Foreign Language Annals最新文献

The Modern Language Association (MLA) published a writing and artificial intelligence (AI) working paper that provided an overview of key issues, concerns, and recommendations to help language educators make principle-driven pedagogical decisions to support critical AI literacy. To address the MLA's recommendations, a collaborative AI writing companion project was designed that assists learners in a process-oriented, design approach to writing. The tool seeks to emphasize writing as a meaningful, collaborative process of communication that involves both learner autonomy and a focus on textual conventions. Perceptions of the platform's efficacy were assessed employing constructs from the psychology of language learning such as writing self-efficacy, anxiety, and self-efficacy for self-regulation and user experience measures such as perceived anthropomorphism, teaching presence, and enjoyment. Findings revealed that students' perceptions and enjoyment of the AI chatbot were associated with how competent students perceived themselves to be as writers and other self-reported outcomes.

One of the critiques of proficiency as defined by scales, such as that of ACTFL, is its lack of grounding in linguistic realities. Measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency provide a route in which proficiency can be quantitatively measured by identifying linguistic correlates (see Brown et al., 2017; Long et al., 2012). This project aimed to identify the linguistic correlates that distinguish L2 Spanish writing at intermediate-high and advanced-low proficiency levels as defined by the Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource. Forty writing samples comprised the data. Measures of lexical complexity (density and diversity), syntactic complexity (mean length of T-unit, number of clauses per T-unit, average length of error-free T-unit), and accuracy (ratio of error-free T-unit, number of errors per 100 words) were used to analyze the samples. Findings suggest that accuracy is the linguistic feature that best distinguishes intermediate from advanced proficiency in L2 Spanish writing. The implications of these findings for research and pedagogy are examined.

There is compelling empirical evidence suggesting that more authentic learning tasks improve second language learners' motivation and learning (Long, 1996; Van Lier, 2014). However, most research on this topic has focused on Germanic and Romance L2 languages, primarily in the context of speaking skills. Little is known about the effect of task authenticity on L2 writing, especially in languages other than English. The present study investigated how increased task authenticity, operationalized as writing to a real recipient rather than an imaginary friend, affected L2 writing in Russian—a language that exhibits a high level of morphological complexity (Gilabert & Castellví, 2019; Nuss & Martelle, 2022). We adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate participants' writing behaviors and underlying cognitive processes. Twenty-eight intermediate and advanced L1 English speakers, learning Russian as an L2, completed both more and less authentic writing tasks involving composing letters to either real or imaginary recipients. Dependent-sample t-tests revealed a significant effect of task authenticity on subordination complexity and fluency. Specifically, participants wrote texts with fewer subordinate clauses and exhibited a slower writing pace in more authentic tasks. These findings underscore the importance of investigating writing processes alongside writing products to achieve a more nuanced understanding of L2 writing.

Text chat facilitates L2 use by providing learners with extended time to plan, monitor, and process production during interactional tasks. However, learners may not naturally take advantage of these affordances, especially for providing peer feedback. This study used video-enhanced chat scripts to examine the behavior of beginner L2 Spanish learners (n = 46) completing decision-consensus tasks via text chat, investigating how learners interacted with the medium to self-monitor by deleting text before sending. Learners were also differentially assigned to receive metacognitive instruction (MI) to learn ways to provide corrective feedback to peers or engage in language-related episodes (LREs). Results showed that all learners frequently used text chat's affordances to self-correct and also integrated technology to resolve LREs (creating technology-assisted LREs). However, MI did not have a significant impact on the production of corrective feedback or LREs, potentially due to attentional resources expended during self-correction. These findings suggest that completing task-based activities within text chat may be beneficial for promoting beginner learners' linguistic processing and integrating technology to facilitate discussion of L2 form but less impactful for promoting peer feedback.

An important first step to globalizing and decentralizing foreign language education is to clarify current language teachers' perceptions of language varieties and how these perceptions influence their pedagogy. The present study looked at English and French language classrooms in K-12 and university settings in the United States to compare attitudes around varieties of two dominant global languages with colonial legacies through an anonymous questionnaire completed by 36 language teachers. The study aimed to understand to what extent English and French language teachers drew on the linguistic diversity of the respective languages and if there was a connection between received ideas and attitudes around varieties and approaches taken in language classrooms. Findings suggest that language teachers were influenced by their own language learning histories, leading to a misalignment between teaching beliefs and pedagogical practices. Additionally, language teachers were subject to curricular constraints that influenced their teaching practices around language varieties. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

This study explored Chinese heritage language learners' prior Mandarin experiences and their current Mandarin-learning experiences to reveal factors that influence their motivation and intention to continue or discontinue their Mandarin coursework. Using a Grounded Theory approach, we conducted demographic surveys and semi-structured interviews with eight participants taking beginner-level Mandarin courses. Following open, axial, and selective coding procedures, we developed a model portraying factors that influenced HLLs' decision to continue their enrollment in Mandarin classes. The model revealed that their decisions were fueled by ongoing appraisals via their motivational orientations, course expectations, and emotional experiences that drove their approach or avoidance focus. In particular, Mandarin high dropout rates may result from 1) HLLs' unmet course expectations, 2) lack of specific future-oriented instrumental values, and 3) unpleasant emotional experiences within the class. The study concluded with four pedagogical implications (e.g., adopting task-based language teaching) to sustain HLLs' motivation in college HL courses.

This study examines the usefulness of a Process Drama approach for supporting the development of linguistic and communication skills of preservice teachers learning French as a world language in an Early Childhood Education licensure program. Process Drama is an interactive approach to teaching language in which the teacher and students carry out a series of improvisations in the classroom, in which students perform in different types of situations while working on different subjects of the curriculum (Bowell & Heap, 2017; Glass et al., 2013) Through a pretest–posttest design and a qualitative analysis of a questionnaire, findings indicated that preservice teachers improved their pronunciation, intonation, fluency, and nonverbal language in the target language. In addition, they had positive perceptions regarding the experience and the gains they made. Finally, preservice teachers believed that this approach could be implemented with Early Childhood Education students.

This exploratory, mixed methods study proposes that pedagogical translation be implemented for biliteracy acquisition in mixed heritage language (HL)-second language (L2) secondary Spanish classrooms. It investigates the mediation of pedagogical translation for reading comprehension in two mixed HL-L2 secondary Spanish classrooms at a suburban high school in the southwestern United States. The research question, How does pedagogical translation influence reading comprehension in a mixed HL-L2 secondary Spanish classroom is addressed in this work. Findings indicated that through a pedagogical translation activity, heritage language learners (HLLs) and second language learners (L2Ls) demonstrated metalinguistic awareness and vocabulary learning, which are indicators of reading comprehension. Differing HLL and L2L learning approaches during the activities are discussed, followed by pedagogical and research implications.