Michał B. Paradowski, Nicole Whitby, Michał Czuba, Piotr Bródka
Using computational Social Network Analysis (SNA), this longitudinal study investigates the development of the interaction network and its influence on the second language (L2) gains of a complete cohort of 41 U.S. sojourners enrolled in a 3-month intensive study-abroad Arabic program in Jordan. Unlike extant research, our study focuses on students’ interactions with alma mater classmates, reconstructing their complete network, tracing the impact of individual students’ positions in the social graph using centrality metrics, and incorporating a developmental perspective with three measurement points. Objective proficiency gains were influenced by predeparture proficiency (negatively), multilingualism, perceived integration of the peer learner group (negatively), and the number of fellow learners speaking to the student. Analyses reveal relatively stable same-gender cliques, but with changes in the patterns and strength of interaction. We also discuss interesting divergent trajectories of centrality metrics, L2 use, and progress; predictors of self-perceived progress across skills; and the interplay of context and gender.
{"title":"Peer Interaction Dynamics and Second Language Learning Trajectories During Study Abroad: A Longitudinal Investigation Using Dynamic Computational Social Network Analysis","authors":"Michał B. Paradowski, Nicole Whitby, Michał Czuba, Piotr Bródka","doi":"10.1111/lang.12681","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lang.12681","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Using computational Social Network Analysis (SNA), this longitudinal study investigates the development of the interaction network and its influence on the second language (L2) gains of a complete cohort of 41 U.S. sojourners enrolled in a 3-month intensive study-abroad Arabic program in Jordan. Unlike extant research, our study focuses on students’ interactions with alma mater classmates, reconstructing their complete network, tracing the impact of individual students’ positions in the social graph using centrality metrics, and incorporating a developmental perspective with three measurement points. Objective proficiency gains were influenced by predeparture proficiency (negatively), multilingualism, perceived integration of the peer learner group (negatively), and the number of fellow learners speaking to the student. Analyses reveal relatively stable same-gender cliques, but with changes in the patterns and strength of interaction. We also discuss interesting divergent trajectories of centrality metrics, L2 use, and progress; predictors of self-perceived progress across skills; and the interplay of context and gender.</p>","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"74 S2","pages":"58-115"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142594705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Exploring the underinvestigated area of instruction during study abroad, this article offers a quantitative study of linguistic development among second language university learners of Chinese during a semester in China. A comparison is made between learners following task-based language teaching and a comparison group following a traditional approach at two proficiency levels. Spoken task data are analyzed within the framework of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Quantitative findings point to enhanced linguistic development on the various measures used over the course of instruction abroad across the groups irrespective of instructional treatment and proficiency level. However, relative differences between the two groups point to an advantage of task-based learning in a study-abroad context. The findings are discussed in relation to the insights they allow into the role of different instructional treatments during study abroad, along with some directions for future research.
{"title":"Classroom Instruction During Study Abroad: A Comparative Exploration of Chinese Second Language Acquisition","authors":"Junming Chen, Martin Howard","doi":"10.1111/lang.12693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12693","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Exploring the underinvestigated area of instruction during study abroad, this article offers a quantitative study of linguistic development among second language university learners of Chinese during a semester in China. A comparison is made between learners following task-based language teaching and a comparison group following a traditional approach at two proficiency levels. Spoken task data are analyzed within the framework of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Quantitative findings point to enhanced linguistic development on the various measures used over the course of instruction abroad across the groups irrespective of instructional treatment and proficiency level. However, relative differences between the two groups point to an advantage of task-based learning in a study-abroad context. The findings are discussed in relation to the insights they allow into the role of different instructional treatments during study abroad, along with some directions for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"74 S2","pages":"148-176"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lang.12693","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142674006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Interplay of Complexity, Genre, and Second Language Proficiency: A Commentary on “Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview”","authors":"Sachiko Yasuda","doi":"10.1111/lang.12685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12685","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"243 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142588708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cesar Teló, Hanna Kivistö de Souza, Mary Grantham O'Brien, Angélica Carlet
Research on second language (L2) pronunciation self‐assessment reports a general misalignment between self‐ and other‐assessment. This has been attributed to the object of self‐assessment, the self‐assessment task, the measures to which self‐assessment is compared, and speakers’ characteristics. Here, we examined self‐assessment of a discrete phonological feature—sentence stress—by L2 English speakers as compared to the assessment of first language English listeners through a timed, forced‐choice judgment task with low‐pass filtered stimuli, which contained only suprasegmental cues. Additionally, we explored how individual differences among speakers predict self‐assessment. Speakers generally overestimated their accuracy in sentence stress assignment in a pattern resembling the Dunning‐Kruger effect despite the controlled nature of the task. Speakers with larger vocabulary size judged their sentence stress assignment as correct more often and showed greater overconfidence and miscalibration. Finally, the assessments of speakers with a background in applied linguistics and/or language teaching were more aligned with listeners’ assessments.
{"title":"Second Language Sentence Stress Assignment: Self‐ and Other‐Assessment","authors":"Cesar Teló, Hanna Kivistö de Souza, Mary Grantham O'Brien, Angélica Carlet","doi":"10.1111/lang.12682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12682","url":null,"abstract":"Research on second language (L2) pronunciation self‐assessment reports a general misalignment between self‐ and other‐assessment. This has been attributed to the object of self‐assessment, the self‐assessment task, the measures to which self‐assessment is compared, and speakers’ characteristics. Here, we examined self‐assessment of a discrete phonological feature—sentence stress—by L2 English speakers as compared to the assessment of first language English listeners through a timed, forced‐choice judgment task with low‐pass filtered stimuli, which contained only suprasegmental cues. Additionally, we explored how individual differences among speakers predict self‐assessment. Speakers generally overestimated their accuracy in sentence stress assignment in a pattern resembling the Dunning‐Kruger effect despite the controlled nature of the task. Speakers with larger vocabulary size judged their sentence stress assignment as correct more often and showed greater overconfidence and miscalibration. Finally, the assessments of speakers with a background in applied linguistics and/or language teaching were more aligned with listeners’ assessments.","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"242 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142580031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Douglas Biber, Bethany Gray, Tove Larsson, Shelley Staples
{"title":"Grammatical Analysis Is Required to Describe Grammatical (and “Syntactic”) Complexity: A Commentary on “Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview”","authors":"Douglas Biber, Bethany Gray, Tove Larsson, Shelley Staples","doi":"10.1111/lang.12683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12683","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142490875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anne Marie Devlin, Annarita Magliacane, Michał B. Paradowski
{"title":"Social Aspects in Language Learning: New Perspectives from Study-Abroad Research","authors":"Anne Marie Devlin, Annarita Magliacane, Michał B. Paradowski","doi":"10.1111/lang.12691","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lang.12691","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"74 S2","pages":"5-23"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142490881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards Greater Conceptual Clarity in Complexity and Difficulty: A Commentary on “Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview”","authors":"Xiaofei Lu","doi":"10.1111/lang.12688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12688","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study investigated changes in motivation, self‐efficacy beliefs, and a range of emotions, including enjoyment, hope, pride, curiosity, anxiety, boredom, apathy, confusion, and shame, from a complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) perspective over a 2‐year period in the Hungarian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Using the same questionnaire, we collected data four times throughout 4 semesters from 101 participants studying English in two Hungarian high schools. For data analysis, we used latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) to detect the group‐level changes in learners’ motivation, self‐efficacy, and emotions. We also employed dynamic cluster analysis to identify trends in learners’ trajectories regarding these variables. In our panel data, linear models described the data well concerning the ought‐to second language (L2) self, language learning experience, boredom, apathy, and confusion, and for enjoyment, curiosity, anxiety, and shame, nonlinear models had the best fit. We could also identify trajectories depicting attractor states and learner paths that featured influences of perturbations.
{"title":"Changes in Language Learners’ Affect: A Complex Dynamic Systems Theory Perspective","authors":"Katalin Piniel, Ágnes Albert","doi":"10.1111/lang.12686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12686","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigated changes in motivation, self‐efficacy beliefs, and a range of emotions, including enjoyment, hope, pride, curiosity, anxiety, boredom, apathy, confusion, and shame, from a complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) perspective over a 2‐year period in the Hungarian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Using the same questionnaire, we collected data four times throughout 4 semesters from 101 participants studying English in two Hungarian high schools. For data analysis, we used latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) to detect the group‐level changes in learners’ motivation, self‐efficacy, and emotions. We also employed dynamic cluster analysis to identify trends in learners’ trajectories regarding these variables. In our panel data, linear models described the data well concerning the ought‐to second language (L2) self, language learning experience, boredom, apathy, and confusion, and for enjoyment, curiosity, anxiety, and shame, nonlinear models had the best fit. We could also identify trajectories depicting attractor states and learner paths that featured influences of perturbations.","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This longitudinal study examines the effects of a pre-study abroad (SA) pedagogic intervention and subsequent SA experience on second language (L2) Mandarin fluency. It explores two temporal aspects of oral fluency—planning time and speech rate—along with one performance measure, duration of response. Additionally, L2 contact data were included as a supplementary variable in the analysis. The experimental group was assessed at three points: before instruction (T1), after 2 weeks of instruction (T2), and post-SA (T3). A non-instructed control group that participated in the SA period provided baseline data. Both groups demonstrated improved fluency after the SA period, with the experimental group showing superior performance in planning time, speech rate, and duration of response. The greatest reduction in between-group differences occurred at T2 and persisted over time. These findings highlight that combining targeted instruction with exposure is highly effective, with L2 contact strongly correlating with overall fluency gains.
本纵向研究探讨了留学前(SA)的教学干预和随后的留学经历对第二语言(L2)普通话流利性的影响。研究探讨了口语流利性的两个时间方面--计划时间和语速--以及一个表现测量--反应持续时间。此外,第二语言接触数据也作为补充变量纳入分析。实验组在三个时间点进行评估:教学前(T1)、教学两周后(T2)和教学后(T3)。未接受指导的对照组参与了 SA 阶段,提供了基线数据。两组学生在 SA 阶段后的流利程度都有所提高,其中实验组在计划时间、语速和反应持续时间方面表现更优。组间差异的最大缩小发生在第二阶段,并持续了一段时间。这些研究结果突出表明,将有针对性的教学与接触相结合是非常有效的,L2 接触与整体流利程度的提高密切相关。
{"title":"Developing Second Language Mandarin Fluency Through Pedagogic Intervention and Study Abroad: Planning Time, Speech Rate, and Response Duration","authors":"Jiayi Wang, Nicola Halenko","doi":"10.1111/lang.12694","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lang.12694","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This longitudinal study examines the effects of a pre-study abroad (SA) pedagogic intervention and subsequent SA experience on second language (L2) Mandarin fluency. It explores two temporal aspects of oral fluency—planning time and speech rate—along with one performance measure, duration of response. Additionally, L2 contact data were included as a supplementary variable in the analysis. The experimental group was assessed at three points: before instruction (T1), after 2 weeks of instruction (T2), and post-SA (T3). A non-instructed control group that participated in the SA period provided baseline data. Both groups demonstrated improved fluency after the SA period, with the experimental group showing superior performance in planning time, speech rate, and duration of response. The greatest reduction in between-group differences occurred at T2 and persisted over time. These findings highlight that combining targeted instruction with exposure is highly effective, with L2 contact strongly correlating with overall fluency gains.</p>","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"74 S2","pages":"177-206"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lang.12694","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142486785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is This (Becoming) a Theory of Second Language Acquisition?: A Commentary on “Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview”","authors":"Jonas Granfeldt","doi":"10.1111/lang.12689","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12689","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142486784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}