Talking about oneself

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.

Study on the Correlation between Linguistic Complexity and Audience Recognition in College English Speech Contests

From the perspective of linguistic complexity, this paper explores the correlation between linguistic complexity and audience recognition in college English speech contests. By adopting the corpus construction and computer visualized data analysis, this study analyzes the speech of contestants at different levels in FLTRP Cup National English peaking Contest 2019-2020, the most authoritative college English speech contest in China. The study shows that: 1) In college English speech contests, the lexical complexity of the speech is negatively correlated with the recognition degree of the audience (i.e. the final ranking of the competition or the success of the speech). 2) The syntactic complexity of the speech exists reasonable interval to ensure good audience recognition. 3) In college English speech contests, the correlation between the lexical complexity and syntactic complexity of speeches and audience recognition is similar to the correlation between the rhetoric and audience recognition in political speeches which is obtained by previous researchers in the field of political speeches. Therefore, we think this study has a certain practical value. It provides evidence of linguistic complexity for predicting the winner of college English speech contests and helping contestants prepare for the contest better.

Effects of EFL Learning on L1 Chinese Lexis

The advocates of multi-competence theory argue that the L2 learners’ language system is unique because of the crosslinguistic influences of both languages. However, the influence of a foreign language on the learner’s L1 has not been extensively investigated. In order to address the gap, the present study sought to investigate the effects of EFL learning on written L1 Chinese at the lexical level. Two studies were conducted on 200 abstracts of MA theses written in Chinese, half on English literature written by Chinese-L1 English majors (EMs), and half on Chinese literature written by Chinese-L1 Chinese majors (CMs). The first study investigated the differences between the two groups in terms of the frequencies of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions in the abstracts. The second study examined the differences in the lexical complexity and diversity between the two groups. The results reveal 12 significant differences in 27 investigated word classes and subclasses, as well as significant differences in lexical complexity, but no significant difference in lexical diversity. The identified differences are discussed from a multi-competence perspective.

Phraseological complexity and low- and intermediate-level L2 learners’ writing quality

This study explores the extent to which phraseological complexity measures can predict second-language (L2) writing quality of low- and intermediate-level learners, especially in comparison with the more traditional syntactic and lexical complexity measures. To measure phraseological complexity, we evaluated phraseological diversity and phraseological sophistication by focusing on two commonly-used phraseological units (adjective-noun and verb-direct-object combinations). Our findings show that phraseological, syntactic, and lexical complexity measures can respectively explain 36.0, 34.4, and 56.5% of variance in writing scores. Although lexical complexity measures are responsible for more variance in writing scores, all three complexity dimensions contribute to the predictive power of writing scores, as evinced by the combined model explaining 63.4% of variance. Most phraseological complexity measures were loaded onto individual factors by the factor analysis, suggesting that phraseological complexity is an independent dimension of L2 complexity.

L’incidence d’un enseignement centré sur la forme sur la performance orale

The present study examines the timing effect of form-focused instruction within a task on language performance. One hundred and ten university-level, French as a second language students of B1 and B2 proficiency performed a ranking task. Two groups received instruction on the subjunctive prior to completing the task, two groups received instruction during the task, and two groups received instruction after the task. Performance was analyzed along the lines of structural complexity, accuracy, fluidity, and lexical complexity. The group receiving instruction prior to task completion displayed the most structural complexity, overall accuracy, and fluidity. Instruction during the task resulted in the greatest degree of lexical complexity and accuracy with respect to the use of the subjunctive. The post-task instruction group did not stand out in any respect. The results of the study demonstrate that form-focus instruction given prior to task completion does not necessarily yield negative effects on performance, contrary to some theoretical predictions or pedagogical recommendations regarding Task-Based Language Teaching.

Opening Pandora’s Box: How Does Peer Assessment Affect EFL Students’ Writing Quality?

Recent research has underlined the benefits of peer assessment (PA) as it helps learners write high-quality essays and increases their confidence as writers. In terms of this intervention study, 200 Greek Cypriot EFL learners’ essays (pre- and post-tests) were evaluated taking into consideration four aspects of writing quality after using either PA and teacher assessment (TA) (experimental groups, n = 100 students) or only TA (control groups, n = 100 students) in their writing classes for one year. This is one of the few studies, to the knowledge of the present researcher, which have performed text analysis of so many aspects of writing quality using such a—relatively—large sample (400 essays) in such a challenging setting (secondary education). Learners’ essays were evaluated in terms of accuracy, fluency, grammatical complexity, and lexical complexity using Atlas.ti. Findings indicated that learners who received PA and TA improved their essays more in terms of lexical complexity, accuracy, and some features of grammatical complexity and fluency than those who received only TA. The current study highlights the desirability of collaborative group work, in the form of PA activities, in the creation of opportunities conducive to promoting writing quality.

Lexical Complexity and Readibility Realized in The Introduction Sections of Selected English Journals

This study focused on the analysis of lexical complexity of the introduction section of the English journals manifested in lexical density, lexical diversity and lexical sophistication. This study also investigated the readability level of those texts. The method used in this study was a quantitative study by utilizing lexical complexity and readability analysis. The results of the study show that the manifestation of lexical density of the texts was above 0.50, representing that the content words utilized within the text were higher than function words. Furthermore, most of the introduction sections of the selected English journals achieved lexical diversity level more than 0.30 in which the highest lexical diversity was shown by EEJ journals and EduLite journals that shared the same level of lexical diversity with 0.35. Besides, the introduction sections were composed of. various advanced lexical items in terms of Academic Word Lists (AWL). Also, all introduction sections of the English journals - EEJ, EduLite and IJAL was readable for English department students both undergraduate and graduate degree based on Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease, Flesch Kincaid Grade Level and Miyazaki readability index. It is suggested that the journals’ introduction sections should be composed of informationally dense lexical items covering the important ideas to strengthen the arguments. It is expected that further studies could investigate more about other aspects that determine the quality of English journals’ introduction sections to uncover deeply about the quality of the texts.

Unraveling the Effects of Task Sequencing on the Syntactic Complexity, Accuracy, Lexical Complexity, and Fluency of L2 Written Production

Although several studies have explored the effects of task sequencing on second language (L2) production, there is no established set of criteria to sequence tasks for learners in L2 writing classrooms. This study examined the effect of simple ̶ complex task sequencing manipulated along both resource-directing (± number of elements) and resource-dispersing (± planning time) factors on L2 writing compared to individual task performance using Robinson’s (2010) SSARC model of task sequencing. Upper-intermediate L2 learners (N = 90) were randomly divided into two groups: (1) Participants who performed three writing tasks in a simple–complex sequence, and (2) participants who performed either the simple, less complex, or complex task. Findings revealed that simple-complex task sequencing led to increases in syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency, as compared to individual task performance. Results are discussed in light of the SSARC model, and theoretical and pedagogical implications are provided.