published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The purpose of this paper is to examine in depth and to synthesize the literature on foreign language anxiety, with specific focus on speaking anxiety. This paper reviews the development of the foreign language anxiety construct and extensive research on its relationship with other domains of second language acquisition, including specific language skills and language learning processes. Review of the literature has confirmed that foreign language anxiety plays a significant role in learners’ performance and achievement. However, there are still many areas that need further research and clarification. Variables such as individual differences still cloud the relationship between anxiety and achievement, thus suggesting that further research should be conducted in order to clarify the effects of foreign language anxiety and should strive to alleviate learners’ anxiety in the language classroom. / text

Many French EFL (English as a foreign language) learners may be aware of the origin of anglicisms (loanwords from English) and may thus attempt to use these words in English. However, changes in meaning, phonology, and syntax, etc., during the integration of a loanword into the borrowing language create the potential for error in such efforts. This report reviews relevant research and theory on language transfer, vocabulary knowledge, metacognition, and lexical borrowing as factors that bear light on this type of transfer. It then presents two studies, one with French EFL learners and one with EFL teachers in France. Results suggest that anglicisms do cause errors in the English of French learners, that learners are generally aware of anglicisms and of the possible difference in meaning between the French and the English words, and, finally, that this awareness does not necessarily lead to correct usage of such words. / text

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of instructional approaches to phonics and morphological awareness on literacy development of second-language learners. Of the 106 Chinese-speaking adolescents in a 6-hour English training programme, about half were taught affix and root meanings, while others were taught basic phonic rules. The focus lay on teaching students how to break words apart into meaningful parts and clusters of sounds. Chinese adolescents receiving morphological instruction performed significantly better on affixed word production and vocabulary knowledge by inferring word meanings from word parts. They seemed better able to discriminate affixed words on the basis of prefix and suffix. This study provides empirical evidence for the importance of teaching morphemes in the English-as-second-language curriculum. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

<p>Research has shown that children who have English as a first language acquire grammatical morphemes in a predictable order. Many researchers claim that second language learners also follow a predictable pattern when learning English grammatical morphemes regardless of their linguistic background, and that the same mechanisms are responsible for both first and second language acquisition.</p><p>The aim of this paper was to study Swedish students’ knowledge of English grammatical morphemes, and to compare their knowledge with that of second language learners from other countries as well as with that of first language learners.</p><p>The results show that Swedish students seem to acquire morphemes in a similar way to that of second language learners in general and that they make errors similar to those made by first language learners. For example, the copula was almost fully acquired, while the third person regular and irregular constituted a problem for the students. The most notable exception was the possessive ´s, which Swedish students seem to acquire at an early stage compared to other second language learners.</p>