The Roles of Mother Tongue in Enhancing English Language Acquisition in English-policy Classes
Issue:
Volume 6, Issue 4, December 2020
Pages:
109-115
Received:
26 September 2020
Accepted:
12 October 2020
Published:
30 October 2020
Abstract: The balance of using L1, L2, and English-only policy classes has been widely explored in English language teaching. However, research on the possible and reasonable spaces for L1 in English-only policy classes among students from diverse cultural communities has been very limited. This paper reports findings of employing the Vietnamese language among Vietnamese student-teachers of English from different ethnic groups (Kinh-Vietnamese, Hoa- Chinese, and Khmer- Cambodian) to learn English in English-only policy classrooms. These 60 student-teachers were in the final year of their program at a teacher training college in Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The findings belong to a larger project which was designed as a qualitative case study collecting triangulated data from questionnaires, observations, textual analysis, interviews, and focus groups. Results showed that Vietnamese played significant roles in students’ processing and performing tasks to adapt to the English-only classroom policy. The students’ use of Vietnamese (even by non-native Vietnamese students) enabled them to work productively and facilitate the establishment of a positive and inclusive language atmosphere thanks to the proper use of Vietnamese as a tool of cognition, affection and pedagogy.
Abstract: The balance of using L1, L2, and English-only policy classes has been widely explored in English language teaching. However, research on the possible and reasonable spaces for L1 in English-only policy classes among students from diverse cultural communities has been very limited. This paper reports findings of employing the Vietnamese language amo...
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Research on the Cognitive Effort of Sight-Interpreting Complex English Sentences into Chinese: Evidence from Eye Tracking
Mengsheng Qian,
Ningjun Xu
Issue:
Volume 6, Issue 4, December 2020
Pages:
116-123
Received:
6 December 2020
Accepted:
18 December 2020
Published:
25 December 2020
Abstract: It is widely known that sight-interpreting, one of the typical forms of conference interpreting, requires the interpreters to exert great effort in transforming one language into another. Due to the difference between Chinese and English, some sentence structures such as relative clauses prove to be even more difficult to render. Some experienced interpreters are able to do such strenuous task with ease. Uncovering what is going on during information processing is enlightening in that it would shed light on how human brain uses certain types of mechanism to process information, which is conducive to the artificial intelligence. Eye-tracking experiment is designed, 31 subjects are recruited with an average age of 22 and comparable linguistic competence to participate in a 40-50 min experiment, during which each subject is required to sight-interpret the self-designed, expert-proven sentences which differ only in the role of the relative pronoun in the relative clauses. Data analysis clearly indicates that the cognitive effort of processing complex sentences as evidenced by two types of relative clauses (one is called OR because the relative pronouns function as object in the relative clause, the other SB because the relative pronouns function as subject in the relative clause) are different, the former requiring more cognitive effort than the latter, as shown in several key eye-movement measures such as regression-in, regression-out, first fixation duration, gaze duration, regression duration, and total reading duration. These differences are statistically significant within the AOIs such as the antecedent, relative clause. The finding further substantiates the hypothesis that sight-interpreting is more strenuous and thus requires more cognitive effort than the common readers. Besides, different structure of the relative clauses also plays a role in consuming the cognitive effort of the interpreters. However, it remains unclear whether the length of the relative clause plays a decisive role in influencing the cognition of whole sentence while sight-interpreting. Besides, whether the research results are applicable to other types of complex structure remain unanswered. More data should be collected to incorporate more complex structure in order to uncover the possible cognitive effort during sight-interpreting.
Abstract: It is widely known that sight-interpreting, one of the typical forms of conference interpreting, requires the interpreters to exert great effort in transforming one language into another. Due to the difference between Chinese and English, some sentence structures such as relative clauses prove to be even more difficult to render. Some experienced i...
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