This thesis examinest he use of silence by Japanese learners of English in cross-cultural communication. It also considers how cross-cultural misunderstandings can be avoided in a pedagogic context. To this end, an analysis is made of a contrastive study of the use of silence by Japanese students learning English, and by Western students learning Japanese. The study draws on insights from the ethnographic approach. The study consists of three parts. The first part, Chapters 1-4, investigates the theoretical background to the study. Chapter 1 examines various definitions of the word 'culture' and investigates the role of Pragmatics in cross-cultural communication. Chapter 2 surveys studies of silence in various socio-cultural contexts. Chapter 3 more specifically explores the use of silence in the Japanese context and its relation to Japanese cultural values and sociocultural norms. Then, Chapter 4 shifts attention to examine differences of communicative styles between Japanese and Westerners, and several important features in interaction. In part two, Chapters 5-8, the ethnographic approach takes the lead in the interpretation of the interview and observational material. Chapter 5 offers an overview of the study and carefully considers the principles of ethnography guiding this investigation. Chapter 6 considers the research design in relation to the context and purposes of the investigation. The data is analysed in Chapters 7 and 8 interpreting the use of silence from a socio-cultural perspective. Chapter 7 discusses the results of the questionnaires. Chapter 8 concentrates on the analysis of the video-recorded data. The last Chapter, Chapter 9, concludes with suggestions of possible pedagogic approaches tackling cross-cultural misunderstanding in foreign language learning.

Figures show that Sweden received 40 000 refugees in the autumn of 2015, who all were in the age range to attend junior high, and high school. The majority of these students originated from countries where Islam is the main religion. Hence, some of these students are likely to have their educational background in a qur’anic school. The purpose of this study is therefore to provide information about these students’ educational background. The study has been conducted with a special focus on how the Swedish school system differs in comparison to the qur’anic school system. An additional research aim was to investigate what some English teachers knew about these students’ educational backgrounds. In addition to these aims, the study also focused on whether the teachers tend to adapt their lessons in order to benefit these students. The research method that has been applied in order to answer these questions are qualitative interviews conducted with four teachers of English. The results of this study indicate that the qur’anic school is vastly different from the Swedish school system. Furthermore, the teachers that participated in this study did share some knowledge about the qur’anic school system, even though it was somewhat limited among two of the interviewees. The same varying results were shown regarding the teachers’ wills to adapt their lessons, on behalf of these students. Moreover, two out of four teachers in this study lack basic knowledge about the qur’anic school.

This report addresses the importance of discussing adolescent learners in regard with their anxiety about foreign or second language (L2) speaking performance. To find implications on how to help adolescents reduce or overcome speaking anxiety in the language classroom, the report reviews extensive literature on 1) the distinct adolescent features that contribute to the development of shyness and communication apprehension; 2) the concept, component sources, and impacts of foreign language learning anxiety; and 3) the causes and effects of L2 speaking anxiety in language learning situations. Based on the review, the report provides implications from studies about language teaching and learning practices to alleviate L2 learning and speaking anxiety. These suggestions focus on meeting adolescents' needs in terms of 1) improving self-esteem, 2) developing coping skills about anxiety, and 3) facilitating a safer and more supportive classroom environment. / text

This study examines the relationships between foreign language learning beliefs and preferences of 2 Vietnamese learners and beliefs and practices of 2 Native English speaking teachers in a private English school in Vietnam. The learners were not satisfied with learning English in public schools and had many expectations on the course and the teachers while the teachers had to make their learners pleased. Beliefs were reviewed as determinations of actions; beliefs entail knowledge, values, and attitude, and relate closely to identity and experience. The researcher adopted an interpretivist paradigm and three qualitative methods: Repgrid interview, Stimulated recall interview, and The COLT as an observation schedule. The interview data was coded inductively with content analysis method to build up the subjects’ beliefs and belief systems. Then, the systems were compared to find the relationships between their beliefs. To see how their beliefs related with learning preferences and teaching practices, the researcher analysed what they said and made use of the video record of their classroom activities; besides, the teachers’ beliefs were compared with the timing calculation of the activities in their classes. The results showed that beliefs about language learning affected strongly the participants’ preferred ways of teaching and learning and there were tight matches between the teachers’ beliefs and actions in class. There were influences of beliefs of the teachers and learners on each other, they were not direct influences but through their interpretations of the classroom events. However, the influences from the teacher were much clearer. After the course, the learners’ preferences and beliefs about some learning activities were changed and became more reflective. They also started to recognize the benefits of different ways of learning English. Meanwhile, the teachers’ interpretation of their learners’ expectations, learning preferences, and levels strongly affected what and how they taught.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Richard J. Harris / The use of different language learning methods for the purposes of acquiring foreign language vocabulary has long been explored but studies have often failed to take into account the potential effects on lexical processing. The current study examined the effectiveness of the Keyword, Context and Paired-Associate learning methods in acquiring foreign language vocabulary, but primarily focusing on the lexical and conceptual organization effects that each method may have on a foreign language learner. Three main theories/models (i.e., Word Association, Concept Mediated and Revised Asymmetrical Hierarchical) have been used to explain the organization of bilingual lexical, conceptual stores and connections between each store, but studies have not examined the addition of a third language (i.e., L3) and the potential connections created between new L3 and the two existing language stores. It was predicted that since low-proficiency bilinguals would create lexical models which heavily rely on translation equivalents, thus, the use of non-elaborative learning methods would assist in creating only lexical translation links, while more sophisticated elaborative methods would be successful in creating direct access to the conceptual meaning. The current study further explored the potential effects of language learning methods on comprehension ability, requiring the creation of situation models for comprehension. Finally, the present study explored the immediate and delayed effects of language learning methods on both vocabulary acquisition and comprehension ability. Results from the current study indicated that all learning methods were successful in creating and conceptual connections between the languages and the conceptual store, while Keyword learners had significantly better scores on certain trial types. Differences in terms in lexical and conceptual strength are suggested since differences in RTs and scores were found between some of the learning methods. Furthermore, in terms of comparisons across time, repeated testing learners attained better scores on all trial types in comparison to learners who were only tested at Time 2. Lastly, when assessing if lexical links could be created to a non-associated highly fluent second language known by the bilingual, results indicated that each language learning method successfully created such lexical connections, but these links were weaker in strength than those of the base language that was used during learning. Based on the current results, new models of lexical access are proposed which vary based on the use of language learning methods. The current findings also have strong implications and applications to the field of foreign language acquisition, primarily for bilingual language learners acquiring an L3.

English and Swedish, which are both Germanic languages spoken in similar cultures in the Western World, display many similarities with regard to the conceptual metaphors reflected in them. However, the way that the same conceptual metaphor is linguistically instantiated in both languages may be somewhat different. This chapter is a corpus-based analysis of metaphorical ‘path’, ‘road’, and ‘way’ sentences in English produced by speakers with British English as their first language (L1) and Swedish university students with Englishas their second language (L2). The aim is to see how these L2 speakers of English deal with differences at the level of linguistic metaphor in the two languages, and find out how important this level of organization really is. / Embodiment of Motion Metaphors

Comment former au mieux un professeur de Français Langue Etrangère (FLE) avec une compétence en Communication Interculturelle dans un pays où les échanges interculturels naturels sont réduits par rapport à d’autres pays plus francophones? C’est une problématique sur le point d’être aborder en Colombie. En effet, il existe des recherches autour de l’interculturel, dans des contextes comptant d’innumérables immigrants et des mélanges de différentes cultures provenant de divers pays. Cependant, dans notre recherche, la problématique est née du manque de ces interactions au quotidien. La question se pose donc dans l´absence de l’exigence du contexte d’établir un échange interculturel exolingue qui donne comme conséquence la faiblesse d’une compétence en Communication Interculturelle. La recherche s´intéresse donc à mettre en évidence l’importance d’une dynamique de la Communication Interculturelle dans l´apprentissage d´une langue étrangère, le français, en dehors de son contexte familier (le bassin francophone) et utilise comme outils de recollection d’information l’observation, les rencontres interculturelles synchrones et asynchrones, les enquêtes, les questionnaires ou encore les rapports réflexifs, qui plus tard seront interprétés à travers le logiciel Atlas Ti. Comme résultat de la recherche, l’auteur propose une méthode d’apprentissage de la langue étrangère, à l’intérieur de l’approche interculturelle, en tenant compte des caractéristiques de la ville où le processus d´apprentissage a lieu ainsi que les caractéristiques des enseignants de FLE en formation, afin de développer leur compétence en Communication Interculturelle. / How to educate a foreign French language (FLE) teacher with a competence in intercultural communication in a country where the daily intercultural exchanges are limited? This is an avid question for being studied in Colombia. In effect, there are researches about the intercultural, in the contexts with a lot of immigrants and with the mixture of different cultures from diverse countries. Nevertheless, in our research, the problem exists because in Colombia there isn’t this type of exchanges in the daily life of young students. The problems were born because the context doesn’t demand to have an intercultural exchange in foreign language. This situation provokes consequences like the feebleness in the competence in intercultural communication. The research is interested in showing the importance of a dynamic intercultural communication in a process of learning foreign language, the French, out of its familiar context. The research uses like instruments of information recollection: the observation, the synchronous and asynchronous intercultural interchanges, the interviews, the questionnaires, and reflexive reports. The compiler information is analyzed throw the software Atlas TI. Finally the research proposes a method for the learning of foreign languages in relation to the intercultural approach and takes account the important aspect of the city’s characteristics, where the process of learning is happening, and the students’ feature. The objective of the method suggests developing the competence in an intercultural communication in the teacher’s French Foreign language (FLE) in formation in Colombia.

This essay presents research on the usage of pedagogical translanguaging in the teaching of English in lower primary schools in Sweden (grades F-3). The focus of the study is to research if and how pedagogical translanguaging is used in English teaching. The data was collected using a qualitative method. Through classroom observations, findings showed that the use of pedagogical translanguaging was recurrent in all six observations. The most common method of pedagogical translanguaging was the use of the first language to enhance pupils’ understanding and code-switching. This paper might help teachers that are struggling to uphold the old paradigm of target language only in foreign language learning but also opens up for a multilingual approach in other subjects.

Despite a rise in the use of “learning by doing” pedagogical methods in praxis, little is known as to how the brain benefits from these methods. Learning by doing strategies that utilize complementary information (“enrichment”) such as gestures have been shown to optimize learning outcomes in several domains including foreign language (L2) training. Here we tested the hypothesis that behavioral benefits of gesture-based enrichment are critically supported by integrity of the biological motion visual cortices (bmSTS). Prior functional neuroimaging work has implicated the visual motion cortices in L2 translation following sensorimotor-enriched training; the current study is the first to investigate the causal relevance of these structures in learning by doing contexts. Using neuronavigated transcranial magnetic stimulation and a gesture-enriched L2 vocabulary learning paradigm, we found that the bmSTS causally contributed to behavioral benefits of gesture-enriched learning. Visual motion cortex integrity benefitted both short- and long-term learning outcomes, as well as the learning of concrete and abstract words. These results adjudicate between opposing predictions of two neuroscientific learning theories: While reactivation-based theories predict no functional role of specialized sensory cortices in vocabulary learning outcomes, the current study supports the predictive coding theory view that these cortices precipitate sensorimotor-based learning benefits.:I. Abkürzungsverzeichnis II. Abbildungsverzeichnis III. Einleitung 1. Fremdsprachenlernen 1.1 Sensorische Modalitätsvergleiche 1.2 Sensomotorisches Lernen 2. Lerntheorien 2.1 Theorie des prädiktiven Kodierens 2.2 Theorie des prädiktiven Kodierens für multisensorisches Lernen 3. Sulcus temporalis superior für biologische Bewegung 4. Transkranielle Magnetstimulation 4.1 Passagere Funktionsinhibition mittels transkranieller Magnetstimulation IV. Ableitung der Rationale V. Publikationsmanuskript VI. Zusammenfassung VII. Literaturverzeichnis VIII. Appendix A. Abbildungen B. Ergänzendes Material der Publikation C. Darstellung des eigenen Beitrags D. Erklärung über die eigenständige Abfassung der Arbeit E. Lebenslauf F. Publikationen G. Danksagung

Being able to read and write different kinds of texts in English is more important than ever, and previous research has shown that the latter of those two skills benefits from the former. The importance of reading is stressed in the curriculum for upper secondary education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of English literature at upper secondary school. Similarities and differences in attitudes towards literature among students in vocational and academic programs in the first year will be looked into. I wish to get an idea of how students experience literary studies in their English education. Further, I want to investigate the students’ own ideas on how to best make literary studies interesting and a good tool for learning. The results show that the academic program students read more often in their spare time, and also that they enjoy reading to a higher degree than the vocational program students. When it comes to practicing reading literature in English lessons in school, both groups think that they do this seldom and a slight majority of both groups are satisfied with this. However, nearly half of the academic program students and nearly a quarter of the vocational program students would like to read more in school. Moreover, it seems that academic program students see more advantages in literary studies for acquiring a second language, whereas the vocational program students do not know if literary studies are a good way of learning English or gaining knowledge of the English culture. Previous research has shown that students are not likely to find a task, such as reading literature, worth doing if they are not motivated in ways that make them understand the advantages that the task will provide. My conclusion is therefore that it is important that teachers strive to motivate their students in such a way. Further, it is important that teachers consider that even though students do not read a great deal in their spare time, they might still want to do so in school.