The significance of the use of the short story in language teaching and the effective approaches that help to realise this significance are the two major concerns of this field study. The whole study consists of two parts : theoretical justification and practical application, with more emphasis on the second part. It starts with a brief discussion on the inseparable connection between language learning and literature (Chapter 1), followed by a close examination at the specialities and potentialities short stories can offer to language teaching (Chapter 2), which leads to a detailed discussion (accompanied by an exemplified demonstration through sample lessons) of the actual use of short stories in an EFL class (Chapters 3, 4, and 5). The practical value of the study lies in two aspects : it brings about, by analysing its substances, the awareness of the value of the short story in language teaching; and it opens to us, by presenting detailed and concrete examples, varied and practical approaches to the effective use of the short story in EFL environment.

The language laboratory has been used in china for foreign language teaching for many years. Unfortunately, not all the language laboratories have been fully utilised and well administered. It is therefore essential for Chinese EFL teachers to become aware of the existing problems and explore avenues for improving the use of the language laboratory. This study aims to identify and to analyse the problems involving materials, methodology and administration in the use of the language laboratory and to discuss possible ways of solving or, at least, reducing these problems. The language laboratory itself is only a mechanical teaching aid. Language laboratory materials, teaching methods and the administration of the language laboratory are fundamental parameters which determine the effective use of the language laboratory. In this study, a review on the different theories and recent developments of language laboratory usage are examined. This is followed by a description of the problem areas in the use of the language laboratory in China. A survey on language laboratory use in Australia is offered as a model for comparison. Finally, implications are put forward and suggestions are made to Chinese EFL teachers in the hope that this may lead to more effective and efficient use of language laboratories in the future.

Pronunciation is an important component of English teaching, particularly in a non-English speaking country like China, where students' exposure to the target language may be only listening to tapes or to the teacher in class, or occasionally watching a film in English, if these audio-visual facilities are available. However, the majority of teachers do not pay enough attention to pronunciation because it always competes for class times with other aspects of language teaching. Moreover, it is not usually tested. As a result, after several years of studying English, some students still cannot speak or read aloud with any degree of accuracy or fluency. Therefore it is essential that in China, the teacher's professional inventory should include acquaintance with basic articulatory phonetics and the phonological system of English, because the teacher is inevitably a pronunciation model for the student. Furthermore, the correction of students' aberrant pronunciation is a continuing task throughout years of teaching at different levels, and one which requires patience and alertness as well as effective techniques. With the rapid development of education in China, the problem of effective teaching of pronunciation has become more prominent. According to the government's plan, the number of students planned to be enrolled in tertiary institutions alone will increase by 42.2 per cent from 1981 to 1985. Foreign language teaching, in theory, starts from the third year of primary school and continues right through the second year of college. The training of teachers at these levels, especially at the primary and secondary levels, is a serious problem. Pronunciation is an inescapable part of language teaching. The questions raised in this paper and the suggestions made may, in part, assist with the training of the large numbers of effective speakers of foreign languages that China needs.

Culture, thought worldview and language have been discussed for a long time in different fields from various perspectives. However, the basis of this study is the view of language as both the product and producer of people just as people are the producer and product of language. Each language requires of those who use it, a particular way of viewing reality. The structure of language containing a particular worldview therefore must influence how people learn and acquire a second language. The purpose of this study is to test this assumption about worldview in adult second language acquisition. The main concern is whether or not the native English speakers' worldview influences their ability to learn Chinese as a second language. The focus of this investigation is the Aspect marker -le, which represents a different way of observing action when compared to Tense used in English. Chinese is a context sensitive language. The way of perceiving action is in terms of Aspect, which is to observe an action within an event from a specific point of view without considering Speech-time. In contrast, English is less context sensitive, and its way of perceiving action is more precise and time-conscious, in terms of Tense. The results of the investigation of a group of native- English-speakers learning Chinese as a second language reveals that the worldview they have in observing action is shaped by their native tongue and interferes with their use of the Chinese Aspect marker -le. / Graduation date: 1998

No research to date has involved ESL students as researchers in investigations of community language practices. This study examined the research processes of 23 international college students in an advanced ESL course. The students worked on an original curriculum, the Language Research Project, through which they performed ethnographic and discourse analytic tasks and engaged in collaborative action research. As the students uncovered the tacit rules that regulate communicative practices in the university community, they sought to improve their own performance in academic interactions. The teacher-researcher simultaneously observed and analyzed students' perspectives, seeking to improve her teaching practice. An analysis of the classroom dialogues showed that intertextual links made by the teacher and the students served to build a system of scaffolds for the group. These intertextual links acted as cognitive and affective support for reflection and evaluation of ideas. The students' comments to each other resembled comments made by the teacher, which indicates that they appropriated the teacher's expert role. Thus, this study reveals that learners of similar levels can offer each other expert assistance in the completion of tasks. The students developed a high level of metacognition. Their reflections uncovered serious conflicts between themselves and native English speakers. They observed that they performed better in social settings. Conversely, they felt awkward in academic settings when interacting with domestic classmates and professors, who were often unsupportive and unwilling to engage in communication. This denial of access by Americans resulted in feelings of inadequacy and inferiority for the students. Nevertheless, some students rejected and transformed certain dominant practices of the community. By adopting the identity of researchers, the students were empowered to engage in their own realities from a position of strength and to assert their individual needs. These findings demonstrate that the students developed a sense of critical language awareness. This dissertation portrays an emerging Vygotskian sociocultural perspective on second language acquisition research. The findings support social constructivist teaching approaches that incorporate students' lived experiences. Finally, this study reveals an urgent need to sensitize faculty and students in higher education in the United States about the experiences of language-minority students. / Graduation date: 2003

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

The primary purpose of this study is to explore the lexical inferencing of Chinese learners of English as foreign language in terms of the intent, the clue use, the procedure, the processing type, the adaptability, and the success of lexical inferencing as well as the subsequent lexical knowledge acquisition. All together 781 Chinese EFL learners at four stages of English learning (senior secondary year-2, tertiary beginning, tertiary middle, and tertiary final) participated in this study. 726 respondents answered a questionnaire of lexical strategies to unknown words in reading and clue use in lexical inferencing. 55 participants thought aloud the process of inferring the meaning of 12 target words while reading an article, and reported their knowledge of target words in a surprise test one week after the think-aloud activity. Data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively to rank various lexical strategies and types of clue use. The think-aloud protocols of lexical inferencing were analyzed qualitatively to identify the type and amount of clue use, the event sequence of lexical inferencing, the processing type & adaptability, and the outcome of lexical inferencing. Their subsequent knowledge of target words was coded and analyzed. All these items of lexical inferencing also were processed quantitatively to explore the overall view of Chinese EFL learners‘ lexical inferencing, and the similarities & differences of learners at different stages. The findings reveal that Chinese EFL learners frequently used a number of lexical strategies, and lexical inferencing was the most frequently used. They used various types of clues, especially sentence meaning, morphology, and discourse meaning in their lexical inferencing. Some features of clue use, such as abundant imagined morphological clue and L1 grammar clue, revealed the impact of the Chinese language. There were also some variations in the clue use of learners at different stages. The results of this study show that major lexical inferencing procedure was ‘Guess > Accept’ at senior secondary stage and ‘Guess > Evaluate > Accept’ at three tertiary stages. There was an obvious upward shift of processing type from the ‘pure top processing’ of senior secondary to more advanced processing of tertiary stages. The overall adaptability of Chinese EFL learners‘ lexical inferencing was not high. There was an increasing tendency of high adaptability from the stage of senior secondary to tertiary final. The findings show that one fourth of lexical inferencing outcomes were ?Correct‘, while one third were ?Partially Correct‘. There was an increase tendency of ‘Correct‘ or ?Partially correct’ inferences and vocabulary knowledge acquisition from senior secondary stage to tertiary final stage. Measurable vocabulary knowledge was acquired in lexical inferencing. Further explorations reveal that Chinese EFL learners‘ procedural & declarative knowledge might potentially explain the performances of their lexical inferencing. This study culminates with some pedagogical implications for vocabulary learning and reading, and some suggestions for further research on lexical inferencing. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Increased worldwide mobility has led to a rise in the number of interlingual parents attempting to transmit their native languages to their children. Within the related fields of heritage language acquisition and bilingualism, there is a lack of research focusing on sequential language acquisition. This exploratory longitudinal case study investigates a four-year-old girl’s sequential acquisition of French, her mother’s language, within the context of an expatriate community in Hong Kong in which English, her father’s language, was predominant. Spontaneous speech samples were collected from different learning environments and interviews were conducted to elucidate the impact of the learner’s various experiences on her L2 acquisition. Results indicated a lack of L2 confidence that was perhaps under-estimated by her parents and teachers. The change in maternal input patterns provoked a frequently angry reaction in the learner and resulted in a high proportion of code-switching in her output. Findings indicated tentative support for Muranaka-Vuletich’s (2002) suggestion that child code-switching rates may not always be influenced by the parents and that it may sometimes be the reverse. The bilingual nature of the French community in Hong Kong made it difficult to immerse the learner in truly monolingual L2 environments. However, the combination of the child’s educational and social experiences seem to have contributed to her increased L2 output by the study’s conclusion. The present study may have worrying implications for those parents unable to provide the requisite conditions for L2 acquisition at home and who do not have access to heritage language education or expensive immersion trips. / published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics