The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher

Chen, Kun-Dang

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0351-4pmid: N/A

The aim of this study is to identify combinations of different personality traits among teaching faculty and explore for which combinations college managers should use change leadership to mediate their cognition in a motivation mechanism and for which combinations doing so is not necessary. In this study, two-stage cluster analysis and partial least squares are the methods for identifying different combinations of personality traits and test mediation. This study uses 350 samples for analysis. From the test results, this study first identifies three combinations of personality traits, including “high central force but outgoing”, “middle–high central force but outgoing and a little nervousness”, and “synthesizing type”. The “highly central force but outgoing” and “middle–high central force but outgoing and a little nervousness” do not need to be mediated by change leadership, and teaching faculty who have these two combinations of personality traits will have positive attitudes or thoughts towards the motivation mechanism. Regarding the “synthesizing type”, those with this combination of personality traits will demonstrate complex attitudes, reactions, or thinking, and therefore, college managers should think about how to change their attitudes or behaviour through change leadership to communicate and guide them to accept the motivation mechanism.

Zheng, Chunping; Liang, Jyh-Chong; Tsai, Chin-Chung

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0352-3pmid: N/A

Research on self-efficacy has been a productive field while limited studies have explored language learners’ formation of academic self-efficacy. This quantitative study developed an instrument with two questionnaires for assessing English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ formation of self-efficacy and academic self-efficacy. It further investigated the complex relationship among learners’ sources of self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy and their English proficiency. The participants were 700 EFL learners at a comprehensive university in China, who took a compulsory language course for improving their overall English proficiency. The results validated the two questionnaires and further confirmed the correlations among the three constructs. It is very striking to see that the ‘social persuasion’ played the most significant and positive role for predicting learners’ academic self-efficacy and all aspects of English proficiency. Moreover, ‘physiological states’ were found as a negative predictor for explaining learners’ achievements in English listening and reading. The research highlights the importance of socio-cultural factors during learners’ formation of academic self-efficacy in China, particularly the significant roles played by the influential social agents. Implications are provided for reducing EFL learners’ physiological stress and sustaining their academic self-efficacy for improving their language proficiency.

Tavakoli, Mansoor; Zabihi, Reza; Ghadiri, Momene

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0353-2pmid: N/A

The improvement of mental health has been given considerable attention in educational settings since more than four decades. Accordingly, many programs were developed with the purpose of enabling children not only to deal with educational issues, but also to resolve their psychosocial problems. This study used an Explanatory Mixed-Methods Research Design to investigate the extent to which pre-service English teachers in Iran believed that educational therapy and life skills training should be included in English Language Teaching curricula. The collection of quantitative data was accomplished by administering the Life-Responsive Language Teaching Beliefs Questionnaire (LLTBQ) to 97 Iranian pre-service English teachers. Accordingly, among the four constructs of life-responsive language teaching (i.e., life-wise empowerment, adaptability enhancement, prosocial development, and life-over-language preference), teachers were more likely to highlight the importance of enhancing the adaptability enhancement and life-wise empowerment of language learners. The follow-up phase involved face-to-face interviews that were conducted with eight pre-service English teachers who were selected based on purposive sampling. While pre-service teachers’ responses to the questionnaire items as well as the initial comments provided by the interviewees indicated an overall interestedness on the part of most participants, their conceptions of what educational therapy and life skills training might actually entail appeared to be incomplete. Finally, the authors put forward a three-facet model of life-wise language teaching perceptions and a detailed hierarchy thereof.

Chen, Li-Ming; Sung, Yu-Hsien; Cheng, Wen

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0354-1pmid: N/A

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether teachers’ ability to identify bullying incidents could be enhanced by offering bullying identification trainings. The participants of this study were 532 primary, middle, and high school teachers in Taiwan, who were recruited to participate in one of the four study groups (three treatment groups and one control group). Those in the three treatment groups were provided with the following interventions: a 1.5-h training on bullying identification (Group X); a definition including the features of bullying in written form (Group Y); and a written definition accompanied by checklist of three bullying characteristics for each scenario (Group Z). A 24-item Recognition of Bullying Incidents Questionnaire (RBIQ) was used in this study. Of these 24 scenarios, 12 were used to assess participants in the pre-test phase, and 12 were used for the post-test. The results, using a mixed-model two-way analysis of variance, indicated that the teachers in Group X were significantly better at bullying identification than those in other groups. Teachers in Group Z also were significantly better at bullying identification than teachers in Group Y and the control group. These results imply that merely providing a definition does little to enhance teachers’ ability to identify school bullying.

Xaypanya, Vanhnaly; Mohamed Ismail, Shaik; Low, Hui

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0355-0pmid: N/A

Given the long establishment of English as an international lingua franca, the motivation of English learning among the English as foreign language (EFL) learners is still a challenging issue faced by EFL teachers in some contexts. In this study, a survey was conducted with 158 EFL learners in a university in the southern Lao PDR to explore factors that negatively impacted on their motivation to learn English. The results of factor analysis revealed that they reported five dimensions of demotivation in EFL learning, namely, difficulty to achieve linguistic accuracy, negative attitudes toward English, curriculum issues, lack of supports and resources, and foreign language anxiety. The findings of this study offered the directions to cultivate the motivation of EFL learning among the EFL learners in the Lao PDR. In addition, the findings also pointed to the possibility of viewing motivation and demotivation as the two ends of a continuum of L2 motivation; rather than describing these two notions using noncongruent frameworks as currently practiced by both L2 motivation and demotivation researchers.

Liao, Wei; Yuan, Rui; Zhang, Hong

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0356-zpmid: N/A

Teachers who teach in cross-cultural settings play a vital role in nurturing students’ appreciation of cultural diversity but they tend to experience tremendous challenges in their early years of teaching. To draw a dynamic portrayal of those challenges, this study primarily collected and analyzed 521 reflective journals written by 14 Chinese language teachers throughout their first 2 years of teaching in U.S. public schools. The study found that the teachers experienced a wide range of challenges in managing classrooms, developing curricular materials, crafting instructional strategies, assessing students, catering to learner differences, and collaborating with others. The seriousness of the challenges varied across areas and transformed differently over time. Cultural difference, school context, and teacher’s background and ongoing learning collectively contributed to the formation and transformation of the challenges. This paper concludes with practical implications on how to prepare and support teachers to work in cross-cultural settings.

Liao, Hongjing; Li, Liwen

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0357-ypmid: N/A

China’s recent curriculum reform of English as a foreign language programs has shifted toward an integration of language abilities and transferable skills such as intercultural skills. This study is part of an internal evaluation project that examines the implementation and impact of a newly reformed writing course at one of China’s top foreign studies universities. The study explores students’ acceptance and learning experiences of the course with specific focus on reform features. Applying a mixed methods approach, the study drew quantitative data from the student survey and test scores, and qualitative data from interviews and reflexive journals. Mixed analyses confirmed the design and suitability of the course. Findings indicated high appreciation of the course, statistically significant increase in test scores, and moderate improvement on intercultural skills.

Kim, Tae-Young; Kim, Youngmi; Kim, Ji-Young

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0358-xpmid: N/A

The purpose of the study is to explore the structural relationships among second language (L2) proficiency and the constructs of L2 learners’ resilience, motivation, and demotivation. A total of 869 undergraduate students in South Korea participated in the study. The data were analyzed by means of factor analysis, correlations, and structural equation modeling (SEM). The factor analysis identified seven resilience factors (life satisfaction, sociability, communicative efficacy, self-composure, strategic competence, metacognitive adaptation, and realistic optimism), six motivation factors (ought-to L2 self, ideal L2 self, instrumental motivation, parental support, academic motivation, awareness of importance), and six demotivation factors (negative perception of English-speaking countries, compulsory EFL learning, perceived inappropriateness of textbooks or tasks, low self-esteem, unsupportive learning environment, unsupportive teachers). The SEM corroborated that resilience, L2 learning motivation, and L2 learning demotivation contribute to L2 proficiency. L2 learning demotivation had more explanatory power for L2 proficiency than did L2 learning motivation. Resilience had both a direct and an indirect effect on L2 proficiency via L2 learning demotivation. The findings suggest that teachers should equip learners with strategies to manage adversity in L2 learning.

Wang, Hao; Mansouri, Behzad

doi: 10.1007/s40299-017-0359-9pmid: N/A

In academic circles, the English Only view and Balanced view have established their grounds after volumes of work on the topic of code-switching in TESOL. With recent development in Critical Applied Linguistics, poststructural theory, postmodern theory, and the emergence of multilingualism, scholars have begun to view ELT as a constantly shifting dynamic approach to questions of language in multiple contexts, rather than a method, a set of techniques, or a fixed body of knowledge (Lin in Appl Linguist Rev 4(1):195–218, 2013). Therefore, this paper represents a crucial step in addressing the paucity of research on the criticality and sociopolitical nature of code-switching in TESOL by drawing from the constructs of identity (Peirce in TESOL Q 29(1):9–31, 1995), capital (Bourdieu in Soc Sci Inf 16(6):645–668, 1977), and critical pedagogy (Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed, The Continuum Publishing, New York, 1970). The purpose of this article is to draw connections between code-switching, constructs of identity, and capital and reveal the power dynamics embedded in language learning process. We suggest that language teachers be cognizant of the sociopolitical aspect of code-switching and pay more attention to the multiple, fluid, and contradictory identities that are assigned, claimed, and negotiated by students in classrooms. In this paper, we elaborate on studies that view classroom codes-witching as social indexicality and identity construction, discuss the missing gap in the ongoing debate about code-switching, and provide some tangible pedagogical implications in ELT classrooms.