Search Results (8)

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024, published by the United Nations, highlights quality education as a priority goal, emphasising its essential role in facilitating the achievement of other goals. Although there has been modest progress since 2019, several areas require further advancement, including the development of reading skills. Extensive reading plays an important role in foreign language acquisition, as it not only significantly enhances students’ vocabulary, text comprehension, reading, speaking, and writing skills, but also fosters the development of sustainable learning and self-regulated learning skills. In order to substantially increase students’ reading opportunities, the ‘Reading Circle’ (RC) project was initiated, allowing teachers and their students to read five to eight graded readers during English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes throughout the school year. During the school year 2023/2024, 45 teachers and 1328 students of Grades 3–11 participated in the 9-month project. The aim of this study was to analyse teachers’ perceptions on the efficacy of the ‘Reading Circle’ project and the most common teaching techniques. The data indicate that the most commonly used teaching techniques across all levels of language learning were the text discussions and the completion of ready-made exercises, while a significant difference across the levels emerged in the techniques of students reading aloud versus reading silently. The findings of this study reveal that teachers highly evaluated the benefits of the project and observed positive improvements in students’ reading motivation, text comprehension, and advancements in their reading and speaking skills, and the outcomes imply that the ‘Reading Circle’ project is an effective method of enhancing sustainable learning and self-regulated learning skills. Full article

Blended teaching, characterized as a combination of online instruction and face-to-face teaching is effective in maintaining high student retention, promoting learners’ motivation and saving costs in EFL teaching. However, as low learning efficiency can lead to a reduced performance related to students’ blended learning, it is necessary to study the effectiveness of blended teaching. This study aims to examine the effects of the “SPOC and Flipped classroom”-based blended teaching strategy on first-year English-major students’ achievements in five English language skills compared with those of the traditional face-to-face classroom teaching strategy. For this research, a quasi-experiment was conducted for one semester, employing an “SPOC and Flipped classroom”-based blended teaching strategy in two undergraduate classes for first-year English-major students. A total of 64 students majoring in English at a Chinese university in Shandong province participated in the quasi-experiment and were divided into the control class (N = 32, (intact group), with 6 men and 26 women) and the experimental class (N = 32, (intact group), with 4 men and 28 women). Intervention was performed in the experimental class, while a typical face-to-face classroom teaching strategy was employed in the control class. Findings of students’ overall achievements showed that the blended teaching strategy based on the SPOC and flipped-classroom approach was more effective in improving students’ achievements than face-to-face classroom teaching. Findings of students’ achievements in each of the five English language skills showed that the “SPOC and Flipped”-based blended teaching strategy was effective in enhancing students’ listening, reading, translating, and writing, but was not effective in speaking. Furthermore, students’ genders and regional backgrounds were considered as moderating variables of students’ achievements, and findings indicated that gender had no significantly positive effect on students’ achievements in the blended teaching intervention. However, a significant difference in achievements between the students from urban and rural areas was observed, which indicated that regional background had significantly positive effect on students’ achievements in blended teaching. The findings of the research implied that the implementation of well-designed blended learning that uses effective strategies could significantly improve students’ achievements in English language skills, but that there would be different results among students of different skill levels and regional backgrounds. Moreover, as the quality of EFL blended teaching improves, students’ academic performance will be enhanced. Full article

In response to calls for more research to assess the effects of translanguaging on substantive learning outcomes, this systematic review begins that process by synthesising existing research on pedagogical translanguaging approaches that have been formally assessed for effectiveness in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. A systematic process of searching and selecting the literature found 10 eligible studies. Data were extracted for narrative synthesis and quality appraisal. Results showed that pedagogical translanguaging was most frequently used to teach reading and writing rather than other domains. Five studies favoured translanguaging over English-only approaches, four of which were rated as having a high risk of bias. The remaining studies either detected no statistically significant differences between these approaches or favoured translanguaging in a small number of highly specific measures. We conclude that pedagogical translanguaging may be helpful in teaching in some circumstances, but that the low methodological quality of the literature on average makes it difficult to draw firm causal inferences. This systematic review provides the relevant background on what is already known about the effects of pedagogical translanguaging in EFL contexts to inform the work of researchers wishing to act on recommendations for more intervention research to establish the effects of the approach on English language outcomes. Full article

This study aims to validate self-regulated writing strategies for advanced EFL learners through a structural equation modeling analysis. Two sets of advanced, university-level EFL learners in China were recruited on the basis of results from a nationwide standardized English test. Sample 1 consisted of 214 advanced learners and served mainly as a data source for exploratory factor analysis. Sample 2 consisted of 303 advanced learners; data from this group were used to conduct confirmatory factor analyses. The results confirmed the goodness of fit of the hierarchical, multidimensional structure of self-regulated writing strategies. This hierarchic model has the higher order of self-regulation and the second order of nine self-regulated writing strategies that belong to four dimensions. In terms of model comparisons, the indices of Model 1 (nine-factor correlated model of EFL writing strategies for SRL) and Model 2 (four-factor second-order model of EFL writing strategies for SRL) mark significant improvements in terms of fit over the indices of Model 3 (one-factor second-order model of EFL writing strategies for SRL). This means the four-factor model (cognition, metacognition, social behavior, and motivational regulation) offered a better explanation for advanced EFL learners than the model treating self-regulated writing strategies as a single convergent factor. These findings, in some ways, differ from the results of earlier research on EFL learners’ self-regulated writing strategies, and the findings of this study have certain implications for L2 writing teaching and learning. Full article

The second language acquisition (SLA) field has recently seen heightened interest in the study and application of positive psychology (PP). Emotion regulation is one of the concepts that has been stressed in PP. Several studies in PP have delved into how controlling one’s emotions improves second language learning/teaching. One of the concepts that has slipped the minds of researchers in the field is altruistic teaching. Unlike egocentric acts, altruistic teaching acts are performed to improve others’ well-being. Despite their importance in causing positive emotional effects, no study has investigated the impact of altruistic teaching acts on learners’ emotion regulation. To bridge this gap, the present study sought to investigate the effect of learners’ altruistic teaching on their emotion regulation. The study followed a sequential explanatory comparison group pre-test–post-test design. One hundred forty-one English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners were recruited for this intervention study and were divided into experimental and control groups. Learners in the experimental group performed altruistic teaching by teaching their peers how to write essays in English, whereas learners in the control group did group work tasks on English essay writing. The results of independent-sample t-tests and repeated-measures ANOVA showed that altruistic teaching significantly impacts EFL learners’ emotion regulation. The results of qualitative data pointed to five themes, including enjoyment, self-esteem, bonding, devotion, and progress. Overall, the results suggested that altruistic teaching impacts learners’ emotion regulation by enhancing their enjoyment, self-esteem, bonding, devotion, and progress. The paper has theoretical and pedagogical implications for SLA research and practice. Full article

Education for sustainable development has been regarded as a lifelong learning process and an integral part of quality education. To this end, this study aims to examine the implementation of online learning communities and deliberate practice in a blended learning context, to improve English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ learning performance and engagement. Specifically, in addition to the traditional offline courses, the online film clip watching and writing tasks were adopted to ascertain the role of deliberate practice and the dimensions of the community of inquiry (COI) framework were adopted to examine the perceived effectiveness and improved performance. A quantitative study was carried out, involving 67 undergraduate freshman English course students from one university at northeastern Taiwan. The findings of this study indicate that there is statistically significant correlation between the three dimensions of community of inquiry, perceived learning and learning engagement. Moreover, teaching and cognitive presence are more predictive of students’ perceived learning. Finally, this study also illustrates practical implications, to facilitate students’ learning for sustainable development competency in blended learning contexts. Full article

To test the scaffolding theory when applied to the teaching and learning of writing English as a foreign language, this cross-sectional study was conducted to collect physiological data. A total of 53 participants were randomly assigned into two groups, and brain activity was investigated during a guided-writing task using storytelling pictures. The writing task was further divided into four parts using graded levels of difficulty. The experimental group performed tasks in sequence from easy to difficult, whereas the comparison group performed the tasks at random. Outcomes included handwriting assessments and fMRI measurements. Writing outcome assessments were analyzed using SPSS, and scanned images were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) software. The results revealed a positive learning effect associated with scaffolding instruction. The experimental group performed better during the writing tasks, and the fMRI images showed less intense and weaker reactions in the language processing region than were observed in the comparison group. The fMRI results also presented the experimental group with reduced motor and cognitive functions when writing in English. This study provides insight regarding brain activity during writing tasks in humans and may have implications for English-language instruction. Full article

The capacity to make effective argumentation in English writing is considered as a crucial ability in the field of second language writing. Currently, Chinese teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) adopt the product approach to teach argumentative writing, in which they stress the mode of learners’ written production and show little concern with cognition. For students’ sustainable development in argumentation skills, teachers are encouraged to employ a genre-based approach to cultivate students’ knowledge about different elements in argumentation. However, few empirical studies have investigated the efficacy of such classroom-based instruction on learners’ comprehensive development in EFL writing, including their knowledge about writing and performance in producing argumentation. This is particularly the case with reference to Chinese students learning to write argumentative texts in EFL. To fill the research gap, this quasi-experimental study was conducted with 74 EFL sophomores, who were randomly allocated to either an experimental group or a comparison group. The experimental group received a genre-based writing approach, while the comparison group experienced their conventional writing instruction. Students’ changes were analysed using pre- and post-writing test measures, open-ended questionnaires, and stimulated recall interviews. Our findings revealed more changes in the experimental groups’ knowledge about argumentation following the genre-based writing treatment than the comparison group. Specifically, the experimental group’s progress was obvious in the way they displayed their knowledge of the structure of discourse moves and of language features specific to the argumentative genre. They began to express their knowledge of the content, process, intended purposes, and audience awareness towards producing more genre appropriate texts in argumentation. They also showed enhanced self-reflection on their knowledge of argumentation. In addition, the genre-based approach had a positive effect on the experimental group’s argumentative writing development, as evidenced in their use of discourse move structures and their overall writing quality improvement. The conventional writing approach was not as effective in helping students to write an argumentation. Writing proficiency effects were observed in terms of the extent to which the students were developed. Pedagogical implications and limitations are also discussed. Full article