This study was an investigation of the validity of students' self-assessment of L2 oral performance, the influences of L2 affective variables on their self-assessment bias, and the degree to which the influences of L2 affective variables differ between high and low proficiency learners. The participants were 389 science majors from two private Japanese universities. A questionnaire was administered using items based on the Attitude/Motivational Test Battery (Gardner, 1985), the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwtiz et al., 1986), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), Sick and Nagasaka's (2000) Willingness to Communicate Scale, and items designed to measure motivation adapted from Gardner, Tremblay, and Masgoret (1997), Yashima (2002), Irie (2005), and Matsuoka (2006). A factor analysis identified seven factors in the questionnaire data: Self-Esteem, L2 Speaking Anxiety, L2 Willingness to Communicate, Attitude Toward Learning to Speak English, L2 Speaking Motivational Intensity, Desire to Learn to Speak English, and L2 Speaking Self-Confidence. The scales were further validated using the Rasch rating scale model. Student oral interviews were recorded and rated by five English teachers using an oral assessment scale based on the Kanda English Proficiency Test (Bonk & Ockey, 2003).Immediately after the interviews were completed, the participants were asked to consider how they perceived their own speaking performance and they rated their own performance from their memory using the same oral assessment scale that the teacher raters used. The oral assessment scale included the descriptions of the oral performances that match each level. The participants read the descriptions of each level and chose a level that they thought matched their own performance. The study produced four main findings. First, a multi-faceted Rasch analysis revealed that the participants rated their own L2 speaking more severely than the teacher raters and that the students' self-assessments were neither reliable nor consistent. Second, self-assessment bias measures were calculated and used to test a hypothesized structural model of how affective factors influenced self-assessment bias. The hypothesized model showed poor fit to the data, possibly due to the poor reliability of the self-assessment measures. Multiple regression analyses conducted as a follow-up analysis revealed that participants with greater Desire to Learn to Speak English tended to underestimate and those with greater L2 Speaking Self-Confidence tended to overestimate their own speaking performance. Third, 106 participants whose self-ratings were similar to the teachers' ratings were compared with other students in order to examine their distinctive features. However, no significant differences in L2 oral proficiency or affective variable measures were found between the two. Therefore, those whose self-assessments agreed with teachers could have resulted in some agreements that occurred by chance alone. Finally, 100 higher proficiency students were compared with 100 lower proficiency students and the results showed that the higher proficiency students with greater Desire to Learn to Speak English generally underestimated their L2 speaking proficiency, while those with higher Self-Esteem and greater L2 Speaking Self-Confidence tended to overestimate it. Lower proficiency students with greater L2 Speaking Self-Confidence tended to overestimate their L2 speaking proficiency. The results suggest that the self-assessment of L2 speaking might not be a sufficiently reliable or consistent assessment tool. Therefore, if teachers are considering including self-assessment in a speaking class, self-assessment training should be conducted. Additionally, giving L2 learners more opportunities to speak the L2 can help them notice gaps between their productions and those of proficient speakers, which might lead to more accurate self-assessment. Second, although some studies utilized only one teacher-rater, five teacher raters in this study displayed a great deal of diversity and exhibited unique bias patterns, so multiple raters should be employed and Facets analyses should be employed because the multi-faceted Rasch model provides person ability estimates that are adjusted for rater bias. Finally, the use of multi-faceted Rasch analysis is useful for examining oral data because unlike raw scores, multi-faceted Rasch analysis provides detailed information concerning speaker ability, rater severity, and category difficulty. Moreover, while most researchers have utilized self-assessment raw scores, in this study bias measures of self-assessment were calculated using Facets, which indicated that the bias measures produced different outcomes compared with self-assessment scores. / Teaching & Learning

The aim of this paper is to investigate in which manner and to what extent the existence of a multilingual self, that is, the ability of an individual to adopt a vision of themselves that encompasses many languages, relates to different aspects, such as the will to improve one’s linguistic ability or motivation to study, within learning and acquisition of second languages. The idea of a multilingual self has its theoretical base within the Second language motivational self system, or the L2MSS for short, which states that motivation is primarily derived from one’s vision of self and one’s previous experiences.  The investigation was carried out using custom made surveys which were distributed among university students of Spanish in Sweden. The investigation received 42 answered surveys in return using which several separate comparisons were carried out with the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods.  The findings of the investigation have shown that the multilingual self has a positive correlation in every single one of the aspects used in the investigation. Therefore, according to the results of this investigation, the identification with the multilingual self has a positive correlation with learning and acquisition of second languages. The biggest factor that leads to a larger possibility of an individual to identify with the multilingual self seems to be said individuals experience of learning the languages that they possess. / El objetivo de este trabajo es investigar de qué manera y en qué medida la existencia de un yo multilingüe, es decir, la capacidad de un individuo para adoptar una visión de sí mismo que abarca muchas lenguas, se relaciona con diferentes aspectos, tales como la voluntad de mejorar su capacidad en sus lenguas o la motivación para estudiar y aprender otras lenguas. La idea de un yo multilingüe tiene su base teórica dentro del sistema del yo motivacional de segundas lenguas, o L2MSS por sus siglas en inglés, que establece que la motivación se deriva principalmente de la visión que uno tiene de sí mismo y de las experiencias previas. La investigación se llevó a cabo a través de encuestas personalizadas que se distribuyeron entre estudiantes universitarios de español en Suecia. La investigación recibió 42 encuestas respondidas, las cuales fueron analizadas mediante el uso de métodos tanto cuantitativos como cualitativos. Los resultados de la investigación han demostrado que el yo multilingüe tiene una correlación en todos y cada uno de los aspectos utilizados en la investigación. Por tanto, según los resultados de esta investigación, la identificación con el yo multilingüe tiene una correlación positiva con el aprendizaje y adquisición de segundas lenguas. El factor más importante que conduce a una mayor posibilidad de que un individuo se identifique con el yo multilingüe parece ser la experiencia de aprendizaje que poseen.

This study of the motivation to learn English as L2 (as a second/foreign language) provides a local model of L2 motivation which employs a new contextualised perspective. It is based on the socio-cultural backgrounds of the learners and their social relations. This model not only incorporates insights from major debates in the field, but it is also in harmony with recent trends of L2 motivation research. The study had three major objectives. First, it sought to identify the factors that represent Omani students’ motivation to learn English in Oman. Second, it attempted to verify the effects of social relations on motivation. Third, it examined the mechanisms employed by the learners which influence their motivation through personal relations. Since this study views motivation as a complex bundle of constructs, it was more feasible to adopt its most significant factors as determined by the immediate socio-cultural context. Interest and Self-efficacy (SE) were established as the two main constructs representing Omani students’ motivation to learn English as L2. The ‘L2 Motivation Osmosis Model’ was suggested to offer an explanation of the workings of influence on students’ L2 motivation in Oman. This study employed a mixed methodology. A quantitative method was used to confirm the importance of Interest and SE for Omani students. A qualitative study was then designed to further verify this and ascertain the devices employed to influence learners’ motivation. The first question was answered using quantitative and qualitative data. Correlation and Linear Regression statistics were used to verify the importance of Interest and SE. This question was also examined through the students’ depictions of motivated English as L2 learners and the reasons they provided for liking English and why people in Oman learn it. The second question inspected the role of social relations in influencing students’ motivation. The third question studied the devices used by people which influence students’ motivation. The analysis also revealed the importance of the affective dimension expressed through the concept of ‘closeness’, which explains the type and strength of the influence initiated through social relations. This study emphasised the need to consider the socio-cultural context of learners in designing programs and recruiting teachers and the necessity of providing help, encouragement and emotional support. Instead of simply giving recommendations of good practice, the findings of this study provide practitioners with guidelines on how to devise their own plans and guiding principles.

In an attempt to investigate the impact of planning on second language (L2) oral production, an experimental study that contrasted the effects of two types of pre-task planning (strategic planning vs. rehearsal) on the L2 oral task performance of 64 Japanese university EFL learners under different modality (aural vs. written) and language (L1 vs. L2) conditions of pre-task input was conducted. The main aim was to determine whether strategic planning (i.e., silent preparation) and rehearsal (i.e., active practice) before L2 oral tasks differentially impact performance in terms of fluency, complexity, and accuracy. An additional aim was to examine the effects on performance of providing pre-task input to assist planning. Furthermore, I elicited the learners’ perceptions of the value of the pre-task input toward assisting their oral task performance via 5-point Likert scale post-task questionnaires. No difference was found between strategic planning and rehearsal in their effects on L2 oral task performance regarding fluency, complexity, or accuracy. This result suggests that, when it comes to pre-task planning, L2 teachers can generally have their learners engage in either strategic planning or rehearsal without differentially impacting their task performance. Concerning the provision of pre-task input, the L1 and L2 input induced commensurate levels of fluency and complexity. However, the L2 input led to significantly greater accuracy of oral production than did the L1 input. This finding is important as it suggests that L2 learners can possibly acquire something from the input provided to them in the course of pre-task planning. Moreover, the post-task questionnaire results corroborated this finding as the participants indicated that the L2 input significantly enhanced their accuracy and also helped them use a wider range of vocabulary during the tasks. Thus, if the aim of a teaching or testing situation is oriented toward fluency, the results indicate that it makes no difference whether pre-task input is in learners’ L1 or L2. In contrast, if the aim is oriented toward accuracy, then teachers and testers should provide L2 input in order to facilitate optimal performance. / Language Arts

Although there have been a large number of studies on the use of L1 and L2, there seem to be few on L1 use in Chinese university EFL classrooms, especially investigating the language use of those who teach English to students at different proficiency levels or teach different types of English courses. This thesis aims to analyze four Chinese EFL teachers’ actual use of L1 and L2, to understand their attitudes and beliefs regarding this issue, and their own perceptions of and reasons for their language use, and to explore possible influencing factors. The reading-and-writing lessons and the listening-and-speaking lessons of these four teachers, who were teaching non-English major students at four different levels, were observed and recorded. All the observed lessons were subjected to quantitative analysis with the aim of providing a clear picture of the distribution of their L1 and L2 use. Some episodes selected from these lessons were subjected to further detailed analysis, in order to provide an account of the circumstances, functions, and grammatical patterns of their language use, as well as their language use across different frames of classroom discourse. The teachers were interviewed subsequently about their general beliefs on the use of L1 in L2 teaching and learning. Separately, in a stimulated recall interview, they were invited to provide comments specifically on their language use in the selected episodes that were replayed to them. The quantitative findings show that the amount of the teachers’ L1 use was not necessarily closely related to their students’ English proficiency levels, although the teacher of the students at the lowest level used the highest amount of Chinese in her lessons. However, a noteworthy finding was that all four teachers used more Chinese in the reading-and-writing lessons than in the listening-and-speaking lessons, although with substantial individual variation. The qualitative analysis of classroom data indicates that these teachers switched often at unit boundaries, but rarely at clause boundaries. They also switched frequently within units, especially within noun phrases, and the ‘Chinese determiner + English noun’ pattern is the main one they had in common. Furthermore, the teachers used Chinese as the matrix language in their mixed utterances in most cases, and these mixed utterances nearly always fitted Myers-Scotton’s Morpheme Order principle and System Morpheme principle. The teachers were also found to use Chinese in a variety of circumstances, such as talking about lesson plans or examinations, dealing with exercises, analyzing text, teaching vocabulary, checking the students’ comprehension or retention, giving the students advice on learning, telling anecdotes and assigning homework. The functions for which they used Chinese could be divided into four main categories: facilitating developing lesson content; supporting students and carrying out classroom management; delivering information related to teaching agenda or examinations; and facilitating communication beyond language learning and teaching. The most frequent function common to all four teachers was translation. Furthermore, the study used four different ‘frames’ to analyze classroom discourse, and found that the teachers used the L1 with varying frequency across these frames. Moreover, although all four teachers believed that using the L1 was beneficial to L2 learning, their attitudes towards the medium of instruction were different. While two advocated using the L1, the other two expressed a preference for speaking English-only and perceived their L1 use as a compromise or an expedient. The teachers reported many reasons for their L1 use. The factors that affected their language use consisted of both immediate classroom factors, such as functions of utterances, students’ language use, students’ perceived mood, students’ background knowledge, the difficulty of lesson content, time limitations, teachers’ awareness of their own L1 use, and teachers’ state of mind at a particular moment in a lesson, and relatively static factors, such as the university policy, students’ L2 abilities, teaching objectives, teachers’ beliefs regarding L1 use, and teachers’ L2 abilities. Through its detailed analysis of the teachers’ language use, as well as their relevant beliefs and decision-making, this thesis hopes to make a contribution to L2 teachers’ professional development and L2 teaching, especially in helping to establish a pedagogically principled approach to L1 and L2 use.

A consistent use of the target language during English lessons is beneficial for pupils’ linguistic development, but also challenging for both teachers and pupils. The main purpose for pupils to learn English is to be able to use it in communication, which requires that they develop the ability to comprehend input, produce output and use language strategies. Several researchers claim that a consistent use of the target language is necessary in order to develop these abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the target language use during English lessons in Swedish grades 4-6, and what pupils’ opinions regarding target language use are. The methods used to collect data consisted of a pupil questionnaire with 42 respondents and an observation of two teachers’ English lessons during a week’s time. The results from the observations show that the teachers use plenty of target language during lessons, but the first language as well to explain things that pupils might experience difficult to understand otherwise. The results from the questionnaire mainly show that the pupils seem to enjoy English and like to both speak and hear the target language during lessons. The main input comes from listening to a CD with dialogues and exercises in the textbook and the workbook, and from the teacher speaking. The results also show that a majority of the pupils use the target language in their spare time. A conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that the TL should be used to a large extent in order to support pupils’ linguistic development. However, teachers may sometimes need to use L1 in order to facilitate understanding of the things that many pupils find difficult, for example grammar. Suggestions for further research in this area include similar studies conducted on a larger scale. / <p>Engelska</p>

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Earl Brown / This report studies ESL tutoring feedback to Chinese and Saudi students. The objective is to research the reasons of feedback differences and similarities, which include previous and current English learning styles, habits, purposes for receiving tutoring, and evaluations of tutors. Faced with L2 learners who come from different cultural backgrounds, it is helpful for instructors and tutors to know L2 students’ previous English learning experiences in their home countries so that instructors and tutors can adjust teaching or tutoring for each student. In addition, students who speak the same L1 have common problems of English learning due to their L1. In this way, ESL tutors not only tutor English skills, but also promote cultural awareness. Meanwhile, knowing students’ cultural background is necessary to give tutoring for each L2 learner. The present study aims to explore L2 learners’ feedback from previous and current English learning experiences and will help L2 instructors and tutors to know some basic knowledge about two different language groups.

High-risk human papillomaviruses (HPVs) cause 5% of all human cancers worldwide. The HPV capsid consists of 72 disulfide-linked pentamers of major capsid protein L1 and up to 72 molecules of minor capsid protein L2. The viral genome (vDNA) is 8KB circular dsDNA, condensed with histones and complexed with L2. HPV infection requires the virion particle to get access to basal layer keratinocytes, binding and entry of the cells, uncoating, and transport of the viral genomes to the host cell nucleus. During infection, L2 is important for transport of the viral genome from membrane bound vesicular compartments, through the cytosol and into the host cell nucleus. Previous work has identified a conserved disulfide bond between Cys22 and Cys28, which is necessary for HPV16 infection. We hypothesize that endosomal reduction of this disulfide might be important for L2 conformational changes that allow a hydrophobic transmembrane-like region in L2 to span across endosomal membranes, exposing sorting adaptor binding motifs within L2 to the cytosol. Prior research suggests that cytosolic glutathione (GSH) redox potential is important for reduction of disulfide-linked proteins within the lumen of endosomes. This is achieved by endosomal influx of cytosolic reduced cysteine, where it can reduce disulfide bonds in lumenal proteins. Cytosolic GSH regenerates the pool of reduced cysteine needed to maintain endosomal redox potential. Here we studied the relationship between cytosolic GSH and HPV16 infection. siRNA knockdown of critical enzymes of the GSH biosynthesis pathway or the endosomal cystine efflux pump cystinosin caused partial abrogation of HPV16 infection. Likewise, inhibition of the GSH biosynthesis pathway with L-buthionine sulfoximine (L-BSO) blocked HPV16 infection in multiple cell types, suggesting that cytosolic GSH redox may be important for HPV16 infection. Further studies have revealed that the decrease of HPV16 infection is not because of defects in binding, entry, L2 cleavage or capsid uncoating, but rather is due to inefficient cytosolic translocation of L2/viral genome from the trans-Golgi network (TGN). Contrary to our initial hypothesis, we show that L2 is able to span the endosomal membrane and direct TGN localization in the presence of BSO. Lack of cytosolic GSH causes L2/viral genome to become trapped in the TGN lumen. This suggests that there are redox-sensitive viral or cellular factors necessary for L2/viral genome translocation at the TGN. Future research will focus on the redox state of the Cys22-Cys28 disulfide bond during infection of normal and GSH-depleted cells.

This thesis investigates whether there are differences in language comprehension and language production between highly advanced/near-native adult learners of a second language (late L2ers) and native speakers (L1ers), and if so, how they should be characterised. In previous literature (Sorace & Filiaci 2006, Sorace 2011 inter alia), nonconvergence of the near-native grammar with the native grammar has been identified as most likely to occur at the interface between syntax and another cognitive domain. This thesis focuses on grammatical and ungrammatical representations at the syntax-lexicon interface between very advanced/near-native Dutch learners of English and native speakers of English. We tested differences in syntactic knowledge representations and real-time processing through eight experiments. By syntactic knowledge representations we mean the explicit knowledge of grammar (specifically word order dependence on lexical-semantics) that a language user exhibits in their language comprehension and production, and by realtime processing we mean the language user’s ability to access implicit and explicit knowledge of grammar under time and/or memory constraints in their language comprehension and production. To test for systematic differences at the syntax-lexicon interface we examined linguistic structures in English that differ minimally in word order from Dutch depending on the presence or absence of certain lexical items and their characteristics; these were possessive structures with animate and inanimate possessors and possessums in either a prenominal or postnominal construction, preposed adverbials of location (locative inversions) followed by either unergative or unaccusative verbs, and preposed adverbials of manner containing a negative polarity item (negative inversions) or positive polarity item followed by either V2 or V3 word order. We used Magnitude Estimation Tasks and Speeded Grammaticality Judgement Tasks to test comprehension, and Syntactic Priming (with/without extra memory load) and Speeded Sentence Completion Tasks to test production. We found evidence for differences in comprehension and production between very advanced, near-native Dutch L2ers and native speakers of English, and that these differences appear to be associated with processing rather than with competence. Dutch L2ers differed from English L1ers with respect to preferences in word order of possessive structures and after preposed adverbials of manner. However, these groups did not differ in production and comprehension with respect to transitivity in locative inversions. We conclude that even among highly advanced to near-native late learners of a second language there may be non-convergence of the L2 grammar. Such non-convergence need not coincide with the L1 grammar but may rather be a result of over-applying linguistic L2 knowledge. Thus, very advanced to near-native L2ers still have access to limited (meta)linguistic resources that under time and memory constraints may result in ungrammatical language comprehension and/or production at the syntax-lexicon interface. In sum, in explaining interface phenomena, the results of this study provide evidence for a processing account over a representational account, i.e. Dutch L2ers showed they possess grammatical knowledge of the specific L2 linguistic structures in comprehension and production, but over-applied this knowledge in exceptional cases under time and/or memory pressure. We suggest that current bilingual production models focus more on working memory by including a separate memory component to such models and conducting empirical research to test its influence on L2 production and comprehension.

This study focused on exploring various dimensions of metacognitive knowledge developed by advanced readers in academic contexts, and explaining their behaviors of using strategies and their languages from metacognitive perspectives. The findings of this study were further discussed with respect to good readers’ characteristics of utilizing their knowledge, strategy and language resources metacognitively in their reading comprehension process. The types of metacognitive knowledge and the ways this knowledge is involved in the reading comprehension process do not seem to vary much according to the languages (L1 or L2) of given tasks. No matter in what languages they were asked to read academic texts, the participants were influenced by their goal and interest, as these played a critical role in guiding the reading comprehension process. While reading academic texts, both languages of these advanced readers actively interacted. First, the readers used their two linguistic resources in processing information of the text. The readers processed information by means of simplifying or elaborating information using their two languages. Secondly, they used their two languages interactively during the entire reading process, from planning, monitoring, and evaluating, to writing a summary. With the findings of this study, theoretical, methodological, and educational implications are made respectively. Finally, several contextual limitations of this study are acknowledged, requiring cautions in interpreting the findings of this study, and calling for future studies. / text