This study argues for the relevance of a model of social interaction referred to as “motivational dialogue” as proposed by Patyayeva (2012) grounded in the concept of dialogue as proposed by L. S. Vygotsky and M. Bakhtin. The model accounts for two types of motivational dialogue: that which unfolds in social environments between two or more individuals and that which unfolds internally as private or inner speech. In the extension of Patyayeva’s model to L2 teaching and learning situations, as proposed in the present study, two critical concepts of Vygotsky’s theory are also brought into consideration: perezhivanie (the dialectical interaction between emotion and intellect) and the social situation of development (how a particular context is refracted through the personality of an individual who participates in that context. Two examples from the published literature (Matusov 2011) and Lantolf and Genung (2002) are used to illustrate how motivational dialogue might operate in educational settings. The study concludes with several recommendations for how future research might be carried out in L2 settings.
2025-10-10
Assessing student understanding and extending student learning beyond the face-to-face or synchronous online lesson is commonly done with the use of online discussion forums. However, the challenge reported by tutors of higher education has always been the lack of active participation and critical engagement by students unless the task is graded formally. Researchers have been investigating various approaches to facilitate effective learning experiences such that students are motivated to engage others when they are tasked to partake in such asynchronous discussions. This paper explores how I sought to engage my Engineering undergraduate students, reading a critical thinking and writing module taught in a blended learning environment, in online discussion forums with the adoption of the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework. The aim was to develop higher levels of criticality in thought in students’ forum responses, while demonstrating the application of the critical thinking tools, such that they were able to collaboratively construct knowledge and deepen their conceptual understanding of Engineering leadership. Results of the analysis found that students were engaged in spontaneous dialogic discussions in the form of repeated extended posts published in the online discussion forums. Furthermore, analysis of student critical reflection essays also confirmed that the online discussion forums, with a deliberate use of the tools of the framework, had contributed to their development of critical thinking skills to deepen their understanding. This paper concludes with a recommendation for tutors of higher education to make the assessment of students’ critical reflection or critical thinking skills visible for students with a proposed conceptual framework for online discussion forums.
The present study investigated and analysed the structures and functions of 3-word to 6-word lexical bundles of 120 English argumentative writing by Chinese EFL students and employed the framework based on Biber et al.’s structural classification and Hyland’s functional classification of lexical bundles. It was found that there was generally a negative correlation, both structurally and functionally, between the frequency and the length of lexical bundles although there were some fluctuations in certain specific categories. Results indicated that the participants did not have a good command of lexical bundles, affecting the quality of English argumentative writing in various ways. First, the sampled students used limited types of lexical bundles frequently. They generally lacked lexical richness when employing specific lexical bundles to express their opinions and text-oriented lexical bundles to convey transitional signals. Second, they relied heavily on the anticipatory it structure and did not have the consciousness of using hedges and boosters when expressing their attitude. Third, they virtually did not use lexical bundles involving attributive clauses. Fourth, they are inclined to use colloquial language in writing. The paper includes implications for instruction of effective use of lexical bundles in argumentative writing.
An exploratory study was conducted on the use of common English expressions in accountancy and business courses in a Singapore university. The aim of the study was to investigate the use of English expressions required by students to engage in effective communication at their workplace either during their internship period or upon graduation. Data garnered through a quiz, an online survey, semi-structured focus group interviews with students, and face-to face interviews with business professionals were analysed through descriptive statistics and qualitatively to gather the perceptions of students and business professionals on the use of English expressions such as common idioms, proverbs and catchphrases relevant for workplace communication. The study found that students’ interactional competence can be enhanced by increasing their learning engagement through relevant communicative activities that include English expressions in the physical and/or virtual classroom.
In this interview, Professor Hu showed his insights in the linguistic basis of language education. Among the various schools of linguistic theories, he lays special emphasis on the influence of communicative grammar, systemic functional linguistics, pragmatics and cognitive linguistics on language education, in particular on foreign language teaching and learning in China. According to him, language education should fall within the scope of applied linguistics, and there should be a combination of the narrow-sense applied linguistics and the machine-oriented applied linguistics for better development of language education research and practice. Educational linguistics is considered as able to integrate language studies that focuses on the way to teach first, second or foreign language and education studies that emphasizes how to use a language in teaching different courses. Professor Hu highlighted the important role of functional linguistics in foreign language education in China, and drew our attention to the positive role of social semiotics in language teaching at all levels of education. He advocated to apply to language education the principle of Halliday’s “appliable linguistics”, according to which we should learn to find out for what purpose, under what condition and with what result a theory is better than other theories in practices in general and in language teaching in particular, while the task of an experienced teacher is to choose an appropriate approach to cope with a particular problem and the teacher himself/herself is expected to be a resource in language teaching. Professor Hu summarized the major stages of foreign language education since the founding of new China, and highlighted the shift of the objective in foreign language education in China from literature to language. He reminded us of the major challenges to foreign language education in China in the new century: including those due to the need of cross-discipline and crossspecialty personnel, the new development of technology, and the increasing importance of multiple intelligence and Internet education in foreign language learning. He also advocated the adoption of new teaching approaches in teaching Chinese as foreign language.
This paper argues it is no longer possible to refer to Hong Kong English speakers en masse as EFL speakers, nor can we say they speak a fully formed new variety of English called Hong Kong English (HKE). Taking into account the language(s) used for school, for work, for entertainment, and for socializing, we can see that Hong Kong’s speech community is extremely heterogeneous, both regarding levels of English and degrees of English usage. A small but growing number of Hongkongers now report that they speak English as a native language. Hongkongers with white collar jobs have been found to write more English than Chinese while at work, making it reasonable to argue that they write English as a second language (ESL). Many Hongkongers seek out English-speaking social networks and choose to watch and listen to English-medium forms of entertainment, which means their English-speaking experience is very ESL-like. However, in addition to these variations, there are great differences in English speaking and writing abilities that correlate largely with socioeconomic status. Adding to this lack of homogeneity among English speakers is the fact that extremely few Hongkongers speak English among themselves outside of specific work or school contexts. This means that HKE is not yet a new variety of English, and will have a difficult time becoming one unless the linguistic habits of Hongkongers change. English language education should take all these individual differences into account, including potentially wide differences in the speaking, listening, reading and writing abilities among individuals themselves.
In English language teaching (ELT) circles, the English used in the Philippines is traditionally labelled as ESL. However, that label, including the attitudes and practices that it brings, does not accurately capture the complex language situation in the country. In this article, we argue that English education in the Philippines does not account for the multilingual and linguistically diverse context of use in the country. We argue that monolingual perspectives and approaches in ELT continue to dominate the field. Issues of language variation, the existence of varieties of English, and the reality of translanguaging practices are not addressed. From curriculum design, assessment policies and practices, to classroom teaching, ELT in the Philippines persists in taking a one-size-fits-all approach that only privileges so-called ‘native speaker’ norms. English in the Philippines is best characterized as Englishes. Although an educated Philippine variety of English exists (Bautista, 2008), it cannot be concluded that this is the variety of widespread use across the archipelago. The language situation of the Philippines is complex, thereby eluding labels and categories that only betray a nativespeakerism perspective and a monolingual bias. We argue that Englishes in the Philippines are more appropriately approached as ENL, ESL, and EFL. The implications of these categorizations on ELT in the country are discussed in this paper.
English in South Korea, where the language is highly emphasized as a necessary language for the age of globalization, continues to have limited use within the country’s dominant Korean language monolingualism, despite the fact that localized forms of linguistic resources originating from English permeate everyday communication. This sociolinguistic characteristic has led to problems for concepts that aim to provide a typology of new Englishes by identifying them in terms of distinct varieties – including the notions of English as second language/English as foreign language, inner/outer/expanding circles, and English as lingua franca. In this paper, I argue that a proper understanding of English in South Korea requires that we move away from such variety-based approaches, instead viewing language as practice embedded in speakers’ communicative activity in social context. For this purpose, I discuss the case of Konglish, a term that pejoratively refers to English as used by Koreans. While previous studies have rightly argued that expressions condemned as Konglish should be seen as legitimate localized uses of English, here I focus on how Konglish does not represent a variety but a cultural practice, in which Koreans draw upon whatever resource available to them in making communicative action, and through which Koreans conceptualize their position in the global world. Based on this discussion, I argue that research on English as a global language should move beyond the varieties-based approach that focuses on typologies of Englishes to ask more fundamental questions about the nature of language itself.
English in Malaysia has undergone several phases since it entered the country during the colonial period in the early nineteenth century. During the colonial period, English was used mainly for communicating between the colonialists and traders. English was the official language together with Malay when the country attained independence in 1957. However, it lost its status as an official language after ten years, in 1967, when Malay was made the sole official language. The medium of instruction which had been English gradually changed to Malay during the 1970s and 1980s with a deliberate reduction of the role of English in schools. In later years, nevertheless, there was official promotion of English arising from Malay being already firmly established as the national language and the need to keep abreast with global and regional changes. The status of English has, thus, shifted several times throughout the country’s post-colonial period. While it became the “second most important language” nationally and politically, there emerged some variation in its status in some domains, in speech vs writing and, of course, among individuals. Dynamic changes in Malaysian English have also taken place. This paper examines the developments in terms of the status of English in Malaysia, including terms like ‘EFL’ and ‘ESL’ which have been used, and discusses if they are still adequate. We will show how the status of English and the contexts of its uses have changed and why a single term, say ‘second language’, is of little use and has been throughout its history. We will conclude with tentative propositions of what might happen in the future.
English has a complex status in Japan. On the one hand, it is considered “foreign” in the sense of being the go-to, in-demand foreign language of study. On the other hand, it has had a strong influence in Japanese society in ways that are unique to Japan, such as the use of katakanago ‘Western loanwords’ as part of Japanese. This complex status is paired with equally complex attitudes towards the role of English in Japan. In this paper, we explore the connection between the status of English and attitudes towards English in Japan, or what we call “EFL + α” (meaning ‘with something extra or something special’ in Japanese). We examine data from a variety of sources in the public Japanese discourse relating to English use, ranging from online chat boards to official government documents. Based on our data, we notice three prevailing attitudes towards English use in Japan: English as an assumed necessity, English as unnecessary and overvalued, and English as a marker of general communication ability and intelligence. Finally, we suggest approaching the concept of “EFL + α” as a way of making sense of “English in Japan” not only as what is (i.e., variety of English is used in Japan), but also as what is being done (i.e., social and cultural practices around the role of English in Japan).
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