Both Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) may have advantages as writing instructors, yet little is known about how they actually influence writing in EFL contexts like South Korea. To address this issue, 76 high proficiency Korean EFL university students from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE) were separated into a group that received extensive native English speaker instruction (n = 57) and a group that did not (n = 19) using a self-survey. Analysis of essay content revealed that words used by Korean EFL writers with more NEST instruction are similar in difficulty and variety to native English writers. Concerning style, Korean EFL learners with more NEST instruction used stances to evaluate, validate, and state personal opinions, while learners with less NEST instruction used speech formulas and more unbiased logical arguments. Regarding grammar, Korean EFL learners with extensive NEST instruction used more sophisticated vocabulary, word forms, and verb tenses to create a novel argument using personal experience, whereas Korean EFL learners with low NEST instruction tended to use formulaic and logical arguments with more accuracy. Overall, results suggest that NEST instruction in Korea promotes more creativity and sophistication in composition, while NNEST instruction encourages more accurate use of language. In accordance with the findings, curricula or teacher training may be developed to ensure that each type of instruction shares the strengths of its counterpart.

The present case study investigated the probable effect of applying a humanoid robot as a teacher-assistant for learning and retention of English vocabulary among 10 Iranian foreign language learners with intellectual disabilities, more specifically Down syndrome. This method is a new trend in using technology to teach classes called Robot Assisted Language Learning (RALL). To this end, participants were divided into 2 groups of five, one with the help of the robot (RALL) and one without (non-RALL). Both groups received the same lessons to learn 40 English vocabulary in 8 sessions. To measure the results, three English tests were run at different times during the teaching sessions (a pre-test, post-test, and a delayed post-test). The independent sample t-test on gain scores from pre-test to post-test revealed that there was a significant difference between the gains of the RALL group (M = 12.40) and the non-RALL group (M = 8.40), which indicates that RALL instruction had a large effect on the participants’ English vocabulary improvement. Moreover, while both RALL and non-RALL groups retained the taught vocabulary, the RALL group showed a more satisfying result. The findings of this study demonstrate the positive effects of using a humanoid robot to facilitate vocabulary learning and retention among people with Down syndrome who have issues with both language learning and verbal short-term memory and need to learn through visual activities, gestures, and games. This study could be a starting point for a new line of research in second or foreign language instruction specific to people with Down syndrome.

This research investigates the changes in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ psychological attributes in relation to awareness of the lexicogrammatical features and generic structures of a discussion genre essay. This was achieved by implementing a genre-based approach to text-based writing lessons during a 15-week course. The following lesson procedure was implemented: stage (1): modeling and deconstruction of a text, stage (2): writing of target texts, stage (3): genre analysis of peers’ essays, and stage (4): writing of an analysis reflection. The results indicated specific improvements in genre-based writing, particularly among low-proficiency English learners. Results suggest that their understanding of “interpersonal meaning” such as modal verbs improved. Improvements in the use of modal auxiliaries were also noted, in that the word “should” did not appear in pre-writing texts; however, the frequency improved in post-writing texts, especially in the final paragraph, which comprised the writers’ opinions and suggestions.

To meet the increasing needs for translators and interpreters, Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) program was launched in Chinese universities. Discussion on how to cultivate MTI students who are supposed to be excellent users of foreign language except their mother tongue attracts many Chinese researchers, while little is done from the perspective of students, the main stakeholders of the program. Therefore, this case study, informed by self-concept theories, tracked one MTI student in a Chinese key university, to investigate factors influencing students’ learning motivation and their response towards the influence. Using the student’s diaries reflecting on daily translation training and the semi-structured interviews, the study found significant others, self-perceived ability, curriculum, and coursework played significant roles in the ebbs and flows of translation learning motivation. The findings also reveal the dynamic interaction among students’ self-representations (including the ideal self, the ought self, the actual self, and the feared self) in the dynamic context. This paper not only provides a new understanding to the translation education by incorporating students’ voice into professional training, but also offers advice for MTI program management.

This study investigates foreign language anxiety among Indonesian undergraduate students of English, French, Japanese, Korean and Arabic language programs, and examines its relationship with students’ motivation and their perception of teachers’ behaviors. Questionnaires were distributed to 182 s-grade undergraduate students majoring in five foreign languages at an Indonesian public university. One-way ANOVA analysis revealed that learners of Japanese have the highest foreign language anxiety level compared to others. Furthermore, using independent sample T-test method, it showed that learners of non-Latin languages group (Japanese, Korean, and Arabic) have a higher foreign language anxiety level than those of Latin language group (English and French). The relationship between foreign language anxiety, learners’ motivation and their perception of teachers’ behaviors, was analyzed using a multiple-regression method, and the finding indicated that learners’ motivation does not affect foreign language anxiety. Meanwhile, their perception of teacher’s behaviors significantly affects foreign language anxiety. Based on the results, the present study suggests that foreign language teachers should give more attention to their teaching method and behaviors applied inside the classroom, and on how to create a more conducive learning environment in the classroom in order to reduce foreign language anxiety experienced by their students.

This study was designed to examine the reported and observed communication strategies used by Chinese English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) graduate students in electrical engineering and education in performing informal debate tasks. The strategies were elicited through strategy inventories, post-task strategy recalls, and task performances. The results revealed eight categories of communication strategies, with fluency-oriented strategies used most frequently and translation least frequently. Differences in using communication strategies were also found between advanced and high-intermediate learners, while the use of one individual strategy—clarifying stance—also notably differed between the two disciplines. Overall, results from nonparametric tests revealed significant positive relationships between certain categories of communication strategy use and learners’ speaking performance. The findings and their implications are discussed both to inform practice and to encourage further research about the communication strategies used by EAL learners who are graduate students.

Formulaic sequences comprise a large body of language and their mastery is supposed to be a key determiner of language proficiency. However, despite their significance in language learning, they are seldom taught in any principled manner in language classrooms and their correct and appropriate use remains a particular challenge to language learners, even at advanced levels. To address this issue, the current study investigated the relationship between knowledge of formulaic sequences and language proficiency as well as the most efficient method of instructing formulaic sequences. Participants of the study were 42 Japanese learners of English as a foreign language at three different levels of language proficiency (low intermediate, intermediate, and high intermediate) at the intensive English program of a university in Japan. Instruments used for data collection consisted of a reading comprehension book containing a large number of formulaic sequences for intervention sessions and an oral-production discourse completion task adopted from Bardovi-Harlig et al. (2015) for testing knowledge of formulaic sequences as pre-test, post-test, and follow-up test. The study followed an experimental design by administering the pre-test, randomly assigning participants to two equal groups of ‘focus on form’ and ‘focus on forms’, conducting intervention sessions for four consecutive weeks (following the noticing, retrieving, and generating process) to teach formulaic sequences to both groups but at different levels of explicitness, administering the post-test immediately following intervention, and administering the follow-up test a period of time following the post-test. The findings of the study revealed that knowledge of formulaic sequences is a strong predictor of language proficiency and both ‘focus on form’ and ‘focus on forms’ methods of instructing formulaic sequences are equally effective in developing and retaining knowledge of formulaic sequences. The pedagogical implications of the findings suggested incorporating knowledge of formulaic sequences in every language instruction.

This study aimed to investigate the latent constructs in the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale using a research context of Japanese undergraduates who learn English as a foreign language. The study conducted both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis against two different groups of Japanese undergraduate students. First, exploratory factor analysis was used to extract factors from 33 items of the scale in its application to 149 management major students. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the factors from the exploratory factor analysis. Data from 237 English language learners at two universities—155 undergraduates at a foreign study university and 82 at a general university—were applied to test a hypothetical model in relation to the extracted latent constructs. Results of the two factor analyses identified and confirmed two underlying components of the scale: (1) communication apprehension and (2) fear of failing. The model fit statistics illustrated that the two-factor paradigm appropriately fit the data from the second undergraduate group. Implications of the results are discussed.

High-stakes testing has frequently exerted a strong influence on teaching and learning in educational contexts. In 2012, the Ministry of Education passed legislation that made the new Test of English Listening Comprehension a requirement for the University Entrance Examination. The present study investigated how far the launch of the new English listening test has impacted on English teachers and their instructional practices in senior high school. This research involved a semi-structured interview with 20 senior high school English teachers in Taiwan. The findings revealed a complicated entanglement of external and internal factors that influenced the degree and intensity of test impact on teachers and teaching. The new national English listening test was found to have both positive and negative effects on teachers. While how the listening instruction was delivered was affected by teachers’ pedagogic knowledge and past experiences in teaching and learning, the frequency of instructional practice was constrained by the key stakeholders, such as parents’ and students’ expectations.

Maximizing learning opportunities has long been the focus of research in teaching English as a foreign language. Besides the degree to which learners are engaged with the linguistic aspects, investigating other potential of the tasks is of prime importance for maximizing learning opportunities. The present research investigates the potential of four different task types (translation, dictogloss, text reconstruction and jigsaw) performed by 80 Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) intermediate students in promoting learner engagement. Learner's movement from limited to elaborate behavioral, affective and cognitive engagement at verbal, paralinguistic and functional levels while performing the tasks was studied using conversation analysis techniques. The conversation and episodes were coded using a predetermined template of coding. The conversation and ANOVA (analysis of variance) results show that as mind goes through transformation, it is indicated in the transformation in dialogic discourse (speech). The results also indicated that although task engagement patterns were the same across all tasks, the tasks have different potential in promoting task engagement. The results imply that besides other task characteristics including task utility, naturalness and essentiality which focus on linguistic aspects, task engagement is an equally important criterion for the quality assessment of the tasks and should be taken into account since it not only creates sustained attention on linguistic aspects but also mediates learning as it engages learners behaviorally, affectively and cognitively. The results also shed lights on the concept of interactional authenticity and how it can be operationalized in practice.