Research on Cross-Cultural Competence and Training Strategies of Foreign Language Learners in Minority University

This paper takes 360 college students from a foreign language college in a national university as the research object.Through cross-cultural understanding,cross-cultural attitude and cross-cultural communication,the current situation and influencing factors of minority college students’cross-cultural ability training are investigated.First,minority college students have positive cross-cultural attitudes,however,due to the lack of media literacy and cross-cultural understanding education,there are certain conflicts and preconceived notions about the cognition of different cultures.Secondly,minority college students’self-confidence in language communicative competence actively promotes the formation of cross-cultural self-confidence.Thirdly,the current focus of foreign language teaching is still on the cultivation of language communicative competence.Students are confused about language communicative competence and inter-cultural competence.Moreover,due to the inconsistency of cross-cultural courses,minority college students’ability to understand their own cross-cultural knowledge only involves the accumulation of superficial cultural knowledge.Therefore,minority colleges and universities should give full play to their multi-cultural background,improve teachers’cross-cultural literacy,set up a systematic cross-cultural curriculum,support rich cross-cultural practice,and construct a multi-cultural and national characteristic cross-cultural education.

The Use of Children＇s Literature With University English as a Foreign Language Learners in Taiwan

This paper reports findings from a longitudinal qualitative study that investigated the use of children＇s literature for Taiwan Residents University English as a Foreign Language （EFL） students＇ reading. During the course of their sophomore year, 17 students participated and each student held two to seven individual reading sessions, to which they brought a self-selected children＇s picture storybook or children＇s novel they had finished reading on their own and orally read it to the researcher. Their oral reading and the discussion of each book with the researcher were audio recorded. To gain insight into the reading progress, these oral data were categorized and analyzed in terms of mispronunciation patterns, misunderstanding of vocabulary, misinterpretation of sentence or passage, and researcher＇s guidance. General findings of the 17 participants were presented in three categories： （1） vocabulary acquisition, （2） common comprehension problems, and （3） common pronunciation problems. Further analysis of two motivated students who read five to seven books revealed that （1） these two EFL learners gradually developed conscious awareness of their own pronunciation and comprehension errors and （2） they progressively acquired better competence to apply the pronunciation tips and reading comprehension techniques provided by the researcher during previous sessions. These findings and corresponding implications are discussed and further research suggestions are made.

TO WHAT EXTENT IS IT NECESSARY TO TEACH EXPLICIT RULES OF USAGE TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS?

IntroductionNowadays English teachers feel that teaching grammar is a tough problem to solve.Languageteaching is no longer regarded simply as imparting knowledge about the target language,but teachinglearners how to actually use the target language in real-life communication.Developments in modernlinguistic and teaching methodologies have challenged traditional teaching perspectives,however,inChina English teaching is still generally conducted in the traditional way.This is especially so forgrammar teaching.Grammar is so much the main concern in class that it is explained explicitly,andthe language materials and samples are arranged to highlight it.English is taught by giving studentsdetailed explanations of the grammatical points in isolation.Teachers make a careful analysis of thetexts to make sure that students have understood every single word of the text they are learning.Somepeople might think that these students should learn English very well,because they are learningEnglish so systematically,but this is not the case at all.

Interlanguage Fossilization in Chinese EFL Writing --An Empirical Research of 20 English Major Students

This research is designed to investigate interlanguage fossilization in Chinese college students＇ written output. Twelve common linguistic errors from 20 Chinese EFL （English as a foreign language） learners＇ writing assignments are observed. Results show that among 12 typical errors, five types of errors are declining while the rest are increasing, indicating a tendency towards fossilization. Analysis shows that negative/corrective feedback has played a key role in reducing fossilization of some errors, but it does not work in every case. Some errors tend to be fossilized for several reasons. First, language items that do not have a direct form-function relationship are likely to be fossilized. Second, advanced learners create their own language system and neglect the basic rules of grammar. Third, task difficulty takes learners＇ attention away from form to meaning. Fourth, ingrained thinking patterns have a great impact on how learners organize their thoughts in writing. It is true that many Chinese EFL advanced learners reach a plateau in the process of acquiring English. However, attention, consciousness, and training of self-monitoring ability will help destabilize their interlanguage system.

Who Is to Work With Whom When It Comes to Pair Work？ A Learner＇s Perspective

The present paper reports on a small-scale project that investigates two main questions： （1） whether EFL （English as a Foreign Language） learners prefer working in pairs or small groups; and （2） what factors they take into consideration when they are free to choose their partners in pair work activities. To investigate the research questions, a questionnaire was developed and distributed among 96 Iranian intermediate EFL students who participated in the study on a voluntary basis. The findings showed that 45% of the participants preferred pair work, 26% preferred group work, and 29% reported it made no difference to them. The results also indicated that learners select their partners based on four factors： age, proficiency, familiarity and language learning motivation. Gender and popularity with the whole class were among the factors that the participants did not pay attention to when opting for a partner.

Reading with Strategies： A Study of Young EFL Learners＇ Use of Online Reading Strategies

To assist young learners to cultivate efficient learning strategies in the early ages, students in the current study were guided to read three authentic online storybooks and then write their own digital stories with tablet PCs. The study aims to investigate Taiwan Residents elementary school students＇ use of online reading strategies, and their relationship with students＇ performance on reading proficiency tests. The target population consisted of upper-grade learners （n = 83）. The instruments were a M-SORS （modified survey of reading strategy） questionnaire and a reading proficiency test. Major findings were as follows： （l） Students used online reading strategies at medium level; （2） problem solving strategies were proven to significantly correlate with students＇ performance on reading comprehension test; and （3） there was a significant difference between higher and lower reading proficiency learners＇ use of online reading strategies. Pedagogical implications of the findings and suggestion for future research are discussed.