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Developing L2 learners' emotional balance through adaptive regulation is a significant determinant of successful learning. Despite the recent surge of interest in emotion regulation (ER) programs, research on L2 learners' ER strategies is surprisingly underdeveloped. To address this gap, the current qualitative study explored ten L2 learners' understanding of achievement emotions and ER strategies throughout a longitudinal ER-oriented training course. Data were collected from four rounds of semi-structured interviews and diaries at different junctures of time. Data analysis revealed that the most frequent ER strategies in the pre-training phase were distraction and suppression, which showed a gradual decrease in the post-training phases. However, the use of self-regulated learning strategies and reassurance had the lowest frequency, showing a great improvement during the post-training phases. Additionally, the students grew in regulating their emotions across four major areas: (a) sufficient perceived control over negative emotions in high-stakes situations, (b) use of explicit ER strategies, (c) efficient use of competency-oriented strategies, and (d) decreased distraction as a function of negative simulators. The study provides implications for employing ER-based training to transform students' negative emotional experiences into positive emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adds new empirical evidence on how commonly the Directed Motivational Current (DMC) phenomenon is recognized and experienced among tertiary level L2 learners. This study also investigated DMC manifestations across such demographic factors as gender and domain of study. To this end, in this quantitative study, the Turkish version of the DMC Disposition Scale (Muir, 2016), validated by the researchers through a confirmatory factor analysis and reliability checks, was administered to 1083 first-year EFL students pursuing a bachelor's degree at twelve different faculties of a state university in Turkey. The data were analyzed through chi-square analyses, t-tests, and analyses of variance. Of all participants, 20.8% (n = 224) reported having experienced DMCs either once or on multiple occasions. The responses of the DMC group corroborate previous assertions that DMC is a unique motivational phenomenon experienced by a minority of students rather than being a widely experienced phenomenon. However, when the nature of the context is considered, the number of true-DMCs is promising. Gender and domain of study were not found to affect the propensity to experience DMCs among tertiary level L2 learners. These results are discussed and implications for theory and practice are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of Universidade de Vigo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The resurgence of interest in vocabulary learning in the past two decades and research in Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS) since Schmitt's 1997 taxonomy have yielded a few other taxonomies and strategies to enrich the vocabulary of ESL learners. However, developing a VLS taxonomy or Model in ESP context has not been focused upon though the need for it has been studied and reported. Students from vernacular medium schools in ESL and EFL countries find it difficult to learn the content in colleges due to their limited knowledge of content vocabulary. Hence a new VLS Model for content words has been designed to render linguistic assistance to them. The efficacy of the Model has been tested in the context of Engineering Science. The proposed model is unique and specific for deriving strategies to learn content vocabulary in all branches of Science and Engineering. There is scope for diachronic, synchronic, and scientific study of words through Cognitive and Metacognitive strategies. Activities generated on this Model combine decontextualized Discovery strategy and contextualized Consolidation strategy. Eighty engineering college students in India took part in the study. The experimental group which received intervention based on the VLS Model outperformed the control group in the posttest. Hence this Model is advocated for enhancing the knowledge and use of ESP vocabulary and for helping learners understand their disciplinary field. It is believed that through appropriate VLS, the learners can be empowered to be autonomous in reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, research in Interlanguage Pragmatics has employed conversation analysis as a tool to investigate speech acts. However, ‘preference organization’ has received little attention. This study examines L2 English learners' orientation toward preference organization and the influence of language proficiency on the same when producing requests. The data was collected from 40 participants divided equally into four groups: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and English native speakers (NS), using role-play scenarios in which participants played the roles of informants and conductors. The results show that pre-expansions, preliminaries to preliminaries (pre-pres), and other interactional devices were employed prior to the production of requests, an indication they carry social risk and are dispreferred. However, orientation to preference organization varied across groups - the more proficient the L2 learner, the more likely they were to reduce the effect of the dispreferred action. In addition, learners’ requests shifted from direct to conventionally indirect as proficiency increased. Likewise, the use of accounts after requests increased with higher proficiency. It was, therefore, concluded that the more proficient the L2 learner, the more likely they are to orient to preference organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely acknowledged that learning English in the context of academic studies implies mastering academic vocabulary. Such vocabulary is not merely made up of single words, but also consists of multi-word items. Despite the fact that linguists have long called for the inclusion of multi-word items in vocabulary studies and have also pointed out the importance of these units for language learning, few studies in this area have attempted to investigate the use of academic vocabulary at both word and phrase levels. To bridge this gap, the present study examined the use of academic words from the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) and academic formulae from the Academic Formulas List (Simpson-Vlach & Ellis, 2010) in essays produced by first language (L1) and second language (L2) school-age students. To this end, a corpus of L2 school essays was compiled and compared with a matched L1 corpus. Substantial differences were observed between the two corpora in terms of the use of academic words. However, both L1 and L2 writers were found to be comparable in their use of academic formulae. These findings and their implications are discussed in the context of teaching and learning academic vocabulary in K-12 settings (primary and secondary education). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of sentence combining (SC) and sentence decombining (SD) activities on fostering reading comprehension. As a widely used writing activity for enhancing syntactic fluency in English Language Arts (ELA) classes, SC requires learners to combine short sentences into longer and more complex sentences, while SD requires learners to break down a long sentence into the shortest grammatically allowable sentences.Design/methodology/approach This study assessed the effects of SD and SC in comparison with a control group on the improvement of reading comprehension ability among college students learning English as their second language (L2) in the context of a six-week English language learning program. Participants with overall intermediate English language proficiency were randomly assigned to one of three different conditions: SC, SD and control. Also, a subset of the participants was interviewed after the intervention.Findings The results showed that SD was more effective than SC or control condition in enhancing syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension, as measured by a standardized English proficiency test. Data obtained from post-study interviews further suggested that only SD was perceived by the participants as having enhanced their reading comprehension.Originality/value The present study provides a valuable addition to a body of research on sentence manipulation activities in ELA classes. For those L2 learners who have passed a pre-intermediate threshold level, SD appears to be more beneficial than SC in enhancing syntactic knowledge, which, in turn, appears to contribute to better reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the use of discourse-organising nouns (DONs), such as fact, issue, and thing, in a corpus of Swedish advanced students' academic writing in second language (L2) English, and in what ways texts produced by the L2 students resemble or differ from those produced by advanced native-speaker students and from expert writing in this respect. The L2 student writing was found to approximate the L1 student writing and the expert writing in several ways, including overall frequency of DON usage, but with less variety and more frequent occurrences of semantically vague types and types expressing attitude and involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of English Teaching & Learning is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper deals with the investigation on the impact of gender and language background on the level of self-consciousness based reticence of L2 learners. It presents a study conducted with 178 L2 learners doing first year of their undergraduate programme at the university level. Data are collected from the participants. Means and standard deviations are calculated for finding the level of reticence. Results show that there is a considerable impact of gender and language background on the levels of self-consciousness based reticence of L2 learners. Based on these levels, implications and strategies for effective language classroom are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing interest in the theorisation of teacher-based assessment (TBA), very little research has paid close attention to how teachers practice assessment embedded in real classroom contexts. This longitudinal study over one school term reports on the TBA of young learners with English as an additional language (EAL) in New Zealand primary schools. Taking a grounded, emic, inductive approach, using teacher logs, classroom observations and interviews, four language support teachers and one classroom teacher across three schools were observed assessing the language abilities of six EAL students. The results of this study identify five key strategies used by teachers to scaffold students at the implementation stage of the assessment process in relation to different summative and formative purposes of assessment. It suggests ways in which scaffolding may prove crucial to the effective implementation of assessing the complex needs of L2 learners and confirms how scaffolding may play an important role in identifying a learner's potential. This study particularly highlights the need for clear communication between home class and L2 teachers, especially at the planning and monitoring stages of the assessment process where results may be used by different stakeholders for different purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]