This paper reports a perception study that prompted native speakers to indicate the learner or native speaker status of the author of a written request. The requests were chosen from a DCT-elicited ...data pool of native English and German L2 speakers. In addition, informants were asked to rate the utterances on different perceptual dimensions. Data from 91 informants suggests that the success rate in distinguishing native speakers from learners through linguistic performance is close to chance level. Classification as a native speaker is, however, clearly correlated with intelligibility, perceived authenticity and the absence of formal mistakes. Based on these findings, we question the ability of native speakers to intuitively assess native-like communicative behaviour beyond formal aspects. We then discuss the relevance these results have for attempts to include pragmatic competence in language testing and certification.
This paper provides a comparative analysis of the drivers of English Language Competence (ELC) in a representative sample of European adolescents. School factors - such as English instruction time ...and English onset - are found to play an important role, especially in countries whose official languages are more distant from English. However, schools do not fully compensate for disparities in ELC. Gender, parental education and parental socioeconomic status are strongly associated with students' ELC. Particularly, girls and children from more privileged social backgrounds show systematically higher ELC, even net of school factors and reading ability in their own country language. The role of family background is stronger in countries with languages that are more distant from English, suggesting that family resources are needed more when the skills are more difficult to acquire elsewhere. Finally, informal English exposure through media and cultural products is strongly and positively associated with ELC. This holds true in countries with both high and low linguistic distance from English, suggesting that schools should promote more informal English learning to increase overall ELC and reduce social disparities.
Research suggests that children with behavioural difficulties exhibit "positive illusory bias" (PIB), in which they overestimate their competencies leading to a perception of self that is more ...positive than the perceptions held by their peers, parents or teachers. However, research to date has focused on children of elementary school age and none has examined the potential role of oral language competence. This study investigates whether children aged 9-16 years with a history of disruptive behaviour exhibit PIB when compared to students with no such history, and whether there are differences between groups in expressive and receptive vocabulary. We found significant differences between groups in expressive vocabulary, but minimal differences between children's, parents', and teachers' ratings of child behaviour. Differences were also found in self-descriptions: participants with disruptive behaviour were less likely to describe themselves positively than participants without. Our research finds no evidence of PIB among older children with disruptive behaviour and suggests that language competence should be considered more closely in future research.
Uno de los principales retos formativos de los maestros es el desarrollo de su competencia lingüística oral, deficitario por tradición e inexcusable definitivamente con la expansión de la ...comunicación online. La didáctica telemática impone un tipo de discurso más extenso y expositivo que el contacto presencial y pone de manifiesto en la comunicación docente con niños, padres y colegas las necesidades formativas de los profesores en habilidades orales. En esta investigación planteamos la actualización de contenidos de oratoria en materia lingüística dentro de los planes de estudio del grado de Maestro en Educación Primaria justificando la propuesta a partir de cuatro indicadores: 1) el análisis de los datos de un corpus oral de más de 20 horas de grabación donde 32 maestros exponen sus carencias en habilidades lingüísticas orales y los beneficios que las prácticas de aula reportan en sus alumnos, 2) la revisión de las asignaturas de lengua de las guías académicas del grado de 20 universidades públicas españolas, 3) los resultados de una encuesta realizada a 300 estudiantes del grado de Maestro en Educación Primaria de diferentes universidades y 4) los resultados obtenidos de un cuestionario realizado a 51 maestros de Primaria en ejercicio de la profesión.La metodología de investigación incluye procedimientos cuantitativos y cualitativos a partir de los indicadores señalados. Los resultados reflejan la necesidad de una actualización lingüística y didáctica en competencia oral de los maestros tanto en la formación inicial del grado de Maestro de Educación Primaria como en la formación continua del profesorado.
Telecollaboration has become a dynamic subfield of CALL studies with the increasing availability of multimodal platforms in language learning and teaching. Although current studies mostly have ...focused on bilingual and bicultural exchanges, affordances of multi-faceted teacher identity have not received considerable attention. To address this gap, 57 teacher candidates took part in an eight-week telecollaboration project with four instructors from European universities.
Drawing on Deardorff, D. K. 2006. "Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization." Journal of Studies in International Education 10 (3): 241-266. process orientation and Bennett, M. J. 1993. "Towards Eethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Iintercultural Sensitivity." In Education for the Intercultural Experience, edited by R. Michael Paige, 21-71. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press developmental models, teacher candidates' identity negotiations were analysed through the data generated on (a)synchronous modes.
Findings suggest that dynamics resulting from multicultural and multilingual identity contribute to higher intercultural communicative competence, and teacher candidates' intercultural development is manifested through their (a) intercultural adjustment, (b) culture-specific identity orientations, (c) gender socialisation and (d) culture and technology interplay. This study provides several implications for EFL practitioners to foster intercultural communicative competence in language classes and utilise telecollaboration as a valuable asset with concrete outcomes for upcoming studies.
Lexical acquisition and literary competence, linguistics and cultural studies argument, are presented. Here, discusses studies focusing on translation and translatology, the evaluation of linguistic ...competence, as well as certain well-defined cultural aspects. It highlights a question in every study revolving around the word, its importance in the meaningful developments of humanity, from linguistic acquisition, to language learning's be it the mother tongue or a foreign language's and up to the challenge posed by the process of translation. Jacquline PICOCHE and Bruno GERMAIN make the case for a truly linguistic and systematic acquisition of vocabulary, sharing their experience as researchers interested and invested in the study of the word and for the word, who treat the word in context as a formidable lexical and semantic machine, fundamental for the process of linguistic creation. Jacques Coulardeau argues that the very first step in the process of language learning is integrating the communicational situation into the learning of communication proper, and the linguistic tools necessary for it. Considering that language is not restricted by its semiotic function, Philippe Sero-Guillaume argues that perspective and grammar work towards the same function on how to allow for the emphasis of the speaker's vision. Furthermore, Chiara De Angelis and Oreste Floquet establish a relationship between language teaching and the particular use of the word based on diatopical parameters which gains legitimacy with every generation of speakers who employ the word in a specific manner, as dictated by their needs.
Content analysis of job ads has been used to inform curriculum renewal in many disciplines, but it is not commonplace in Translation Studies. This paper aims to identify qualifications and ...competences in the translation market through content analysis of translation job ads in China. Four hundred and twenty-nine job ads were collected from the two largest and most popular job search portals in China and coded against a translator competence framework with the assistance of NVivo 11.0. The results suggest that, while prior experience is underscored by employers, a specialised degree in translation, certified status and high-level education are not sought by employers. The most in-demand competences are linguistic competence in working languages, psycho-physiological competence, interpersonal competence, extra-linguistic knowledge, and instrumental competence. Implications are discussed in terms of promotion and marketing, incorporation of field-based experience into classroom learning, pedagogical innovation, curriculum renewal, and admission interviews. This study may inform the evaluation and modification of the translation curriculum for better education and market alignment and guide students in professional development and lifelong learning.
Education worldwide has emphasized 21st-century competencies, including language competence, computer competence, and thinking skills. Research on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), ...essential teacher knowledge, has attempted to address the need for technology integration to support thinking skills. However, existing TPACK assessments have not intended to help teachers understand the levels of technology integration in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). Therefore, this study proposed a two-dimensional TPACK scale, allowing EFL teachers to assess their TPACK in integrating technology and thinking skills. In total, 525 EFL teachers responded to this survey online. Scores of this scale were collected to test and establish validity and reliability. The statistical evidence showed that this instrument has high reliability and validity and is helpful for understanding levels of technology integration. The results showed that the EFL teachers were less confident in their TPACK teaching higher-order thinking skills. The EFL teachers in different cultures reported different confidence levels in TPACK and thinking skills (F(6, 518) = 7.83,
p
< .001). The high-achieving EFL teachers reported high TPACK self-efficacy (r = .210,
p
< .05). This TPACK survey would be helpful for EFL teachers to understand their development of TPACK in integrating technology and thinking skills in teaching English.
This study examines the second language acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology by three groups of English speakers (beginners, intermediates and advanced). We adopt a novel methodological ...approach – combining oral corpus data with controlled experimental data – in order to provide new evidence on the validity of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) in L2 Spanish. Data elicited through one comprehension and three oral tasks with varying degrees of experimental control show that the emergence of temporal markings is determined mainly by the dynamic/non-dynamic contrast (whether a verb is a state or an event) as beginner and intermediate speakers use Preterit with event verbs but Imperfect mainly with state verbs. One crucial finding is that although advanced learners use typical Preterit–telic associations in the least controlled oral tasks, as predicted by the LAH, this pattern is often reversed in tasks designed to include non-prototypical (and infrequent) form–meaning contexts. The results of the comprehension task also show that the Preterit-event and Imperfect-state associations observed in the production data determine the interpretation that learners assign to the Preterit and the Imperfect as well. These results show that beginner and intermediate learners treat event verbs (achievements, accomplishments and activities) in Spanish as a single class that they associate with Preterit morphology. We argue that dynamicity contrasts, and not telicity, affect learners’ use of past tense forms during early stages of acquisition.
The onslaught of COVID-19 has veritably turned the world upside down and has necessitated a shift away from in-class teaching worldwide. As teachers around the world, in various socio-economic ...contexts, negotiate on a daily basis, the challenges of shifting gear to 'remote'- teaching, it is pertinent to ask what the implications of this change are for any commitment to postcolonialism. If the object of pedagogy is to transform the student from object to subject, in Paulo Freire's classic formulation, how does the process play out under the current conditions of teaching and learning, which, it seems, are here to stay? I proceed on the basis of my experience of teaching English literature in a suburban campus in India, where, as it is, teachers operate within minimal infrastructure and must deal with varying levels of linguistic competence within the student body. What additional challenges are posed by online teaching in such a scenario? How can postcolonial analyses help uncover the stakes of teaching and learning in a suburban Indian context? What larger implications does this have for the teaching of literature in particular, and pedagogy in general? In other words, what does a thoroughgoing postcolonial pedagogy under these circumstances look like?
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