Towards Lessening Learners’Aversive Emotions and Promoting Their Mental Health:Developing and Validating a Measurement of English Speaking Demotivation in the Chinese EFL Context

While a plethora of studies has been conducted to explore demotivation and its impact on mental health in second language(L2)education,scanty research focuses on demotivation in L2 speaking learning.Particularly,little research explores the measures to quantify L2 speaking demotivation.The present two-phase study attempts to develop and validate an English Speaking Demotivation Scale(ESDS).To this end,an independent sample of 207 Chinese tertiary learners of English as a Foreign Language(EFL)participated in the development phase,and another group of 188 Chinese EFL learners was recruited for the validation of the scale.Exploratory Factor Analysis(EFA)and Confirmatory Factor Analysis(CFA)were employed to determine the factor structure of the scale.The EFA results revealed a six-factor solution with Teacher-related Factors in Learning Spoken English(TFLSE),Interest and Valence in Learning Spoken English(IVLSE),Self-efficacy in Learning Spoken English(SELSE),Negative Peer Influence in Learning Spoken English(NPILSE),Undesirable Environment for Learning Spoken English(UELSE),and Negative Influence of Assessment and Learning Materials in speaking class(NIALM).In the validation phase,Confirmatory Factor Analysis(CFA)was performed to validate the internal structure of the scale.The CFA results showed that the model fits the data well.Overall,the ESDS is a robust and trustworthy psychometric tool that could be utilized to examine L2 speaking demotivation.Implications for diminishing EFL learners’demotivation,lessening their aversive emotions and promoting their mental health are also discussed.

A Study on the Different Levels of“Attention”in the Processing of English Subjunctive Mood by Chinese Learners

“Attention”is a very vital cognitive mechanism.Cognitive psychology considers“attention”as the focus of mental activity and consciousness on an object.People engage their senses and memory to actively process the object in front of them.Theories of second language acquisition suggest that a large amount of input is the basis for language acquisition.At the same time,what is actively noticed by the learner can be effectively internalized.Thus,“attention”is also a non-linguistic factor that plays a significant role in language acquisition.The subjunctive mood is a major challenge in the teaching of English grammar.Generally speaking,the verbs in a sentence are used to distinguish between subjunctive and declarative sentences.In this paper,experimental utterances were written based on previous research by using verbs that are easy to cause ambiguity and confusion,and then set up the reinforced and non-reinforced attention conditions with different levels of“attention”to investigate whether there are different results and effects on subjects’comprehension of sentences under different levels of“attention”conditions.Under the different levels of“attention”,the subjects were examined to see whether there were different results in comprehension of the sentences and the impact of the different levels of“attention”.It was found that subjects in the reinforced“attention”condition comprehended sentences better,answered questions faster,and answered questions more correctly than subjects in the non-reinforced condition.This study also shed some light on English second language grammar teaching.

A Comparative Study on Verb-Noun Collocation Errors of Chinese EFL Learners with Different Language Proficiency

This study presents a comparative analysis of verb-noun collocation errors made by Chinese EFL learners with different language proficiency.Linguistic data from two sub-corpora of CLEC(Chinese Learner English Corpus,Gui&Yang,1999)consist of the compositions written freely by Chinese senior high school students(ST2)and the 3rd-and 4th-year English majors of Chinese universities(ST6).The study results show that four types of verb-noun collocation errors are frequently made due to incorrect L1 translation,misuse of relative synonyms,misuse of delexical verbs,and misuse of part of speech;the number of errors decreases with the development of language proficiency,especially errors by incorrect L1 translation and relative synonyms.And for both ST2 and ST6 EFL learners,errors resulted from incorrect L1 translation account for nearly a half with the same high-frequency words.It is also found that ST6 learners’competence in collocation and synonym identification doesn’t grow with the increase of their vocabulary,as is shown in the case of overusing delexical verbs in collocation,the same error made by ST2 learners,who have a significantly weaker command of delexical verbs.Implications of the findings are also discussed with the purpose of raising the awareness of collocation pedagogy and enhancing EFL learners’collocation competence.

How to Create a Low-anxiety Environment for Chinese Learners of EFL to Enhance Oral Proficiency in Speaking Lessons

The goal of teaching English speaking is to improve students' communicative efficiency, or make students speak the target language clearly, coherently, accurately and fluently (Xu, 2005). However, in China, a number of students in an English speaking class tend to be passive and reluctant to speak out or be singled out publicly mainly due to their high anxiety, which, of course, becomes a significant constraint on improving their English proficiency. Therefore, how to create a relaxed atmosphere with a sense of security in the English speaking class to alleviate Chinese learners' anxiety and to provide them with as many opportunities as possible to practice speaking English and improve their English proficiency is one of the central tasks for language teachers.his paper will firstly outline my teaching context in China in physical, pedagogical, institutional and personal aspects. This will be followed by the definition and classification of language learning anxiety, and the analysis of various factors contributing to foreign language learners' anxiety as well as some suggestions of how to reduce the learners' anxiety in the oral class according to the current literature. Finally, some applications will be presented in my teaching context in the hope of decreasing Chinese students' anxiety to enhance their English speaking proficiency.

On the Teaching Methods to Balance Fluency & Accuracy for Chinese University English Learners

By dividing English learners in Chinese university context into intermediate and advanced level learners, the essay argues that fluency rather than accuracy is needed for most university students. It further discusses some suitable teaching methods in both contexts respectively to balance this pair of objective focus.

The Motivations of Chinese EFL Learners

English is regarded as the international language,which makes it the most popular language to learn around the world.Among the many factors that affect the learning outcomes of English language,motivation is broadly considered as one of the most important ones.This paper presents a general review on types of motivation as well as the factors that are linked to motivation.This paper also touches upon some critical issues that Chinese EFL learners face in terms of motivation in English learning.

A Discussion of Foreign Language Listening Problems and Their Causes among Intermediate EFL learners in Chinese universities

Listening has been considered as the most important language skill by many researchers but in Chinese context it has been overlooked for years.The Foreign Language(FL)listening problems gradually reveal when students attend to the Listening Course in universities or colleges.This paper at first illustrates the importance of listening in foreign language learning and provides a discussion on the top-down and bottom-up processes with the analysis of Anderson's three-model of language comprehension[9]as well as the factors affecting listening comprehension in Foreign Language in general,aiming at the illustration of the necessity on one of the bottom-up processes-the Spoken Word Recognition(SWR).The analysis of two issued official guiding documents for Chinese university students and the current situation of English listening teaching in Chinese universities are followed,providing a general background on English listening teaching in Chinese context.Three possible foreign language listening problems and their causes are proposed,followed by the pedagogical suggestions to EFL learners who are improving their listening skills and instructors who are advancing their teaching procedures.

A Brief Analysis of Inefficiency and Time-consuming in English Learning for Chinese Learners

Nowadays it is common to see inefficiency and time-consuming in English learning for Chinese learners. This paper makes a brief analysis of this phenomenon from two major aspects: internal factors and external factors. The former includes age factor, affective factor, efforts and gift and the mode of thinking. The latter includes linguistic factor, sociocultural factor and the examination system. And then some practical strategies are given on the basis of the Critical Period Hypothesis, considering affective factor, making enough efforts and taking advantage of gift, adapting to different modes of thinking, Krashen's Input Hypothesis, the Whorfian Hypothesis and perfecting the examination system in order to improve the phenomenon.

Re-exploring Challenges and Strategies of English Learning for Chinese English-Learners

Chinese English-learners always face many challenges when they try to acquire English language,not only in China's Mainland,but in Chinese communities overseas.Despite the prevalent challenge,such as cultural differences,the present paper tries to re-explore and refine these challenges and strategies,analyze the specific factors,such as age,accent,and thinking difference by using cognitive perspective and sociocultural perspective.To enhance English teaching and learning,it also makes deep discussions and provides some suggestions for future use.

How Chinese EFL Learners'English Syntactic Proficiency Regresses with Time:An Empirical Study

The study conducted an empirical study to investigate how Chinese EFL learners'English syntactic proficiency regressed with time.It was indicated that:first,Chinese EFL Learners'proficiency levels prior to attrition(PLPAs)were inversely correlated with the degree of attrition.Simply put,learners with higher syntactic proficiency level will suffer less attrition even if the target structures were not used or rehearsed for more than two years.Second,a critical threshold,which roughly equaled to CET-4 level,was proved to exist in the processing of attrition.Chinese EFL Learners above the critical threshold had a significantly better retention than those below this threshold.

Erasable/Inerasable L1 Transfer in Interlanguage Phonology:An Optimality Theory Analysis of/aʊn/and Sentence Stress in Chinese Learners of English

The areas affected by the L1 transfer to L2,such as phonotactics and stress,appear to have different degrees of erasability through training and practice.This paper attempts a theoretical analysis to account for empirical observations of L1 transfer in diphthong-coda coalescence and in sentence stress for Chinese learners of English in an American accent training course.Using the framework and tableau method of Optimality Theory(Prince and Smolensky 1993),the phonological paradigm that views languages’differences as symptomatic of differences in rankings of a set of universal violable constraints,this paper posits the underlying ranking at work in(a)the segmental case where[aŋ]is the observed output for/aʊn/;(b)the suprasegmental case where no stress contrast is observed for a pair of phonologically similar sentences with contrastive stress.It is argued that,in the segmental case,the coalescence of the second vowel of a diphthong with an alveolar nasal coda results from the high ranking of markedness constraints,including Complex Syllable;and in the suprasegmental case,sentence stress is greatly affected by changes in the ranking of the constraint culminativity.Aside from shedding light on the understudied issue of diphthong-coda coalescence,this research also contributes to the discussion of the comparative erasability of L1 transfer for the two areas and demonstrates how a deduction-based theoretical method may actually have practical implications for guiding the design of L2 teaching methodology of English pronunciation as well as for promoting native English speakers’clearer understanding of Chinese learners of English on the global stage.

Differences between Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis on English Writing for Chinese EFL learners

With the increasing importance of English writing,how to improve students’writing ability is a big challenge.Contrastive analysis and error analysis are two popular approaches to error correction in English writing.This paper is going to compare the differences between contrastive analysis and error analysis,in English writing for Chinese EFL learners,from perspectives,such as,English writing purpose,English writing errors and attitude towards English writing.After that,some better suggestions will be given at the end of the paper.

The Importance of Learning Chinese Outside Classroom(A Study of Good Chinese Learners at The University of Hong Kong)

This is the author’s second consecutive year of doing the research.As the economy of China is booming,there is a rapid increase in the number of foreign students coming to The University of Hong Kong to learn Chinese.As Chinese is one of the popular subjects for them to choose,in 2019,there are around 1000 foreign students(undergraduates or exchange students)learning Chinese as a foreign language course.A language teacher is a facilitator and an instructor of Chinese learning for foreign students.However,in the real world,there are always some good language learners and some less talented language learners in one classroom.So,what is the secret of the good Chinese learners?What can the language instructors do in order to support good Chinese learners and help the less talented learners to learn Chinese?In the TESOL field,there are a lot of researches have been done by scholars.In the early 1970s,several researchers isolated and defined the concept of good language learner.But in teaching Chinese as a foreign language field,there are relatively fewer researches.So,from January 2017 to May 2019,I conducted a survey about good Chinese learners in CHIN9503 and CHIN9504 classes.The survey consisted of an interview with several questions and the author will discuss the result of a survey and its implications in this paper.This research is done in a macro way rather than micro way.Thus,this holistic research focuses on finding good Chinese learners rather than focusing on learners’individual differences.

Chinese Learners' Pragmatic Failure in Communication with English Native Speakers

Chinese Learners' pragmatic failure can be divided into pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure.Pragmalinguistic failure stems from inappropriate pragmalinguistic transfer and teaching-induced errors.Sociopragmatic failure is mainly caused by cross-cultural differences in the assessment of such socio-cultural variables as size of imposition and social distance,and also by the deviation from rules of speaking.Inappropriate teaching materials are also an important cause of Chinese learners' sociopragmatic failure.

A Contrastive Study of Semantic Prosody between English Native Speak ers and Chinese English Learners——Case Study of “Avoid”

In this paper,the author uses data-driven and contrastive interlanguage analysis approach,applying AntConc 3.2.1 as the tool,to make a comparison between corpus FLOB and CLEC on the using of the word "avoid".The result shows that the se mantic prosodic tendency between the two communities is in great similarities but also have differences.Through comparison and analysis,the author finds the hidden reason and summarizes how to improve.

A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Affixal Negation in Chinese EFL Learners' Writing

This paper reports a comparative study on the use of affixal negation in the writing of Chinese EFL learners based on data collected from a learner corpus,WECCL and a native-speaker corpus,LOCNESS.The findings revealed that the overall frequency of affixal negation used by Chinese students was nearly the same as that of native speakers.And the top three most frequently used negative affixes of the two groups were the same in terms of their rankings and proportion.However,when it comes to individual negative affixes,some were underused while others overused.The reasons behind were explored in the analysis of un-,dis-and in-,the top three most frequently used negative affixes by Chinese EFL learners and native speakers.Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research were presented at the end of the paper.

Chinese Learners'Realization of Requests in English

Requests are face-threatening in nature and closely related to politeness strategies.The present paper makes an attempt to investigate the realization of requests by the Chinese learners of English to see whether they commit some pragmatic failures in common with other subjects invested,and whether the Chinese learners demonstrate some unique characteristics in realizing requests.

An Investigation into the Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Chinese EFL Learners of High,Average,and Low Proficiency Levels

The current research aims to find out the different beliefs held and different vocabulary strategies employed by nonEnglish majors of different proficiency levels. The data were collected through questionnaire and vocabulary tests. Results revealed that the learners at three levels all adopted wide-ranged strategies. But the high level students had greater vocabulary size and were more believed that words should be learnt through use, and they used more extended dictionary strategies, contextual guessing and note-taking strategies. It is encouraging that teachers should integrate explicit strategy instruction into classroom to help low level students achieve better learning results.

How does Role Play Enhance the Speaking Skills of Chinese EFL Learners?

This paper will focus on how role play activity improves Chinese learners English speaking skills.It starts by shortly in⁃troducing the challenges of oral English teaching in China.Then the definition of role play will be demonstrated.Next,a literature review regarding role play teaching in China will be shown.Furthermore,some wise advice and implication about how to organize and implement role play activity in a Chinese class will be discussed.Ultimately,the conclusion will sum up the main points of this paper.