Journal articles on the topic 'Learning, Psychology of. English language Chinese language'

We examined the extent to which young Hong Kong Chinese children, taught to read English as a second language via a logographic “look and say” method, used information about letter names and letter sounds to learn English words. Forty children from each of three kindergarten grade levels (mean ages 3.8, 5.0, and 5.9 years old, respectively) were taught to pronounce novel English spellings that were based on letter-name (e.g., DK = Deke), letter-sound (DK = Dick), or visual (DK = Jean) cues. By the 2nd year of kindergarten, children performed significantly better in the name condition than the other conditions. The 3rd-year kindergartners performed better in the sound condition than the visual condition as well. The results point to the importance of letter-name and letter-sound knowledge for learning to read English, regardless of native-language background or method of instruction.

ABSTRACTExperiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of infant-directed (ID) speech on adults' ability to learn an individual target word in sentences in an unfamiliar, non-Western language (Chinese). English-speaking adults heard pairs of sentences read by a female, native Chinese speaker in either ID or adult-directed (AD) speech. The pairs of sentences described slides of 10 common objects. The Chinese name for the object (the target word) was placed in an utterance-final position in experiment? (n= 61) and in a medial position in experiment 2 (n= 79). At test, each Chinese target word was presented in isolation in AD speech in a recognition task. Only subjects who heard ID speech with the target word in utterance-final position demonstrated learning of the target words. The results support assertions that ID speech, which tends to put target words in sentence-final position, may assist infants in segmenting and remembering portions of the linguistic stream. In experiment 3 (n= 23), subjects judged whether each of the ID and AD speech samples prepared for experiments ? and 2 were directed to an adult or to an infant. Judgements were above chance for two types of sentence: ID speech with the target word in the final position and AD speech with the target word in a medial position. In addition to indirectly confirming the results of experiments 1 and 2, these findings suggest that at least some of the prosodic features which comprise ID speech in Chinese and English must overlap.

This article reports on a study that tested Jin and Zhang's Chinese version of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale for classroom learning through confirmatory factor analysis and compared the resulting scale with Li, Jiang, and Dewaele's 11-item scale. Four hundred five Chinese first language senior high school students of English in years 1–3 participated in this study. We found that Jin and Zhang's version of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale could be reduced to a 16-item scale that preserved the same factor structure as the original scale. This revised 16-item scale showed a more solid dimensional division and better psychometric properties than Li et al.'s scale. We discussed our findings in relation to the scale's wider application for improving foreign language teaching and learning.

In formal TESL courses, Phonetics, Linguistics, Grammar as well as Psychology are taught. However, Neuroscience, the study of the brain, is necessary for ESL teachers for future professional development to meet the rapidly changing needs of the students at all levels in the digital era. Designing educational practices without knowledge of the brain is like “an automobile designer without a full understanding of engines” (Hart, 1999). Based on the neurological evidence of processing of English and Chinese words in the bilinguals’ brain, Sham (2002) found a new Dual Coding (Paivio, 1986) model for designing CSL teaching materials that best fits young learners’ limited capacity of the brain by reducing their cognitive load (Sweller et al., 1998). Although little research linking neuroscience and learning, Guy and Byrn (2013) emphasis on the understanding of neuroscience of working memory has positive effects on motivating students learning. Direct implication of neuroscience by language teachers has been found difficult, but interdisciplinary study of neuroscience, psychology and education is fruitful (Coch et al., 2007) and there has a great impact of neuroscience on teaching and learning including its implication for ESL college classroom (Sousa, 2010). This paper reviews current research of neuroscience, psychology integrating with ESL teaching and learning, and provides the adult students’ feedback of learning IELTS through the design related to neuropsychological findings in order to demonstrate how significant neuroscience is on TESL. In other words, understanding of neuroscience facilitates ESL teaching and benefits ESL teachers’ professional development in future (247 words).

In this study, I focused on the impact of cooperative learning on the development of social skills in English as a foreign language (EFL) tertiary students. Participants were 2 randomly selected classes of students from a university in the north of China. A pretest-posttest control group quasiexperimental design was employed for the comparison of the impact of the cooperative learning approach with that of traditional whole-class instruction on 8 aspects of social skills: self-confidence, sense of cohesion, initiative in socialization, being positive, checking for understanding, equal participation and accountability, acceptance and empathy, and conflict management. These aspects form 8 subscales of the Social Skills Scale for Chinese College English Learners (SSS-CCEL; Ning, 2010), which the participants completed. Findings suggest substantial differences in favor of cooperative learning in the improvement of students' overall social skills, and in particular in the skills of equal participation and accountability.

AbstractAcross languages, age of acquisition (AoA) is a critical psycholinguistic factor in lexical processing, reflecting the influence of learning experience. Early-acquired words tend to be processed more quickly and accurately than late-acquired words. Recently, an integrated view proposed that both the mappings between representations and the construction of semantic representations contribute to AoA effects, thus, predicting larger AoA effects for words with arbitrary mappings between representations as well as for tasks requiring greater semantic processing. We investigated how these predictions generalize to the Chinese language system that differs from alphabetic languages regarding the ease of mappings and semantic involvement in lexical processing. A cross-task investigation of differential psycholinguistic effects was conducted with large character naming and lexical decision datasets to establish the extent to which semantics is involved in the two tasks. We focused on examining the effect sizes of lexical-semantic variables and AoA, and the interaction between AoA and consistency. The results demonstrated that semantics influenced Chinese character naming more than lexical decision, which is in contrast with the findings related to English language, though, critically, AoA effects were more pronounced for character naming than for lexical decision. Additionally, an interaction between AoA and consistency was found in character naming. Our findings provide cross-linguistic evidence supporting the view of multiple origins of AoA effects in the language-processing system.

AbstractPrevious studies have yielded mixed findings regarding the effect of familiar and novel L2 graphemes on learners’ phonological encoding. The current study investigated this topic by comparing the effect of Pinyin and Chinese characters on English speakers’ Mandarin word learning. Different from previous research, this study examined both segmental and tonal encoding and compared participants from different Mandarin proficiency levels. Seventeen Advanced learners, 29 Intermediate learners, and 21 Naïve English speakers participated in a word-learning experiment in which half of the participants were exposed to the Pinyin spelling of the target words while the other half to characters. After the learning phase, they did a meaning – auditory stimulus matching task. Half of the stimuli were complete matches, while in the other half the stimulus mismatched the target either in segments or tones. The results revealed that at the Advanced level, the Character group was more accurate than the Pinyin group in rejecting tonal mismatches to the target words, while the opposite tendency was observed at the Naïve level. This study suggests that novel graphemes facilitate advanced L2 learners’ tonal encoding more than familiar graphemes, which is probably due to the unique nature of Chinese characters.

AbstractThere is conflicting empirical evidence regarding the role of awareness in second language learning. Possible explanations for the contradictory results include the modality in the exposure and assessment phases of previous experiments. Our study investigated the acquisition of a novel determiner system under incidental exposure conditions and examined the effect of modality in both exposure and assessment phases. Animacy served as a hidden regularity in the determiners, which were embedded in sentences and presented to Chinese speakers of English either in auditory or in visual mode. Learning was assessed by a two-alternative forced-choice test either auditorily or in writing. Implicit and explicit knowledge were measured using retrospective verbal reports and source judgements. Bayesian analysis provided moderate evidence for above chance level learning. Significant learning effects were observed regardless of whether participants based their accuracy judgements on explicit or implicit knowledge. Bayesian analysis showed moderate evidence for above chance learning effects for aware participants. Generalized linear mixed-effects modeling revealed a small-size significant benefit of the auditory exposure modality over the written modality but indicated no significant effect of the modality of assessment or awareness. Our research underscores the importance of considering the role of modality of exposure in incidental second language learning contexts.

ABSTRACTVerbs are harder to learn than nouns in English and in many other languages, but are relatively easy to learn in Chinese. This paper evaluates one potential explanation for these findings by examining the construct of imageability, or the ability of a word to produce a mental image. Chinese adults rated the imageability of Chinese words from the Chinese Communicative Development Inventory (Tardif et al., in press). Imageability ratings were a reliable predictor of age of acquisition in Chinese for both nouns and verbs. Furthermore, whereas early Chinese and English nouns do not differ in imageability, verbs receive higher imageability ratings in Chinese than in English. Compared with input frequency, imageability independently accounts for a portion of the variance in age of acquisition (AoA) of verb learning in Chinese and English.

359 Japanese and 442 Chinese high school students were examined and compared regarding their motivation to learn English. Although Japanese students expressed a strong interest in English as a subject, they displayed a weaker interest on intrinsic motivation and a stronger one for extrinsic motivation as compared to junior high school students. Nevertheless, Japanese students who achieved better scores were not only eager to achieve better scores but also were much more interested in English as a language, the culture, and people. Chinese high school students' motivation did not vary so dramatically from their junior high school peers. They also were more pragmatically oriented towards the study of English, i.e., they thought English would be valuable and necessary for their future. Even if they do well, they believe they can do better with more effort to be successful in the future.

AbstractThis study employed a large-scale cross-sectional survey (n=443) to identify the structural relations among regulatory styles (motivations), identity changes and second language (L2) possible selves of Chinese students undertaking tertiary study in New Zealand. Three specific models were tested. Specifically, ideal L2 model revealed that integrated regulation had a substantial (positive) effect on ideal L2 self and had a small but significant indirect effect on ideal L2 self through additive identity change; ought-to L2 model showed that introjected regulation had a positive and substantial contribution to both split identity change and ought-to L2 self; and dreaded L2 self model demonstrated that external regulation had a positive and large contribution to dreaded L2 self. The models delineate the dynamic and interactive process of L2 learning development, which helps L2 learners to develop their identity and self so that they may develop an adaptive identity and a positive L2 self in their future L2 study. As a result of this study, it is suggested that the literature on L2 motivational possible selves should include Markus, H. & P. Nurius. 1986. Possible selves. American Psychologist 41. 954–969. ‘dreaded L2 self’ alongside Dörnyei, Z. 2005. The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. L2 Motivational Self System, because L2 learners’ motivations and self-identities seem to be multifaceted and complex.

Abstract It has been defended since Gibbs (1994) that in proper contexts people mostly use the metaphorical asset of a message rather than its literal meaning, which means that we tend to express ourselves metaphorically and that conceptual metaphors and metonymies are features of communicative interaction. In the present paper we discuss the notion of metaphorical competence (Aleshtar & Dowlatabadi, 2014: 1895) in the process of language acquisition and learning of a (multilingual) speaker in a multilingual context. Based on previous studies by Sinha and Jansen (2004), Kövecses (2005), Palmer & Sharifian (2007), Gibbs & Colston (2012) and Sharifian (2015), among others, we postulate that research in the area should be centred not exclusively on Language but on interaction in a triangle Cognition - Language - Culture, We defend the way one conceptualises the world is based on bodily experience, and is mediated by culture (cf. Yu, 2003, 2009; Batoréo, 2017a). In this study we present research from different language backgrounds both occidental (European Portuguese, English and Polish) and oriental ones (Mandarin Chinese). It focuses on conceptualization of emotions (e.g., emotional expression of feeling hungry) and moral values (e.g. courage). The analysis shows that it implies culture anchorage and/or physiological and cultural embodiment. We defend that conceptual appropriateness and metaphor awareness play a fundamental role in the acquisition of figurative language (cf. Doiz & Elizari, 2013), which is at least partially motivated, and thus can be object of insightful learning (cf. Boers et al., 2004).

Two separate lines of research have examined the influence of song and infant-directed speech (IDS—a speech register that includes some melodic features) on language learning, suggesting that the use of musical attributes in speech input can enhance language learning. However, the benefits of these two types of stimuli have never been directly compared. In this investigation, we compared the effects of song and IDS for immediate word learning and long-term memory of the learned words. This study examines whether the highly musical stimuli (i.e., song) would facilitate language learning more than the less musical stimuli (i.e., IDS). English-speaking adults were administered a word learning task, with Mandarin Chinese words presented in adult-directed speech (ADS), IDS, or song. Participants’ word learning performance was assessed immediately after the word learning task (immediate word learning) and then 1 day later (long-term memory). Results showed that both song and IDS facilitated immediate word learning and long-term memory of the words; however, this facilitative effect did not differ between IDS and song, suggesting that the relationship between the degree of musicality and language learning performance is not linear. In addition, song and IDS were found to facilitate the word association process (mapping a label to its referent) rather than the word recognition process. Finally, participants’ confidence in their answers might not differ among ADS, IDS, and sung words.

AbstractSpeech production requires the combined efforts of feedforward and feedback control, but it remains unclear whether the relative weighting of feedforward and feedback control is organized differently between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). In the present study, a group of Chinese–English bilinguals named pictures in their L1 and L2, while being exposed to multitalker noise. Experiment 1 compared feedforward control between L1 and L2 speech production by examining intensity increases in response to a masking noise (90 dB SPL). Experiment 2 compared feedback control between L1 and L2 speech production by examining intensity increases in response to a weak (30 dB SPL) or strong noise (60 dB SPL). We also examined a potential relationship between L2 fluency and the relative weighting of feedforward and feedback systems. The results indicated that L2 speech production relies less on feedforward control relative to L1, exhibiting attenuated Lombard effects to the masking noise. In contrast, L2 speech production relies more on feedback control than L1, producing larger Lombard effects to the weak and strong noise. The relative weighting of feedforward and feedback control is dynamically changed as second language learning progresses.

AbstractThis article addresses native monolingual American and Mandarin Chinese incipiently bilingual children's ability to detect and identify inter- and intraword boundaries. Two hypotheses are reported: first, that young children will demonstrate similar patterns in their segmentation behavior, and that there will be a developmental progression in this behavior; and second, that Mandarin Chinese subjects learning to read Chinese and English simultaneously will segment English words more readily into syllables than American subjects, treating them as Chinese monosyllables (C)V(C). Although results partially support the first hypothesis, no group main effect was found. However, when the same subjects' intraword segmentation patterns were further analyzed to probe their awareness of adult phonological constraints while spontaneously segmenting words into (C)VC or CV(C) units, there was evidence of difference in group segmentation patterns. With time, though, the bilingual subjects appear to develop nativeike phonological constraints.

How do readers decide whether to skip or fixate a word? Angele and Rayner [2013. Processing the in the parafovea: Are articles skipped automatically? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 649–662] showed that English readers base skipping decisions on the parafoveal information available, but not the sentential context. Due to the increased visual density of the language, Chinese readers may be able to process a parafoveal word and integrate it with the sentence context to a greater extent than English readers. Consequently, influences on skipping decisions in Chinese may differ from those in English. In a boundary paradigm experiment, participants read sentences containing a single-character target verb (e.g., 取 meaning get) whose preview was manipulated in three conditions: identity preview; a preview consisting of the syntactically anomalous high-frequency structural particle de (的), or a pseudocharacter preview. The results showed that Chinese readers were more likely to skip the target when the preview was de than in either of the other conditions, suggesting that de-skipping is triggered by the parafoveal preview of a highly frequent particle word rather than on the likelihood of the upcoming word given the sentential context.

ABSTRACTEnglish-speaking children understand and produce generic expressions in the preschool years, but there are cross-linguistic differences in how generics are expressed. Three studies examined interpretation of generic noun phrases in three- to seven-year-old child (N=192) and adult speakers (N=163) of Mandarin Chinese. Contrary to suggestions by Bloom (1981), Chinese-speaking adults honor a clear distinction between generics (expressed as bare NPs) and other quantified expressions (‘all’/suo3you3 and ‘some’/you3de). Furthermore, Mandarin-speaking children begin to distinguish generics from ‘all’ or ‘some’ as early as five years, as shown in both confirmation (Study 2) and property-generation (Study 3) tasks. Nonetheless, the developmental trajectory for Chinese appears prolonged relative to English and this seems to reflect difficulty with ‘all’ and ‘some’ rather than difficulty with generics. Altogether these results suggest that generics are primary, and that the consistency of markings affects the rate at which non-generic NPs are distinguished from generics.

AbstractIn this study, we propose a hypothesis that domain-general auditory processing, a perceptual–cognitive anchor of first language (L1) acquisition, can serve as an important deciding factor for successful postpubertal second language (L2) pronunciation learning. To examine this hypothesis, samples of spontaneous speech were elicited from a total of 30 L1 Chinese L2 English learners at two points (outset and endpoint) during an 8-month study-abroad period in the United Kingdom. The participants were tested on three different components of auditory processing ability (formant, pitch, and duration discrimination) using behavioral instruments. The auditory processing scores were then linked to the segmental, prosodic, and fluency dimensions of their L2 pronunciation proficiency development throughout the project. Overall, most learners’ speech became smoother, faster, and more fluent (fewer pauses, faster articulation rate, and more optimal perceived tempo). Certain learners with high-level auditory processing ability (more precise formant discrimination) appeared to further attain more correct pronunciation of individual sounds and words (greater segmental and word stress accuracy), leading to more advanced L2 phonological skills (fluent and accurate). The findings suggest that auditory processing abilities can be a root of language learning throughout the life span and may apply to the initial- to midphase of naturalistic L2 pronunciation learning in adulthood.

This research investigates the influence of phonological awareness on the learning of vocabulary in a foreign language. Thirty-seven Chinese-speaking third graders with high phonological awareness and 37 with low phonological awareness participated in multitrial word learning tasks involving nonnative sounding (English) new names paired with novel referents. The children also participated in three additional associative learning tasks: learning to associate novel native sounding names, familiar native names, and unfamiliar visual shapes with unfamiliar referents. Results indicated that children with lower phonological awareness learned both the novel nonnative names and the novel native names less accurately than children with higher phonological awareness and required more learning trials. However, these two groups did not differ in learning to associate familiar names or unfamiliar visual shapes with novel referents. The findings suggest that poor phonological awareness might slow nonnative acquisition of vocabulary via difficulty in constructing new phonological representations for new words.

During reading, readers never fixate on all words in the text; shorter words sometimes gain zero fixation and skipped by the reader. Relying on E-Z Reader Model, this research hypothesized that a similar skipping effect also exists for a second language. The current study examined word skipping rates in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) with 75 EFL learners by using eye tracking methodology. The results showed that word skipping was affected by EFL reading proficiency significantly and articles (a, an, the) were skipped more than content words. Furthermore, more skilled learners were observed to have less fixation count and skipped more words during reading while less skilled learners employed more fixations and skipped less words. Eye tracking as a novel method to observe learner development and progress in EFL reading was also discussed. 
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 Language skills are essential for early childhood, being able to speak clearly and process speech sounds, understand others, express ideas, and interact with others are the building blocks for a child's development. Therefore, this study will examine the effect of the Inside Outside Circle (IOC) instructional strategies with media images on children's language skills. This research is a quasi-experimental design with a posttest only and using a control group. The sample in this study were children in two kindergartens in the village of Banjar Tegal. Data analysis in this study was carried out by quantitative descriptive methods using t-test analysis techniques. The results of this study in kindergarten students in Banjar Tegal Village show that there is an influence of the IOC learning model with picture media on children's language skills (tcount = 6.28> ttable = 2.00). This shows that language skills achieved by groups of children participating in learning with the IOC model with drawing media are better than groups of children who attend learning without the IOC model. The implication is that further research is expected to develop other aspects of child devel- opment through the IOC model.
 Keywords: Children Language skills, Image media, Inside-Outside Circle Instructional Strategies
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It is my immense pleasure to share with you the first 2021 issue of Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching. It brings together five papers reporting the findings of empirical studies as well as two reviews of very recent publications. The issue opens with the contribution by Mariusz Kruk, Mirosław Pawlak, and Joanna Zawodniak, who investigate changes in the levels of boredom experienced by 13 Polish university students majoring in English during four EFL classes as well as factors responsible for such fluctuations. Multiple sources of data were applied which included boredom-grids, where participants indicated the intensity of this negative emotion on a 7-point Likert scale at 5-minute intervals, class evaluation forms, narratives, semi-structured interviews with four students after each class, and lesson plans. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis demonstrated that boredom was indeed subject to between- and within-class variation, which resulted from various constellations of variables, with repetitiveness, monotony and predictability playing a key role. In the second paper, Xiaowan Yang and Mark Wyatt report a qualitative case study which examined teachers’ beliefs about learners’ motivation and their own motivational practices, and the actions they actually took in this respect in the classroom in the context of teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in China. The analysis of the data collected from three university-level teachers of business English by means of pre-observation interviews, in-class observations and stimulated recall interviews yielded evidence for tensions between participants’ cognitions and practices they engaged in, showing that such mismatches negatively affect their self-determination. The existence of this cognitive disharmony is attributed to scarce opportunities for professional development, outdated knowledge about motivation and cultural influences. The theme of ESP also features in the following paper by Cailing Lu, Frank Boers and Averil Coxhead, who explored understanding of technical terms included in a list of technical words related to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with the aim of determining which of these terms should be emphasized during instruction. The requisite data were collected by means of a word association task, drawing on Read’s (1998) Word Association Test, as well as retrospective interviews from 21 BA students in China and New Zealand. The analysis showed that although the students manifested good understanding of the targeted items, especially high-frequency ones, some Chinese participants experienced difficulty understanding mid- and low-frequency words. By contrast, the Western learners mainly struggled with Chinese loan words, but their comprehension was not impacted by cultural differences. In the fourth paper, Bryła-Cruz reports the findings of a study which looked into the role of gender in the perception of English segments by Polish learners of English as a foreign language. The data were collected from 40 male and 40 female secondary school students who were asked to indicate the sound they heard in 20 sentences containing minimal pairs. The differences between males and females failed to reach statistical significance for most targeted segments and while the hierarchy of perceptual difficulty was not identical for both groups, it was similar, which suggests that differences between the sound systems of the first and second language might trump the mediating role of gender. In the final paper, Jesús Izquierdo, Silvia Patricia Aquino Zúñiga, and Verónica García Martínez shift the focus to the context of foreign language education in rural schools in southeast Mexico, zooming in on the challenges faced by generalist teachers, or non-language specialists, tasked with the job of teaching English. The data were collected by means of questionnaires administered to 155 such teachers in 17 schools and semi-structured interviews with those who manifested the greatest involvement in professional development. Using frequency analysis and categorical aggregation, the researchers show that generalist teachers are confronted with a wide array of problems related to their professional preparation, instructional techniques used as well as the sociocultural realities of L2 instruction in rural communities. In addition, only a few teachers are prepared to develop professionally, relying instead on limited strategies that help them combat the challenges they encounter. The issue also includes two book reviews by Jarosław Krajka and Mirosław Pawlak. The first book deals with the assessment of English proficiency among young learners while the second is devoted to research into learning and teacher psychology from the perspective of complex dynamic systems theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2007). I am hopeful that all the contributions will provide food for thought to our readers and inspire them to further disentangle the intricacies of second language learning and teaching.

<p>The current situation of educational reforms since 1990s has brought up a booming demand of competent EFL teachers because of economic globalization and further opening-up policy in China. So it’s vital and significant to explore EFL teachers’ professional development in order to promote English language teaching. Based on the Constructivism Perspective in educational psychology and new trends in Second Language Teacher Education, this research focuses on six secondary EFL teachers’ critical incidents and narrates their brief experiences by deep interview and field notes. After categorized analysis through recurring themes, the discussions about four domains (i.e. learning experiences, knowledge & beliefs, teaching practice and social context) are summarized below. These teachers have experienced pre-service & in-service and formal & informal learning that has different features. Secondly, they hold some common knowledge & beliefs, which are always developing but fluctuate with realities. Next, their language teaching develops from initial to survival then to mastery and personalization, but each stage is distinctive in different situations. Social context facilitates or constrains their professional development, but their responses to it are various to seek personal and professional balance. In conclusion, it interprets five interactive factors in the process of teacher professional development: Normal education and professional programs play essential roles; Self-directed teaching & school-based activities provide diverse paths; Perfection of language & teaching serves as peculiar professional qualities; Love for students & love for teaching functions as original driving force; Chinese social context works as potential external stimuli. Finally, it presents some feasible suggestions.</p>

This study explored social support domains and actual sources of support for older Chinese and Korean immigrants and compared them to the traditional domains based on mainly White, middle class populations. Fifty-two older Cantonese and Korean speaking immigrants participated in one of eight focus groups. We identified four similar domains: tangible, information/advice, emotional support, and companionship. We also identified needing language support which is relevant for non-English speaking minority populations. Participants discussed not needing emotional support. These Chinese and Korean immigrants had a small number of actual sources of support, relying mainly on adult children for help with personal situations (e.g., carrying heavy groceries, communicating with physicians) and friends for general information/advice (e.g., learning how to speak English, applying for citizenship) and companionship. Immigrant Asians are caught between two different traditions; one that is strongly kinship oriented where needs and desires are subordinated to the interests of the family and one that values independence and celebrates individuality. Despite their reticence in asking for help outside the family, elders are seeking help from other sources, such as ethnic churches and the government.

AbstractThe Common Objects Memory Test (COMT) was developed to assess age-related memory impairments in individuals with a range of educational, language and cultural backgrounds. The COMT is a list-learning protocol that uses photographs of common objects to bypass difficulties posed by written words for individuals who are illiterate or have limited education. Preliminary data are presented for 336 healthy adults and 90 patients with dementia. Their age ranged from 54 to 99 years, education ranged from 0 to 22 years, and they were from five culturally and linguistically distinct populations: Caucasian and African-American English speakers, and native Chinese, Spanish, and Vietnamese speakers. Performance on the COMT was influenced by age, but little influenced by education, and un-influenced by gender or ethnic background. Among 11 neuropsychological tests, the recall scores from the COMT best distinguished healthy individuals from patients with dementia, underscoring its clinical utility for ethnically diverse populations. (JINS, 2010, 16, 537–545.)

Some observations on the possible indigenization of English in mainland China. China boasts the largest English-learning population in the world. ‘It seems there are more people learning to speak English in China than there are English speakers in the whole of the United States’. Over 200 million children, about 20% of the total in the world, are learning English in schools, and about 13 million young people at university. The Chinese government has decided to offer English as a compulsory course nationwide from the third year at primary school. While schools in rural areas are trying to find qualified English teachers, those in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai have begun to do so as soon as the children start school at the age of six.

We report three experiments that explore the effect of prior linguistic knowledge on implicit language learning. Native speakers of English from the United Kingdom and native speakers of Cantonese from Hong Kong participated in experiments that involved different learning materials. In Experiment 1, both participant groups showed evidence of learning a mapping between articles and noun animacy. In Experiment 2, neither group showed learning of a mapping between articles and a linguistically anomalous concept (the number of capital letters in an English word or that of strokes in a Chinese character). In Experiment 3, the Chinese group, but not the English group, showed evidence of learning a mapping between articles and a concept derived from the Chinese classifier system. It was concluded that first language knowledge affected implicit language learning and that implicit learning, at least when natural language learning is concerned, is subject to constraints and biases.

This research investigates the interaction between English students learning Chinese in the UK and Chinese students learning English in China via a wiki platform. Activity theory and legitimate peripheral participation theory were employed as a theoretical framework; wiki was embedded as an interactive learning tool. The findings revealed that Chinese native speakers assisted English students learning Chinese as foreign language (CFL) by means of reorganizing word orders and restructuring sentence patterns. The usages of clarification and elaboration were more frequent than the usages of added and deleted information. Both CFL and English as foreign language (EFL) students interacted with each other in attending to language forms through the essay correction and revision process, and the interaction consequently enhanced their target language learning. The study suggests that wiki provides a dynamic platform, which encourages further integration into the syllabus to support foreign language learning.

English as a Second Language (ESL) is a term which is broadly used in Malaysia’s educational system. Mandarin, on the other hand, is only used among Chinese community and not many non-Chinese know and use Mandarin language as their communication tools among themselves. However, due to the rapid development of economy in China, the interest in Mandarin language learning is becoming prominent. In Malaysia, a country which has developed a tight diplomatic and economic relationship with China since 1976, the interest in learning Mandarin as a Foreign Language (MFL) among the non-Chinese learners is also growing where there is a quantum leap of Mandarin learners at tertiary level (Teow, Ismail, Foo & Ho, 2016). Students in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) are offered with both English as a Second Language (ESL) and Mandarin as a Foreign Language (MFL) courses. It means that students must learn English and Mandarin simultaneously especially for Diploma students and Degree students. Understanding how the motivation to learn each language might vary within a certain socio-political context is worth exploring, as it may help lecturers working within that context to motivate their students to learn the language more effectively. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that the different languages learned might trigger different emotional responses from learners (Humphreys & Spratt. 2008). In relation to this, it is important to examine the differences of students’ ESL and MFL learning motivation. This study employed a quantitative research design which emphasized on data collection from students who studied ESL and MFL.

Adopting Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982), James (1998) and Zheng and Park (2013) 's system of error classification, this study investigates L1 transfer errors from English to Chinese based on Chinese translation texts written by intermediate-level American university students. These errors were identified and co-coded using the NVivo qualitative text analysis software program. For example, 在白天做健康的东西[事情] (do healthy things in the day.). It is coded under the subcategories of noun and misformation. Using obtained data, the NVivo program presents the frequency of error types and their attributes. The findings contribute to both theoretical and pedagogical issues by focusing on error types common to Chinese L2 learners and typically manifested in Chinese written production due to influences from English. Finally, this study sheds light on implications for instruction on different types of errors in classroom and on intercultural ambiguity.

Abstract The growing body of research on Chinese as an international (or “global”) language examines linguistic, psycholinguistic, social-psychological, and orthographic aspects of acquisition primarily. There has been relatively little critical discussion or analysis of the larger social context and discourses in which Chinese language education is embedded. However, recently sociocultural, discursive, and critical aspects of the teaching, learning, and use of Chinese as an additional language have begun to receive more attention. This study analyzes circulating discourses, ideologies, and tropes related to Chinese in news media, as one means by which information and perspectives are spread by media and by which public attitudes and policy decisions are (recursively) shaped or reproduced. To this end, a large sample of English-medium news reports of Chinese language education in three Anglophone countries was created and analyzed for the years 2004 to 2012. The findings revealed that reports dealing with Chinese education tended to fall into one of several major tropes, which we have roughly classified as “hope,” “hype,” and “fear,” distinctions that parallel existing models of cyclical or amplified media coverage of innovations or otherwise newsworthy events. The sociopolitically and socioeconomically motivated occurrence of these tropes in the media, combined with the novelty of the Chinese language itself, a historically less frequently taught language in comparison with various European languages, constituted a consistent and recurring narrative. Thus, the shifting representations of Chinese learning in the media tended to appear as corollaries or “side stories” servicing the needs of larger geopolitical events and perceived or desired changes in public sentiment. These trends and their significance are illustrated and discussed in relation to Global Chinese.

Self-regulated learning has been a widely researched subject for decades in educational psychology. Different instruments have been developed to understand learners’ self-regulated learning in a specific subject domain. This study developed a measurement scale to assess English-as-a-foreign-language learners’ self-regulatory capacity in English language learning and further examined the effects of gender on English-as-a-foreign-language learners’ self-regulatory capacity. A series of psychometric analyses including exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and full structural equation modeling were undertaken to answer the research questions raised. The findings suggest that the scale can attain high reliability and strong validity in two different samplings, and the underlying construct of self-regulation in English language learning is shown to be multidimensional with a significant impact by gender. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are further put forward in light of the research findings.

<p>As blended learning enters the college English reform in China, more and more researchers have made attempts to explore the effects of blended learning context. This paper intends to make an overview of application of it in English teaching in China by reviewing 20 papers published in core journals, with an aim to get a picture of the current situation of blended learning research and application in Chinese context. Thus reasonable suggestions are offered for appropriate approaches to more fully fulfill the role of blended learning in English teaching modernization in China.</p>

Three tasks were used to predict English learning by Finnish children over a three-year period. In the pseudoword repetition task the pupils had to repeat aloud tape-recorded pseudowords sounding like Finnish or English. In the pseudoword copying task the pupils saw strings of letters resembling Finnish or English words and copied them when they had disappeared from view. When comparing syntactic-semantic structures, the pupils had to find the syntactically matching pairs from two sets of Finnish sentences. Repetition and copying accuracy and the ability to compare syntactic-semantic structures predicted English learning. Intercorrelations between test scores and English and mathematics grades suggest that repetition and copying accuracy were specifically related to language learning. It is concluded that the ability to represent unfamiliar phonological material in working memory underlies the acquisition of new vocabulary items in foreign-language learning.