The Effect of the Continuation Task on the Acquisition of the Chinese Spatial Phrase Structure by L2 Chinese Learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeng Liyun ◽  
Mao Zhicheng ◽  
Jiang Lin
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Comprehension Task ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese

AbstractThis study aims to investigate the effect of the continuation task (CT) on the acquisition of the Chinese spatial phrase structure (SPS) by learners of various L1 backgrounds learning Chinese as a second language (CSL). Two groups of participants were formed: a continuation group and a reading comprehension group. The former was required to continue in Chinese a text with its ending removed, while the latter needed to complete the Q&A questions after reading the same text. The effect of the tasks was measured by examining the CSL learners’ correct use of the Chinese SPS in three aspects — the circum-construction, the use of prepositions and the use of the locative. The study found that the continuation group made significant improvement from the pretest to the posttests while the reading comprehension group did not. Moreover, the continuation group outperformed the reading comprehension group significantly in the posttests, though there was no significant difference between them in the pretest. The results showed that CT can facilitate CSL learners’ acquisition of the Chinese SPS, with a better effect than the reading comprehension task.

The effect of degrees of bilingualism on metacognitive linguistic skills

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1064-1086
Author(s):  
Salim Abu Rabia
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Significant Variable ◽  
Comprehension Task ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Linguistic Skills ◽  
Metacognitive Reading Strategies

Purpose and research question: The present study investigated whether there was any significant difference between balanced bilinguals, dominant bilinguals, limited bilinguals and monolinguals in the application of metacognitive linguistic skills while doing a reading comprehension task in the additional (English) language. Namely, how do different degrees of bilingualism affect metacognitive linguistic skills? Methodology: The present study examined three domains of metacognitive reading process (planning, monitoring and evaluating), as well as the overall use of metacognitive reading strategies. Four groups of participants (30 seventh grade students in each group) completed a Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire, aimed at measuring their metacognitive awareness in each domain after fulfilling a reading comprehension task in English. Data analysis: A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used in order to test the differences within groups and between groups. Findings and conclusions: Level of metacognitive reading awareness was affected by the degree of bilingualism. There was a positive influence of balanced (reading and writing skills in the second language) and imbalanced (oral skills in the second language) degrees of bilingualism on metacognitive linguistic abilities. A balanced degree of bilingualism exerted the greatest influence on most of the metacognitive reading domains (planning, monitoring and the total use of metacognitive strategies). Significance: A significant advantage of balanced bilinguals over all other groups was revealed. Level of metacognitive reading awareness was affected by the degree of bilingualism. Thus, bilingual education should be taken seriously due to its positive effect on all aspects of thinking and learning. Results provided additional support to the notion that bilingualism had a positive impact on the metacognitive linguistic skills. Moreover, the balance between the languages appeared to be a significant variable. Thus, balanced bilinguals, who possessed the highest competence in the second language, showed the best performance in the domains of planning, monitoring and overall use of metacognitive reading strategies. Limited bilinguals, on the contrary, demonstrated the lowest scores in the mentioned domains. The findings also revealed the absence of any considerable difference between the groups in the domain of evaluating.

scholarly journals Do Oral and Literacy Skills in Native Ghanaian Akan Language Modulate English Reading Comprehension as Second Language? A Study in Selected Basic Schools in Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Stephen Ntim
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Target Language ◽  
School Students ◽  
English Only ◽  
English Reading ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
English Reading Comprehension ◽  
The Impact

<p>This study investigated oral and literacy skills in native Ghanaian Akan language in mediating English reading comprehension of bilingual basic school students. Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance between groups on questions directly found in text showed variances were significantly different [F=49.070, p=0.00]. Bonferroni Post-hoc test comparing groups on questions requiring making multiple sentence meanings to be able to answer, data indicated a significant difference between mean scores of students who speak both English and Akan and students who speak English Only in favour of students who speak both English and Akan. Also, students who speak Akan Only performed significantly better than students who speak English Only with.no significant difference between mean scores of students who speak Akan Only and students who speak both English and Akan. This suggests the impact of native language in second language reading comprehension is enormous. When bilinguals are reading second language (and in this study English) they are likely to make use of previous knowledge, strategies and processes from the first language through cognitive/psycholinguistic factors as orthographic processing, phonological code and meaning activation among others and by so doing limiting the effect of cognitive load in the target language.</p>

scholarly journals Morphological Awareness in L2 Chinese Reading Comprehension: Testing of Mediating Routes

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haomin Zhang ◽  
Xing Zhang ◽  
Mengjie Li ◽  
Yiming Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Morphological Awareness ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Chinese Reading ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
Path Models ◽  
Inference Task

This study aims to examine the contribution of morphological awareness to second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension through potential mediating factors. Adult L2 Chinese learners (n = 447) participated in the study and completed two morphological awareness tasks (segmentation and discrimination), two vocabulary knowledge tasks (character knowledge and word-meaning knowledge), one lexical inference task, and one reading comprehension task. By testing alternative path models, this study identified the preferred model assuming the covariates of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge jointly contributed to L2 Chinese reading comprehension through lexical inference. The written modality of morphological awareness induced the activation of both morphological and orthographic information in print. The result suggests that morphological awareness (in the form of grapho-morphological knowledge) and vocabulary knowledge seem to be two parallel components under the same construct predicting Chinese reading comprehension. More importantly, this study underscores the intermediary effect of lexical inference in associating morphological awareness and reading comprehension in L2 Chinese learners.

scholarly journals The Predictive Role of Grapho-Morphological Knowledge in Reading Comprehension for Beginning-Level L2 Chinese Learners

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianxu Chen ◽  
Sihui Ke ◽  
Keiko Koda
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
Path Analyses ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
Predictive Role ◽  
L2 Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension entails a set of distinct, yet interdependent cognitive, linguistic, and nonlinguistic processes. Previous second language (L2) Chinese studies have identified significant and positive impacts of grapho-morphological knowledge at the character and subcharacter (radical) levels on passage reading comprehension; however, little is known regarding how early L2 grapho-morphological knowledge at the character and radical levels jointly predict later L2 reading comprehension. This study aimed to fill this gap. One hundred and five beginning-level L2 Chinese collegiate learners were recruited, and completed two character-related and two radical-related tasks in Week 8, as well as one reading comprehension tasks in Week 18. The main findings, based on correlational and path analyses, suggested that L2 Chinese learners’ early character-level and radical-level grapho-morphological knowledge significantly predicted later reading comprehension, yet the interrelations among grapho-morphological knowledge at the character and radical levels were complex. Path analyses identified direct and indirect paths from early character-level grapho-morphological knowledge to later reading comprehension, as well as indirect paths from early radical-level grapho-morphological knowledge to later reading comprehension. Methodological and pedagogical implications for L2 Chinese reading research and practices are discussed.

The influence of L1 translation familiarity on the acquisition of L2 Chinese antonyms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuyi Yang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Multiple Choice ◽  
Intermediate Level ◽  
Partial Replication ◽  
Familiarity Effect ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract As a partial replication of Tagashira, Kida, and Hoshino (2010), the present study examined first language (L1) translation familiarity effect on second language (L2) antonym acquisition among English-speaking intermediate-level Chinese learners. Fifteen students learned 15 antonymous pairs with familiar or unfamiliar L1 translations and completed two multiple-choice posttests. Their learning strategies were also collected. Results showed (a) a delayed L1 familiarity effect, (b) better retention and lower interference of L2 pairs with familiar L1 translations, (c) low retention of L2 pairs with unfamiliar L1 translations for both words, and (d) more orthographic elaboration strategies employed. The findings suggest that L2 instructors present antonyms in pairs, avoid providing a single, unfamiliar L1 translation, and encourage the use of orthographic elaboration strategies.

scholarly journals Spanish L2 Chinese Learners’ Awareness of Morpho-Syntactic Structures in the Reading Comprehension of Splittable Compounds

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziming Lu ◽  
Ying Dai ◽  
Yicheng Wu
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Word Decoding ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
Linguistic Comprehension ◽  
Text Word ◽  
Syntactic Status

Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists’ views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units.

Learning how to learn pragmatics

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Taguchi ◽  
Xiaofei Tang ◽  
Joy Maa
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
And Control ◽  
Cognitive And Metacognitive Strategies ◽  
Us University

Learning strategies are self-generated actions taken to make learning more efficient,productive, and transferable to new settings (Oxford, 1990, 2011). We can teach students how to use learning strategies efficiently, helping them gain autonomy and control of their own learning process. This study applied strategy instruction to pragmatics learning in a second language (L2). Adapting Oxford's (2011) taxonomy, we taught L2 learners various cognitive and metacognitive strategies, including how to pay attention to select pragmatic features, and how to monitor and evaluate their learning of the features. Four L2 Chinese learners and six L2 Japanese learners in a US university received strategy instruction on targeted pragmatic features (i.e., conversation opening/closing; indirect meaning). The instruction was followed by a two-week period in which students kept a daily journal recording their experiences with the targeted features. Interviews were conducted at the end to gauge students' reflections of the strategy applications. Results showed that students noticed targeted pragmatic features in available resources, but there was imbalance in the degree of noticing and types of strategies used.

scholarly journals Elaborative Feedback to Enhance Online Second Language Reading Comprehension

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Bown
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Second Language Reading ◽  
Online Reading ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Response Feedback ◽  
Second Language Reading Comprehension

Many higher education students across the world are studying in situations where a high proportion of the academic materials they encounter are online reading texts written in their second language. While the online medium presents a number of challenges to L2 readers, it also enables the provision of a range of support mechanisms, such as instant feedback. This quasi-experimental study investigated the use of two types of feedback, elaborative and knowledge of response, and compares their effectiveness for enhancing online second language reading comprehension. The participants were 113 Emirati students of L2 English at a higher education college in the United Arab Emirates. Data were collected using a pre-test and a post-test measure of reading comprehension and an online reading comprehension exercise containing either elaborative or knowledge of response feedback. The results of the quasi-experiment showed no significant difference between the effects of the two feedback types on comprehension of an online reading text for the sample as a whole. Equally, for the high-proficiency readers, feedback type had no significant effect on text comprehension. However, with regard to the low-proficiency readers, those receiving elaborative feedback performed significantly better on the post-test than those who received knowledge of response feedback. The findings suggest that elaborative feedback can enhance online L2 reading comprehension but that it needs to be tailored specifically to the needs of the L2 readers it is intended to support.

Existence and consequences of dormant features: Evidence from L2 acquisition of Chinese object ellipsis

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110662
Author(s):  
Lulu Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
Disconfirming Evidence ◽  
L1 English

The current study investigates second language acquisition of Chinese object ellipsis to probe the development of features transferred from learners’ native language without robust confirming or disconfirming evidence in the second language (L2) input. It is argued that Chinese allows object ellipsis licensed by a verb with a [VCase] feature but not by a verb with a [Vnon-Case] feature. In contrast, Korean allows object ellipsis to be licensed by both types of verbs, whilst English prohibits both. An acceptability judgement task was conducted among first language (L1) English and L1 Korean L2 Chinese learners from elementary to advanced levels, with the results showing that the [Vnon-Case] feature was assembled in the Chinese grammars of English and Korean elementary L2 learners; however, it gradually lost its vigour and licensing power for object ellipsis in intermediate L2 grammars and was successfully removed from licensing object ellipsis in advanced L2 grammars. These findings support predictions by Yuan regarding a feature’s dormant status and modify Yuan’s predictions regarding a dormant feature’s consequences.

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