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Coda – Language use, technology and professionalisation in higher education: Roadmap for future research directions
No full textCoda – Language use, technology and professionalisation in higher education: Roadmap for future research directions
Review of Becoming and Being a TESOL Teacher Educator
No full textBecoming and Being a TESOL Teacher Educator, edited by Rui Yuan and Icy Lee. Routledge, 2021, 288pp, £96.00 (Hardcover) £29.59 (eBook). ISBN 9780367436292
Some trends in vocabulary research: A discussion of three papers presented at the JALT Vocabulary SIG
No full textThe Japanese context is a particularly rich area for a wide range of vocabulary research. I was therefore quite honored (and humbled) to be asked to serve as one of the discussants for the 2022 JALT Vocabulary SIG. The morning session of the Fall 2022 Vocabulary SIG included three papers that represent a range of topics that are common in vocabulary research. The first study (Eguchi, 2022) represents recent research on multivariate approaches to lexical sophistication, and highlights the importance of index selection, statistical choices, and the consideration of register when interpreting results. The second study (Al-Hoorie et al., 2022) highlights the wealth of vocabulary learning research that has been conducted in the last 30 years through a scoping review of research syntheses. The third study (Canning et al., 2022) represents an evaluation of one aspect of a substantive validity argument for a well-known receptive vocabulary knowledge test. The study highlights the idea that validity arguments are multi-faceted and that the evaluation of the validity of an assessment is an iterative, context-specific process, and is not represented by a one-time, one-size-fits-all study. Below, a brief summary of each study is provided, highlighting the particularly admirable qualities of each followed by suggestions for future research
Review of Decolonizing University Teaching and Learning: An Entry Model for Grappling with Complexities
No full textModeling lexical and phraseological sophistication in oral proficiency interviews: A conceptual replication
No full textBuilding on previous studies investigating the multidimensional nature of lexical use in task-based L2 performance, this study clarified the roles that the distinct lexical features play in predicting vocabulary proficiency in a corpus of L2 Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI). A total of 85 OPI samples were rated by three separate raters based on a Common European Frame of Reference (CEFR) based rubric in terms of their linguistic range. The interview transcription was analyzed for 56 lexical and phraseological indices using modern natural language processing tools. The result of an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed that the 56 indices tapped into 10 distinct factors of lexical use in OPI: three factors related to content words, three related to n-grams, three lexical collocation factors, and one function-word factor. A subsequent Bayesian mixed-effect ordinal regression indicated that six out of the 10 factors meaningfully predicted the CEFR levels on Range with reasonable accuracy (quadratic kappa coefficient = .81 with the human rating). The result highlights the distinct roles that multiple content-word, collocation, and function-word factors play in characterizing the linguistic range in a CEFR-based assessment of OPI. The implication for the assessment of lexical richness, as well as future directions of this research domain, are discussed
Review of Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis
No full textRoutledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis edited by Eric Friginal and Jack A. Hardy, Routledge, 2021, 662pp., $250.00 (Hardcover). ISBN 9780367201814
Rasch-based instrument validations for an augmented reality vocabulary acquisition experiment
No full textThe main purpose of this study was to provide validity evidence to support the creation and use of three instruments theorised to measure the existence of the form-meaning link between three sets of nonwords, and their assigned meanings within an experiment. The experimental study used a counterbalanced Latin square design to examine and compare three conditions of deliberate vocabulary study (word cards and two variations of tablet-based augmented reality) across three thematically constrained sets of controlled nonwords. The collected data gathered with the three delayed post tests conducted for each of the sets from the experiment were subjected to separate Rasch analyses, which are described in this study. The findings serve as evidence of construct validity and show: (1) the instruments performed as predicted by two a priori hypotheses, (2) the items were found to display good fit as to the expectations of the Rasch model, (3) each of the three instruments were found to be unidimensional, and (4) with no changes, these three instruments are expected to yield similar results if they were to be used to measure participants within a similar context from the same population
Vocabulary learning outside of the classroom: Institutional use of a spaced repetition
No full textThe Global Teaching Institute (GTI) at Tokyo International University (TIU) was founded in 2013 with 10 faculty members and now in 2022 has 55 faculty members. In order to provide students with similar learning opportunities while improving and supplementing their general English vocabulary, the writers of the present paper, decided in phases, from small beta-runs in 2013 and 2014 to implement vocabulary learning app assignments institutionally for all English-major first- and second-year students. The spaced repetition learning app that has been utilized is WordEngine. This paper will provide an overview of the rationale and implementation as well as an introduction to WordEngine
Developing a discipline-specific corpus and high-frequency word list for science and engineering students in graduate school
No full textJapanese graduate school students in the field of science and engineering need to read academic research in their second language (L2), and such tasks can be challenging. Studies showed a strong (0.78) correlation between vocabulary size and reading comprehension (McLean et al., 2020), and providing high-frequency word lists could enhance comprehension. In this work-in-progress, 1.35 million tokens of professor-recommended reading materials were used to investigate a method to create a vocabulary list that would benefit science majors in graduate school, the procedures to create a corpus and a high-frequency word list efficiently, and the steps required to create a cleaner corpus. This paper outlines a systematic literature-informed method that includes input from professors in the field, the combined use of tailored script in MATLAB and AntCont (Anthony, 2022) generated corpus and high-frequency words efficiently, and repeated comparison of original PDFs and the matching text files, then adding MATLAB script to deal with specific issues created by a cleaner text. This proposed method can be applied in other contexts to enhance the generation of high-frequency word lists
Implementing backward design to foster intercultural communicative competence in textbook-based curricula: A proposed framework for English language practitioners
No full textTeaching intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is still a challenging goal to achieve in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) education. ESL/EFL instructors teaching in textbook-based educational contexts require more tangible approaches to designing and implementing purposeful intercultural language teaching that amplifies the desired ICC goals. This article proposes the use of a backward design-inspired framework as an effective approach to foster ESL/EFL students’ intercultural skills through the development and implementation of supple- mentary ICC materials. The article explains how specific ICC dimensions can be enhanced and complemented through a proposed four-stage framework, helping instructors identify intercultural learning gaps in the assigned curriculum, identify desired results for intercultural learning, determine assessment evidence, and plan supplementary intercultural learning experiences and instruction. The article provides an example of implementing this framework to support ICC development in an ESL/EFL teaching context in Jordan and concludes with some pragmatic insights for implementing the framework in similar ESL/EFL teaching contexts