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The key postulation of the research is: learning an additional language should go together with learning its culture. Through personal experience as an EAL learner and EFL teacher, the researcher examines the interconnected system of the learner’s motivations, premising that language cognition could engage a meta-cognitive search for L, as a symbol of the researcher’s inner world, and arising from L such concepts as Language, Learning, Life, Love, and Led Zeppelin. Quest and examination of those concepts analyze sense-data, the researcher’s short literary works written in Russian and translated into English. The canvas of the author’s writing is presented in a symbolic form of literary and musical Islands with which she creates her arts-informed research of new learning-teaching interactions with the learning component as dominating in this interaction. The researcher looks for new perspectives on education as a lifelong process that takes place between I-world and They-world through internalization-externalization. / May 2008

This study is to explore the influences of learning experience on Kaohsiung¡¦s 5th graders who have attended English Village; in addition, the author used stratified random sampling to conduct questionnaire survey. Furthermore, students who are 5th graders in Kaohsiung in 2011 were chosen as research objects and approximate 600 participants were needed in this study. The contents of questionnaire are made up of personal data, English learning motivation, and English anxiety. The statistical analyses which contain descriptive statistics, correlation of coefficient, regression model, and One-way ANOVA was conducted after all the questionnaires returned. The results of this reasearch are as follows: 1. Students of different sexes, parents¡¦ support, and parents¡¦ expectations demonstrate significantly different English intrinsic motivation. 2. Students of different sexes, parents¡¦ support, and parents¡¦ expectations demonstrate significantly different English integrative motivation. 3. Students of different sexes, the participation of cram school, English learning experiences, parents¡¦ support, and parents¡¦ expectations demonstrate significantly different Engish communication apprehension. 4. Students of different English learning experiences, parents¡¦ support, and parents¡¦ expectations demonstrate significantly different English test anxiety. Based upon the above findings, the researcher of this study proposed 3 suggestions to fill as the function of the reference material for the authorities concerned and official staffs.

The key postulation of the research is: learning an additional language should go together with learning its culture. Through personal experience as an EAL learner and EFL teacher, the researcher examines the interconnected system of the learner’s motivations, premising that language cognition could engage a meta-cognitive search for L, as a symbol of the researcher’s inner world, and arising from L such concepts as Language, Learning, Life, Love, and Led Zeppelin. Quest and examination of those concepts analyze sense-data, the researcher’s short literary works written in Russian and translated into English. The canvas of the author’s writing is presented in a symbolic form of literary and musical Islands with which she creates her arts-informed research of new learning-teaching interactions with the learning component as dominating in this interaction. The researcher looks for new perspectives on education as a lifelong process that takes place between I-world and They-world through internalization-externalization.

The key postulation of the research is: learning an additional language should go together with learning its culture. Through personal experience as an EAL learner and EFL teacher, the researcher examines the interconnected system of the learner’s motivations, premising that language cognition could engage a meta-cognitive search for L, as a symbol of the researcher’s inner world, and arising from L such concepts as Language, Learning, Life, Love, and Led Zeppelin. Quest and examination of those concepts analyze sense-data, the researcher’s short literary works written in Russian and translated into English. The canvas of the author’s writing is presented in a symbolic form of literary and musical Islands with which she creates her arts-informed research of new learning-teaching interactions with the learning component as dominating in this interaction. The researcher looks for new perspectives on education as a lifelong process that takes place between I-world and They-world through internalization-externalization.

In 2008, Kaohsiung City launched an English co-teaching program, which annually recruits 12 young American college graduates to promote English language instruction and cultural exchange. These young Americans serve as English teaching assistants (ETAs), whose main duty is to co-teach with local English teachers (LETs). This study aims to understand the students¡¦ learning English attitude and motivation in elementary schools participating in the LET and ETA co-teaching program, investigate the interaction effects of grade, cram school experience and LET and ETA co-teaching on students¡¦ English learning attitude and motivation and to offer a few concrete suggestions for the improvement of co-teaching program in public elementary schools based upon the results. The research adopted questionnaire survey method. The questionnaire was designed and distributed to 811 English teachers from 12 elementary schools in Kaohsiung City as the subjects. As a result, 618 were valid responded corresponding with a 76% of return rate. Descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA and Scheffe method were conducted for data analysis and finally come to the following results: 1. The interaction effects of co-teaching and grade on elementary school students¡¦ attitude toward LET teaching, self-English learning and overall English learning attitude are significant. 2. The interaction effects of co-teaching and cram school experience on elementary school students¡¦ self-evaluation of learning outcomes and overall English learning attitude are significant. 3. The interaction effects of co-teaching and grade on elementary school students¡¦ instrumental motivation, negative motivation and overall English learning motivation are significant. 4. The interaction effects of co-teaching and cram school experience on elementary school students¡¦ instrumental motivation are significant. Based on the results of the study, some suggestions are proposed to the educational authorities, schools, as well as future studies.

A Study of the Effects of ¡§Cooperation-Strategy-Communication Method¡¨ on the English Learning of Expert and Novice Seventh Graders Ya-Ting Chen Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ¡§Cooperation-Strategy-Communication Method¡¨(CSCM, developed by the researcher) on motivation in English learning, English learning strategies, and English ability. Expert/novice students were the high/low achievers of English learning in primary school. A quasi-experimental design was conducted. Participants were English expert and novice seventh graders selected from a junior high school in Kaohsiung County. One of the summer activity classes represented the experimental group (EG), while another one was the control group (CG). During the month of experimentation, both classes were given English instruction for 16 periods, by having EG received CSCM, and CG received general English teaching. The instruments for pretests were ¡§English Learning Achievement Assessment¡¨ and ¡§English Learning Status Questionnaire A for 7th Graders¡¨, which included ¡§English Learning Motivation Scale¡¨, ¡§English Learning Manners Scale¡¨ and open-ended questions. The instruments for posttests were ¡§English Ability Test for 7th Graders¡¨, and ¡§English Learning Status Questionnaire B for 7th Graders¡¨, which also included ¡§English Learning Motivation Scale¡¨, ¡§English Learning Strategies Scale¡¨ and open-ended questions. Besides, interview outline and teaching diary were also used. Quantitative data were analyzed by two-way MANCOVA while qualitative data referred to content analysis. The main findings were: 1.CSCM showed positive effects on English learning strategies and English ability. 2.Expert students in EG outperformed expert students in CG in English ability. 3.Expert students outperformed novice students in 7 different measures, including motivation in English learning, extrinsic motivation, school curriculum, extracurricular learning, memory strategies, cognitive strategies and English ability. 4.Both expert and novice students: (1) mastered English learning strategies; (2) expected interesting, active and interactive instruction; (3) expected warm attitude from teachers; (4) evaluated their own level of English ability well. The researcher referred to the above findings and made related recommendations for further studies and educational applications.

This study is based on a previous study made by Ivor Timmis (2002). It explores how important Swedish students find learning English to be and to what extent Swedish student want to conform to native speaker English now that it has become a global language with a multitude of common variants. (Sweden formerly allowed only British and/or American native speaker varieties in English education but have now allowed for other variants as well). The focus of this study was the attitudes and preferences of 69 university students from Västmanlands län and the data was collected using questionnaires. The results suggest that a clear majority of students prefer to learn native speaker English in areas of pronunciation, formal grammar and informal grammar.  Over half of the participants desire to master both formal and informal native speaker English grammar. The results also suggest that even though the students desire to learn informal native speaker English grammar, not all students understand what that means. Based on these results and Timmis’s, this study suggests that the majority of the Swedish university students that participated in the study would prefer to be taught native speaker English, but not all students. Some effort to teach more informal grammar might be wanted by the students since a great majority wish to learn it, but cannot identify it.

In the 1830s, students at Oxford University began using the word coach as a slang expression for a tutor who carried a student through an exam (Coach, 2011). Nowadays, the word is seen as a metaphor for a person supporting another person to achieve an imagined goal (Johansson & Wahlund, 2009). Hilmarsson (2006) says that everyone acts as a coach from time to time, and Strandberg (2009) argues students in Sweden today want to be coached. However, it is hard to find schools where they claim they practice coaching. Because the word coach is ubiquitously used, many who today work with coaching are in fact inappropriately trained (Grant, 2010; Williams, 2008). Thus, by using a questionnaire as well as interviewing two students and a coach, I wanted to investigate whether coaching made any difference to how students perceived their English learning. 63 students and one coaching teacher participated in this study, where the findings demonstrated that there were other aspects which had a higher impact on students‟ perceptions of their English learning than the terminology used to describe the educational method practiced in their particular school.

This study was conducted to investigate the eighth graders’ English learning difficulty in the Shi-Shi Junior High School. Based on the previous researchers’ similar points of view, it is concluded that students’ learning difficulty is associated with three dimensions, including the school factors, personal factors, and family factors. The three dimensions were related to students’ English learning difficulty. The research methods incorporated qualitative such as in-depth interviewing and quantitative methods such as descriptive statistics and T-test. 120 students participated in the survey, and ten students and three teachers took part in the in-depth interviewing. According to the result, such factors as the teachers’ teaching and explaining ways and their shortage of interest in English have led to students’ English learning difficulty. Female students are bombarded with more English learning difficulty associated with emotional problems such as their bias toward their English teachers and parents’ expectation. Students retrogressing in the junior high school encounter more English learning difficulty, including the gap between their English learning in the elementary school and that in the junior high school and their parents’ expectation. Too many exams, the usage of the present English textbook, the learning gap, students’ shortage of interest in English learning, their previous learning experience of failure, and their learning pressure contributed to the English learning difficulty of students with lower achievement. Suggestions are offered based on the research consequence.