Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

Trolley dilemmas have been tested cross-culturally, but only recently have researchers begun to assess the effect of responding to such dilemmas in a foreign language. Previous studies have found a Moral Foreign Language Effect in trolley dilemmas, whereby subjects who respond to these dilemmas in a foreign language, tend to offer more utilitarian responses. The present study seeks to test whether the MFLE holds amongst native speakers of Arabic. Additionally, the present study seeks to (...) test whether the use of visual images has any effect on responses. For such purposes, four groups were compared: 1) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English without visual images; 2) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic without visual images; 3) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English with visual images; 4) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic with visual images. (shrink)

Many have argued that moral judgment is driven by one of two types of processes. Rationalists argue that reasoned processes are the source of moral judgments, whereas sentimentalists argue that emotional processes are. We provide evidence that both positions are mistaken; there are multiple mental processes involved in moral judgment, and it is possible to manipulate which process is engaged when considering moral dilemmas by presenting them in a non-native language. The Foreign-Language Effect is the activation of (...) systematic reasoning processes by thinking in a foreign language. We demonstrate that the FLE extends to moral judgment. This indicates that different types of processes can lead to the formation of differing moral judgments. One implication of the FLE is that it raises the possibility that moral judgments can be made more systematic, and that the type of processing used to form them might be relevant to normative and applied ethics. (shrink)

In recent years, foreign language learning has been proposed as a possible cognitive intervention for older adults. However, the brain network and cognitive functions underlying FLL has remained largely unconfirmed in older adults. In particular, older and younger adults have markedly different cognitive profile—while older adults tend to exhibit decline in most cognitive domains, their semantic memory usually remains intact. As such, older adults may engage the semantic functions to a larger extent than the other cognitive functions traditionally (...) considered the most important. Using anatomical measurements and a cognitive test battery, the present study examined this hypothesis in twenty cognitively normal older adults, who participated in a two-month Italian learning programme. Results showed that the immediate learning success and long-term retention of Italian vocabularies were most consistently predicted by the anatomical measures of the left pars orbitalis and left caudal middle frontal cortex, which are implicated in semantic and episodic memory functions. Convergent evidence was also found based on the pattern of cognitive associations. Our results are consistent with a prominent role of semantic and episodic memory functions in vocabulary learning in older learners. (shrink)

Foreign language anxiety has been identified as a crucial affective factor in language learning. Similar to the situation in language classes, university students in interpretation classes are required to perform in a foreign language when their language skills are inadequate. Investigations are needed to determine the specific impact of FLA on interpretation learning. This study investigated the effects of the specific interpretation classroom FLA on interpretation learning and dependency distance as an indicator of (...) learners’ cognitive load. The participants were 49 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in English–Chinese interpretation classes at a university in Hong Kong. The results showed a significant negative correlation between ICFLA levels and consecutive interpretation achievement scores. ICFLA was also negatively correlated with DD in consecutive interpretations. Four factors underlying ICFLA were identified. The findings of this study would provide useful insights for researchers and educators to understand the nature and effect of FLA in different settings. (shrink)

We explore the nature of forgetting in a corpus of 125,000 students learning Spanish using the Rosetta Stone® foreign-language instruction software across 48 lessons. Students are tested on a lesson after its initial study and are then retested after a variable time lag. We observe forgetting consistent with power function decay at a rate that varies across lessons but not across students. We find that lessons which are better learned initially are forgotten more slowly, a correlation which likely (...) reflects a latent cause such as the quality or difficulty of the lesson. We obtain improved predictive accuracy of the forgetting model by augmenting it with features that encode characteristics of a student's initial study of the lesson and the activities the student engaged in between the initial and delayed tests. The augmented model can predict 23.9% of the variance in an individual's score on the delayed test. We analyze which features best explain individual performance. (shrink)

It is foreign languages that allow one to carry out one’s professional duties at the international level, in particular in the academic field. Besides, they are recognized as a key to the development of human culture, which opens new opportunities for international integration and deepens cultural, intellectual and communicative functions of languages. Considering its historical post-totalitarian specifics and social roles, the development of foreign language education in higher education institutions in Eastern Europe, in particular Ukraine, includes materialist (...) and pragmatic and partly postmodernist trends, which need to be studied and analyzed in the context of a modern, postcolonial society. The research aims to systematize theoretical issues and generalize the experience of developing foreign language education for future humanities teachers in pedagogical universities in Ukraine, as well identify some proper ways to implement authentic and world experience into the modern practice of training future foreign language professionals. The following pedagogical strategies are considered to be certain productive areas in the combination of classical and postmodernist trends in education: the integration of repetitive teaching methods and creative activity; the combination of modular and problem-based learning; the use of non-communicative models and cognitive strategies of foreign language education; the introduction of models of foreign language education, which make it possible to specify social, professional and research activity of the student’s personality; the reinforcement of extra-curricular activities in the context of foreign language education. (shrink)

One of the significant courses in Chinese universities is English. This course is usually taught by a foreign language instructor. There will, however, necessarily be some communication hurdles between “foreign language teachers” and “native students.” This research presents an emotion recognition method for foreign language teachers in order to eliminate communication barriers between teachers and students and improve student learning efficiency. We discovered four factors of emotion recognition through literature analysis: smile, eye contact, gesture, (...) and tone. We believe that differences in foreign language teachers’ performance in these four areas will have an impact on students’ emotion recognition and, as a result, on their learning efficiency. The influence of the foreign language teacher’s eye contact and gestures is larger in the decision whether can improve the students’ classroom learning efficiency, according to 43 of the questionnaire data analysis. The second is the tone and smile. Our research contributes to the body of knowledge on emotion recognition in university foreign language teachers by presenting a practical method for recognizing emotion in foreign language teachers. We recommend that college foreign language teachers pay attention to eye and gesture communication with students in English classrooms based on the findings. By enriching the style of emotional expression in class, college language teachers, particularly foreign language teachers, can improve communication, and connection with students. (shrink)

Despite the increasing number of empirical studies that investigated foreign language writing anxiety and its correlates, there is still a lack of quantitative meta-analytic attempt on the effect sizes among these studies. To bridge the gap, this study identified 84 effect sizes from 22 primary studies to meta-analyze the correlations of foreign language writing anxiety and several key high-and low-evidence correlates. For the two high-evidence correlates, moderator analyses were also conducted, which demonstrated that foreign (...) class='Hi'>language writing anxiety has a moderate correlation with foreign language writing self-efficacy and foreign language writing performance. The three low-evidence correlates have positively moderate effects of foreign language listening anxiety, foreign language speaking anxiety and foreign language reading anxiety. The significant moderating effects of learners’ age and language proficiency were obtained. With respect to the results, pedagogical implications were discussed as well. (shrink)

Currently, there is an increasing number of older population groups, especially in developed countries. This demographic trend, however, may cause serious problems, such as an increase in aging diseases, one of which is dementia whose main symptom consists in the decline of cognitive functioning. Although there has been ongoing pharmacological research on this neurological disorder, it has not brought satisfying results as far as its treatment is concerned. Therefore, governments all over the world are trying to develop alternative, non-pharmacological strategies/activities, (...) which could help to prevent this cognitive decline while this aging population is still healthy in order to reduce future economic and social burden. One of the non-pharmacological approaches, which may enhance cognitive abilities and protect against the decline in healthy older population, seems to be the learning of a foreign language. The purpose of this mini-review is to discuss recent findings about the effect of foreign language learning on the enhancement of cognitive functions among healthy older individuals. The findings, divided into three research areas, show that the learning of a foreign language may generate a lot of benefits for older individuals, such as enhancement of cognitive functioning, their self-esteem, increased opportunities of socializing, or reduction of costs. However, as Ware et al. (2017) indicate, any intervention program on foreign language learning should be well thought of and tailored to the needs of older people in order to be effective and avoid accompanying factors, such as older people’s anxiety or low self-confidence. Nevertheless, more empirical studies should be done in this area. (shrink)

Considering the significant contribution of teachers’ professional triumph in the prosperity of students, the current study aims to investigate the existence of any relationship among three factors influencing teachers’ success: immunity, mindfulness, and engagement. Furthermore, we attempt to investigate whether English as a foreign language teachers’ immunity and mindfulness can predict their work engagement. To this end, a Likert-scale questionnaire including items on teacher immunity, mindfulness, and work engagement was distributed to 582 EFL teachers in China through the (...) WeChat application by employing a convenient sampling. To analyze the collected data, the Spearman Rho correlation index and linear multiple regression analysis are employed. The findings are that there does exist an indication of a direct relationship among EFL teachers’ immunity, mindfulness, and work engagement. Also, it is found that immunity and mindfulness can predict EFL teachers’ work engagement. The current study’s findings support the necessity of training language teachers to cope with the EFL context adversities. (shrink)

This paper discusses some aspects of foreign language learning within the divided school system of Northern Ireland. It is argued that an improvement of foreign language learning must be seen in a socio‐cultural context whereby a change in attitudes to languages in general, including Irish, may lead not only to a balanced interest among girls and boys in the language classroom, but also to a more tolerant approach to the cultural differences among the Catholic and (...) Protestant communities. (shrink)

The incorporation of technology into the training of foreign language teachers has garnered considerable interest among educators, who have increasingly acknowledged the inherent possibilities of innovative tools and applications in augmenting their professional growth. Notwithstanding, these tools allow educators to remain abreast of the most current pedagogical methodologies, augment their instructional expertise, and proficiently cater to the varied requirements of students. This study investigates the incorporation of these tools within the instructional program of educators specializing in foreign (...) languages; with the ultimate aim of unveiling the views of relevant stakeholders on how these tools aid in strengthening their professional growth. The study involved the participation of 107 individuals, comprising both foreign language university lecturers and teacher trainers. Furthermore, a quantitative method of analysis was adopted in analyzing the research data that was collated through the use of an online questionnaire. Several significant findings were made from the research data which were presented and analyzed. The research findings revealed that technology integration seamlessly paves the way for the professional development of foreign language educators. Also, a comprehensive training program, provision of ongoing professional development opportunities, peer collaboration, and establishment of feedback and evaluation mechanisms can aid in countering major limitations of the implementation of technology integration. (shrink)

The present research explored how foreign language listening anxiety affected Chinese university students' English listening test performance and how proficiency and gender mediated the effects of FLLA on the latter. Two different populations from two universities in China answered the 20-item Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale as well as a demographic questionnaire and took an English listening test. Analyses of the collected data revealed the following major findings: Five latent factors underlay the FLLAS, when working alone, (...) FLLA significantly negatively predicted students' English listening test performance, and when working with proficiency and gender, English proficiency level, gender and FLLAS2 significantly predicted students' English listening test performance. These findings confirm the negative effects of FLLA on students' English listening test performance. They also indicate that English proficiency and gender mediate FLLA's effects on the latter, with English proficiency not only directly but also indirectly affecting the latter. (shrink)

The paper deals with the need for new methods in foreign language teaching to students of non-linguistic universities. The article presents a strategy to optimize the foreign language lesson. As an example an algorithm with authentic technical text in German is considered. It makes possible to change the work with foreign language text. It is proposed to substitute the standard tasks to the practice-oriented, which purpose is to teach students to understand the text.

Theory and evidence from the behavioral science literature suggest that the widespread and rising use of _lingua francas_ in the workplace may impact the ethical decision-making of individuals who must use foreign languages at work. We test the impact of foreign language usage on individuals’ susceptibility to bribery in workplace settings using a vignette-based randomized controlled trial in a Dutch student sample. Results suggest that there is not even a small foreign language effect on workplace (...) bribery susceptibility. We combine traditional null hypothesis significance testing with equivalence testing methods novel to the business ethics literature that can provide statistically significant evidence of bounded or null relationships between variables. These tests suggest that the foreign language effect on workplace bribery susceptibility is bounded below even small effect sizes. Post hoc analyses provide evidence suggesting fruitful further routes of experimental research into bribery. (shrink)

Job satisfaction, resilience, and teacher well-being, as the three major psychological variables emotioncy- based education, have received special attention among English as a foreign language researchers. To pursue the line of this inquiry, this particular study aimed to investigate the relationship between Chinese EFL teachers’ job satisfaction, resilience, and their well-being. To conduct the study, 343 Chinese EFL teachers with different academic qualifications, various academic degrees, and different majors voluntarily participated in this study. The results of the study (...) showed that job satisfaction and resilience could jointly predict 56.4 of the variance in psychological well-being. Both variables were the significant predictors of well-being, while job satisfaction was a better predictor, uniquely explaining 29.6 of well-being’s variance. Based on the findings, some pedagogical implication for administrators, educational institutions, and EFL teachers were discussed in the article. (shrink)

Learning to write in a foreign language is a complex cognitive process. The process-genre approach is a common instructional practice adopted by language teachers to develop learners’ writing abilities. However, the interacting elements of procedural knowledge, linguistic knowledge, and generic knowledge in this approach may exceed the capacity of an individual learner’s working memory, thus actually hindering the acquisition of writing skills. According to the collective working memory effect, it was hypothesized that teaching writing skills of English (...) as a foreign language by adopting a process-genre approach in collaborative conditions could lead to better writing performance, lower cognitive load, and higher instructional efficiency. The reported experiment compared learning writing skills of English as a foreign language in individual and collaborative instructional conditions from a cognitive load perspective, a rarely adopted approach in this field. The results indicated that the collaborative instructional condition was more effective and efficient than the individual instructional condition in improving the quality of written products as well as in optimizing the cognitive (working memory) load experienced by the learners. Measures of cognitive load were used to support the cognitive load theory’s interpretation of the results, which is the unique contribution of this research study to the field. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates the feasibility of information and communication technologies in English as a foreign language teaching and learning process. The organizational and pedagogical approaches to efficient EFL learning in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have been outlined. Furthermore, the main perspectives and challenges appearing in an online learning environment have been characterized. The proposed paper aims to consider the possibility of integrating innovative computer technologies into online foreign language learning to foster students’ autonomy and (...) boost their language proficiency. The findings suggest that using ICT is beneficial for mastering a foreign language in out-of-class settings. Admittedly, there is no perfect or universal blend that may suit all the EFL learning environments. Therefore, it is claimed that blended programs should be created for each academic course regarding students’ wants, needs, and abilities. Furthermore, each higher educational institution needs to have a strategy for designing and implementing a distance EFL learning program that considers instructional, pedagogical, and technological factors. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a serious problem in an academic environment because it breaches academic honesty and integrity, copyright law, and publication ethics. This paper aims at revealing English as a Foreign Language lecturers’ responses in dealing with some factors affecting students’ plagiarism practice in Indonesian Higher Education context. This study employed a qualitative method with case study approach. Eight experienced EFL lecturers were conveniently recruited, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis technique. The results revealed that EFL students (...) perpetrated plagiarisms due to three factors; 1) convenient access to online resources allowed the EFL students to retrieve some information without properly citing the sources, 2) Questionable lecturers’ assessment, and 3) Student has poor academic writing-skills. The plagiarism practices are apparent in the Indonesian educational context, and this may produce other negative consequences, such as academic dishonesty and poor academic writing. However, further investigation is necessary to examine the relative contribution of each factor on students’ plagiarism practice. (shrink)

These days, technology advancement has inspired a large number of educators to employ social media in the English as a foreign language context. But, some EFL educators are yet unwilling to use such chances, because they are left untrained. Therefore, applying professional development in this field appears necessary as it is regarded as the main cause of improving educators’ education activity, and proposing new education approaches. To strengthen the academic investment in educators’ professional learning, comprehending elements affecting educators’ (...) performance of learning from PD is vital. Lower commitment degrees were specified as an element that impedes EFL educators from employing social media in EFL education. Moreover, developing the professional identity of educators is an important issue that straightly pertains to educators’ performance, which assists educators both in comprehending their professional lives and presenting them with a framework to elucidate, expand and contemplate their professional activities. Stimulated by the interest in research on social media-focused courses, this review inspects how teachers’ commitment and identity affect EFL teachers’ implementation of social media in PD. In a nutshell, implications for stakeholders of the study are presented. Indeed, the social media as an impotent device should be incorporated in PD programs to develop both teachers’ commitment and identity. Faculty members should establish workshops, and seminars to arrange for a platform for teachers to use social media to support learning. (shrink)

Inbound tourism as defined by the WTO is obviously the aspect of a nation’s tourism industry to which foreign languages are directly relevant: this aspect involves foreign tourists visiting the country of reference. This paper uses Leiper’s conceptualisation of the tourism system to examine the role of foreign languages in the operations of Nigerian inbound tourism from TGR and TDR perspectives. Among the most significant revelations of this examination are the facts that: i) tourism destinations in Nigeria (...) are to be advertised on the web and in print in the TGR countries using the languages of those countries; and ii) tour guides in Nigeria are to be trained in foreign languages to facilitate travels, stay and related transactions and activities of foreign tourists in Nigeria. These and other findings can enhance the Nigerian inbound tourism industry. (shrink)

Have you ever felt nervous, inappropriate, insecure or worried when trying to communicate in a foreign language? Have you ever feared to make mistakes, being negatively judged or misunderstood when talking to foreigners? Do you know someone who has experienced those situations? If yes, please, keep on reading. All these negative feelings are common in many and diverse situations when using a foreign language. They are the result of experiencing Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) a (...) situational, dysphoric and debilitating anxiety coined by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope in 1986. Nowadays, multiculturalism and multilingualism are part of our daily lives as well as communication in a foreign language and with foreigners. Hence, FLA is not a problem restricted to foreign language learning scenarios anymore. This innovative session aims to inform and raise awareness of FLA presence and effects in professional and educational contexts, beyond FL classrooms and learning settings. (shrink)

Intertemporal choice requires one to decide between smaller sooner and larger later payoffs and is captured by discount rates. Across two preregistered experiments testing three language pairs (Polish vs. English, Spanish, and German; Experiment 1) and with incentivized participants (Experiment 2), we found no evidence that using a foreign language decreased the strength or increased the consistency of intertemporal choices. On the contrary, there was some evidence of stronger discounting when a foreign language was used. (...) We confirmed prior findings that more reflective individuals discount less strongly but observed that they were just as (un)affected by using foreign language as less reflective individuals. Thus, we provide preliminary evidence that the foreign language effect is robust to individual differences in cognitive reflection. (shrink)

Critical Citizens for an Intercultural World: Foreign language education as cultural politics Manuela Guilherme, 2002, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters. Pp. 296.

In a recent article, Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) propose that mental imagery is less vivid when evoked in a foreign than in a native language. The authors argue that reduced mental imagery could even account for moral foreign language effects, whereby moral choices become more utilitarian when made in a foreign language. Here we demonstrate that Hayakawa and Keysar's (2018) key results are better explained by reduced language comprehension in a foreign (...) class='Hi'>language than by less vivid imagery. We argue that the paradigm used in Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) does not provide a satisfactory test of reduced imagery and we discuss an alternative paradigm based on recent experimental developments. (shrink)

Recently, the use of new educational technologies in language teaching development is expanding rapidly. Educational technologies attach new features to the learning environments. The integration of educational technologies in language teaching has been received special attention among language researchers. In so doing, the present study investigated language learners’ perceptions of the integration of innovative educational technologies in their language classrooms. The sample comprised 301 English as a foreign language students with different academic qualifications (...) from Shaanxi Province and other provinces in China. To gather the necessary data, the researcher conducted a technology integration questionnaire and a focus group interview. The results of obtained data demonstrated that the language learners had positive attitudes toward using technology in their classrooms. However, the findings of the interviews indicated that learners had some problems such as lack of technology literacy and inadequate assess to facilities in participating in technology-based classroom activities. (shrink)

Several studies suggest that decisions made in a foreign language are more rational. The authors imply that when thinking in a language which is not our native tongue, analytical, slow, deep-thinking is activated. The question that underlies the present article is whether this is a characteristic of every mental operation in the foreign medium. Studies carried out by Costa et al., Geipel et al. and Hadjichristidis et al. suggest the issue is much more complex than it (...) may seem. The answer to the question above was sought through a study in which 84 Polish advanced users of English as a foreign language were asked to solve mathematical problems from the Cognitive Reflection Test. Initially the subjects were randomly assigned to two groups, who subsequently solved the problems in Polish and in English. The article presents the results, discusses them and arrives at a number of conclusions as well as implications for further research. (shrink)

Foreign language learning anxiety has been the target of many studies in the field of applied linguistics, but, with the dynamics turn in the field, attempts have been recently made to uncover the dynamics of anxiety English as a foreign language learners go through, especially within the moments of their conversational interactions. Within these interactions, dynamics of anxiety might emerge in different patterns under the influence of the status of the participants’ interlocutors and their familiarity with (...) them. This study explores the dynamics of EFL learners’ anxiety while interacting with different interlocutors from an idiodynamic perspective. The participants of this case study were two female freshman students, taking a speaking and listening university course, who were interviewed by four interlocutors with different status and level of familiarity. Following an idiodynamic method, they self-rated their anxiety fluctuations under the influence of each interlocutor throughout each conversation followed by stimulated recall interviews regarding the explanations of the changes in their anxiety during the conversations. The results showed both change and stability in the participants’ anxiety under the influence of the interlocutors’ familiarity with the participants and their status as well their verbal and nonverbal feedback. The explanation of these changes based on the main properties of complex dynamic system theory is discussed. (shrink)

Creative self-efficacy (CSE) is a core influencer of creative behavior and has a positive impact on well-being and development. However, the positive psychological processes that help to promote CSE in foreign-language learning (FLL) remain under-studied. Focusing specifically on FLL students, the present study examined the associations among optimism, hope, empathy, and CSE and investigated the possible mediating roles of hope and empathy in the relationship between optimism and CSE. A sample of 330 FLL students from two Chinese universities (...) participated in this study. The results showed that (i) optimism, hope, and empathy were all positively related to CSE and that (ii) optimism did not directly predict CSE but indirectly and positively predicted CSE through hope and empathy. These findings suggest that optimism, empathy, and hope potentially play positive roles in facilitating CSE in FLL students. Based on the present results, some practical approaches are discussed that could help improve the CSE of FLL students, paying particular attention to the effects that potentially motivate their positivity. (shrink)

The field of second language acquisition (SLA) is by nature of its subject a highly interdisciplinary area of research. Learning a (foreign) language, for example, involves encoding new words, consolidating and committing them to long-term memory, and later retrieving them. All of these processes have direct parallels in the domain of human memory and have been thoroughly studied by researchers in that field. Yet, despite these clear links, the two fields have largely developed in parallel and in (...) isolation from one another. The present article aims to promote more cross-talk between SLA and memory science. We focus on foreign language (FL) attrition as an example of a research topic in SLA where the parallels with memory science are especially apparent. We discuss evidence that suggests that competition between languages is one of the mechanisms of FL attrition, paralleling the interference process thought to underlie forgetting in other domains of human memory. Backed up by concrete suggestions, we advocate the use of paradigms from the memory literature to study these interference effects in the language domain. In doing so, we hope to facilitate future cross-talk between the two fields and to further our understanding of FL attrition as a memory phenomenon. (shrink)

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 (...) class='Hi'>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. (shrink)

This review aimed at exploring the related investigations on the effects of online and traditional learning contexts on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ grit and foreign language anxiety (FLA). Studies have verified the relationship between learners’ grit and academic performance in online learning contexts. However, there is a need for studying the effect of face-to-face learning and face-to-screen learning on learners’ grit. On the other hand, studies have shown that classroom context is a mediating (...) variable in the relationship between grit and FLA. Furthermore, few studies have been done on the effect of traditional classroom contexts and online learning contexts on learners’ FLA. Most studies showed that online learning contexts create more FLA. There are some reasons such as ambiguity of contexts, lack of feedback, lack of opportunities for communication, type of employed applications, cognitive load, technophobia, and reduction in enthusiasm which arouse learners’ anxiety in an online learning environment. In the end, the pedagogical implications are expounded to promote the learners’ grit and diminish anxiety for better performance. This review also provides some suggestions for further research to clarify our perspective on positive and negative emotional variables. (shrink)

Culturally responsive teaching has been found to promote student engagement and enhance learning in the classroom. As an effective pedagogy, the past decade has witnessed a soaring interest in exploring teachers’ competence, self-efficacy, and influencing factors in implementing CRT across school subjects. However, scant attention has been directed to language teachers’ engagement with CRT. Given the increasing diversity in students’ socio-economic status, cultural backgrounds, learning needs and preferences in English language classrooms, CRT has also become a prominent concern (...) in China. This study sets out to explore English as a Foreign Language teacher engagement with CRT in rural schools in China. With a multi-case study of eight EFL teachers, the researchers collected data through individual interviews and classroom observations. Four types of teacher engagement based on the foci were identified and were further characterized by cognitive, emotional, and social aspects. This study also taps into the internal and external factors influencing the teachers’ engagement with CRT. Implications and suggestions were provided to tackle the problems of English Language Education in rural China and contexts alike worldwide. (shrink)

Teachers involved in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching play a significant role in the process of moving toward educational equity. Teacher cognition is very influential in shaping teacher practice and thus affects students’ academic performance. However, although the role of EFL teachers as equity agents has been recognized, few studies have explored EFL teachers in-depth in terms of their cognition and practice. Moreover, no review studies have given sufficient attention to the task of elucidating the interrelations (...) between EFL teachers’ cognition and practices in the context of educational equity. Therefore, to provide a novel perspective and generate fresh insights into this research field, the current study attempts to explain the connotations of these constructs, highlights the interplay between EFL teachers’ equity-oriented cognition and practice, and identifies both experiential and contextual factors that might have an effect throughout the teaching process. Finally, practical implications and directions for teachers, researchers, policy-makers, and social justice leaders who are interested in actualizing education as a means of attaining equity are also discussed. (shrink)

Teaching is a career with a high rate of anxiety and burnout in all phases of teaching with specific challenges related to the feature of language education. The concept of motivation can be an important basic mechanism since educators who are not motivated are distressed because of the anxious characteristic of the education profession. Moreover, educator identity is a new issue that has built a perspective to examine educators’ growth by thinking about who they are as well as how (...) they perform what they perform in a specific situation. Recently, programs that are based on mindfulness are known as efficient interventions enhancing motivation and decreasing tension in people. Given the prominence of mindfulness in educational settings and its neglected role in foreign language learning, the contemporary review attempts to inspect the function of mindfulness on English as a foreign language teachers’ motivation and identity. Subsequently, some pedagogical recommendations for the educational representatives such as teachers and teacher trainers are offered. (shrink)

This article examines the current state of foreign language education in Japanese universities as illustrative of the troubling conditions facing the liberal arts in a globalized neoliberal milieu. The utopian ideal in education has always insinuated, at the least, a pedagogy that inspires personal agency, creative investment, challenge to power and social change. This imagining of incalculable futures, however, has been undermined by the seemingly inevitable and confluent forces of a networked world, represented most forcefully by the socioeconomic (...) reductionism of neoliberal globalism. In the context of contemporary Japanese higher education, these forces are joined by Japan’s uniquely ambivalent relationship with the ‘outside’ world, and manifested in the rigid conceptualizations that motivate deeply problematic government and institutional initiatives for the ‘globalization’ of higher education. Within the frame of Bernard Stiegler’s work on transindividuation (ps... (shrink)

The availability of modern web resources has a significant impact on the effectiveness of education, since it allows the teacher to use and implement new teaching methods that provide several advantages in organizing the educational process. The article demonstrates the possibilities of online resources when teaching foreign language.

The research shows the relationship between digital teaching competence and foreign language learning in students at a national university from Lima. It is a non-experimental descriptive study with a cross-sectional correlational design, applied to a sample of 151 students from Enrique Guzmán y Valle National University of Education. To collect data for the first variable, it was built a questionnaire with the response parameters of the Likert scale. Based on the Cronbach's Alpha test, this instrument reached a reliability (...) index of 0,780. For the second variable, a test was applied and the reliability level was measured through the Kuder-Richardson coefficient, showing an index of 0,865, so it is inferred that these instruments had a high level of reliability. About the general hypothesis, Spearman's correlation coefficient was 0,705, a high positive correlation. The investigation result allows to confirm that there is a direct and significant association between teaching digital competence and foreign language learning, that is, the higher the level of teaching digital competence, the better the learning achievements of the students. (shrink)