Effects of cognitive task complexity and online planning on second language learners' argumentative writing.

Based on Kellogg's writing model, Skehan's Limited Attentional Capacity Model (LACM), and Robinson's Cognition Hypothesis, our study investigated the effects of cognitive task complexity on syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, accuracy, fluency, and functional adequacy in Chinese L2 students' argumentative writing, when students were under an online planning condition. Sixty-eight participants from a Chinese university were recruited to complete two writing tasks with task complexity varied in terms of [+ argument elements]. The findings showed that increasing task complexity led to decreased subordination in terms of clauses per T-unit and dependent clauses per clause, increased phrasal elaboration in terms of coordinate phrases per clause, and no changes in mean length of T-unit, T-units per sentence, mean length of clause, and complex nominals per clause. Neither significant differences in accuracy nor fluency were found as a function of increasing task complexity. Detrimental effects on functional adequacy in content, organization, and overall scores were identified with the increases in task complexity. The trade-offs between syntactic and lexical complexity and between syntactic complexity and functional adequacy support the basic principle of Skehan's LACM that human's information processing capacity is limited and Kellogg's claim that learners have a limited central executive capacity in writing. Implications of the results of this research are discussed.

Exploring native and non-native English speaker teachers' perceptions of English teacher qualities and their students' responses.

Due to globalization, English has gradually become a lingua franca, leading to a rising demand for proficient English teachers all over the globe. In China, more EFL teachers are being recruited, particularly at the tertiary level, with a greater preference for so-called "native English speaking teachers (NESTs)" over "non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs)" due to the impacts of native-speakerism. Research has shown NESTs, NNESTs, and students are often misaligned in terms of beliefs about language learning and teaching which affect teaching effectiveness as well as student achievement. Recognizing this issue, this study investigated NESTs', NNESTs', and Chinese English-major students' perceptions of characteristics of effective EFL teachers at four mid-tier universities across China. Findings from semi-structured interviews with 16 students suggest that NNESTs and Chinese English-major students had similar views on language learning and teaching. Both groups valued prerequisite qualities such as having expert knowledge, language skills, teaching skills, and professionalism. NESTs, however, valued qualities such as caring, patience, flexibility, engagement, and awareness of students' learning needs. These differences are likely the result of these two groups of teachers' linguistic, cultural, and educational background differences. The highly uniform views of the two groups of teachers suggest that they tended to emphasize certain qualities while disregarding others. These findings suggest the need to raise teachers' and students' awareness of the benefits of different types of teacher qualities so that curriculum design and lesson planning can be implemented for better instructional alignment to ultimately improve teaching effectiveness.

Predicting Teaching Enjoyment from Teachers' Perceived School Climate, Self-Efficacy, and Psychological Wellbeing at Work: EFL Teachers.

We tested an assessment model, by which teacher self-efficacy, perceived school climate, and psychological wellbeing at work, might predict teaching enjoyment. We invited a convenience sample of 355 teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) to respond to four online questionnaires. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to check the scales' construct validity and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test associations among the variables. Our results showed that teacher self-efficacy, perceived school-climate, and psychological wellbeing were direct predictors of foreign language teaching-enjoyment (FLTE). Teacher self-efficacy affected FLTE indirectly, as induced by psychological well-being. School climate also indirectly influenced FLTE, as mediated by teacher self-efficacy and psychological wellbeing, with school climate a direct predictor of teacher self-efficacy and psychological wellbeing. Teacher self-efficacy directly affected psychological wellbeing. We discuss implications of these findings for teacher-education programs.

Understanding teachers' online professional learning: A "community of inquiry" perspective on the role of Chinese middle school teachers' sense of self-efficacy, and online learning achievement.

Teachers' online professional development (PD) has been valued as a crucial and effective way to promote teaching competencies. Forming a professional learning community has been recognized as a means to promote effective PD. Within this realm of research, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework was deemed as a collaborative-constructivist process model that describes successful online learning experiences. The CoI has been associated with many psychological and educational variables, such as learning achievement and self-efficacy. This study leveraged on the CoI framework to assess teachers' online professional learning quality and explored its relationship with their self-efficacy and online professional learning achievement. A total of 456 teacher participants from Chinese middle schools participated in our study. A suite of questionnaires (the Community of Inquiry Questionnaire, the Teacher Efficacy Scale, and the Perceived Online Learning Achievement Scale) was distributed. Linear regression, PROCESS Macro mediation, and moderation analyses were run on the data to answer the research questions. Results revealed a significant relationship between teachers' online learning quality and their self-efficacy and learning achievement. The mediating roles of self-efficacy and learning achievement were confirmed. The moderating role of time spent on receiving online professional learning was also recognized. Implications and future directions were discussed.

Effects of mobile-supervised question-driven collaborative dialogues on EFL learners' communication strategy use and academic oral English performance.

This study investigated the effects of mobile-supervised question-driven collaborative dialogues (QDCDs) on reducing lower-intermediate-level English as a foreign language (EFL) participants' tendency of their first language (L1) use in academic collaborative dialogues and on improving their academic foreign language (L2) oral performance. Throughout a whole semester, one group (n = 20) was involved in a mobile-supervised QDCDs intervention and a control group (n = 26) was involved in QDCDs with no supervision. Three semi-open-ended and three closed-ended academic questions were used to elicit pre-and post-study oral performance data from the participants. Independent-samples t-tests showed that after the intervention, the mobile-supervised group outperformed its control counterpart in a statistically significant manner in terms of Non-repeated L2 word production (NRW), T-unit count (TC), and Mean Length of Run after pruning (MLRP). The intervention group also significantly reduced their dependence on their L1-based speaker compensatory communication strategies (SC-CSs) in QDCDs. These results suggest that the intervention group outperformed the control group in their L2 academic oral performance and their language use tendency moves toward the L2 during QDCD. Based on the findings, we conclude that, even though L1 oral output may temporally enhance the quality of lower-intermediate-level EFL learners' tasks, it may inhibit their academic oral proficiency development in the long run. Methods for fragmental bilingual oral output analysis are introduced. Pedagogical implications of the findings for MALL are also discussed.

Effects of teacher explicit instruction in stance-taking on students' perceptions of stance and on their academic writing beliefs.

Scholars have underscored the importance of raising students' awareness and understanding of stance-taking in academic writing. However, studies on the effects of the pedagogical intervention are just a few. To strengthen this line of inquiry, this paper reports on an intervention study with explicit instruction of stance metalanguage based on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Engagement framework and its effects on EFL students' perceptions of stance as well as on their beliefs about academic writing. A treatment group (n = 26) and a comparison group (n = 24) were involved. An eight-week writing intervention was provided in the treatment group, while the comparison group received regular curriculum-based instruction. Data from multiple sources were collected prior to and after the writing intervention, including two five-point Likert-scale questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and reflective journals, to examine possible changes in students' self-reported perceptions of stance and writing beliefs. Results showed that the intervention was effective in enhancing students' stance awareness and transactional writing beliefs. Qualitative results further revealed that while the comparison group retained a preference for tentative stance after the writing instruction, intending to avoid potential challenges from readers, the treatment group exhibited a shift in preference for assertive stance valuing the strengths of claims. The treatment group further exhibited an inclination to adopt a wider range of stance options for various rhetorical purposes. Pedagogical suggestions are discussed.

Development and validation of a genre-based second language (L2) writing self-efficacy scale.

Writing self-efficacy serves as one of the essential motivational factors in L1 and L2 writing, which has been measured by a series of scales in L1 and L2 contexts. However, the issue of task specificity was not resolved appropriately. This study aims to tackle this issue by entailing the genre characteristics of L2 writing tasks through developing a genre-based L2 writing self-efficacy scale with pertinent items. The new scale was designed with reference to the available research into writing self-efficacy. Its factorial structure was examined by structural equation modeling. Convergent validity and discriminant validity of the scale were examined by taking into consideration the average variance extracted and composite reliability for each individual factor involved in the scale, whereas the predictive validity of the scale was computed through regression analysis. Results show that the genre-based L2 writing self-efficacy scale demonstrated sound psychometric qualities. Theoretical and pedagogical implications of these research findings are discussed.

The Development of Accuracy and Fluency in Second Language (L2) Speaking Related to Self-Efficacy Through Online Scaffolding: A Latent Growth Curve Modeling Analysis.

This longitudinal study made the first attempt to employ Latent Growth Curve Modeling to analyze the development of L2 speaking accuracy and fluency through online scaffolding as well as the dynamic relationship between L2 speaking performance and self-efficacy. From the perspective of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory, it tracked the development of 45 Chinese undergraduates' English-speaking accuracy, fluency, self-efficacy for accuracy (SEA) and self-efficacy for fluency (SEF) over one semester of online teaching (six observations). Results show that speaking accuracy, SEA and SEF all improved significantly, but speaking fluency did not; these four variables all developed in non-linear trajectories, and the greatest growth of accuracy, SEA and SEF all took place at Time 2; there existed significant individual differences in the initial levels of fluency, SEA and SEF, and in the change rates of SEA; a higher initial level of accuracy was related to a greater increase in SEA and a greater decrease in growth rates with time. These findings provide evidence for non-linearity, variability and inter-individual differences in the development of L2 speaking and self-efficacy through online scaffolding, and partly confirm the dynamic relations between self-efficacy and L2 performance. Pedagogical implications for online scaffolding are also discussed.

Developing the Metacognitive Awareness of Grit Scale for a better understanding of learners of English as a foreign language.

The prominent impact of metacognition on learners' academic achievement is widely discussed. Learners armed with appropriate metacognitive strategies should witness enhancement in learning performance. Similarly, the concept of grit is also valued as a crucial factor contributing to the improvement of academic achievement. Nevertheless, discussion of the relationship between metacognition and grit or their collective influence on other educational and psychological variables is limited, not to mention that an instrument measuring learners' metacognitive awareness of grit is a desideratum. Hence, by incorporating the constructs of metacognition and grit, the present research developed a measurement scale to address this need, named the Metacognitive Awareness of Grit Scale (MCAGS). The MCAGS consists of four components and initially included 48 items. It was later distributed to 859 participants for the purpose of scale validation. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to evaluate the scale's validity and explore the factor-item relationship. A final model containing 17 items was retained. Implications and future directions were discussed.

Exploring classroom-based assessment for young EFL learners in the Chinese context: Teachers' beliefs and practices.

Classroom-based assessment (CBA) is an approach for learning improvement that has been advocated as having strong potential in enhancing learner autonomy of young language learners (YLLs). This study investigated Chinese primary school English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' beliefs about CBA, their assessment practices, and the relationship between their CBA beliefs and practices. Drawing on data from a survey of 195 Chinese primary school EFL teachers, results showed that the teachers positively believed in the value of various CBA processes, including planning assessment, collecting learning evidence, making professional judgments and providing appropriate feedback, and they also attempted to enact these assessment practices; belief-practice alignment was also identified, showing that teachers' beliefs about CBA were significant predictors of their assessment practices. Implications are provided for promoting the implementation of CBA for YLLs in similar contexts.

Facilitating L2 writers' metacognitive strategy use in argumentative writing using a process-genre approach.

This paper reports on an empirical study that examined changes in L2 writers' perceived use of metacognitive strategies after receiving a process-genre writing instruction. Following a mixed-methods approach, this study was conducted in two intact College English classes at a university in China. Participants were 72 first-year undergraduates, with an experimental group (n = 40) taught by the process-genre writing approach and a comparison group (n = 32) receiving conventional writing instruction. A Likert-scale questionnaire was used to examine students' changes in their conceptualized metacognitive strategies. Think-aloud protocols were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of students' application of metacognitive strategies and genre knowledge in performing writing tasks. Findings revealed that the process-genre instruction had a significantly positive impact on the "considering the audience" factor, and students' conception of the audience was clearer and more diversified. An in-depth analysis of the think-aloud protocols showed that the participants incorporated the acquired metacognitive strategies and genre knowledge in completing writing tasks, with more pre-task planning time focused on both global and local aspects. Students' metacognitive monitoring also shifted from surface-level lexical and grammar regulation to discourse-level text control.

Understanding learners' metacognitive experiences in learning to write in English as a foreign language: A structural equation modeling approach.

Many researchers have acknowledged the role of metacognition in facilitating learning to write in English as a foreign language (EFL). Although research on metacognition has explored learners' metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategies in the field of EFL writing, little is known about the nature of learners' metacognitive experiences in EFL writing. To fill such an important gap, this study was designed to assess EFL learners' metacognitive experiences before, during, and after writing. Data were collected from a total of 760 undergraduates through three self-report questionnaires and a writing task. Results from quantitative analyses showed four subcategories of EFL learners' metacognitive experiences in writing: metacognitive feeling, metacognitive judgments/estimates, online task-specific metacognitive knowledge, and online task-specific metacognitive strategies. Based on the empirical evidence, we propose a model of metacognitive experiences in EFL writing. Theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications are discussed.

Exploring teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs for implementing student self-assessment of English as a foreign language writing.

With the growing need to nurture students' independent learning, English language teaching (ELT) practices should reflect student-centered assessment approaches, such as self-assessment, an ultimate goal of higher education. It has been pointed out that to conduct effective self-assessment, students need to be taught systematically, and that is where teachers are expected to step in. Prior to implementing such a change in ELT, it is important to conduct research on English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' attitudes toward, and self-efficacy beliefs about, implementing self-assessment to cultivate capable student self-assessors. Although the strong global endorsement of self-assessment over the past two decades has witnessed its classroom implementation in different disciplines, such studies are scant in relation to EFL writing classrooms. To address this gap, the present qualitative research examined five Chinese tertiary EFL writing teachers' attitudes toward and self-efficacy beliefs about student self-assessment of writing, as well as possible reasons that discourage them from engaging students in self-assessment practices. Data collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews indicated that self-assessment, a critical element of self-regulated learning, is surprisingly missing from the teachers' knowledge base and previous practices. Additionally, the findings offer insights into the striking differences in teachers' understanding of, attitudes toward, and low self-efficacy beliefs about self-assessment of writing. Reasons why teachers choose not to implement self-assessment of writing are also discussed. Findings from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of how EFL teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs are enacted in relation to their classroom assessment practices in order to move forward discussions on the feasibility of implementing self-assessment of writing in tertiary EFL classrooms.

Effects of Teacher Engagement on Students' Achievement in an Online English as a Foreign Language Classroom: The Mediating Role of Autonomous Motivation and Positive Emotions.

As an important factor promoting students' learning behavior and achievement, teacher engagement has been largely neglected in the research literature on English as a foreign language (EFL) and applied linguistics. Moreover, the few studies have focused more on conventional classrooms rather than online learning contexts and failed to reveal how teacher engagement in the online foreign language classroom affected students' achievement. The present study assessed 546 university students in China using self-report questionnaires to examine the relationship between teacher engagement and students' achievement in an online EFL course over an 18-week semester, taking into account the possible mediating effects of autonomous motivation and positive academic emotions. The results showed that teacher engagement exerted a direct and positive impact on students' English achievement. Students' autonomous motivation and enjoyment mediated the association between teacher engagement and English achievement, but the mediating effects of relief were not significant. Additionally, teacher engagement affected students' English achievement through the chain mediation of autonomous motivation and positive academic emotions (enjoyment and relief). Relief displayed a smaller effect on students' English achievement than enjoyment did. These findings elucidate the impact of teacher engagement on students' English achievement in the online environment and support the utility of self-determination theory and control-value theory in explaining foreign language learning. Directions for future research and implications for education are also presented.

Developing and Validating the English Teachers' Cognitions About Grammar Teaching Questionnaire (TCAGTQ) to Uncover Teacher Thinking.

It is well-acknowledged that teachers play a significant role in enhancing student learning and that investigating teachers' cognitions about teaching is a first and important step to understanding the phenomenon. Although much research into teachers' cognitions about grammar teaching has been conducted in various socio-cultural contexts, little has been reported on cognitions of Chinese teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) so far. Such understanding is of primary importance to student success in language learning given the sociocultural context where grammar takes a lion's share in high-stakes examinations. In order to address this research gap, we developed and validated the Chinese EFL Teachers' Cognitions about Grammar Teaching Questionnaire (TCAGTQ). Two subsamples (n1 = 314, n2 = 215) were randomly invited to respond to the TCAGTQ and the data were then subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the validity and reliability of the instrument. The EFA excluded eight items from the TCAGTQ and generated six factors with 27 items. The CFA result from the other subsample supported a six-factor model with a good model fit. Moderate correlations between the six factors also supported the predictive validity of the questionnaire, showing that the TCAGTQ is a valid and reliable inventory for measuring Chinese university EFL teachers' cognitions about grammar teaching. Our findings suggest that the TCAGTQ can be used as a useful tool for teachers to self-assess their professional practice for improving teaching.

Emotional Labor in Teaching Chinese as an Additional Language in a Family-Based Context in New Zealand: A Chinese Teacher's Case.

New Zealand is a multilingual and multicultural society, where English, Maori, and the New Zealand sign language are designated as its official languages. However, some heritage languages (e.g., Chinese/Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Korean, among others) are also taught either within or outside the national education system. During the past decade, an increasing number of students have chosen Mandarin Chinese (hereafter "Chinese") as an additional language (CAL) because of its fast-growing importance. To date, studies regarding CAL are mainly based on the mainstream Chinese programs (i.e., in schools or universities) or online platforms, with less attention paid to other types of teaching contexts (e.g., family-based and private tutoring contexts) where there also exist many potential challenges awaiting teachers. To fill in this gap, this study, based on a teaching program consisting of two families in New Zealand, explored the trajectories of a CAL teacher's emotional labor for 47 weeks to understand how she managed her emotions when she taught the language as well as balanced the relationship among the three parties: the institution, the two families, and herself. Narrative inquiry was used as a methodological approach. The data involved written and spoken narratives. Using inductive and deductive thematic analysis, findings revealed her different understandings of the emotional labor in the two families, respectively, during the program. Further analysis of the data revealed some factors that impacted her emotional labor and how they impacted her teaching in a family-based context. We concluded our study with a discussion of the implications of these findings for teaching CAL in similar contexts.

Influence of Mentorship and the Working Environment on English as a Foreign Language Teachers' Research Productivity: The Mediation Role of Research Motivation and Self-Efficacy.

Research productivity is an important criterion for the university to assess teachers. Studies about factors that affect teachers' research productivity are increasing nowadays. It is generally agreed that academics' research productivity depends on how much mentorship is provided to them and how the current working environment is mediated by their research motivation and self-efficacy. Despite the increasing amount of the literature along this line, we know little about what kinds of situations that Chinese university English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers are in and how they regard the importance of mentorship and what roles their working environments would play in affecting their research productivity. To fill the research gap, we utilized the snowball method to collect the survey data from 546 Chinese EFL tertiary teachers. The results show that mentorship is not correlated with research productivity while the working environment has a positive direct correlation with it. Both motivation and self-efficacy mediate the working environment and research productivity significantly. Specifically, only extrinsic motivation has a negative mediation influence on teachers' research productivity; teachers' intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy play a positive mediation role in affecting their research productivity.

Investigating Effects of Small-Group Student Talk on the Quality of Argument in Chinese Tertiary English as a Foreign Language Learners' Argumentative Writing.

Previous studies have offered a rationale for engaging students in small-group student talk for the planning of L2 individual writing. To further investigate whether such talk effectively promotes the quality of argument in the context of Chinese tertiary EFL learners' argumentative writing and whether such effects could be retained, the current study adopted a quasi-experimental design with a pretest, a posttest, and a delayed posttest in two intact EFL classes. The performance of the intervention group and the comparison group were scrutinized to examine the effects of the intervention. The analytic scores on six components of the writing task (claim, data, counterargument claim, counterargument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data) and the holistic writing scores cumulated of all these components were measured to see the immediate and sustained effects. Significant changes of the holistic scores in both the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest indicated that such small-group student talk enabled students in the treatment class to achieve better performance in the overall quality of argumentation compared with those in the comparison class. Statistical analyses revealed immediate and sustained effects of small-group student talk on the quality of counterargument claim, counterargument data, and rebuttal claim. Counterargument claim was the only element in which students in both classes made significant improvement, but the treatment class demonstrated a larger effect size. No discernible differences were found either between or within the treatment class and the comparison class with respect to the quality of claim, data, and rebuttal data across tests. Possible explanations concerning the findings and limitations of the study were discussed.

Teachers Helping EFL Students Improve Their Writing Through Written Feedback: The Case of Native and Non-native English-Speaking Teachers' Beliefs.

Although the efficacy of teacher written feedback has been widely investigated, relatively few studies have been conducted from feedback practitioners' perspectives to investigate teachers' beliefs regarding it, particularly compare beliefs held by teachers with different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds. Consequently, much remains to be known about teachers' conceptions about written feedback, who has different first languages (L1). To bridge such a gap, we conducted this qualitative study to examine the similarities and differences between native English-speaking (NES) and non-native English-speaking (NNES) teachers' beliefs in Chinese University EFL settings. We analyzed the in-depth interviews with eight teachers through thematic analysis. The findings showed that NES and NNES teachers espoused a range of beliefs in relation to the five themes of written feedback: Purpose, scope, focus, strategy, and orientation. While they shared similar beliefs with regard to feedback focus, their beliefs differed in terms of feedback scope. Important implications are discussed for educational practices.