English Language Learning Motivation among Students in QiLu University of Technology in China

The difficulty of learning English is very obvious in non-Native English-speaking countries. China has a long history Chinese language culture. Chinese students are deeply influenced by their mother tongue. They are influenced by the educational system, Chinese language environment and English motivation. These factors lead to poor English learning results for Chinese students. This article studies the influence factors of English learning motivation in QiLu University of Technology freshmen's English learning. It uses the questionnaire survey to the Likert scale. Through the survey data and the use of statistical measurement method, it analyzes QiLu University of Technology freshmen's English learning motivation. Then the paper explores the influence of Qi Lu industrial university freshman English learning motivation. The study found that the Qi Lu industrial university freshman English learning motivation level is low. The low level of English learning motivation in English learning effects is small. The family socio-economic status of the respondents did not influence their motivation of English language learning. The respondents’ exposure influencing their motivation of English language learning. In view of this situation, this study provides strategies for college freshmen to improve their English learning motivation and provides theoretical basis for Chinese college students to better learn English.

EXPLORING L2 STUDENT PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS SOURCE-BASED EAP WRITING ASSESSMENT TASKS

In an attempt to understand the ways L2 undergraduate students use information from external sources in their writing and to examine what difficulties they encounter during the process, this classroom-based research investigated student writers’ perceptions towards their source use, purposes of students’ self-reported citation practices, and suggested actions to be taken for progress in source-based writing within the context of freshman English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course. Perceptions of 22 freshman student writers were surveyed through an open-ended questionnaire. Questionnaire was given upon the completion of a source-based writing assessment task and it required students to reflect on their writing performance which was produced under examination circumstances. Frequency counts and thematic content analysis revealed several challenges in handling citation practices effectively and a limited range for using citation purposes, mainly limited to attribution of sources. The study has implications for instruction in order to enhance citation practices of emerging L2 student writers..

Learner interactions in face-to-face collaborative writing with the support of online resources

This study explores interactions among language learners with the support of online resources in a collaborative writing task and how online resources assisted collaborating learners in the meaning-making process. The study was conducted in the freshman English course at a national university in Taiwan. Fifty-six students constructed an essay in pairs firstly without the support of online resources, and subsequently constructed another essay with the support of online resources. Each pair’s interactional patterns and dynamics of peer scaffolding across the two settings were examined. The findings show that the availability of online resources fosters a variety of interaction characteristics among learners with varied collaboration orientation. Results also suggest that learners’ collaboration predisposition at the onset plays a critical role in influencing the way they used online resources to support their interaction. This study thus suggests that learners’ collaborative patterns and their use of online resources have mutual impact, which may inform teachers seeking to integrate online resources to enhance their students’ collaborative learning.

Attendance and Gender Relations on Grades and Other Aspects

Three aspects prompted this study: why are females in first year university in a countryside campus performing better than males as opposed to high school where the reverse is the case? Why are there waves of performance increases semester by semester? Why is there in the second semester always an increase in performance over the first semester? For this matter the researchers took a number of participants in total over the period 2012-2016, namely 3,963 students in Freshman English at a countryside campus (Sangju) for Kyungpook National University as their target. In the year 2016, only the first semester was calculated in this research. Three aspects were considered as far as data is concerned: attendance variables, grade variables and gender. Performances were always better in the second semester over the first and females almost always outperformed the males. What also came up as secondary considerations, are questions whether the environment like nature and the role of ‘table- talk’ of parents reverberating or not the GDP of the country over the period may have had an effect on the students. It was found when the GDP went up the students’ performance took a break but when the GDP is low the students increased their focus and performed better as their grades indicated. These last aspects were just mere observations and should be carried out with further investigation elsewhere. The attendance of females was always showing better attendance results than males for Freshmen at Sangju Campus, South Korea. While the GDP dropped and rose through the years investigated, the attendance of the students did not display a serious rise and fall but remained almost unchanged.

Flipped Library Instruction Does Not Lead to Learning Gains for First-Year English Students

A Review of: Rivera, E. (2017). Flipping the classroom in freshman English library instruction: A comparison study of a flipped class versus a traditional lecture method. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 23(1), 18-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2016.1244770 Abstract Objective – To determine whether a flipped classroom approach to freshman English information literacy instruction improves student learning outcomes. Design – Quasi-experimental. Setting – Private suburban university with 7,000 graduate and undergraduate students. Subjects – First-year English students. Methods – Students in six sections of first-year “English 2” received library instruction; three sections received flipped library instruction and three sections received traditional library instruction. Students in the flipped classroom sections were assigned two videos to watch before class, as an introduction to searching the Library’s catalog and key academic databases. These students were also expected to complete pre-class exercises that allowed them to practice what they learned through the videos. The face-to-face classes involved a review of the flipped materials alongside additional activities. Works cited pages from the students’ final papers were collected from all six sections, 31 from the flipped sections and 34 from the non-flipped sections. A rubric was used to rate the works cited pages. The rubric was based on the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000), Standard Two, Outcome 3a, and included three criteria: “authority,” “timeliness,” and “variety.” Each criterion was rated at one of three levels: “exemplary,” “competent,” or “developing.” Main Results – Works cited pages from the students who received non-flipped instruction were more likely to score “exemplary” for at least one of the three criteria when compared to works cited pages from the flipped instruction students (68.6% vs. 52.7%). Differences were found in the scores for “timeliness” (88.2% non-flipped scored “exemplary” compared to 58% flipped), and “variety” (55.9% non-flipped scored “exemplary” vs. 35.5% flipped). This pattern was not found for the “authority” category, in which 61.8% of non-flipped works cited pages scored “exemplary” vs. 64.5% of flipped works cited pages. Conclusion – The results suggest that the flipped library instruction approach did not improve student learning outcomes. The study’s findings are limited by the small sample size, the unknown impact of the variability of research assignments between sections, and the lack of control over whether students in the flipped sections completed the pre-class assignments. The author also notes that future research should examine how well the content of flipped library instruction mirrors that of non-flipped instruction sessions. The study concludes that the flipped classroom model needs further research to understand whether it is a strong fit for one-shot library instruction.