The primary purpose of study is to identify predictors of willingness to communicate (WTC) and of actual frequency of English communication at work inside and outside the foreign language classroom among 439 university students (male = 226, female = 213) learning English in Japan. Based on Wen and Clément’s (2003) theory of L2 WTC, I replicated Peng and Woodrow’s (2010) structural path model using the variables of state L2 communicative confidence, L2 learning motivation, positive classroom climate, L2 WTC, with the newly added variable of actual speaking frequency. A hypothesized structural model was examined in two contexts, WTC inside the classroom and WTC outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, communicative confidence was the predictor of L2 WTC. L2 WTC and L2 learning motivation were predictors of actual frequency of L2 communication. Positive classroom climate was a mediating variable that indirectly predicted L2 WTC through state L2 communicative confidence and task motivation. In contrast, outside the classroom, state L2 communicative confidence, L2 learning motivation, and positive classroom climate were the predictors of L2 WTC. State L2 communicative confidence, task motivation, and positive classroom climate were the predictors of actual frequency of L2 communication. The results supported Wen and Clément’s (2003) model and Peng and Woodrow’s (2010) study. Second, Dӧrnyei and Kormos’ (2000) study was replicated to investigate a significant difference for the four types of the students’ speaking behavior between pretest and posttest. A repeated-measures ANOVA was performed for English turns, Japanese turns, English words, and interjections with 13 students (male = 8 and female = 5) aged 18-19. The 13 participants were part of those who completed the first questionnaire. There were no significant differences for the four dependent variables. Finally, a qualitative content analysis was performed using transcribed interview data with nine university students (6 male and 3 female students), who completed the first questionnaire. Ten variables emerged from the interviews. Four variables—teacher support, group cohesiveness, L2 learning motivation, and perceived communicative competence—supported both quantitative (Peng & Woodrow, 2010) and qualitative studies (Cao, 2011; Peng, 2007, 2012). Four additional variables—security of speaking, interlocutors, small group, and topic familiarity—supported qualitative studies by Cao (2011) and Kang (2005). The other two variables—point system and tests—were new variables identified in this study. Positive classroom climate and task motivation (Dӧrnyei & Kormos, 2000) were key variables influencing state L2 communicative confidence, L2 WTC, and L2 Use. As a result, I propose that task motivation and positive classroom climate should be added into MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) L2 WTC model. / Teaching & Learning

In this study I investigated foreign language learners' Willingness to Communicate, frequency of L2 communication, and eight individual difference variables hypothesized to influence them: L2 learning anxiety, L2 learning motivation, integrativeness, international posture, ought-to L2 self, ideal L2 self, L2 linguistic self-confidence, and valuing of global English. Based on the concept of possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986), Dörnyei (2005) proposed the concept of the ideal L2 self: an idealized self-image involving future linguistic proficiency and professional success through mastery of an L2. In this study, Dörnyei's (2005) hypothesis that Willingness to Communicate is primarily determined by linguistic self-confidence and the ideal L2 self is tested using a structural equation model. A second purpose of this study, tested by comparing alternative structural equation models, was to confirm whether students' self-reported Willingness to Communicate best predicts foreign language use in the classroom. In addition, gender differences in L2 WTC and the ideal L2 self, and the effects of visualization and goal-setting activities on the enhancement of Willingness to Communicate were investigated using multivariate statistical techniques. A total of 662 Japanese university students participated in the study, 373 as core participants and 289 for cross validation. A model was hypothesized based on the WTC model (MacIntyre, 1994), the socioeducational model (Gardner, 1985), and the concept of the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005), and tested using questionnaire data collected at the beginning of the university semester. The hypothesized model showed marginal fit to the data (CFI = .902, RMSEA = .081). The path from ideal L2 self to L2 WTC, tested for the first time in this study, was the most substantial predictor of L2 WTC in the model with a path weight of .51. It was also confirmed that self-reported estimates of WTC directly predicted observed L2 use in the classroom, while Motivation and Ideal L2 Self did not. A model specifying a direct path from WTC to L2 Use and indirect paths via WTC for Motivation and Ideal L2 Self showed good fit to the data (CFI = .962; RMSEA = .083). Regarding gender differences, female participants scored higher than males in both L2 WTC and Ideal L2 Self. Concerning whether L2 WTC can be enhanced by classroom tasks such as visualization and goal-setting, the results suggested that the visualization treatment alone was not effective in enhancing learners' L2 WTC over the non-treatment group. The increase in learners' L2 WTC was significantly greater for the When visualization and goal-setting group compared with the visualization group and the non-treatment group. The first implication of this study is that considering the strong impact of ideal L2 self on L2 WTC, there is significant potential for enhancing L2 WTC by applying motivational strategies that enhance or develop second language learners' ideal L2 self. Second, considering the importance of L2 output for developing communicative proficiency, the finding that self-reported L2 WTC predicted actual L2 use in the classroom lends additional credence to such motivational approaches. That finding also supports the validity of other studies that have relied on self-report for measures of L2 WTC. A third implication is that because females generally exhibited higher measures for L2 WTC and Ideal L2 Self, gender diversity is preferable to promote active classroom communication. Finally, for researchers and practitioners interested in designing activities to enhance learners' L2 WTC, connecting the proximal goals in the class to future distal goals (Miller & Brickman, 2004) could be an important aspect for the success of the activities). / Teaching & Learning

This paper is the first to examine the motivational disposition of Nepalese learners of L2 English. Based on an adapted version of the questionnaire in (Kormos, Judit & Kata Csizér. 2008. Age-related differences in motivation of learning English as a foreign language: Attitudes, selves, and motivated behavior. Language Learning 58. 327–355. Doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00443.x.), we test the robustness and culture-specific applicability of well-known motivational antecedents to this learner population, and we investigate how the effects of these antecedents are mediated by the learners’ gender, age and regional aspects of the educational setting. In doing so, we offer novel ways of analyzing the data: Firstly, we employ random forests and conditional inference trees for assessing the relative importance of motivational antecedents. Secondly, we complement the traditional ‘scale-based approach’, which focuses on holistic constructs like the ‘Ideal L2 Self’, with an ‘item- based approach’ that highlights more specific components of such scales. The results are interpreted with reference to the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, Zoltán. 2005. The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum) and to previous studies on other Asian populations of L2 learners.

The nature of the bilingual mental lexicon and how the L1 and the L2 interact in language production and processing has been the focus of decades of research from linguistic, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic perspectives. In spite of this significant body of evidence, the degree to which the L1 influences L2 production and processing remains an area of debate, especially with respect to formal features such as grammatical gender. While it is clear that non-nativelike production and processing of L2 grammatical gender persist even in highly-proficient adult bilinguals, the underlying representation of the L1 and L2 gender features and how this representation affects the use of gender in the L2 is currently unclear. Furthermore, there is no evidence at present regarding the nature of the L1-L2 grammatical gender system when the L1 and the L2 have asymmetric gender systems (in other words, differ in number of gender values), as is the case with German, which bears three gender values (masculine, feminine and neuter), and Spanish and French, which each display two gender values (masculine and feminine). This dissertation investigates the representation of and interactions between the L1 and the L2 at the level of the formal gender feature, with a particular focus on language pairings with asymmetric gender systems. Through complementary data from L2 production and processing, I examine the representation of the asymmetric grammatical gender systems in the mental lexicon of L1 Spanish-L2 German and L1 French-L2 German bilinguals and the consequences this asymmetry between the L1 and L2 gender systems has on gender use strategies in the L2. From the perspective of bilingual lexical access, this research contributes new evidence to inform existing psycholinguistic theories of L1-L2 gender interactions and also proposes the Asymmetric gender representation hypothesis, a new model to account for the unique integrated nature of the gender system in bilinguals with L1-L2 asymmetric gender systems. From a language acquisition perspective, the present study provides new data on L2 gender use strategies with asymmetric gender systems, formulating the L1 transfer continuum, which extends existing proposals to include the degree of (a)symmetry between the L1 and the L2. This research also connects theoretical proposals regarding gender agreement in functional-lexical code-switches (specifically, switches within the Determiner Phrase such as dieGER-F mesaSPA-F or elSPA-M TischGER-M) to bilinguals’ preferences in code-switching between two languages that display formal gender. Taken together, all of these complementary perspectives addressed in this dissertation offer a well-rounded perspective of grammatical gender in asymmetric gender systems specifically, and contribute novel evidence regarding the interactions between the L1 and the L2 in the bilingual mental lexicon in general.

Les recherches qui se sont intéressées à l’étude des événements de mouvement ont démontré que, pour les coder, les langues utilisent des stratégies de lexicalisation différentes. Selon la proposition de Talmy (1985), les langues romanes correspondent au type ‘verb-framed’(VF), tandis que les langues germaniques sont considérées ‘satellite-framed’(SF). Cette classification qui permet d’identifier des distinctions intéressantes au niveau macro-typologique, mais sa rigidité ne consent pas d’observer la variabilité inter- et intra-typologiques. La thèse étude les événements de mouvement de deux perspectives complémentaires. D’un côté, du point de vue de la typologie, on observe les différences existantes entre les langues appartenant au même groupes typologique et à la même famille génétique. De l’autre côté, du point de vue acquisitionnel, on analyse l’impact des facteurs typologiques sur l’acquisition du français L2 chez apprenants italophones. Dans ce but, on a été construit un corpus de productions sur la base d’un support qui montre des mouvements volontaires et provoqués soumis auprès quatre groupes d’informateurs: deux groupes de natifs (francophones et italophones) et deux groupes d’italophones apprenant le français L2 de deux niveaux de compétence. Les résultats montrent qu’il y a des différences intratypologiques entre les langues génétiquement proches, comme l’italien et le français. De même, ces mêmes différences intratypologiques engendrent des transfert en influençant la restructuration du penser pour parler. / Recent research is interested in studying motion events in different languages by showing that, they follow different lexicalization strategies to code motion events. In light of Talmy’s proposal (1985), romance languages are classified as ‘verb-framed’ (VF), while the Germanic ones are considered as ‘satellite-framed’ (SF). The Talmy’s classification legitimated a large number of studies that confirm the validity of this dichotomy, which is the identification of interesting distinctions on a macro-typological level. Nevertheless its rigidity does not allow to observe the inter- and intra-typological variability. The study investigates motion events from two complementary perspectives. On the one hand, the differences within languages of the same typological group and the same genetic family are observed from the point of view of the semantic type On the other hand, the impact of typological factors on French acquisition as L2 by Italian speakers is analyzed from the acquisitional point of view. For this purpose, a corpus of productions was collected in a controlled situation on the basis of a support containing voluntary and caused movements submitted to four groups of informants: two groups of native (French and Italian speakers) and two groups of Italian learners of French L2 of two different skill levels. The results show that there are differences between intra-typological languages which are genetically very close, such as Italian and French. Similarly, these same intra-typological languages generate some transfer that influences the restructuring of thinking for speaking. / Le recenti ricerche in psicolinguistica e in linguistica cognitiva si sono interessate allo studiodegli eventi di movimento in diverse lingue del mondo dimostrando che, per codificare glieventi di movimento, le lingue seguono strategie di lessicalizzazione differenti. Alla luce dellaproposta di Talmy (1985, 2000), le lingue romanze sono classificate nel tipo ‘verb-framed’(VF), ovvero a quadro verbale, mentre le lingue germaniche sono considerate ‘satelliteframed’(SF), ossia lingue a quadro satellitare. I due tipi si differenziano essenzialmente per ildiverso locus di codifica delle componenti semantiche: le lingue a quadro verbale, come ilfrancese e l’italiano, tendono a lessicalizzare l’informazione semantica della Traiettoria nelverbo principale, mentre la Maniera è omessa o espressa in una proposizione subordinata.Invece, le lingue a quadro satellitare come l’inglese, esprimono la Maniera nella radiceverbale e la Traiettoria mediante dei satelliti, ovvero degli elementi associati al verbo(avverbi, prefissi, particelle, etc). La classificazione di Talmy ha giustificato un gran numerodi studi che hanno confermato la validità di questa dicotomia, che permette di individuaredelle interessanti distinzioni a livello macro-tipologico, ma la sua rigidità non consente diosservare la variabilità inter- e intratipologica (Ibarretxe-Antuñano, 2004b,d, 2009a; Slobin,2004). La variabilità tipologica che le lingue mostrano nella concettualizzazione degli eventidi movimento, condiziona il modo in cui i locutori selezionano le informazioni semantiche(Traiettoria e Maniera) e, di conseguenza, il modo in cui un apprendente esprime lecomponenti di un evento di movimento in L2. La tesi studia gli eventi di movimento da dueprospettive complementari. Da un lato, dal punto di vista della tipologia semantica, siosservano le differenze esistenti tra le lingue appartenenti allo stesso gruppo tipologico e allastessa famiglia genetica. Dall’altro lato, dal punto di vista acquisizionale, si analizza l’impattodei fattori tipologici sull’acquisizione del francese L2 di apprendenti italofoni. A questoscopo, è stato costruito un corpus di produzioni raccolte in una situazione controllata sullabase di un supporto che mostra dei movimenti volontari e provocati sottoposti a quattrogruppi di informatori: due gruppi di informatori nativi (francofoni e italofoni) e due gruppi diapprendenti italofoni di francese L2 di due livelli di competenza (intermedio e avanzato).I risultati mostrano che vi sono delle differenze intratipologiche tra lingue geneticamentemolto vicine, come l’italiano e il francese. Analogamente, queste stesse differenze intratipologiche generano dei transfert influenzando la ristrutturazione del pensare perparlare.

<p>The present study examines the effects of immersion education on the English of two groups of advanced Swedish learners at upper secondary school. In immersion education, or CLIL, subject content is taught through a second language as a means of enhancing target language competence. In this study, language proficiency was measured in terms of the ratio of low frequency vocabulary (LFV) and the ratio of motivated tense shift (MTSh) in the learners’ free written production in English. An additional aim was to see whether the results were related to the students’ motivation as reported in a questionnaire.</p><p>This longitudinal study was based on three sets of narratives, written by 86 students, half of them enrolled at the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB) where English is the medium of instruction, and the other half at national programmes (NP), where English is studied as a foreign language. At the outset, the IB and NP groups had similar results on a general diagnostic test, which was the basis for the formation of three subgroups: I, II and III, with above average, average and below average scores respectively. Mean LFV and MTSh ratios as well as different kinds of motivation were compared, both overall and in the subgroups.</p><p>The IB students overall, and those in subgroup III in particular, showed the best results. As to the overall results, the IB students used significantly higher mean ratios of LFV and MTSh than the NP students in the final set of compositions. There were also a number of motivational factors that were stronger in the IB students.</p><p>As to the subgroups, the most interesting results were found in subgroups I and III. While the IB students in subgroup I had high mean ratios already in the first composition, and retained them over time, their use of MTSh tended to grow subtler. The NP students had lower mean results initially, and while their mean MTSh ratio increased and ended up on a level similar to that of the IB students, their mean LFV ratio remained low.</p><p>In subgroup III the results of the IB and NP students diverged over time. While the IB students progressed as reflected in their mean LFV and MTSh ratios, the NP students tended to regress. The difference in mean LFV ratios was statistically significant. The IB students were also better motivated than their NP peers. In all, this study suggests that immersion education has positive target language effects, especially on less proficient but motivated students.</p>

Various studies have indicated during the past decade that language transfer in L3 may not only stem from L1 but from L2 as well, and that it might sometimes even be stronger from L2, depending on certain factors that facilitate or inhibit transfer. This phenomenon of L2 as the main transfer source in L3 has often been referred to as the ”L2 status factor” (Hammarberg, 2001). The L2 status factor hypothesis expects that the priorly acquired language which scores the highest in several transfer factors will adopt the role of ”external supplier language” (Hammarberg, 2001), i.e. it will be the main source of transfer providing L3 with linguistic features. Namely, the factors that have hitherto been proposed to condition transfer are: typology, psychotypology, proficiency, and psychoaffective factors. The aim of this investigation is to compare the transfer that two groups might exhibit with regard to the English existential expletive pronoun (there), in order to account to whether transfer in L3 might be stronger from L2 than from L1 in this syntactic context. One group consists of subjects with different L1s, L2 Swedish and L3 English; the other is formed by L1 Swedish and L2 English speakers. The informants are aged 13-14, speak the L1s and Swedish (nearly) fluently and English at a basic/intermediate level. Basing the study on the L2 status factor hypothesis, and taking several transfer factors into consideration when analyzing the collected written data, the results are discussed both from a general perspective (from aggregate group scores) and from a micro-perspective (by tracing individual differences). The results obtained suggest that transfer in L3 appears to be stronger from L2 than from L1 when evaluating the aggregate group scores, but only in some cases (and not in most) when examining the individuals separately.

本論文為一教學實驗之研究，探討如何運用以電腦科技為媒介設計創新的學習環境，激勵台灣技專院校英語低成就學生之學習動機，增進其英語聽力能力。本研究以英語歌曲作為提升學習興趣的動源，電腦輔助學習任務為提供好玩有趣學習過程的憑藉；如此，學生可由愉悅聽歌、趣味活動中實作學習並達成學習任務目標。本論文並探索英語歌曲聽力電腦輔助學習任務對學生聽力字彙與知覺能力之影響，並了解學生對教學設計之歌曲聽力學習任務之評估。由學生在全民英檢聽力、英語母音知覺測驗、及歌曲單字聽力各方面的成績進步，顯示本實驗教學能有效改善低成就學生英語字彙與聽力學。根據相關與變異數分析結果，對學習任務評估越滿意的學生英語歌曲單字聽力成績進步越大。因此，本研究所設計之英語歌曲聽力學習任務能激發學生運用電腦與相關軟體學習編輯聲音影片，來了解英語 聲音與意義的連結、訓練養成辨識斷句的知覺聽力。此教學設計融入聽力教學、任務型學習、電腦輔助學習；且以設計研究方法觀點記錄理論基礎探討、教學資源運用、英語聽力課程中歌曲時間排練及歌曲切割之投影片簡報、歌曲對嘴表演影片製作學習任務之設計執行，提供其他英語教師作為電腦輔助聽力學習活動設計之參考。 / This study is an instructional experiment on how an innovative learning environment is constructed to motivate and improve English learning of the low-achievers at Taiwanese polytechnic colleges. Thus, this research employs English popular songs as a motivator and computer-assisted task design as a mediator for the students to do listening and play with the song materials. This instructional design provides these students with concrete task experiential learning and the pursuit for goal-oriented success, along with joyful song listening and playful task activities. This research also investigates the effects of these song listening tasks on the improvement of listening vocabulary and perceptual skills of the participants as well as their appraisals toward the designed tasks: time-rehearsing, segmenting, and lip-syncing. The effects of these song listening tasks are consolidated from the participants’ improved listening test scores from the elementary GEPT Listening Test, the Perception of Spoken English Test, and the Target Lexical Listening Test, their enhanced learning motivation and involved task performance, and their affirmed appraisals about their task fondness and the task usefulness. Furthermore, this study documents the design, implementation, and evaluation of such a song listening task-based syllabus in a digital language lab, which demonstrates an integration of second language (L2) listening instruction, task-based learning and teaching (TBLT), and computer assisted language learning (CALL). The design-based research (DBR) perspectives are also adopted to explain the role of the computer-mediated context to the innovative task construction; in addition, the task features which facilitate listening skills development and stimulate learning experience are identified by the appraisal components of song fondness and easiness, task playfulness and easiness, and task usefulness. Thus, the designed listening tasks can be shared and applied to other similar learning contexts.

The present study examines the effects of immersion education on the English of two groups of advanced Swedish learners at upper secondary school. In immersion education, or CLIL, subject content is taught through a second language as a means of enhancing target language competence. In this study, language proficiency was measured in terms of the ratio of low frequency vocabulary (LFV) and the ratio of motivated tense shift (MTSh) in the learners’ free written production in English. An additional aim was to see whether the results were related to the students’ motivation as reported in a questionnaire. This longitudinal study was based on three sets of narratives, written by 86 students, half of them enrolled at the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB) where English is the medium of instruction, and the other half at national programmes (NP), where English is studied as a foreign language. At the outset, the IB and NP groups had similar results on a general diagnostic test, which was the basis for the formation of three subgroups: I, II and III, with above average, average and below average scores respectively. Mean LFV and MTSh ratios as well as different kinds of motivation were compared, both overall and in the subgroups. The IB students overall, and those in subgroup III in particular, showed the best results. As to the overall results, the IB students used significantly higher mean ratios of LFV and MTSh than the NP students in the final set of compositions. There were also a number of motivational factors that were stronger in the IB students. As to the subgroups, the most interesting results were found in subgroups I and III. While the IB students in subgroup I had high mean ratios already in the first composition, and retained them over time, their use of MTSh tended to grow subtler. The NP students had lower mean results initially, and while their mean MTSh ratio increased and ended up on a level similar to that of the IB students, their mean LFV ratio remained low. In subgroup III the results of the IB and NP students diverged over time. While the IB students progressed as reflected in their mean LFV and MTSh ratios, the NP students tended to regress. The difference in mean LFV ratios was statistically significant. The IB students were also better motivated than their NP peers. In all, this study suggests that immersion education has positive target language effects, especially on less proficient but motivated students.

La presente investigación estudia el uso de los sustantivos abstractos/concretos y de los verbos de movimiento en hablantes no nativos de español muy avanzado. En este estudio, nosotros creemos que el input comprensible, la interacción y la frecuencia con que se utiliza la lengua meta son factores importantísimos para poder adquirir, desarrollar y afianzar el uso de las categorías que nos interesa estudiar. A partir de estas premisas, es posible pensar que un hablante no nativo (HNN) muy avanzado de una L2 debería tener un nivel idiomático muy parecido al de un hablante nativo (HN) dentro de los campos donde se da la interacción, pero ¿Qué sucede cuando un HNN es sometido a pruebas que disminuyen el efecto de estos factores? ¿Deberían, entonces, existir diferencias significativas en los recursos léxicos utilizados por ambos grupos (HNNs en relación a HNs)? Así, y a grandes rasgos, el objetivo principal de nuestra investigación es poder determinar cuándo los HNNs no alcanzan el nivel de ocurrencias presentado por los HNs.