Applying PERMA to Develop College Students’ English Listening and Speaking Proficiency in China

Positive Psychology is applied to broaden the learning of a second language, whose application in schools is referred to as Positive Education. The PERMA model (Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) proposed by Seligman provides a way for positive education to flourish and open up a new perspective for Chinese scholars in different fields. Hence, the main focus of this study was to explore the effect of PERMA on students’ English listening and speaking competency in the Chinese context. This study used a quasi-experimental and a mixed method research design, which included developing a curriculum of PERMA in English speaking and listening, teaching intervention, and a speaking and listening competence test. A total of 240 students studying the same course from six classes, specializing in arts and science, participated in the teaching experiment with the same study level. A total of 110 students in the control group (CG) were taught using traditional teaching methods and the remaining 130 in the experimental group (EG) were subjected to a PERMA intervention for 14 weeks. The results of a one-way ANCOVA indicated a significant improvement in English listening and speaking proficiency of those in the experimental group due to the intervention of PERMA. The outcome of qualitative study conducted by semi-structured interview revealed that students had made progress in English pronunciation, oral expression in their speaking competency. They could also keep up with the speed of audio script and they understood key sentences and details in the listening process. The study pedagogically implicated that whole school approach, including the changes of curriculum, teaching skills, teacher education, and community involvement, should be explored for a new framework of Positive Language Education.

Speaking Challenges of Saudi EFL Learners

This study aimed at exploring the possible underlying reasons for low speaking proficiency of EFL learners through adopting a qualitative methodology. To approach its goal, this study used a semi-structured interview to collect in-depth details from three EFL learners and one university professor. The internal construction of the interview was associated with the following four items; student, teacher, English materials or textbooks, and the assessment practices used inside classrooms. The findings of this study shed some light on multiple components related to teaching methods, teachers centered approach, students’ motivation, unauthentic English materials. This study recommended further investigation using quasi-experiments to explore more what causes this low speaking performance as well as to propose some valid suggestions and recommendations to develop EFL speaking.

The Utilisation of Duolingo to Enhance the Speaking Proficiency of EFL Secondary School Students in Saudi Arabia

Even though Saudi EFL students devote multiple years to improving their English-speaking proficiency, they struggle to achieve fluency. The present study, however, focuses on investigating the effectiveness of using Duolingo in EFL classrooms to enhance the participants’ speaking proficiency. The participants who underwent this study were 28 male Saudi students studying in secondary school, namely at Sharia Institute. They were divided into control and experimental groups. Data was collected via post-test to conduct a valid comparison between the two groups. The 14 students in the experimental group had been using Duolingo for a period of four consecutive months while the participants in the control group have never used Duolingo. To make a valid comparison of the mean score between the two groups, an independent samples t-test was used in this experiment. After analysing the results, it has been concluded that the integration of Duolingo in the learning process has a fundamental positive impact on enhancing participants’ speaking proficiency as well as improving their overall language skills. Additionally, the participants’ positive attitude towards Duolingo was an intrinsic factor that helped alleviate their anxiety when speaking.  

N-gram use in EFL learners’ retelling and monologic tasks

This study examined n-gram use in oral production by Chinese college-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners at four distinct proficiency levels. Thirty indices regarding range, frequency, and association strength of bi- and tri-grams obtained from retelling and monologic samples were analyzed. Results suggest that, i) the four proficiency levels differed in measures for frequency and association strength of bi- and tri-grams, ii) academic bi- and tri-gram proportions and association strength (captured by MI- and t-scores) were predictive of EFL speaking proficiency for both the retelling and monologic samples but the effects were small, and iii) EFL learners used more well-attested bi- and tri-grams in monologues than in retelling, demonstrating that higher rated samples tended to contain more strongly-associated bi- and tri-grams, a greater proportion of frequent attested academic tri-grams, and that EFL n-gram use was task-sensitive. These findings help enrich our understanding on EFL development of multi-word sequences and have potentially useful implications for EFL pedagogy.

Malaysian Undergraduates’ Perceptions of Online Approach via Skype in Developing Speaking Skills

Speaking skill pedagogy has always remained a huge enigma for English as a Second Language (ESL) educators. Despite the challenges, the need to master the skills prevail in academia. The undergraduates especially those from the technical division seem to grapple with the ability to perform well in their studies and market their products upon employment due to the inability to communicate well in English. Nowadays, there are numerous platforms available for ESL learners to improve their speaking proficiency. Thus, this paper intended to study the effectiveness of using Skype as an online platform to help students enhance their confidence in speaking in English. 100 reflective journals of first year undergraduates who enrolled in an English course were collected. Meanwhile, 10 undergraduates were randomly selected to participate in the semi-structured interview. All the participants’ reflections and views were analyzed and thematized using Transana software. Four main themes emerged: account possession; familiarity; challenges; and features. It was found that many participants were aware of Skype but did not have the account prior to the study. Majority of the participants admitted that Skype activities helped them to converse better which enhanced their motivation to speak in English more confidently and fluently.

What the analytic versus holistic scoring of international teaching assistants can reveal: Lexical grammar matters

Second-language (L2) testing researchers have explored the relationship between speakers’ overall speaking ability, reflected by holistic scores, and the speakers’ performance on speaking subcomponents, reflected by analytic scores (e.g., McNamara, 1990; Sato, 2011). These research studies have advanced applied linguists’ understanding of how raters view the components of effective speaking skills, but the authors of the studies either used analytic composite scores, instead of true holistic ratings, or ran regression analyses with highly correlated subscores, which is problematic. To address these issues, 10 experienced ITA raters rated the speaking of 127 international teaching assistant (ITA) candidates using a four-component analytic rubric. In addition, holistic ratings were provided for the 127 test takers from a separate (earlier) scoring by two experienced ITA raters. The two types of scores differentiated examinees in similar ways. The variability observed in students’ holistic scores was reflected in their analytic scores. However, among the four analytic subscales, examinees’ scores on Lexical and Grammatical Competence had the greatest differentiating power. Its scores indicated with a high level of accuracy who passed the test and who did not. The paper discusses the components contributing to ITAs’ L2 oral speaking proficiency, and reviews pedagogical implications.

English and French language ability and the employability of immigrants in Canada

PurposeBoth potential immigrants to Canada and policymakers in Canada continually compare and contrast the economic returns of immigrants' language ability and proficiency. They ask which of the two official languages has a higher economic return in terms of employment and earning. This study examines how ability and proficiency in Canada's two official languages, separately and/or jointly, influences immigrants' quick absorption into the labour market.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses all three waves of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) and employs logistic regression on the relationship between employability, language ability/proficiency and various non-linguistic factors.FindingsThe study reports that language ability in French is as valuable as language ability in English for immigrants who are aspiring to work, full-time or part-time, when they arrive in Canada. The advantages of language ability and proficiency continue a few years after an immigrant's arrival. Using disaggregated speaking, reading and writing competencies, the authors observe that speaking proficiency in English has a greater impact on employability than reading and writing in English.Originality/valueThere are very few studies looking at the effects of language ability and proficiency on the employability of immigrants in countries with multiple official languages. Most studies are mainly focused on earning and not employability. This study is focused on employability, particularly in the context of Canada. Furthermore, this study specifically disaggregates the impact of speaking, reading and writing competencies in both languages on employment in Canada.

Expanding lindsei to spoken learner English from several L1s across cefr levels

Learner corpus studies typically investigate the language of second-language learners with a different first language (L1) or with proficiency levels inferred from external criteria (e.g., the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage, lindsei; Gilquin et al., 2010 ). This paper reports the process of expanding the original Czech ( Gráf, 2017 ) and Taiwanese ( Huang, 2014 ) sub-corpora (predominantly at B2 and C1; Huang et al., 2018 ) with samples from learners of other L1s across cefr levels. In addition to sixty interviews by the German, Finnish and Norwegian lindsei teams, another eighty-three interviews with university students in Taiwan and Finland were held. The data collection and transcription procedures were adapted from lindsei guidelines to ensure comparability. Each fourteen-minute interview was anonymised using Audacity, and orthographically transcribed and aligned by means of exmaralda. The levels of speaking proficiency in the supplemented data were assessed by two expert raters. The expanded learner corpus, containing 243 interviews, will be of considerable value for studying the development of learner English.