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摘要：Concerns over the quality of peer feedback and entrenched teacher-driven learning have resulted in the limited use of peer assessment in Chinese EFL writing instruction. This study sought to effectively implement peer assessment for EFL writing in China, by addressing learners' concerns through tailor-made teacher intervention strategies. Eighteen English majors participated in peer assessment for nine writing tasks. Pre-intervention surveys elicited learners' concerns over peer assessment, leading to the design of teacher-led support strategies. Post-task surveys examined learners' satisfaction with teacher-supported peer assessment, and were supplemented by the assignment feedback data. The results show that a dynamic and continuous teacher support approach to peer assessment was reported which proved to substantially affect learners' perceptions, and the nature and the perceived value of peer assessment respectively. This paper provides implications for EFL writing teachers regarding pedagogic motivation and strategies for the effective use of peer assessment. Adapted from the source document

摘要：'Conversation-driven' ELT privileges classroom talk as a primary source of language learning, yet it is often unclear to what the term 'conversation' is referring. This article reports on an investigation responding to this problem in which a substantial database of language classroom recordings was analysed for the types of talk that were taking place. Activities in language lessons that were driven by conversation were analysed using classroom discourse techniques. Opportunities for language learning through the language emerging from these activities were identified, and a type of talk was specified in which learners were engaged more in exploring issues and possibilities, and less in transacting information and opinions. This study demonstrates the importance of teachers being aware of the types of talk occurring in their lessons, which they should be strategically managing. It provides teachers with a platform from which they can begin to analyse the talk in their own classrooms. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper contributes to L2 listening pedagogy by exploring listening instruction and examining teachers' authentic listening lessons. Listening instruction has yet to be investigated systematically, and the literature has typically relied on anecdotal and intuitive accounts of what takes place in listening lessons. Therefore, this paper reports on a practical investigation into listening pedagogy through a review of 30 listening lessons taught and recorded by ten EFL instructors in Japan. Lesson content was transcribed and coded according to a priori categories informed by the literature. These categories included, among others, comprehension questions, bottom-up listening activities, and metacognitive listening strategies. Results revealed some teachers using a range of techniques while others limited their teaching to product-based approaches. The paper provides empirical descriptions of L2 listening instruction in practice and discusses pedagogic implications stemming from the results, including suggestions for how language teachers can expand their repertoires for the teaching of listening. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study investigated the immediate and long-term effects of explicit and implicit classroom interventions on L2 pragmatics. The linguistic focus of the interventions was epistemic stance, which has rarely been studied in research on instructed SLA within the field of interlanguage pragmatics. Eighty-one learners of English at a Japanese university were divided into explicit (n = 37) and implicit (n = 44) groups for 3 hours of instruction. Written production data were collected before the interventions, immediately after them, and five months later. Learners' use of epistemic stance forms was analysed by using: (i) a measure of individual use of epistemic stance forms; and (ii) learner corpus analysis. The explicit intervention was found to be considerably more effective than the implicit intervention in both the short- and long-term for most of the targeted forms. However, in cases when learners lacked a form for a specific function before the intervention, both types of instruction appeared to be equally effective. While this research generally provides strong support for explicit instruction, the potential of implicit interventions for certain forms needs further investigation. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article explores the value of judiciously used first language (L1)-to-second language (L2) translation in meaning-focused, advanced-level academic language education. It examines languaging in the teacher-led discourse (TLD) that arises when translation tasks are used and compares it to languaging during the TLD engendered by 4 other grammar-focused tasks. Data were collected in 3 different groups of students who were taught by the same teacher within a functioning university course in English at a Swedish university. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of audio-recorded lessons revealed that translation tasks led to (a) particularly high levels of student-initiated referential questions that break the initiation-response-feedback pattern and (b) a less-frequent focus on targeted L2 grammar as student attention tended to be drawn to vocabulary. Qualitative analysis of teacher scaffolding suggests that the teacher used translation to create a forum for student-centered discussion of various aspects of English language use in order to meet one of the course goals. The relatively strong presence of student-initiated interaction suggests that translation may have particular potential to engender student activity. It is argued that translation, therefore, may have an important, yet limited, place in academic-level language education where knowledge of the L1 is shared.

摘要：In this study a self-paced instructional method based on the use of Apple's iPod Touch personal mobile devices to deliver content was compared with a group-oriented instructional method of content delivery in terms of learner acquisition of course material. One hundred and twenty-two first-year Japanese university students in four classes were used in the study. The subjects were placed in two experimental groups and two control groups, and each researcher taught one control and one experimental group. An independent samples t-test performed on the groups' placement scores on the university's English entrance examination showed no significant difference between the two groups in terms of general English ability at the outset of the experiment. During the treatment sessions the control groups studied in a group-oriented classroom environment while the experimental groups studied the same course material but did so with a self-paced method that used Apple's iPod Touch personal mobile devices. As such, the subjects in the experimental group were allowed to study at a rate they chose rather than having the timing of the language input controlled by the teacher. The curriculum for both the control and experimental groups was based on the course textbook (Science English: Communication skills for scientists and engineers, Daniels, 2007, Tokyo: Thomson). The same standardized tests were given to all students involved in the study and the scores of the control and experimental groups were analysed using independent samples t-tests supported by Mann-Whitney tests. The post-treatment data showed a significant difference emerge between the groups, while the experimental group scored consistently higher than the control group. Results of a post-treatment survey given to the experimental group also indicated very positive learner attitudes towards the self-study iPod Touch-based instructional method.

摘要：Building on the cognitive and interactive perspectives of task research, the cognition hypothesis states that increasing task complexity promotes greater interaction and feedback and thus facilitates second language (L2) development (Robinson, 2001b, 2007a). To date, very little research has explored this claim during learner-learner interactions in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom contexts in which a task-based syllabus is implemented. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of task complexity on the occurrence of interaction-driven learning opportunities and question development in such a classroom context. Korean university students (N = 191) from four intact English classes were randomly assigned to one comparison group and three experimental groups with various task-complexity levels (i.e., simple, + complex, and + + complex) based on Robinson's framework. Their interactions were audiorecorded, and occurrences of learning opportunities, operationalized as language-related episodes (LREs), were identified. Question development was identified between pretest and posttests on the basis of the learners' stage advancement using Pienemann and Johnston's (1987) developmental sequence. Results indicated that more complex tasks promoted a greater number of LREs and particularly led to LREs targeting developmentally advanced question structures, which result in question development. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This quasi-experimental study is aimed at (a) teaching learners how to provide corrective feedback (CF) during peer interaction and (b) assessing the effects of peer interaction and CF on second language (L2) development. Four university-level English classes in Japan participated (N = 167), each assigned to one of four treatment conditions. Of the two CF groups, one was taught to provide prompts and the other to provide recasts. A third group participated in only peer-interaction activities, and a fourth served as the control group. After one semester of intervention, the two CF groups improved in both overall accuracy and fluency, measured as unpruned and pruned speech rates, whereas the peer-interaction-only group outperformed the control group only on fluency measures. This study draws on monitoring in speech-production theory and the declarative-procedural model of skill-acquisition theory to interpret these results, thus contributing a new theoretical approach to CF research in the context of peer interaction in which learners can be providers of CF. It is concluded that whereas peer interaction offered opportunities for repeated production practice, facilitating proceduralization, CF sharpened learners' ability to monitor both their own language production and that of their interlocutors. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Saito and Lyster (2011) examined the acquisitional value of pronunciation-focused recasts in a quasi-experimental study with a pre- and post-test design involving participants who were adult native speakers of Japanese learning English. The participants were involved with a series of form-focused tasks whereby they were guided to notice and practice one of two pronunciation features (the alveolar approximant /r/ or the low front vowel /ae/) while teachers consistently provided recasts in response to pronunciation errors. That study reported the results of the group focusing on /r/, revealing that pronunciation-focused recasts can be facilitative of L2 pronunciation development with medium-to-large effects, especially within familiar lexical items that appeared during the instructional treatment. In the current study, Saito and Lyster report on the results of the group focusing on /ae/ and further examine the pedagogical potential and limitations of pronunciation-focused recasts from various perspectives. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article describes a study examining the effects of Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model instruction on the academic language performance of middle and high school English language learners. The SIOP model is an approach for teaching content curriculum to students learning through a new language. Teachers employ techniques that make the content concepts accessible and also develop students' skills in the new language. Using a quasi-experimental design, the research was conducted in content area and English as a second language classes in two districts in northern New Jersey over 2 years. The analysis presents student achievement data from state-mandated language proficiency tests in the final year of the intervention, after most of the treatment teachers had completed their professional development in the SIOP model. There were statistically significant differences in the average mean scores in favor of the treatment student group on Writing, Oral Language, and Total English scores of the IDEA Language Proficiency Tests with small to medium effect sizes. The results from this study show that the SIOP model offers a promising approach to professional development that can improve the quality of instruction to English language learners and increase their English language achievement. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study aims to explore the impact of different captions on second language (L2) learning in a computer-assisted multimedia context. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, and a total of thirty-two eighth graders selected from a junior high school joined the study. They were systematically assigned into four groups based on their proficiency in English; these groups were shown animations with English narration and one of the following types of caption: no captions (M1), Chinese captions (M2), English captions (M3), and Chinese plus English captions (M4). A multimedia English learning program was conducted; the learning content involved two scientific articles presented on a computer. To track the learning process, data on oral repetition were collected after each sentence or scene was played. A post-test evaluation and a semi-structured interview were conducted immediately after viewing. The results show that the effect of different captions in multimedia L2 learning with respect to vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension depend on students' L2 proficiency. With English and Chinese + English captions, learners with low proficiency performed better in learning English relative to those who did not have such captions. Students relied on graphics and animation as an important tool for understanding English sentences. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The authors present a research timeline that traces the empirical bases of current approaches to second language pronunciation teaching, with particular attention given to the concepts of accent and intelligibility. Their approach was to begin with an empirical core of classroom pronunciation studies and situate this within the context of other studies and opinion pieces that reflect major themes in the field. The timeline is heavily oriented toward studies of adult ESL learners focusing on the speech stream and how it is perceived. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Sixty-five Japanese learners of English participated in the current study, which investigated the acquisitional value of form-focused instruction (FFI) with and without corrective feedback (CF) on learners' pronunciation development. All students received a 4-hr FFI treatment designed to encourage them to notice and practice the target feature of English /(turned r)/ in meaningful discourse, except those in the control group (n= 11), who received comparable instruction but without FFI on English /[turned r]/. During FFI, the instructors provided CF only to students in the FFI + CF group (n= 29) by recasting their mispronunciation or unclear pronunciation of /(turned r)/, whereas no CF was provided to those in the FFI-only group (n= 25). Acoustic analyses were conducted on frequency values of the third formant (F3) of English /(turned r)/ tokens elicited via pretest and posttest measures targeting familiar items and a generalizability test targeting unfamiliar items. The results showed that: (a) F3 values of the FFI + CF group significantly declined after the intervention, not only at a controlled-speech level but also a spontaneous-speech level, regardless of following vowel contexts; (b) change in F3 values of the FFI-only group and the control group was not statistically significant; and (c) the generalizability of FFI to novel tokens remained unclear. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Informed and inspired by neo-Vygotskian theory, this article outlines a study exploiting a contemporary conceptualization of Wells's (2002) joint activity system model as an exploratory framework for examining and depicting the social-cultural-historical contradictions in second-language (L2) learners' joint activity. The participants were a pair of advanced-level Japanese English-as-a-foreign-language learners, and their joint activity was the focus of analysis in a lesson they completed together, which was based on a pedagogical cycle aimed at developing their metacognition of L2 listening. To address the various dimensions depicted in the joint activity system model utilized, data from written journals, interviews, and dialogue were analyzed. The analysis explored the learners' motives, history and beliefs, pair work, goals, and pattern of interaction in order to identify the social-cultural-historical contradictions shaping their development of metacognition of L2 listening. The joint activity system analysis illustrated that a number of social-cultural-historical contradictions were both driving and inhibiting learners' metacognitive development.

摘要：This quasi-experimental study reports on a 10-month classroom-based longitudinal investigation, exploring the potential of authentic materials to develop Japanese learners' communicative competence in English. Sixty-two second-year university students were assigned to either a control group receiving textbook input or an experimental group receiving authentic input, and their pretreatment and posttreatment levels of overall communicative competence were assessed. Communicative competence was operationalized with a batch of eight different tests: a listening test, a pronunciation test, a C-test, a grammar test, a vocabulary test, a discourse completion task, an oral interview, and a student-student role-play. The results indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in five of the eight measures, suggesting that the authentic materials and their associated tasks were more effective in developing a broader range of communicative competencies in learners than the textbook materials. I discuss the pedagogical implications of these findings for language teachers and their learners.

摘要：This descriptive observational study aimed at exploring the form-focused instruction (FFI) interventions used by four French and four English as-a-second-language high school teachers to draw their students' attention to form. With the help of an Intervention-on-Form(s)-Observation Scheme (IFOS) developed and tested for this purpose, each FFI intervention observed during 60 hours of video-recorded class time was coded according to its type (e.g., corrective feedback, explanation, enhancement, form-oriented exercises) and its related characteristics (e.g., linguistic focus, interactional pattern, source of the intervention). The results show that grammar-oriented interventions are rather frequent in these second-language classes and that some differences in preferences of intervention types exist in the two contexts. Although FFI interventions are more frequent in the English classes observed, the overall time spent on FFI is significantly higher in the French classes. The reasons for this as well as details regarding the characteristics of the interventions coded through the use of the IFOS will be discussed.

摘要：This study aimed to isolate the effects of the two input activities in Processing Instruction: referential activities, which force learners to focus on a form and its meaning, and affective activities, which contain exemplars of the target form and require learners to process sentence meaning. One hundred and twenty 12-year-old Taiwanese learners of English as a foreign language were assigned to one of four groups: Referential + Affective, Referential only, Affective only, or Control. The treatments were computer-based. Pretests, posttests, and delayed posttests, including a timed grammaticality judgment, a written gap-fill, an oral picture narration, and a short semistructured conversation, measured learning of the-edpast tense verb inflection. Findings suggested that referential activities were responsible for the learning gains observed, that affective activities did not provide additional benefits in terms of learning-ed, and that the gains observed displayed some broadly defined characteristics of explicit knowledge.

摘要：As is the worldwide trend, scientists in China face strong and increasing pressure to publish their research in international peer-reviewed journals written in English. There is an acute need for graduate students to develop the required language skills alongside their scientific expertise, in spite of the distinct division currently existing between English teaching and the other disciplines. Researchers in the workplace also need ongoing training, presenting a complex challenge for the sector. We present an analysis of data gathered as we have introduced, in Chinese science- and English teaching-based contexts, an approach to the development of international publishing capacity entitled CIPSE -- Collaborative Interdisciplinary Publication Skills Education. This approach involves scientists and English language specialists working together on education programs adapted to fit local contextual constraints, and builds on collaborative approaches used extensively in ESP contexts elsewhere. Our analysis suggests some possible components of the multi-faceted strategy set that will clearly be required to address the challenges. We argue for changes to the teaching of English to research students in the sciences, including the development of a strong research base incorporating corpus linguistics, English for Specific Purposes pedagogy and interdisciplinary collaborative practice. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This study utilizes a pre-test/post-test assessment to investigate the instructional efficacy of a genre-based approach to teaching summary writing. Forty-one EFL university students in Taiwan were asked before and after the instruction to summarize a simplified version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in a maximum of 500 words. All the students' summaries on the pre- and post-tests were evaluated against content, organization, vocabulary, and language use. The statistical results showed that such an approach was effective in improving students' overall summarization performance of a narrative source text and that the students benefited to a greater extent in content and organization than in vocabulary and language use. The results were also supported by the students' interview comments. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper introduces a new vowel notation system aimed at aiding the teaching of English pronunciation. This notation system, designed as an enhancement to orthographic text, was designed to use concepts borrowed from the representation of musical notes and is also linked to the acoustic characteristics of vowel sounds. Vowel timbre is represented in terms of the height of the symbol and vowel duration in terms of the length of the symbol. The Speechant system was evaluated in EFL adult education classes in Portugal. A formal assessment that measured the impact of a term's tuition by looking at changes in accent ratings of the learners over that period showed that the group taught using the Speechant system showed greater improvements in pronunciation than the control group. Speechant may be an especially useful aid to pronunciation teaching in situations in which foreign languages are taught without the benefit of technological support. Adapted from the source document