Teaching English to speakers of other languages teachers’ views on the relationship between research and practice

This paper reports on a study investigating teachers’ views and beliefs about the relationship between second language (L2) research and practice. Although a gap has been frequently reported between the two, there is little empirical data to show what teachers’ views on this relationship are or how these views and beliefs influence their use of research. A total of 60 TESOL1 teachers in England responded to a questionnaire which sought both qualitative and quantitative data. Results of the data analysis suggest that although their views on research and its usefulness are positive, teachers are mainly sceptical about the practicality and relevance of L2 research. More importantly, they expect research to originate from rather than end in classrooms and maintain that the prime responsibility of bringing research and practice together is to be shared by teacher training programmes and educational policies of the institutions they work in. Our analysis of the data further implies that there are differences between teachers’ epistemological assumptions and the more established notions of research.

Reading the world through words: cultural themes in heritage Chinese language textbooks

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate and valued in China as well as in Chinese diasporan communities. Furthermore, it looks at the construction of cultural knowledge in Chinese language textbooks in relation to the mainstream ideology to which immigrant children are exposed in and out of mainstream school classrooms. It looks at how the power relationship between legitimate cultural knowledge in majority and minority contexts is established and to what extent it affects language minority students' literacy practices in mainstream school and heritage language school contexts. Data sources are the Chinese textbooks used from kindergarten to Grade 5 in a Chinese heritage language school.

Writing in French in secondary schools in England and Germany: are the British really 'bad language learners’?

It is widely assumed that the British are poorer modern foreign language (MFL) learners than their fellow Europeans. Motivation has often been seen as the main cause of this perceived disparity in language learning success. However, there have also been suggestions that curricular and pedagogical factors may play a part. This article reports a research project investigating how German and English 14- to 16-year-old learners of French as a first foreign language compare to one another in their vocabulary knowledge and in the lexical diversity, accuracy and syntactic complexity of their writing. Students from comparable schools in Germany and England were set two writing tasks which were marked by three French native speakers using standardised criteria aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF). Receptive vocabulary size and lexical diversity were established by the X_lex test and a verb types measure respectively. Syntactic complexity and formal accuracy were respectively assessed using the mean length of T-units (MLTU) and words/error metrics. Students' and teachers' questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to provide information and participants' views on classroom practices, while typical textbooks and feedback samples were analysed to establish differences in materials-related input and feedback in the two countries. The German groups were found to be superior in vocabulary size, and in the accuracy, lexical diversity and overall quality – but not the syntactic complexity – of their writing. The differences in performance outcomes are analysed and discussed with regard to variables related to the educational contexts (e.g. curriculum design and methodology).

Connecting research and practice in TESOL: a community of practice perspective

In line with a growing interest in teacher research engagement in second language education, this article is an attempt to shed light on teachers’ views on the relationship between teaching and practice. The data comprise semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers in England, examining their views about the divide between research and practice in their field, the reasons for the persistence of the divide between the two and their suggestions on how to bridge it. Wenger’s (1998) Community of Practice (CoP) is used as a conceptual framework to analyse and interpret the data. The analysis indicates that teacher experience, learning and ownership of knowledge emerging from participation in their CoP are key players in teachers’ professional practice and in the development of teacher identity. The participants construe the divide in the light of the differences they perceive between teaching and research as two different CoPs, and attribute the divide to the limited mutual engagement, absence of a joint enterprise and lack of a shared repertoire between them. Boundary encounters, institutionalised brokering and a more research-oriented teacher education provision are some of the suggestions for bringing the two communities together.

Language learning in the public eye: an analysis of newspapers and official documents in England

This article considers the issue of low levels of motivation for foreign language learning in England by exploring how language learning is conceptualised by different key voices in that country through the examination of written data: policy documents and reports on the UK's language needs, curriculum documents, and press articles. The extent to which this conceptualisation has changed over time is explored, through the consideration of documents from two time points, before and after a change in government in the UK. The study uses corpus analysis methods in this exploration. The picture that emerges is a complex one regarding how the 'problems' and 'solutions' surrounding language learning in that context are presented in public discourse. This, we conclude, has implications for the likely success of measures adopted to increase language learning uptake in that context.

Motivational trajectories for early language learning across the primary-secondary school transition

The transition from primary to secondary school is an area of concern across a range of curriculum subjects, and this is no less so for foreign language learning. Indeed problems with transition have been identified in England as an important barrier to the introduction of language learning to the primary school curriculum, with implications for learners’ longer-term motivation for the subject. This longitudinal study investigated, through a questionnaire, the development of 233 learners’ motivation for learning French in England, during the transition from primary to secondary schooling. It also explored whether levels and patterns of motivation differed according to the type of language teaching experienced, comparing a largely oracy-focused approach with one with greater emphasis on literacy activities. Learners showed high and increasing levels of motivation across transition, placing particular value on learning French for travel. Being taught through an oracy or a literacy-focused approach had less impact on learners’ motivation than broader classroom experiences, with the development of a sense of progress and feeling that instruction met their learning needs being especially important. A growing disjuncture emerged between valuing the learning of French for travel/communication and learners’ low levels of self-efficacy for communication with native speakers, together with a desire for more communication-based activities. By the end of the first year of secondary school less positive attitudes towards learning French and less optimism about the possibility of future progress were beginning to emerge. The paper concludes by outlining the implications of the study for classroom practice in language learning.

Providing extrinsic reward for test performance undermines long-term memory acquisition

Based on numerous studies showing that testing studied material can improve long-term retention more than restudying the same material, it is often suggested that the number of tests in education should be increased to enhance knowledge acquisition. However, testing in real-life educational settings often entails a high degree of extrinsic motivation of learners due to the common practice of placing important consequences on the outcome of a test. Such an effect on the motivation of learners may undermine the beneficial effects of testing on long-term memory because it has been shown that extrinsic motivation can reduce the quality of learning. To examine this issue, participants learned foreign language vocabulary words, followed by an immediate test in which one-third of the words were tested and one-third restudied. To manipulate extrinsic motivation during immediate testing, participants received either monetary reward contingent on test performance or no reward. After 1 week, memory for all words was tested. In the immediate test, reward reduced correct recall and increased commission errors, indicating that reward reduced the number of items that can benefit from successful retrieval. The results in the delayed test revealed that reward additionally reduced the gain received from successful retrieval because memory for initially successfully retrieved words was lower in the reward condition. However, testing was still more effective than restudying under reward conditions because reward undermined long-term memory for concurrently restudied material as well. These findings indicate that providing performance–contingent reward in a test can undermine long-term knowledge acquisition.