On the Effect of Personality and Efficacy on Second Language Instructors’ Performance

The field of Second Language Acquisition has long since reached consensus that the most effective way to teach a foreign language is through “Communicative Methods” that immerse students in the language as soon and as fully as possible, requiring them to hear and speak—not translate—the new language. Are there lessons from this we can learn for teaching classical languages such as Greek and Hebrew? Below is an edited transcript of a panel sponsored by the National Association of Professors of Hebrew at the 2017 conference of the Society of Biblical Literature. The publication of Paul Overland’s textbook, Learning Biblical Hebrew Interactively (2016), provided the occasion for a group of Hebrew language instructors to reflect together on the challenges and possibilities of Second Language Acquisition communicative methods for teaching Biblical Hebrew.

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Analyzing Learner Language to Better Understand Errors: A Case Study with Turkish Learners of English

International Journal of English Language Teaching ◽

10.5430/ijelt.v5n1p9 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

Heather M. Austin

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Language Acquisition ◽

Continuing Education ◽

Learning Opportunities ◽

Acquisition Process ◽

Language Instructors ◽

Student Errors ◽

Learner Language

Analyzing the errors of students’ learner language (interlanguage) can help language instructors to not only betterunderstand why the errors may be occurring, but also provide them with insight on how to better guide learners intheir L2 learning. In this paper, the learner language of two Turkish students of English was analyzed regarding thethird person singular –s inflection and interaction strategies. The author met with each student three times and speechdata was collected during these meetings. An error and interlanguage analysis was then conducted. Reflecting onthese types of analyses can be a very enlightening process in a teacher’s continuing education. Various implicationsarise, such as more objectivity in approaching student errors, creating better learning opportunities in the classroom,as well as having a better indication of where students are at in their own second language acquisition process.

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Talking about oneself

Journal of Second Language Studies ◽

10.1075/jsls.21023.mue ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Charles M. Mueller ◽

Peter Richardson

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Student Engagement ◽

Empirical Research ◽

Correlational Analysis ◽

Japanese University ◽

Language Instructors ◽

Lexical Complexity ◽

English Students ◽

Practical Implications

Abstract Second language instructors often have students talk about their own experiences rather than abstract impersonal topics. Intuitively, such topics seem more likely to encourage student engagement. Unfortunately, virtually no empirical research has examined the effects of personal prompts on spoken output. To address this gap in research, the current study (N = 117) compares the spoken output of Japanese university English students who responded to a personal prompt with students responding to an impersonal prompt. Output was recorded in transcripts and then analyzed using a battery of measures related to complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Findings showed that personalized prompts were associated with greater fluency. Moreover, there was some evidence that impersonal prompts led to output with greater lexical complexity. Rates of accuracy were similar in both groups. Correlational analysis suggested that lexical sophistication was associated with reduced fluency. The conclusion addresses practical implications and avenues for further research.

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Promoting self-discovery in the language classroom

IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching ◽

10.1515/iral-2015-0003 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 53 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Hansun Zhang Waring

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Learning Activity ◽

Delicate Balance ◽

Adult Esl ◽

Language Classroom ◽

Language Instructors ◽

Self Repair ◽

Self Discovery ◽

Ordinary Conversation

AbstractPromoting self-discovery appears to be a general relevancy oriented to by participants not only in ordinary conversation (Schegloff et al., 1977) but also in various sorts of institutional encounters (e.g., Edwards & Stokoe, 2007). The push for self-repair, for example, is considered an important learning activity which may be inhibited or retarded by other-repair (van Lier, 1988; Ohta, 2000). The aim of this paper is to investigate the complexities of the practices utilized to accomplish promoting self-discovery in the language classroom. Based on a conversation analytic account of 30 hours of audio and video-recorded adult ESL (English as a Second Language) lessons, I show two ways in which promoting self-discovery may become problematic in its implementation. I argue that language instructors need to be sensitized to the delicate balance between promoting self-discovery and providing interactionally contingent help.

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Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-h-19-0074 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (12) ◽

pp. 4534-4543

Author(s):

Wei Hu ◽

Sha Tao ◽

Mingshuang Li ◽

Chang Liu

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native Language ◽

Vowel Identification ◽

Vowel Perception ◽

Perceptual Distance ◽

Vowel Space ◽

English Vowels ◽

Chinese Counterpart ◽

Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

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