Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics

Modeling the Contribution of Anxiety, Enjoyment, and Classroom Environment to Boredom among Students of English as a Foreign Language Students

2023-06-21T16:39:10+00:00

Over the past few years, there has been a surge in scholarly attention about the role of emotions in second-language acquisition. There is a consensus among researchers that emotions play a crucial part in learning a new language. The emotional experiences of language learners, such as anxiety, enjoyment, and motivation, have been studied, and strategies to promote positive emotions and decrease negative emotions have been identified. Motivated by a recent academic interest in boredom, this study investigated the effects of foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), and classroom environment (CE) on learners' foreign language learning boredom (FLLB). A sample of 481 college students enrolled in English classes took part in the study. There were significant correlations of FLCA, FLE, and FLLB with CE. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that students' FLCA, FLE, and CE were significant predictors of their FLLB, with FLCA being the strongest predictor, followed by FLE and CE. The independent predictive effects of FLCA, FLE, and CE outweighed the interactive effects between CE and FLCA, CE and FLE, and FLCA and FLE. Pedagogical implications are discussed based on the results.

Self-efficacy as a protective factor when translating under time pressure

2022-10-28T11:47:35+00:00

The goal of this paper is to investigate the relations between translation trainees’ self-efficacy and hormonal and subjective responses to the stressful situation of translating under strict time constraints and how these may impact their actual translation performance. With that purpose in mind, participants completed a questionnaire in which they were asked about their self-efficacy beliefs (Costa, Serrano, Salvador, 2016) and two other self-reported questionnaires: the State-and-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, and Jacobs, 1983), and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson, Clark, and Tellegen, 1988). They were asked to translate three comparable literary texts from English into Spanish under different time limit conditions. When finished, they completed a questionnaire on their perceptions and feelings about their performance. Besides, five cortisol salivary samples were collected at different points in time during the experimental session. Overall, our results showed that self-efficacy beliefs are a protective factor against stress that reduces the negative impact of translating under time-pressure conditions. Regarding translation quality, trainees with higher self-efficacy seem to produce less accurate target texts in terms of meaning under stringent time pressure than students with lower self-efficacy beliefs. Moreover, a higher level of cortisol seems to have a beneficial effect on accuracy for the same condition.

Association of lexical and collocation knowledge: A comparative analysis of native speakers and nonnative learners of English

2022-09-28T17:35:33+00:00

To provide a comprehensive estimate of Korean college students’ lexical competence, this study compared L2 learners’ (EFL) use of single words and collocations with that of native speakers (NSs). The study compiled two text corpora, one from an existing native corpus and the other with texts from Korean EFL learners at three proficiency levels. There were significant differences between the two corpora in lexical diversity, although the difference between advanced EFL learners and NSs was non-significant, indicating that advanced learners were on par with NSs in terms of using a diverse range of words. In a comparison of lexical distribution of single words, however, these advanced learners were found to use words between the 1K and 4K level, whereas NSs used words beyond this level. This suggests the need to cover a wider range of words in classroom teaching and assessment. Regarding collocational knowledge, the difference between the NSs and EFL group was apparent and statistically significant, regardless of learners’ proficiency levels. Namely, EFL learners used far fewer collocations in a smaller range than their counterparts. The learners’ limited collocational competence indicates that collocations should be considered an integral component of the curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Teaching critical reading in the classroom: A comparison of CLIL and EFL across contexts

2023-05-24T17:55:31+00:00

Critical reading (Fairclough, 1989, 1995; Kress, 1985; Wallace, 2003) is considered to be one of the instruments that gives the necessary resources to construct meaning in discourse. This paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test post-test design on students in the 6^th year of primary education (10-11 years old) enrolled in two schools in Spain, one school located in the Basque Country (Content and Language Integrated, CLIL group) and the other in Cantabria (English as a Foreign Language, EFL group). Altogether four groups were selected: CLIL-experimental, CLIL-control, EFL-experimental and EFL-control. The experimental groups received critical reading strategy instruction for seven weeks while the control groups continued with regular classes. The one-way ANCOVA results showed that students in both the CLIL and EFL programmes developed greater mastery in critical reading after the teaching protocol. However, and contrary to our initial hypothesis, experimental students from the EFL context outperformed the CLIL learners. The novelty of the critical reading awareness protocol seemed to have a greater influence on the EFL students, who, unlike the CLIL students, were not so familiar with strategy learning. The new training procedure helped them to promote higher order critical reading skills, taking more advantage of the whole strategy learning protocol.

Online processing and vocabulary learning in massed versus spaced repeated reading

2023-02-28T15:41:02+00:00

The present exploratory study analyzed the effect of two different implementations of repeated reading (massed vs. spaced) on the online processing of the text and unknown vocabulary, as well as on incidental vocabulary learning. The relationship between processing and learning of target vocabulary in massed versus spaced repeated reading was also examined. A group of Spanish undergraduate students read the same text in English three times under either a massed (three times consecutively) or spaced (once a week) schedule, while their eye movements were recorded. Knowledge of a set of target words from the text was assessed in immediate and delayed multiple-choice, meaning-recognition tests. The results of this study suggest that repeated reading led to a decrease in total reading time and number of fixations in the massed group but not in the spaced group. However, there were no significant differences between the two conditions in the processing of target words or immediate vocabulary gains. Finally, it was observed that longer processing time on the target words was related to larger immediate vocabulary gains, but only in the spaced group.

The relationship between extramural English and learners’ listening comprehension, reading comprehension, motivation, and anxiety

2023-04-15T14:54:19+00:00

Recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in the relationship between extramural English and learners’ language proficiency. However, the majority of the studies have focussed on vocabulary knowledge. Less is known about extramural English and learners’ motivation, reading and listening proficiency. Further, few studies have focused on English-as-a-foreign language learners attending technical education. The main objective of this study is to investigate whether extramural English is related to the motivation, language anxiety, listening and reading proficiency of three distinct groups of participants: grade 6 (age 11-12), grade 8 (age 13-14) and grade 10 (age 15-16) learners. Data were collected with 108 learners. All participants were administered a questionnaire and a listening and reading comprehension test. The findings suggest that learners are frequently exposed to English in their spare time. The results also indicate that grade 6 learners were already capable of performing listening tasks at the A2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, even though they had not had any English lessons in school yet. Watching non-subtitled TV in English appeared to be positively related with both listening and reading proficiency. Finally, relationships were found between various extramural English activities and factors concerning motivation and anxiety.