-class participation as part of a measure of achievement for EFL courses may be both ineffective and unfair for those with certain learning styles, and greater care must be afforded to promote inclusivity of assessment practices given the diversity of learning styles that might be present within a given cohort