The Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics

BOOK REVIEW: Gender, Neoliberalism, and Distinction through Linguistic Capital: Taiwanese Narratives of Struggle and Strategy (Mark Fifer Seilhamer, 2019)

Michael Lane Tessmer — 2021-12-31

BOOK REVIEW: Identity, Gender and Teaching English in Japan (Diane Hawley Nagatomo, 2016)

Serina Chan — 2021-12-31

Does ‘okay’ mean different things in lectures delivered by teachers using English as an academic lingua franca and those using English as an L1?

Li-Chin Chen — 2021-12-31

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of academic lectures delivered in the context of English as an academic lingua franca through an investigation of one of the most frequently used discourse markers (DMs) – okay, in English mediated lectures delivered by native Chinese-speaking teachers, compared with usage in lectures delivered by native English-speaking teachers. The data examined include 6 lectures selected from the Taiwanese Lecture Corpus and 6 from the British Academic Spoken English Corpus, comprising a total of 148,310 words. The categories of okay functions in lectures (Looney, Jia, & Kimura, 2017; Othman, 2010; Schleef, 2008) are adapted to analyse the data. These show that several core features of lectures are shared between native Chinese-speaking and native English-speaking teachers in their use of okay, while others reflect their local academic culture contextual differences, as well as the influence of Chinese as a first language. The findings contribute to the field of English as an academic lingua franca in spoken discourse, particularly the use of DMs, and the implications for English for academic purposes at university level are discussed.

Exploring Iranian EFL teachers’ perspectives on techniques of teaching prosodic features of speech

Yara Mirfendereski — 2021-12-31

Although techniques of teaching prosodic features have been well explored, very few studies have given voice to practitioners’ perspectives. This data-driven study situated in the Iranian public schools context contributes to filling this gap by theorizing experienced EFL teachers’ experience of teaching prosodic features of speech. Teachers’ perspectives were explored through qualitative interviews and then analysed in line with the coding schemes of grounded theory. Iterative data collection and analysis revealed eight techniques that lead to effective communication with a focus on prosody in pronunciation teaching.

The application of guided peer feedback in facilitating L2 writing: Action research with tertiary-level language learners in Bangladesh

Aftab Chowdhury — 2021-12-31

This study is based on action research conducted with 117 students attending their introductory English language courses at two universities in Bangladesh. Peer feedback (PF), an essential part of collaborative learning, is an important alternative mode of assessment and can provide a deeper and clearer understanding of the learners’ aptitude and thus, aid the instructor in facilitating the learners. Not only can the learners benefit in terms of critical thinking while evaluating their peers, but also the peers can improve through the knowledge-sharing process. The objective of this study was to modify the notion of PF among the students as they were found to be producing vague, short, and shallow remarks on their peers’ writing. The study uses the PF comments on peers’ writing collected during the observation stage of an action research project to identify the weaknesses in the participants’ feedback to their peers. Then, it documents the process during which the causes of the weak PF are discovered and addressed, and learners are made more aware of the importance and benefits of PF. Finally, it examines the outcomes of a second round of PF, illustrating the improvement in the quality of the PF and the increased satisfaction of providers and recipients of the PF.

Chinese university students’ attitudes toward English accents: How identity is projected within an ELF framework

Yan Huang — 2021-12-31

The considerable influx of non-native English speakers (NNESs) into the English-speaking communities has changed dramatically the development of English language, one of which is the status of native English speaking norms. Today, English is not used for the competence of how close one approximates to native English speakers (NESs), but is more frequently adopted as a lingua franca faciliating a variety of pragmatic undertakings. This research, under the framework of English as a lingua franca (ELF), investigates how different English accents are perceived and appropriated as identity markers by university students in mainland China and to what extent their perceptions are under the influence of the emergent ELF environment. Drawing on a comparatively large-scale online questionnaire data, this article reports ambivalence in participants’ attitudes toward different English accents and a dilemma in projecting their L1 identity. It also suggests a replacement of the current teaching paradigm to better fit into the changing configuration of English language around the world.

The Effects of Vocabulary Notebook Keeping under Teacher Supervision on Vocabulary Acquisition for Low-Proficiency EFL Learners

Sang-Hyuck Jang — 2021-12-31

This study explores the effects of vocabulary notebook keeping under teacher supervision on low-proficiency Korean EFL learners. The participants were randomly divided thus: those who received teacher feedback and had their teacher monitor their notebook use; those who had their teacher only monitor their notebook use; and those who used their notebooks without any teacher intervention. They studied the target words for five weeks, and the results showed that the group that received both teacher feedback and monitoring outperformed the other two in the target vocabulary’s post-test. Furthermore, this difference was maintained two weeks after the post-test as well. The same group was also found to have a more positive attitude toward vocabulary notebook keeping and was more willing to continue keeping a notebook than the other two. These findings point to the important role teachers play in actualizing the full potential of vocabulary notebook keeping.