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.

The Impact of Comment Style on Learners’ Essay Revisions

This paper investigates how the type of written feedback provided by teachers affects learners’ ability to revise essays. A total of 120 participants participated in two rounds of essay composition and feedback delivery. The findings indicate that learners who receive comments in the form of questions are more prone to make revisions compared to those receiving statements or imperatives. These results hold significant implications for educators and the ways they utilize written feedback to enhance learners’ writing skills.

Analyzing the Essay Writing Patterns of Iranian Intermediate-Level Korean Language Learners: A Study Based on the TOPIK Exam

This study examines the writing abilities of Iranian intermediate Korean learners,specifically their performance in the compositional writing section of the Test of Proficiency in Korean(TOPIK).By utilizing the many FACETS-Rasch Model,we meticulously analyzed nine writing samples from the 52nd TOPIK.These samples were evaluated using a modified rubric ranging from 0 to 3 based on predefined criteria for written composition.The results underscored that the sections on“appropriateness of spacing and spelling,”“relevance of vocabulary,”and“content diversity”presented the most significant challenges for the learners.On the other hand,“the quantity of writing”emerged as the least challenging aspect.These findings reveal substantial disparities in various aspects of writing proficiency among learners.The study not only pinpoints issue areas in writing skills,but also underscores the necessity of customized teaching strategies within the TOPIK framework to address these weaknesses.Consequently,it offers valuable insights that could bolster the effectiveness of teaching writing to Korean language learners.The findings of this study are not only significant for the field of language education,but also contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by intermediate learners and provide a roadmap for improving language instruction.

Research Nexus and Implications of Learner Identity in Foreign Language Education

One of the most obvious markers of an individual’s identity is their language.However,in some ways,the relationship between identity and language acquisition seems to be missed.In fact,a lot of studies have shown that identity may influence the reasons behind language acquisition,especially in bilingual or multilingual societies.Learning English can provide EFL(English as a Foreign Language)students with a good sense of identity and encourage them to practice their agency,which can improve learning efficiency and effectiveness.This paper examines how the efficacy and results of language learning are influenced by the learner’s identity.

Analysis of Young Learners’Listening Skills

The importance of listening as one of the communication skills cannot be overstated.However,in many areas,listening is neglected.For young learners,learning to listen is even more beneficial for their future studies,therefore,listening skills should be given due importance.

Enhancing Learners’Performance in Grade 7 Mathematics Through 50-30-20 Exercise

Assessment exercises constitute a crucial component of the teaching and learning process,serving the purpose of gauging the degree to which learning objectives have been accomplished.This study aims to assess the mathematics performance of Grade 7 learners using the 50-30-20 exercise.Specifically,this study seeks to determine the learners’pre-test and post-test mean scores,identify significant differences between the pre-test and post-test results,evaluate learners’exercises,and propose enhanced exercises.The research employs a quasi-experimental design,with 40 Grade 7 learners in the school year 2023-2024 as participants,selected through purposive non-random sampling.Statistical data analysis involves the use of mean,standard deviation,paired t-test,and Cohen’s D effect size.Ethical considerations were paramount,as evidenced by a letter of authorization from the school head outlining the strict adherence to voluntary participation,informed parental consent,anonymity,confidentiality,risk mitigation,results-sharing protocols,and the commitment to keeping research data confidential.The data yielded a remarkable outcome:the experimental group exhibited improvement in both the pre-test and post-test.This result substantiates the initial objective of the study,showcasing a noteworthy and favorable performance among the participants.Consequently,it suggests that a majority of the participants strongly agree that the 50-30-20 exercises contribute to enhancing their understanding and problem-solving skills,as well as their ability to grasp mathematical concepts and improve their overall performance in mathematics.Therefore,the 50-30-20 exercises not only facilitated students in understanding mathematics lessons but were also aligned with the Department of Education’s development plan.

Entangled relationship:Chinese parents’involvement in young learners’English tests

Young learners’English(YLE)tests have become increasingly prevalent among and important to Chinese English learners and their parents.In China,parents are actively involved in their children’s education and test-taking decisions,and their participation has given rise to a series of social impacts.Although parent involvement has received increasing public and academic attention in newspaper and scholarly articles,there exists no thorough analysis of current research on parents’roles in young learners’test-taking.To address this gap,we systemically analyzed Chinese newspaper articles and academic articles between 2011 and 2021 to elicit Chinese parents’roles in YLE test-taking.Our thematic analysis of the literature identifies the ways in which parents influence their children’s test-taking experiences,and how the tests affect this influence.Specifically,our results elicit 1)parents’engagement in YLE testing;2)parents’understanding of the intended uses of YLE tests;3)parents’perception and consequences of their involvement in YLE testing;and 4)parents’backgrounds.This analysis reveals the popularity of YLE tests among young learners and their parents in China and public concern over test-related issues.It also broadens our understanding of YLE testing impact and suggests future potential research directions.

基于Super Learner集成学习模型对脑卒中的预测研究

使用索马里医院提供的脑卒中患者数据集,通过四分位距(interquartile range, IQR)方法和合成少数类过采样技术(synthetic minority oversampling technique, SMOTE)算法进行数据预处理,采用特征工程中的嵌入式方法对数据集进行特征分析,确定脑卒中诱发因素.以随机森林(random forest, RF)、极端梯度提升(extreme gradient boosting, XGB)和自适应提升(adaptive boosting, AdB)算法为第一层,高斯朴素贝叶斯(Gaussian naive bayes, GaNB)和支持向量机(support vector machine, SVM)为第二层,逻辑回归(logistic regression, LR)为元学习器构建超级学习者(super learner, SL)集成学习模型.仿真实验结果表明,相较于6种基础算法,SL模型预测效果最优,可为脑卒中的预测分析提供新的选择.

Language Transfer Manifested in English Idiom Acquisition by Chinese EFL Learners

Idiom acquisition plays an important role in the process of second language learning and acquisition.Proper understanding of linguistic transfer in terms of English idiom acquisition is helpful for EFL learners to improve the efficiency of learning English and also facilitates the process of English teaching.This study examines the Chinese learner’s language transfer features manifested in their understanding of English idioms which are classified into five different types according to their linguistic forms and conceptual bases.The results suggest that equivalent linguistic forms and equivalent conceptual bases of idioms are helpful to cause positive transfer while different conceptual bases of idioms may result in negative cross-linguistic transfer.This article may contribute to the development of language transfer theory and provide pedagogical implications of how English idioms should be learned by students and taught by English teachers.

Relationships Between Chinese EFL Learners’IELTS Band Score and Motivated Strategies for Learning

EFL learners,who study English as a foreign language,often use different learning strategies in the learning process,with positive and negative results in their academic performance.Whether these learning strategies are effective or not are questions to be explored.So,the author examined the relationship between Chinese EFL learners’test results and the use of motivated strategies for learning in English learning.Participants are students who have taken a high-stake standardized English proficiency test:IELTS(International English Language Testing System)with band score obtained.The results show that students’performance on high-stakes assessment is significantly associated with the use of motivated learning strategies like internal value in sharp contrast to test anxiety,which bears no relevance.Interviews are then implemented to candidates with different levels of English proficiency to figure out other related factors contributing to the test results.

The Effectiveness of Explicit Vocabulary Instruction on Productive Vocabulary Learning in Writing Among Intermediate School Learners in Saudi Arabia

This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of explicit vocabulary instruction on productive vocabulary learning in writing among intermediate school learners in Saudi Arabia,verify the existence of any statistically significant differences at the significance level of 0.01 between the mean scores of the post-test of the control group and the experimental group in the vocabulary test,and verify the existence of any statistically significant differences at the significance level of 0.01 between the mean scores of the pre-and post-test of the experimental group in the vocabulary test in favor of the post-test.The study community consisted of all intermediate school students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,while the study sample included 30 students.The experimental method was adopted to identify the effectiveness of explicit vocabulary instruction on productive vocabulary learning in writing and the achievement test was used as the study tool.The study reached many results including there were no statistically significant differences at the significance level of 0.01 between the mean scores of the post-test of the control group and the experimental group in the vocabulary test and there were no statistically significant differences at the significance level of 0.01 between the mean scores of the pre-and post-test of the experimental group in the vocabulary test in favor of the post-test.According to these results,some recommendations and proposals were made including training English teachers at the intermediate school level in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,on explicit vocabulary instruction and conducting future researches on the trends of English teachers at the intermediate school level,in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,regarding the adoption of explicit vocabulary instruction while teaching the English language.

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.

Effects of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning on Young Learners’Linguistic Skills

Mobile-assisted language learning(MALL)has been regarded as an excellent tool in the field of language acquisition as modern technology develops.The popularity of using mobile devices in education makes it possible for people to learn languages through platforms like tablets and smartphones from anywhere and at any time.However,the application of MALL in a collaborative student-centered environment has received comparatively little attention.Since spoken fluency and vocabulary size are the two crucial components of language proficiency,this study aims to investigate if young learners can improve their native language level through learning online beyond the classroom.The quantitative data reveal that MALL does make a difference in students’linguistic skills.The results show that the incorporation of mobile applications into language learning could better help learners achieve the learning outcomes and improve their communication skills than simply using conventional methods.In addition,the data of the questionnaire exposed some issues that need to be continuously improved.The viable suggestions are also discussed to share ideas about building a more sustainable learning environment in a data-driven age.

Mixed Method in Language Learner Cognition

Research on mixed method has made great development.In order to explore the practical application of mixed method,this article starts from the perspective of language learner cognition and selects The Modern Language Journal and Language Teaching Research as the research journals.It explores some empirical papers that used mixed method to learn the specific research designs of mixed method as well as the main means of its application.The study finds that mixed method has been applied in several fields and is more scientifically reliable than qualitative and quantitative methods especially in language learner cognition,and the different research tools used in the field of language learner cognition demonstrate the flexibility and relevance of mixed method data collection.

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.

学习型社区赋能教育强国建设——基于在线学习者关系网络分析视角

学习型社区建设有助于加快教育强国落地,社区中在线学习者的各种协作互动行为,促进了学习者关系网络的生成。对该网络进行深入分析,可以挖掘其中蕴含的社区学习的本质特征。该研究提出从社区发现角度对学习者关系网络进行分析,首先设计基于图卷积网络和非负矩阵分解,并集成学习者关系网络信息和文本内容信息的新型学习型社区发现方法,提出四个社区特征度量指标,在真实的学习者关系网络中进行应用分析。结果表明,所提出的分析方法能有效挖掘学习者关系网络存在的学习兴趣主题社区,还可以对社区整体和社区成员个体进行特征分析,并且分析结果可为引导学习者的在线交互协作行为提供决策支持。最后,形成“构建可视化学习型社区—开展社区之间知识分享—促进各社区的互动合作—指标反馈下的反思迭代”的学习型社区赋能策略。通过策略赋能学习型社区高质量发展,以社区新质生产力组合助推教育强国建设。

基于AESL-GA的BN球磨机滚动轴承故障诊断方法

针对基于知识的贝叶斯网络(BN)构建方法存在不完全和不精确的缺点,提出一种基于知识引导和数据挖掘的BN结构构建方法。针对单一信号故障诊断结果不精确的问题和故障信息中存在的不确定性问题,将电流信号与振动信号融合建立BN的特征节点,分别提取2种信号的故障特征参数,利用区分度指标法进行特征筛选,将其作为BN结构特征层的节点。将专家知识构建的初始BN结构结合自适应精英结构遗传算法(AESL-GA)进行结构优化,通过自适应限制进化过程中的搜索空间,减少自由参数的数量,提高其全局搜索能力,得到最优BN结构。通过MQY5585溢流型球磨机滚动轴承实测数据和Paderborn University轴承数据集对所提方法进行验证,结果证明了所提方法的有效性。

在线学习个性化推荐中多维度学习者模型研究

随着在线学习平台的广泛使用,在线学习资源快速增长,“信息迷航”问题亟待解决。针对在线学习个性化推荐中以单一特征为主,多维度学习者模型研究较少的问题,文中以CELTS-11学习者模型规范为基础,以教育学相关理论为指导,对学习者的学习风格、知识状态、认知能力、兴趣偏好等多维度的个性化特征进行细化分类研究。利用教育数据挖掘等技术获得学习者特征项,进而构建出个性化的多维度学习者模型。该模型为后续在线学习个性化的推送服务提供有力的依据。

同伴面对面互动和远程互动中的学习者投入研究

本研究考察了同伴面对面互动和远程互动中的学习者投入。12名(6对)英语专业一年级学生在一学期中经历了同伴面对面互动和远程互动。通过分析他们的三次面对面互动和三次远程互动的录音文本,研究表明,在两类互动中,学习者在行为、认知和社会三个维度的投入并无显著差异。对8名学生的访谈结果显示,在情感投入方面,尽管学习者更加倾向于面对面互动,但同伴之间的配合没有因互动方式的改变而出现差异。上述结果表明,远程环境中的同伴互动效果与传统课堂环境中的同伴互动效果差别有限,这在一定程度上为开展远程互动提供了实证支撑。

培育智能时代的专家学习者--基于人工智能教育应用逻辑的解构

当前,鉴于专家学习者教育研究的既有范式使其陷入了困囿,以及智能时代学习型人才的培育缺少方向指引,从人工智能教育应用逻辑解构的新视角开展专家学习者培育研究,具有范式突破和实践参照的双重价值。为此,文章首先阐述了专家学习者概念的起源,解析了概念引入教育领域并身陷研究困囿的原因;然后,文章从智能技术介入、知识价值塑造、主体能力强化、学习场景改造四个维度对人工智能教育应用逻辑进行了解析;接着,文章归纳了智能时代专家学习者特征;最后,文章从重构学习设计路径、重拾知识学习取向和重立学习场景构向三个层面提出智能时代专家学习者的培育策略,以期在助力学习者有效投身智能环境下的学习活动的基础上,为人工智能教育应用的理论和实践提供靶向指引。