The success of teachers in professional environments has a desirable influence on their mental condition.Simply said,teachers’professional success plays a crucial role in improving their mental health.Due to the inva...The success of teachers in professional environments has a desirable influence on their mental condition.Simply said,teachers’professional success plays a crucial role in improving their mental health.Due to the invaluable role of professional success in teachers’mental health,personal and professional variables helping teachers succeed in their profession need to be uncovered.While the role of teachers’personal qualities has been well researched,the function of professional variables has remained unknown.To address the existing gap,the current investigation measured the role of two professional variables,namely job satisfaction and loving pedagogy,in Chinese EFL teachers’professional success.To do this,three validated scales were provided to 1591 Chinese EFL teachers.Participants’answers to the questionnaires were analyzed using the Spearman correlation test and structural equation modeling.The data analysis demonstrated a strong,positive link between the variables.Moreover,loving pedagogy was found to be the positive,strong predictor of Chinese EFL teachers’job satisfaction and professional success.The findings of the current inquiry may help educational administrators enhance their instructors’professional success,which in turn promotes their mental and psychological conditions at work.展开更多
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,littl...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.展开更多
Recent years have witnessed the rise and popularity of blended teaching for EFL students,yet the lack of face-to-face communication and insufficient interaction lead researchers and educators to explore methods of imp...Recent years have witnessed the rise and popularity of blended teaching for EFL students,yet the lack of face-to-face communication and insufficient interaction lead researchers and educators to explore methods of improving the effectiveness of teaching.Peer feedback,a teaching strategy used to raise the bars by exposing instructions to a new teaching perspective to enhance students’online and offline collaboration,has received the lion’s share of attention in recent studies.On the basis of literature review,class records,and interviews,this paper,in hope of supporting advances in teachers’practice and field researches,examines the possible approaches to effectively implementing the application of peer feedback in blended teaching mode with a special focus on teachers’roles.展开更多
The software-based computer numerical control(CNC) system includes three types of tasks: periodic real-time tasks, aperiodic real-time tasks, and non-real-time tasks. The tasks are characterized by concurrency, hyb...The software-based computer numerical control(CNC) system includes three types of tasks: periodic real-time tasks, aperiodic real-time tasks, and non-real-time tasks. The tasks are characterized by concurrency, hybridization, and correlation, which make system implementation difficult. The conventional scheduling algorithm can not meet the demands of system implementation in the software-based CNC system completely. The uncertainty factors when running real-time tasks affect control performance by degrading manufacturing accuracy as a result of system resource and processor use restrictions. To address the technical difficulty of embedded system implementation, a novel fuzzy feedback scheduling algorithm based on output jitter of key real-time tasks for a software-based CNC system is proposed. Time characteristics, such as sampling jitter, input-output jitter, and non-schedulability are discussed, followed by quantification through simulations of the impact of time characteristics on manufacturing accuracy. On the basis of this research, the scheduler architecture is designed, and then the algorithm table is calculated. When the system resource changes, the key periodic real-time tasks meet their deadlines by means of dynamically adjusting the task period. The simulated results show that the machining precision rises by an order of magnitude for the proposed scheduler in resource-constrained software-based CNC systems. Moreover, unlike conventional feedback scheduling methods, the algorithm in this paper does not rely on the availability of task execution times and is easy to implement while incurring only a small overhead.展开更多
By analyzing the English learning logs of 12 students in a provincial university in south-west China after they had been exempted from taking college English courses,this study investigated college students’autonomou...By analyzing the English learning logs of 12 students in a provincial university in south-west China after they had been exempted from taking college English courses,this study investigated college students’autonomous EFL(English as a foreign language)learning after course exemption,including the use of mediational means in EFL learning,EFL learning hours,and other factors affecting EFL learning,in the hope of giving new perspectives on college ELF curriculum design,teaching,and education management.展开更多
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 imp...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.展开更多
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 a...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.展开更多
This study had the purpose of testingtwo methods for teaching grammar in Englishasa Foreign Language(EFL)class:the deductive and inductive approaches in terms of effectiveness and rapport.This research was conducted i...This study had the purpose of testingtwo methods for teaching grammar in Englishasa Foreign Language(EFL)class:the deductive and inductive approaches in terms of effectiveness and rapport.This research was conducted in a public high school in Ecuador.Seventy students enrolled in the second year of senior high school participated.One in-service teacher taught the EFL classes during the process of intervention(10 weeks),and two EFL teachers observed all of these classes and recorded the information by filling in observation sheets.The students were administered grammar pretests and post-tests in order to assess their grammar knowledge.The results of the tests showed a significant difference in the scores in favor of the inductive approach.After the statistical analysis of the data obtained from the tests and observation sheets,we concluded that the inductive approach is more effective for teaching grammar in the EFL classroom in terms of instruction and rapport.展开更多
Critical thinking has been recognized internationally as an essential skill for high-quality talents.This article analyzes what the experimental researches on cultivating critical thinking skills in EFL teaching have ...Critical thinking has been recognized internationally as an essential skill for high-quality talents.This article analyzes what the experimental researches on cultivating critical thinking skills in EFL teaching have achieved and identifies the three weaknesses to be addressed in the future.Firstly,there are divergences among scholars on the concept and subskills of critical thinking.Secondly,the teaching modes and methods explored by the experimental researches are more personalized than systematic,which reduces their application and guidance value.Thirdly,the reliability and validity of the experiments need to be improved,and the cultivation practices tend to improve the critical thinking skills of some students,without considering the differences among students,especially the students with relatively poor language proficiency.展开更多
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,G...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.展开更多
基金sponsored by the Research Project of Jiangsu Social Science Fund Project,entitled“Research on Irrational Expression of Crisis Discourse”(Grant No.21YYD001)Basic Foreign Language Education Research Project of Changshu Institute of Technology,entitled“A Study on the Regulation Mechanism of Professional Happiness of Foreign Language Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools from the Perspective of Positive Psychology”(Grant No.2022cslgwgy008).
文摘The success of teachers in professional environments has a desirable influence on their mental condition.Simply said,teachers’professional success plays a crucial role in improving their mental health.Due to the invaluable role of professional success in teachers’mental health,personal and professional variables helping teachers succeed in their profession need to be uncovered.While the role of teachers’personal qualities has been well researched,the function of professional variables has remained unknown.To address the existing gap,the current investigation measured the role of two professional variables,namely job satisfaction and loving pedagogy,in Chinese EFL teachers’professional success.To do this,three validated scales were provided to 1591 Chinese EFL teachers.Participants’answers to the questionnaires were analyzed using the Spearman correlation test and structural equation modeling.The data analysis demonstrated a strong,positive link between the variables.Moreover,loving pedagogy was found to be the positive,strong predictor of Chinese EFL teachers’job satisfaction and professional success.The findings of the current inquiry may help educational administrators enhance their instructors’professional success,which in turn promotes their mental and psychological conditions at work.
基金the Humanities and Social Sciences Project,China’s Ministry of Education(Grant Number:22YJA740016)the Key Project of Hubei Provincial Department of Education Philosophy and Social Science Research Fund(No.21ZD051)the Teaching and Research Fund of Hubei University of Technology(No.Xiao2022018).
文摘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.
文摘Recent years have witnessed the rise and popularity of blended teaching for EFL students,yet the lack of face-to-face communication and insufficient interaction lead researchers and educators to explore methods of improving the effectiveness of teaching.Peer feedback,a teaching strategy used to raise the bars by exposing instructions to a new teaching perspective to enhance students’online and offline collaboration,has received the lion’s share of attention in recent studies.On the basis of literature review,class records,and interviews,this paper,in hope of supporting advances in teachers’practice and field researches,examines the possible approaches to effectively implementing the application of peer feedback in blended teaching mode with a special focus on teachers’roles.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.50875090,Grant No.50905063)National Hi-tech Research and Development Program of China(863 Program,Grant No.2009AA4Z111)China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No.20090460769)
文摘The software-based computer numerical control(CNC) system includes three types of tasks: periodic real-time tasks, aperiodic real-time tasks, and non-real-time tasks. The tasks are characterized by concurrency, hybridization, and correlation, which make system implementation difficult. The conventional scheduling algorithm can not meet the demands of system implementation in the software-based CNC system completely. The uncertainty factors when running real-time tasks affect control performance by degrading manufacturing accuracy as a result of system resource and processor use restrictions. To address the technical difficulty of embedded system implementation, a novel fuzzy feedback scheduling algorithm based on output jitter of key real-time tasks for a software-based CNC system is proposed. Time characteristics, such as sampling jitter, input-output jitter, and non-schedulability are discussed, followed by quantification through simulations of the impact of time characteristics on manufacturing accuracy. On the basis of this research, the scheduler architecture is designed, and then the algorithm table is calculated. When the system resource changes, the key periodic real-time tasks meet their deadlines by means of dynamically adjusting the task period. The simulated results show that the machining precision rises by an order of magnitude for the proposed scheduler in resource-constrained software-based CNC systems. Moreover, unlike conventional feedback scheduling methods, the algorithm in this paper does not rely on the availability of task execution times and is easy to implement while incurring only a small overhead.
文摘By analyzing the English learning logs of 12 students in a provincial university in south-west China after they had been exempted from taking college English courses,this study investigated college students’autonomous EFL(English as a foreign language)learning after course exemption,including the use of mediational means in EFL learning,EFL learning hours,and other factors affecting EFL learning,in the hope of giving new perspectives on college ELF curriculum design,teaching,and education management.
文摘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.
文摘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.
文摘This study had the purpose of testingtwo methods for teaching grammar in Englishasa Foreign Language(EFL)class:the deductive and inductive approaches in terms of effectiveness and rapport.This research was conducted in a public high school in Ecuador.Seventy students enrolled in the second year of senior high school participated.One in-service teacher taught the EFL classes during the process of intervention(10 weeks),and two EFL teachers observed all of these classes and recorded the information by filling in observation sheets.The students were administered grammar pretests and post-tests in order to assess their grammar knowledge.The results of the tests showed a significant difference in the scores in favor of the inductive approach.After the statistical analysis of the data obtained from the tests and observation sheets,we concluded that the inductive approach is more effective for teaching grammar in the EFL classroom in terms of instruction and rapport.
基金USST International Professional Certification and English Course ConstructionUSST Postgraduate Curriculum Construction ProjectThe Eleventh China Foreign Language Education Fund Project“On the Blended Teaching Model of Interpretation Course With the Synergistic Development of Interpretation Ability and Critical Thinking Ability”(ZGWYJYJJ11A071).
文摘Critical thinking has been recognized internationally as an essential skill for high-quality talents.This article analyzes what the experimental researches on cultivating critical thinking skills in EFL teaching have achieved and identifies the three weaknesses to be addressed in the future.Firstly,there are divergences among scholars on the concept and subskills of critical thinking.Secondly,the teaching modes and methods explored by the experimental researches are more personalized than systematic,which reduces their application and guidance value.Thirdly,the reliability and validity of the experiments need to be improved,and the cultivation practices tend to improve the critical thinking skills of some students,without considering the differences among students,especially the students with relatively poor language proficiency.
文摘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.