| 1. |
- Källkvist, Marie
(författare)
-
Languaging in Translation Tasks Used in a University Setting: Particular Potential for Student Agency?
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Modern Language Journal. - : Wiley. - 1540-4781 .- 0026-7902. ; 97:1, s. 217-238
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the value of judiciously used L1-to-L2 translation in meaning-focused, advanced-level academic language (L2) education. It examines the teacher-led discourse (TLD) arising when translation tasks were used and compares it to the TLD engendered when four other grammar-focused tasks were used with three different groups of students within a functioning university course in English at a Swedish university. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of audio-recorded lessons revealed that, when translation was used, (i) there were particularly high levels of student-initiated referential questions that break the initiation-response-feedback (IRF) pattern, whereas (ii) there was a less-frequent focus on targeted L2 grammar as student attention tended to be drawn to vocabulary. Qualitative analysis of teacher scaffolding suggests that the teacher used translation to create a forum for student-centered discussion of various aspects of English language use in order to meet one of the course goals. The relatively strong presence of student-initiated interaction suggests that translation may have particular potential to engender student involvement and attention. It is argued that translation therefore may have an important yet limited place in academic-level language education where knowledge of the L1 is shared.
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Athanasopoulos, Panos, et al.
(författare)
-
Learning to Think in a Second Language : Effects of Proficiency and Length of Exposure in English Learners of German
- 2015
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : Wiley. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 99, s. 138-153
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of the current study is to investigate motion event cognition in second language learners in a higher education context. Based on recent findings that speakers of grammatical aspect languages like English attend less to the endpoint (goal) of events than do speakers of nonaspect languages like Swedish in a nonverbal categorization task involving working memory (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2013; Bylund & Athanasopoulos, 2015), the current study asks whether native speakers of an aspect language start paying more attention to event endpoints when learning a nonaspect language. Native English and German (a nonaspect language) speakers, and English learners of L2 German, who were pursuing studies in German language and literature at an English university, were asked to match a target scene with intermediate degree of endpoint orientation with two alternate scenes with low and high degree of endpoint orientation, respectively. Results showed that, compared to the native English speakers, the learners of German were more prone to base their similarity judgements on endpoint saliency, rather than ongoingness, primarily as a function of increasing L2 proficiency and year of university study. Further analyses revealed a nonlinear relationship between length of L2 exposure and categorization patterns, subserved by a progressive strengthening of the relationship between L2 proficiency and categorization as length of exposure increased. These findings present evidence that cognitive restructuring may occur through increasing experience with an L2, but also suggest that this relationship may be complex and unfold over a long period of time.
|
|
| 4. |
- Bylund, Emanuel, et al.
(författare)
-
Introduction : Cognition, Motion Events, and SLA
- 2015
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : Wiley. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 99:S1, s. 1-13
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- This opening article introduces the reader to current topics in research on language and thought in monolingual speakers and second language (L2) learners, with particular attention to the domain of motion. The article also delineates the rationale that underlies the special issue at hand, and provides a contextualisation of the individual contributions. It is argued that the centrality of motion in everyday human life, in combination with the vast cross-linguistic variation in motion construal, makes motion events a suitable topic for SLA research, both in terms of ecological validity and learnability challenge. The pedagogical aspects of this line of research are discussed in terms of, first, whether it is desirable to include the acquisition of language-specific thought patterns in curricular goals, and second, whether the knowledge about language specificity in thought can be used in teaching as a means to facilitate learning.
|
|
| 5. |
- Bylund, Emanuel, et al.
(författare)
-
Televised Whorf : Cognitive Restructuring in Advanced Foreign Language Learners as a Function of Audiovisual Media Exposure
- 2015
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : Wiley. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 99:S1, s. 123-137
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The encoding of goal-oriented motion events varies across different languages. Speakers of languages without grammatical aspect (e.g., Swedish) tend to mention motion endpoints when describing events (e.g., two nuns walk to a house) and attach importance to event endpoints when matching scenes from memory. Speakers of aspect languages (e.g., English), on the other hand, are more prone to direct attention to the ongoingness of motion events, which is reflected both in their event descriptions (e.g., two nuns are walking) and in their nonverbal similarity judgements. This study examines to what extent native speakers (L1) of Swedish (n=82) with English as a foreign language (FL) restructure their categorisation of goal-oriented motion as a function of their proficiency and experience with the English language (e.g., exposure, learning history, etc.). Seventeen monolingual native English speakers from the United Kingdom (UK) were recruited for comparison purposes. Data on motion event cognition were collected through a memory-based triads matching task in which a target scene with an intermediate degree of endpoint orientation was matched with two alternative scenes with low and high degrees of endpoint orientation. Results showed that the preference among the Swedish speakers of FL English to base their similarity judgements on ongoingness rather than event endpoints was correlated with exposure to English in everyday life, such that those who often watched television in English approximated the ongoingness preference of the English native speakers. These findings suggest that event cognition patterns may be restructured through exposure to FL audiovisual media. The results add to the emerging picture that learning a new language entails learning new ways of observing and reasoning about reality.
|
|
| 6. |
- Cekaite Thunqvist, Asta, 1972-
(författare)
-
A child's development of interactional competence in a Swedish L2 classroom
- 2007
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : Wiley. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 91:1, s. 45-62
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study explores a child's emergent second language (L2) interactional competence during her first year in a Swedish immersion classroom. Within the theoretical framework of situated learning, it focuses on how she acquires expertise in a specific classroom practice: multiparty classroom talk. The data cover three periods (the early, middle, and late phases) of her first school year. The methods adopted combine a microanalytic approach with ethnographic fieldwork analyses of L2 socialization within a classroom community. The analyses revealed systematic changes in the novice's interactional engagements. An interplay of language skills and turn-taking skills influenced her participation in multiparty talk during the three periods, casting her as (a) a silent child, (b) a noisy and loud child, and (c) a skillful student. These changes indicate that learning cannot be seen as the unilinear development of a single learner identity. It is argued that a detailed longitudinal analysis may provide important insights into the relationship between participation and L2 learning. Instead of unilinear development of a single learner identity, we may find different participation patterns linked to distinct language learning affordances over time. © 2007 The Modern Language Journal.
|
|
| 7. |
- Alvstad, Cecilia, 1971, et al.
(författare)
-
Conceptions of Literature in University Language Courses
- 2009
-
Ingår i: The Modern Language Journal. - 1540-4781. ; 93:2, s. 170-184
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article we set out to explore and discuss reasons for reading literary texts in university curricula of foreign languages. Our analysis is based on 2 sources of information: 16 syllabi of Spanish as a foreign language and a questionnaire in which 11 university instructors teaching these syllabi express their intentions. We point to a number of risks when emphasis is predominantly placed on instrumental goals such as acquisition of vocabulary and grammar or cultural knowledge. We suggest, instead, that the literary modules within language curricula should formulate their own specific goals. Rather than privileging linguistic and cultural competences to be trained, the literary modules could, for example, raise students' awareness of the facts that there are many ways of reading a text but that interpretation nevertheless remains a historically situated and constrained activity.
|
|
| 8. |
- Henry, Alastair, 1963-
(författare)
-
L2 Motivation and Multilingual Identities
- 2017
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : Wiley. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 101:3, s. 548-565
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- By tradition, L2 motivation research has a monolingual bias – the motivational systems of a learner’s different languages conceptualized as separate entities rather than as cognitively interconnected. At a time when multilingualism has become a new world order (Douglas Fir Group, ) and where there is evidence of powerful identity experiences connected to speaking several languages (Pavlenko, ) this is unfortunate. In alignment with the multilingual and dynamic turns in SLA (de Bot, ; May, ), and adopting a complexity thought modeling approach (Larsen–Freeman & Cameron, ), this article explores multilingual learners’ L2 motivation. It is suggested that the motivational systems of a multilingual learner’s different languages can be understood as constituting a higher-level multilingual motivational self system that is part of an ecology of interconnected and interpenetrating systems. This system contains multilingual self guides, one of which is the ideal multilingual self. Drawing on construal-level theory (Trope & Liberman, ), the manner and effects of mental representations of an ideal multilingual self are assessed. Finally, it is suggested that motivation deriving from a broader identity that encompasses but, in important ways, transcends a multilingual person’s language-specific identities has a central role to play in multilingual education.
|
|
| 9. |
- Henry, Alastair, 1963-
(författare)
-
Multilingualism and persistence in multiple language learning
- 2023
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 107:1, s. 183-201
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For language learners who aspire to become multilingual, commitment involves a personal journey. Defining persistence as a preoccupation with goal-focused action directed to a desired future state and drawing on research from cognitive psychology and the mental time travel paradigm, this article presents an identity-based framework of persistence in multiple language learning. In the framework, persistence is supported through the operation of 3 interconnecting processes: (a) the generation of personally meaningful goals aimed at becoming multilingual, (b) the conjuring of mental images that represent states, events, and values associated with being multilingual, and (c) the integration of representations of multilingualism within an unfolding personal history. To illustrate these processes, data from online sources and research literature exploring language learners’ narrative biographies is used. The relevance of the framework is critically assessed in relation to (a) the development of interventions supporting motivation for foreign language learning, (b) the exploration of motivational processes through narrative-based inquiry, and (c) the varying linguistic, social, and societal contexts in which multiple language learning takes place. © 2023 The Authors. The Modern Language Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, Inc.
|
|
| 10. |
- Henry, Alastair, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
-
Teacher-Student Relationships and L2 Motivation
- 2018
-
Ingår i: The Modern language journal. - : Wiley. - 0026-7902 .- 1540-4781. ; 102:1, s. 218-241
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Positive relationships with teachers are important for students’ second language motivation. However, little is known about how interpersonal interactions stimulate motivated behavior. Drawing on studies of teacher-student relationships, theories from positive psychology, and the psychology of unconscious self-regulation, this case study examines moments of teacher-student interaction and explores influences on students’ engagement and motivation. Observations (N = 15) were carried out in 2 classrooms, and interviews with the focal teacher of this study and her students were conducted. Data were analyzed using a grounded theory ethnography approach. Findings indicate that moments of close personal contact and their influences may differ in emerging and mature teacher-student relationships. While in emerging relationships moments of contact can have immediate influences on engagement and motivation, in mature relationships influences on learning behavior may be less pronounced and involve unconscious motivational processes. The study’s methodological limitations are discussed and proposals are made for future ethnographic and experimental work.
|
|
