THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3

The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 © 2004 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

About The Journal of Asia TEFL Major Focus: The Journal of Asia TEFL is a refereed publication devoted to research articles and book reviews concerned with the teaching and learning of English, especially in Asian contexts. The journal is indexed in SCOPUS® and has been accepted for coverage in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI, http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/esci/). It is published electronically only.

Frequency of Publication: Electronic issues are published in March, June, September, and December.

Ownership: The Journal of Asia TEFL is owned and copyrighted by the Asian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Andy Kirkpatrick (Griffith University, Australia)

Managing Editor Eun Gyong "E.G" Kim (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea)

Assistant Managing Editor Woo-hyoung Nahm (The Cyber University of Korea, Korea)

Book Review Editor Mingyue "Michelle" Gu (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China)

Editorial Advisory Board Amy Bik May Tsui (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China) Athelstan Suresh Canagarajah (Pennsylvania State University, USA) Bernard Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) David Anthony Hayes (Brock University, Canada) Contact: Managing Editor at [email protected] © Asia TEFL.org. All rights reserved

THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3

Elena Solovova (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia) Farzad Sharifian (Monash University, Australia) Fuad Abdul Hamied (Indonesia University of Education, Indonesia) Ganakumaran Subramaniam (University of Nottingham, Malaysia) Kensaku Yoshida (Sophia University, Japan) Maria Luz C. Vilches (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines) Oryang Kwon (Seoul National University, Korea) Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Rod Ellis (University of Auckland, New Zealand) Ronard Carter (University of Nottingham, UK) Qiufang Wen (Beijing Foreign Studies University, China)

Editorial Board (Editors) Alexius Chia Ti Yong (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Ali Saukah (The State University of Malang, Indonesia) Anchalee Chayanuvat (Walailak University, Thailand) Anne Burns (University of New South Wales, Australia) Antony John Kunnan (Nanyang Techgnological University, Singapore) Arifa Rahman (University of Dhaka, Bangladesh) Averil Coxhead (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) Brock Brady (U.S. Peace Corps, USA) Budsaba Kanoksilapatham (Silpakorn University, Thailand) Camilla de Jesus Vizconde (University of Santo Tomas, Philippines) Didi Sukyadi (Universitas Pendidikan, Indonesia) Dil Afroze Quader (Dhaka University, Bangladesh) Dong Wan Cho (Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea) Dongkwang Shin (Gwangju National University of Education, Korea) Eli Hinkel (Seattle Pacific University, USA) Eunsook Shim (Sangji University, Korea) Galina Lovtsevich (Far Eastern Federal University, Russia) Gary James Harfitt (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Graham Thurgood (California State University, Chico, USA) Hae Dong Kim (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea) Hajime Terauchi (Takachiho University, Japan) Hee-Kyung Lee (Yonsei University, Korea) Helena Indyah Ratna Agustien (Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia) Heng-Tsung Danny Huang (National Taiwan University, Taiwan) Heokseung Kwon (Seoul National University, Korea) Hikyoung Lee (Korea University, Korea) Hoo Dong Kang (Chinju National University of Education, Korea) Hossein Farhady (Yeditepe University, Turkey) Hye-Kyung Ryoo (Daegu University, Korea) Isaiah WonHo Yoo (Sogang University, Korea) Jae-Ho Choi (Sangmyung University, Korea) Jason Kok Khiang Loh (National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Jeong-Ah Shin (Dongguk University, Korea) Jeong-Yeon Kim (Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) Jin Sook Lee (UC Santa-Barbara, USA)

Contact: Managing Editor at [email protected] © Asia TEFL.org. All rights reserved

THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3

Jiyoung Bae (Kongju National University, Korea) Joohae Kim (The Cyber University of Korea, Korea) Jungok Bae (Kyungpook National University, Korea) Junkyu Lee (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea) Khalil Motallebzadeh (Islamic Azad University, Iran) Kim McDonough (Concordia University, Canada) Laurence Anthony (Waseda University, Japan) Le Van Canh (Vietnam National University at Hanoi, Vietnam) Li-Yi Wang (National Institute of Education, Singapore) M. Obaidul Hamid (The University of Queensland, Australia) Madhubala Bava Harji (Multimedia University, Malaysia) Marianne Rachel G. Perfecto (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines) Mario Saraceni (University of Portsmouth, UK) Martin Wedell (University of Leeds, UK) Min-Young Song (The Cyber University of Korea, Korea) Min Gui (Wuhan University, China) Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan (Iranian Institute for Encyclopedia Research, Iran) Moses Samuel (University of Malaya, Malaysia) Naixing Wei (Beihang University, China) NG Chiew Hong (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Niladri Sekhar Dash (Indian Statistical Institute, India) Noriko Ishihara (Hosei University, Japan) Phil Benson (Macquarie University, Australia) Ram Ashish Giri (Monash University, Australia) Ramesh Nair (Universiti Teknologi Mara, Malaysia) Ramin Akbari (Tarbiat Modares University, Iran) Randall William Sadler (The University of Illinois, USA) Rebecca Oxford (University of Maryland (Emerita); University of Alabama, USA) Robert Bruce Scott (Fort Hays State University, USA) Roger Barnard (The University of Waikato, New Zealand) Saksit Saengboon (National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), Thailand) Sang-Ki Lee (Korea National University of Education, Korea) Shao-Ting Alan Hung (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan) Shinichi Izumi (Sophia University, Japan) Stefanie Shamila Pillai (University of Malaya, Malaysia) Sungmook Choi (Kyungpook National University, Korea) Sun-Young Shin (Indiana University, USA) Supanee Chinnawongs (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand) Supong Tangkiengsirisin (Thammasat University, Thailand) Susan Gass (Michigan State University, USA) Tae-Young Kim (Chung-Ang University, Korea) Taehee Choi (Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong) Thomas S.C. Farrell (Brock University, Canada) Tzu-Bin Lin (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) Vahid Aryadoust (National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Vijay Singh Thakur (Dhofar University, Oman) Wataru Suzuki (Miyagi University of Education, Japan) William Littlewood (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong) Willy A. Renandya (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Contact: Managing Editor at [email protected] © Asia TEFL.org. All rights reserved

THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3

Xiaofei Lu (Pennsylvania State University, USA) Xiaotang Cheng (Beijing Normal University, China) Xuesong Gao (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China) Yan Jin (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) Yenren Ting (Nanjing University, China) Yeu-Ting Liu (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) Yo-An Lee (Sogang University, Korea) Yoonhee Choe (Chongshin University, Korea) YouJin Kim (Georgia State University, USA) Young-in Moon (The University of Seoul, Korea) Young-woo Kim (International Graduate School of English, Korea) Yuan-Li Tiffany Chiu (King's College London, UK) Yuh-show Cheng (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) Yuko Goto Butler (University of Pennsylvania, USA)

Contact: Managing Editor at [email protected] © Asia TEFL.org. All rights reserved

THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3

TABLE of CONTENTS Volume 13 Number 3, Fall 2016, Pages 162-246 Fall 2016 Editorial

Editorial Andy Kirkpatrick pages: vi-vii DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.1.vi Published online: 31 August 2016

Articles

Phonological Changes in Cantonese-English Code-Mixing for ESL Learners in Hong Kong and Their Attitudes Toward Code-Mixing Tzi Dong Ng & Hsueh Chu Chen pages: 162-185 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.1.162 Published online: 31 August 2016 Students’ Attitudes Toward Undertaking Writing Activities on Extensive Reading Eunseok Ro & Jeongyeon Park pages: 186-203 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.2.186 Published online: 31 August 2016 Identifying Reading Strategies to Teach Literal, Reorganisation and Inferential Comprehension Questions to ESL Students Muhammad Javed, Lin Siew Eng, Abdul Rashid Mohamed & Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail pages: 204-220 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.3.204 Published online: 31 August 2016 Using Auditory Word Repetition to Improve L2 Pronunciation of English Schwa by Japanese Learners: From the Perspective of Phonological Processing Kaori Sugiura pages: 221-240 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.4.221 Published online: 31 August 2016

Book Reviews

The Multilingual Turn: Implication for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education Setiono Sugiharto pages: 241-242 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.5.241 Published online: 31 August 2016 Assessing Young Learners of English: Global and Local Perspectives Xie Qin pages: 243-244 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.6.243 Published online: 31 August 2016 English as a Global Language in China: Deconstructing the Ideological Discourses of English in Language Education Ruifeng Lyu pages: 245-246 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.7.245 Published online: 31 August 2016

Contact: Managing Editor at [email protected] © Asia TEFL.org. All rights reserved

THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016, vi-vii http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.1.vi

The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 © 2004 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

Dear Readers and Colleagues Welcome to the latest edition of The Journal of Asia TEFL, which, as you know, is now fully on-line. In this issue we publish four articles. In the first article, the authors, Ng Tzi Dong and Chen Hsueh Chu, first examine how Cantonese speakers who are learners of English make phonological changes to English words when they are code-mixing and then elicited their attitudes towards CantoneseEnglish codemixing in the classroom. They recorded two groups of learners, one of high proficiency and one of medium proficiency, reading aloud a script which contained codemixed dialogue. They then identified the differences in the pronunciation of the code-mixed words. Next they elicited, by use of a questionnaire, the students’ attitudes to code mixing in the class. The authors discuss the differences they found between the two groups and suggest reasons for these differences. The second article also investigates students’ attitudes, but here the authors, Eunseok Ro and Jeongyeon Park, are interested in students’ attitudes towards undertaking writing activities associated with extensive reading. The authors added a 20 minute extensive reading activity to the normal EAP class and writing tasks associated with the reading they had done were assigned as homework. Perhaps surprisingly, given that the exercise required students to undertake extra work, the great majority of students reported that they enjoyed and felt they had benefited from the writing exercise based on their extensive reading. Even the few students who found some of the topics they were asked to read and write about boring reported recognising the value of the activity for the development and improvement of their writing skills. The third article in this issue reports on the strategies teachers use to encourage their students to deal with a variety of reading comprehension question types, namely literal, reorganisation and inferential questions. The three research questions that the study sought to answer were: 1. What are the reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach literal comprehension questions? 2. What are the reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach reorganisation comprehension

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questions? 3. What are the reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach inferential comprehension questions?

Surveying a range of teachers from a cross-section of secondary schools across Penang, Malaysia, the authors, Muhammad Javed, Lin Siew Eng, Abdul Rashid Mohamed and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail, concluded that teachers were able to use a broad range of strategies to teach literal and reorganisation questions, but they had fewer strategies to teach inferential questions. They therefore recommend that strategies for teaching inferential questions are developed, as these are the most beneficial in aiding students’ reading comprehension. The final article in this issue is by Kaori Sugiura and is entitled ‘Using Auditory Word Repetition to Improve L2 Pronunciation of English Schwa by Japanese Learners: From the Perspective of Phonological Processing’. The study investigated the effects of immediate repetition of auditory words on the L2 pronunciation improvement of English schwa by Japanese EFL learners. More specifically, the study investigated how the amount of input (i.e., five or ten repetitions) and stimuli characteristics (i.e., the position of schwa in a word, word familiarity) influences the repetition effect. Adopting an extremely rigorous methodological approach, the author was able to conclude that, ‘Immediate auditory word repetition (five and ten times) improved the pronunciation of schwa by Japanese learners of English, particularly in terms of relative duration; however, repeating the target word more than five times did not differentiate the effect’. The author then makes pedagogical recommendations based on the results of the study. The book review section, edited by Michelle Gu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reviews three books and we hope these will be both informative and useful to our readers. If anyone has suggestions for books for review, could they please contact Michelle ([email protected]) directly.

Andy Kirkpatrick Editor-in-Chief London, July 2016

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THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol.13, No. 3,Fall2016, 162-185 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.1.162

The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 ©2004AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

Phonological Changes in Cantonese-English Code-Mixing for ESL Learners in Hong Kong and Their Attitudes Toward Code-Mixing Tzi Dong Ng The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Hsueh ChuChen The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

The purposes of this study were (a) to identify how ESL learners make phonological changes inEnglish words in a code-mixing context; and (b) to examine ESL learners’ attitudes toward Cantonese-accented English and code-mixing in the classroom setting. Two groups of learners with high proficiency (HP) and mid-level proficiency (MP) were recruited to participate in the research. A specially designed codemixed script, an English translated version, and a list of isolated English words served as the tasks for collecting phonological data. A questionnaire survey was then used to examine participants’ opinions on code-mixing and its effects on pronunciation learning. The results showed that HP and MP learners pronounced numerous words similarly in a Cantonese-accented manner; however, MP learners were less likely to switch back to the correct pronunciation when the context of code-mixing was changed to pure English or when given a list of isolated English words. The survey results found that MP learners tended to be slightly more positive toward Cantonese-accented English and the use of a mixed code in English as a medium of instruction classrooms. Nonetheless, the use of code-mixing was less preferred in English lessons for learners of both groups. More HP learners considered Cantonese-accented English as a symbol of identity as Hongkongers than MP learners. Keywords: pronunciation learning, language attitude, Hong Kong English, second language phonology

Introduction Hong Kong is a metropolitan city that serves as an international financial center, thus justifying its multilingual status in recent years. Most Hongkongers are at least bilingual and speak Cantonese and English, not accounting for their levels of proficiency. It seems inevitable for Cantonese English as a second language (ESL) learners to insert English words in their Cantonese speeches or conversations for various motivations

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not limited to ‘the desire to express what one wants to say” and “a pragmatic move to fill a lexical or stylistic gap’ (Li, 2000), particularly since Hong Kong possesses ‘a long history of linguistic contact with English since the 17th century’ (Luke, 1998). This form of code-mixing is often used to articulate feelings, meanings and phenomena in a more convenient manner to achieve effective communication. For instance, Li (2000) attributed the practice of code-mixing to the principle of economy, where code-mixing requires users to exert less linguistic effort for an English expression than its Cantonese equivalent. The use of Cantonese-English code-mixing is explicit and common in social and educational settings, with the lexical insertion of English words in Cantonese utterances or phrases being the readily observable case. In this study, code-mixing refers to the act of speaking Cantonese at the phrasal or sentential level while inserting English lexical items. Phonological changes in code-mixing are defined as phonological variationsin English words embedded in Cantonese utterances, as compared totheir standard phonological form. Different types of phonological changes tend to emerge in code-mixing. Irrespective of the commonality of codemixing in these learners’ daily life, different learners pronounce these embedded English words differently, resulting in variation in phonological changes in English words produced by different learners. For instance, bisyllabicEnglish words in Cantonese-English code-mixed speech are often pronounced like two individual words with equal stresses, instead of the normal stress pattern (stressed-unstressed or unstressed-stressed); e.g., Chen (2013) noted that Hong Kong English speakers tend to pronounce paper (/ˈpeɪˌpə/) as /ˈpeɪˈpɑ:/, placing unnecessary stress on the unstressed syllable. The aim of this study is to draw a link between the phonological deviances in Cantonese-English codemixing and English language proficiency by analyzing the phonological features of English words spoken in code-mixing by high-proficiency (HP) and mid-level proficiency (MP) ESL learners. The present study also attempts to probe these ESL learners’ opinions on code-mixing in general and its effects on pronunciation learning, and to find whetherlearners of different proficiency levels hold different attitudes toward these issues.

Literature Review Cantonese-Accented English in Hong Kong Previous studies on the phonology of Cantonese-accented English or Hong Kong English (HKE) in general have been conductedby many scholars, including Luke and Richards (1982), Chan and Li (2000), Hung (2000), Setter (2003), Deterding, Wong and Kirkpatrick (2008), Sewell and Chan (2010), Chen (2011), and Chen (2013). These studies offer a thorough description and explanation of different types of phonological features ofthe Hong Kong accent of English, which have been widely agreed upon. Moreover, a majority of identified features are unambiguously attributed to the speakers’ first language (Cantonese) interference. Cantonese (the L1 of Hong Kong speakers) and English (the L2) serve as two typologically different languages, thus leading to the emergence of phonological changes for ESL learners in Hong Kong (Chan and Li, 2000), while the phonology of a second language in general has also garneredlinguists’ interest in conducting multi-disciplinary empirical research (Altmann&Kabak, 2010).Chan and Evans (2011) examine Hong Kong secondary school students’ attitudes toward HKE as a potentially proper pronunciation model in the English classroom. The findings show that the students have a generally negative attitude toward the existence of HKE as a variety and the adoption of HKE as a teaching model. The result also suggests that despitestudents’ reservations about the localised pronunciation, the authors argue that these local students have no choice but to accept other pronunciation models due to their limitedexposure to native spoken English. Therefore, accent variations are found in their daily lives.

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Among these studies on Cantonese-English code-mixing in Hong Kong, Luke (1998) and Li (2000) discussed the phenomenon of code-mixing from sociolinguistic viewpoints to account for Cantonese speakers’ conversational motivations underpinning code choices. Specifically, both scholars wrote that the ‘Hong Kong accent of English’ was held in low regard, withno societal basis for a nativizedvariety of English in Hong Kong. These studies emphasized learners’ attitude toward Cantonese-English code-mixing in general and Hong Kong accented English in particular. Meanwhile, Jenkins (2009) foundthat some ESL speakers did express their desire to “project their local identity” in the variety of English they spoke. This present study also attempts to find whether current ESL learners from Hong Kong have similar perceptions, especially when English acts as the embedded language in daily-life code-mixing.

Phonological Changes in Code-Mixing Code-mixing is one form of language contact, and it has been shown that both the host language and the embedded language contribute aspects of their phonological systemsto this “mixed language” (Muysken, 2004). Prior research on code-mixing has largely focused on the syntactic or lexical level, not diverting sufficient attention to the phonological level. Among numerous Chinese-English code-mixing and codeswitching studies in Hong Kong, Chen (2013) has comeclosest to theobjective of the present study, when she investigated the phonological changes of English words in Cantonese-English code-mixed speech. She suggested that local Hong Kong speakers of Cantonese inserted English words into Cantonese following Cantonese phonology to some degree while preferring to achieve a native-like English pronunciation without specifying the context where English was spoken. As for the methodology employed by Chen (2013), the flow of procedures was appropriate and her framework serves as a foundation for this study. Also, the tokens in her sample scripts used to derive the phonological changes in code-mixing, including the words ‘oral’, ‘email’, ‘present’ and ‘paper’, were relatively high-frequency words appearing in the daily conversation of tertiary-level students. However, Chen focused on a comparison between Cantonese English and Taiwan-Mandarin English to draw a connection between code-mixing and foreign accents.In contrast, this study examines purely Cantonese English by analyzing inserted lexical items in code-mixing, since the essence of a single type of code-mixing already includes numerous features such as intra-sentential code switching and tag switching (Wong, 2012). In addition, Chen does not specify the proficiency levels of her study’s participants; this can be problematic since proficiency levels can also influence phonological changes in code-mixing even within one variety. Our concern is that there might be variations in the phonological changes in code-mixing between HP and MP ESL learners who belong to the same category as, ‘speakers of Hong Kong English’, especially for tertiarylevel students in Hong Kong who have a sound background inESL learning. In addition, the direction in Chen’s comparative study does not allow for diversityin participants’ English proficiency. This study therefore sets outto make English proficiency anindependent variable among the participants. Regarding ESL learners’ English proficiency level, after reviewing relevant studies, there appears to be a lack of direct studies that correlate Cantonese-English code-mixing with Cantonese learners’ English proficiency. Although Jalil (2009) concluded that code-mixing usually involves a higher necessary level ofgrammatical proficiency in both the embedded language (English) and host language (Cantonese), we foundan absence of research that explores how Cantonese-English code-mixing and ESL learners’ general English proficiency are related. Previous studies (e.g. Li, 2000) investigated characteristics of code-mixing in the generic sense without considering the possibility of variations between speakers. We propose that speakers of disparate proficiency levels in the embedded language (L2) could demonstrate different forms of code-mixing. Specifically, we would like to know how these learners’ phonological changes in code-mixing and their English proficiency are related, since phonological awareness, at the least, is shown to be influenced

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by language proficiency (Bialystok, McBride-Chang, & Luk, 2005). Kootstra et al. (2012) explored the role of speakers’ relative language proficiency in priming the production of code-switching. Their study did take L2 proficiency into account, despite not looking into the phonology. Whether L2 proficiency is linked to phonological changes in code-mixing remains unknown. Lee (2012) compiled a Cantonese-English code-mixing speech corpus and claimed that Cantonese speakers ‘pronounced the same word in totally different ways in two situations’, namely in monolingual English utterances and Cantonese-English code-mixing. While Lee’s study offered insight for this study, that is, both English words in their monolingual settings and mixed-code were considered, it remains unknown whether the pronunciation of isolated English words is influenced by ESL learners’ usual practice of code-mixing. This research, therefore, includes aninvestigation of English words spoken in three different discourse styles: code-mixed utterances, pure English utterances, and separate stand-alone English lexical items. We focus on examining ESL learners differentiated into two proficiency groups, and how HP and MP participants demonstrate different, if not contrasting, effects of code-mixing on the pronunciation of various English words.

Attitudes Toward Code-Mixing and Its Effects on Pronunciation A majority of studies on attitudes toward code-mixing lies in purely education contexts and language acquisition (Dewaele& Wei, 2014), and do not stemfrom aspecific phonologicalperspective as in this study. For ESL learners’ attitudes toward code-mixing in Hong Kong, Lai (2010) concludedthat the participants who were ESL learners tended to attribute speaking a mixed-code to the ethnolinguistic identity of being a ‘Hongkonger’. Regan (2010) concluded that Hongkongers possessed an ‘overtly negative attitude’ toward Cantonese-English code-mixing, even when they used the mixed-code for various purposes. A potential problem with Regan’s study was neglecting how well these people mastered the embedded language of the mixed code, a factor that could possibly affect Hongkongers’ attitudes toward code-mixing. Speakers with different proficiency levels in the embedded language (L2) might hold different attitudes toward codemixing.It was also found that bilinguals who actually practise code-mixing perceived it as an indication of poor linguistic proficiency (Chana and Romaine, 1984). Dewaele and Wei (2014) identified various independent variables such as personality traits and the degree of multilingualism that were linked to attitudes toward code-mixing, again not considering speakers’ level of mastery of the embedded language. Regarding their attitudes toward the effects of code-mixing on both pronunciation and language learning, the authors recognized an absence of studies that compare the aforementioned trends inattitudes by English proficiency levels, the exception being Chen’s research, which compareddifferences in their first language backgrounds (Hong Kong Cantonese and Taiwan Mandarin). In view of the above research gaps, this study attempts to draw a connection between code-mixing and English proficiency by analyzing phonological features of English words used in code-mixing by HP and MP ESL learners. This study hypothesizes that the proficiency of ESL learners would serve as the key variable influencing their phonological features and their attitudes towards code-mixing and its effects on pronunciation. Such a hypothesis suggeststhat differences in the phonological features of code-mixing between the two groups of learners are explained by discrepancies in their proficiency. Likewise, variations in these learners’ attitudes toward code-mixing and its effects on pronunciation can be attributed to the same justification, leading to our hypothesis that HP participants hold a different view toward code-mixing and its effects on pronunciation and language learning than the MP group. This study poses the following two research questions: 1. What are the similarities and differences in the phonological code-mixing features between HP and MP

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ESL learners in Hong Kong? 2. What are HP and MP learners’ attitudes toward code-mixing and its effects on pronunciation in the target language?

Methods Participants Ten university students majoring in English and another ten majoring in physical education (PE) were invited to read aloud a prepared script containing a code-mixed monologue, where 24 English lexical items were embedded in Cantonese phrases. Then 22 English majors and another 22 PE majors, including the existing 20 participants, completed a questionnaire on their attitude toward code-mixing and issues related to pronunciation learning. In the two proficiency-varying groups, participants aged 18-25 years old were included. The native language of all participants was Cantonese and the compiled script sample was intelligible to them, since authentic informal and colloquial language was used forsome of the phrases. English Majors were selected to contribute to the first target group of research participants because it was assumed that they were relatively more advanced English learners, as reflected by their public examination performance. According to the admission requirements on English major programs at their university, students should achieve a grade of C or above in the Use of English in the Hong Kong Advanced Levels Examination (HKALE) or Level 5 in English Language of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). Since these English majors fulfilled one of these criteria, their major along with their public exam results serve as a reliable index reflectingtheir general HP ESL learner status in Hong Kong. Incontrast, the PE majors belonged to the MP group, as their HKALE or HKDSE English subjects’ results were all below grade C or the equivalent.

Instruments and Procedures Three phases of implementation proceeded in this study.

Phase I In the first phase, a Cantonese-English code-mixed speech sample in the form of a monologue (Appendix A) was created for a pilot study, where an Englishmajor and a PE major were invited to read the passage aloud. The sample contains a vast amount of colloquial and informal language in Cantonese. The purpose of this design was to offer a more localized and relatable linguistic context for the reading. For example, the phrase ‘勁神秘’ (‘very mysterious’) in the sample generally appears in spoken Cantonese. Forthe embedded English words, the selection criteria were mostly concerned with whether a variationexisted between the standard pronunciation and that produced by Cantonese-accented English. The selected tokens are categorized by types of Cantonese-accented features shown in Table 1. The tabulated phonological features were categorized on the basis of the systematic pronunciation errors observed by Chan and Li (2010) and the phonological changes in code-mixing identified by Chen (2013). For instance, Chan and Li (2010) highlighted howCantonese ESL learners ‘tended to transfer the articulatory habits [from Cantonese to English] of not releasing final plosives to English’, contributing to the feature of ‘not releasing the final stop consonant’, as exemplified by pronouncing book (/bʊkʰ/) as /bʊk/. As for vowels, the fact that Cantonese ESL learners were unaware of the difference between /æ/ and /e/ (Chan and Li, 2010)

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can be attributed to replacing /æ/ with /e/ in words like ‘man’ and ‘RAM’, which was analyzed by Chen (2013) and hypothesized in the present study. These tokens were deliberately placed in the monologue to offer participants more authentic code-mixed expressions. TABLE 1 Cantonese-Accented English Words by Phonological Feature Categories Features Number Replacing /n/ with /l/ /ˈlʌmˈbɑ:/ Replacing /r/ with other sounds Oral like /l/ or /w/ /ˈɔ:ˈləʊw/ Man Replacing /æ/ with /e/ /men/ Omitting the second consonant Present in a CC-type consonant cluster /ˈpi:ˈsen/ Replacing /l/ in the coda Email position with /w/ or simply /ˈji:ˈmeˌəʊw/ deleting it Replacing /eɪ/ with other Fake sounds /fɪk/ Not releasing the final stop Book consonant /bʊk/ Resyllabifying monosyllabic Notes words into bisyllabic ones /ˈlʊkˈsi:/ Stressing the unstressed Oral syllable (resulting in an equal /ˈɔ:ˈləʊw/ stress)

Selected Tokens (with predicted outcomes in IPA) Notes /ˈlʊkˈsi:/ Report /ˈwɪ:ˈpɒt/ Happy RAM /ˈheˈpi:/ /rem/ Print Friend /pi:n/ /fen/

Jacket /ˈdʒeˌket/ Claim /kem/

Sell /seʊw/

Small /smɔ:/

Cake /kɪk/ Jacket /ˈdʒeˌket/ Fans /ˈfenˈsi:/

Claim /kem/ Check /tsʰek/ Taste /ˈteɪˈsi:/

Size /ˈsɑɪˈsi:/

Potato /ˈpəʊˈteɪˌtəʊ/

Paper /ˈpeɪˌpɑ:/

Pizza /ˈpi:ˌsɑ:/

In addition to the aforementioned script sample in the form of a passage, a translated English version was included in this study, with all the key words appearing in the original code-mixed script, thus enhancing the comparability for the 24 tokens. The English script is shown in Appendix B. In addition, a list of all the English words previously appearing in the monologue had been prepared and the isolated words were expected to yield possible additional findings dependent on the context. The isolated items are shown in Appendix C.

Phase II In the second phase, 20 participants were invited to read the three refined scripts. The pronunciation of all the English words in the three script samples were phonologically analyzed by transcribing them into IPA. IPA transcriptions were carried out by the first author, an English major graduate previously taking Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, who had relevant experience in being a research assistant for phonetics research, also involving IPA transcriptions. The first author was also in training sessions conducted by the second author, in order to achieve inter-rater reliability. The second author was an experienced rater, holding a Ph.D. in Linguistics, specializingin inter-language phonetics and phonology. Her training sessions for the first author involved both instruction and hands-on practice on transcribing speeches from existing corpora data. This study selected the Received Pronunciation as the benchmark for comparison between the tokens produced by subjects and their standard phonological form. Subsequently, the rates and types of these identified variationswere summarized into tables. Out of a total of 1,500 tokens (25 words x 3 tasks x 20 participants), 15% (225 words) was randomly selected to check the IPA transcriptions by a second rater— another English major graduate who had taken the Introduction toPhonetics and Phonology course. The first author conducted training sections for the second rater in order to achieve inter-rater reliability. The second

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author later served as the third rater to double-check the IPA transcriptions to minimize unwanted prejudice that might arise. In order to reduce auditory prejudice, the authors also randomly selected 10% of all tokens and inspected their acoustic information against the same tokens produced by a native speaker of English.

Phase III In the third phase, a follow-up survey with a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree) was conducted to examine awareness and attitude toward code-mixing, as well as the relationship between code-mixing and pronunciation. Forty-four participants, 22 from each proficiency group, were asked to complete the questionnaire. Among the 20 questions in the survey, items 1, 2, 4 and 20 are related to attitudes toward CantoneseEnglish code-mixing, whereas 3, 6, 7, 8, 13 to 19 are about relationships between code-mixing and language learning. Finally, items 5, 9 to 12 focus on attitudes toward Cantonese-accented English.

Results and Discussion This section first describes the identified phonological features of HP and MP ESL participants. Next, it attempts to elaborate on the similarities and differences in features between the two proficiency groups by comparing the cross-task percentages and types of phonological variations, answering the first research question raised by the authors. Finally, the results of the survey on attitudes toward code-mixing and its effect on pronunciation are presented and explained in response to this study’s second research question.

Phonological Features in Code-Mixing Participants from the two proficiency groups were asked to read aloud a code-mixed passage containing Cantonese sentences embedded with English words. Given the objectives of this study, we hypothesized that the two groups would exhibit rather diverse results in their phonological features in code-mixing. In other words, the differences in these features between the two groups were assumed to outweigh the similarities. Consequently, both similarities and differences in phonological features between HP and MP spoken data were identified. The findings are summarised in Table 2.

Similarities and differences in phonological features in code-mixing Similarities between HP and MP ESL learners.As shown in Table 2, five tokens were selected from the 25 embedded English words, since they are lexical items that illustrate the relatively more prominent phonological changes in code-mixing, according to previous studies and predictions, as shown in Table 1. In terms of similarities between the two proficiency groups, the phonological adaptation strategies employed on embedded English words were found to be fairly common to both HP and MP participants. For instance, in the word ‘oral’, the change in vowel quality of the schwa /ə/ in the second syllable to /əʊ/ tended to be a commonly observed feature for participants from both groups. The same phenomenon of highly similar phonological features can also be applied to other selected tokens in Table 2. In fact, the verb ‘present’ even shows that HP and MP participants had five phonological adaptation strategies in common. For instance, the first vowel, a short /ɪ/, in the word wasrealized as a high front /i:/ by both the HP and MP speakers. Table 3 shows the corresponding acoustic information comparing the /ɪ/ produced by the native speaker with the /i:/ produced by both HP and MP speakers. Likewise, Figures 1, 2 and 3 are the spectrograms of the different

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phonetic realizations of the first vowel in present as demonstrated by the three speakers. It was observed that the Formant 2 (F2) values of both HP and MP speakers washigher thanfor the native English speaker, indicating that HP and MP speakers produced an /i:/ instead of an /ɪ/. The acoustic information and pictures were obtained using Praat. TABLE2 Comparison of Phonological Features in Code-Mixing Between HP and MP ESL Learners Token oral

IPA /ˈɔ:ˌrəl/

jacket

/ˈdʒæˌkɪt/

notes

/nəʊts/

present

/prɪˈzent/

claim

/kleɪm/

High-proficiency (HP) Mid-proficiency (MP) 1. Substitution of the syllable-initial consonant /r/ by /l/ 2. Absence of stress pattern (equal stress for the two syllables) 3. Change of vowel quality from schwa /ə/ to /əʊ/ in the second syllable, combined with /w/ 4. Deletion of the word-final consonant /l/ / 1. Vowel shortening from /ɔ:/ to /ɒ/ 1. Replacing the open-mid vowel /æ/ with /e/ 2. Vowel lengthening from /ɪ/ (in the unstressed syllable) to a long vowel /e/ 3. Not releasing the word-end stop-plosive consonant /t/ / 1. Dropping the word-final consonant /t/ 1. Monophthongizing the diphthong /əʊ/ as monophthong /ʊ/ 2. Substitution of consonant /t/ by /k/ 3. Re-syllabification from one syllable to two 1. Confusion between word-initial nasal / /n/ and /l/ 1. Dropping of the consonant /r/ in the consonant cluster /pr/ 2. Vowel lengthening of /ɪ/ to /i:/ 3. Devoicing of the voiced consonant /z/ to a voiceless consonant /s/ 4. Not releasing the word-final stop-plosive consonant /t/ 5. Deletion of the word-final stop-plosive consonant /t/ 6. Absence of stress pattern (equal stress) / / 1. Dropping of the consonant /l/ in the consonant cluster /kl/ 2. Monophthongizing the diphthong /eɪ/ as /e/ / /

TABLE 3 Acoustic Information of the First Vowel in “Present” Realized by Different Speakers Duration F1 F2

Native Speaker [ɪ] 21.761ms 392.35 1579.82

High-proficiency [i:] 92.817ms 422.6 2556.28

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Mid-proficiency [i:] 82.631ms 420.34 2339.26

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Figure 1. Spectrogram m of /ɪ/ in “pressent” producedd by a native Ennglish speakerr.

Figure 2. Spectrogram m of /i:/ in “preesent” produced by an HP parrticipant.

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Figure 3. Spectrogram m of /i:/ in “preesent” produced by an MP paarticipant.

Diffeerences between HP and MP ESL leaarners.Table 2 shows a maxximum of one difference in the phonoloogical featuress between thee two groups. For example, for the word ‘jacket’, thee only identiffied differennce was that MP M participannts tended to drop d the wordd-final stop-plosive consonaant /t/, while HP H particippants tended to o keep it but not n release it. Instances of drropping or not releasing finaal plosives amoong both prroficiency grou ups was consisstent with Chann and Li’s (20010) findings thhat ‘final plosiives tended to be swallow wed’. In fact, these t results suuggestedthat siimilarities in phonological chhanges in codee-mixing betweeen the twoo proficiency groups exceeeded the diffeerences, thus rejecting the study’s hypotthesis of diveerse phonoloogical featuress between HP and MP partiicipants. At thiis stage of thee study, the annswer to whethher proficieency level serv ves as the key factor affectinng phonologicaal features cannnot be safely assured, a owingg to the uneexpected findin ngs that refutedd our hypothessis. Nevertheless, the instrum ments of this stuudy included two t other sccripts for a beetter comparabbility of each token t under diifferent contexxts. The recordding of the codemixed passage p was co onducted in thee second phasee and so were the t sessions foor the English passage p and woord list. Simiilarities and differences in i phonologiical features in differentt contexts.Appart from broaddly comparring the phono ological featurees between HP P and MP partiicipants, we coonducted a dettailed analysiss of thecolleected spoken data. d First, eachh proficiency group g was sepaarately treated by examining the phonologiical changess across the thrree samples, naamely the original code-mixeed passage, thee English translation and the list of standd-alone words,, for comparisoon across tasks within the saame proficienccy group. The ratesand typess of phonoloogical variation nsfor each proficiency groupp were then tabbulated and subbject to inter-grroup comparison. Tables 3 and 4 presen nt a summary of o the cross-taskk variationanallysis for both groups. g In booth tables, for each of the fivve selected tokkens, the rate of variationin each of the thhree contexts was w calculatted and record ded. Takingthee first token ‘oral’ in Tablee 3 as an exam mple,the rate of variation was w measured by dividing g the number of o participants by a variantprronunciation (99) in the HP group g by the tootal numberr of participaants in the saame group (12), showing that 75% off the HP paarticipants hadd a variantppronunciation in code-mixinng for ‘oral’. ‘C’, ‘E’ and ‘W’ representt acontext whhere the variatiion occurreed. For instancee, the first typee of variation (consonant subbstitution) for ‘oral’ was onlyy observed in the

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context of code-mixing, while the third type (vowel lengthening) was observed in all three contexts. These context-based markings supplemented further analysis for whether some deviances exclusively emerged in the code-mixing context but not in the other two. Focusing on the first token ‘oral,’ fewer HP participants (75%) produced a variantpronunciation than MP participants (100%) in code-mixing. In the context of pure English, however, the variation rate for‘oral’ dropped to 50% for HP learners, while that for MP learners remained unchanged (100%). From the observed types of variation, a larger portion of MP learners tended to lengthen the short vowel /ə/ in the second syllable of ‘oral’ to a long vowel /əʊ/, thus leading to another variation—the absence of a stress pattern between the two syllables. When progressing to the third task (a list of isolated English words), HP learners’ rate of variationfor ‘oral’ fell to only 8.33%, one-tenth of the MP learners’ rate (83.3%). On the other hand, the changes in the rates of variation for ‘oral’ across the three tasks for HP participants (75%, 50% and 8.33%) showed a larger disparitythan the comparable changes for MP participants (100%, 100% and 83.3%). Similar patterns of differencesin the rates of variation across tasks were observed in other selected tokens, such as ‘notes’ (HP: 83.3%, 41.7%, 16.7% vs. MP: 100%, 100%, 97%) and the verb ‘present’ (HP: 100%, 91.7%, 75% vs. MP: 100%, 100%, 100%). The general trend for HP learners’ was a gradual decrease in the rates of variation of tokens across the three tasks. This result showed HP learners’ relative flexibility in switching between accents of English in varying linguistic contexts, partially corroborating the claim that relative language proficiency influences flexibility of code-mixing (Koorstra, Van Hell & Dijkstra, 2012). Incontrast, examples such as ‘jacket’ (MP: 100%, 100%, 100%) and ‘present’ (MP: 100%, 100%, 100%) illustrated the common trend for MP learners, that is, their rates of variation of tokens across tasks tended to diminish by a slight proportion or even remain unchanged.

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TABLE 4 Intra-Group Comparison of Phonological Features for HP Participants Across the Three Tasks Tokens

1. oral

Rates of Variation Code-Mixing English Word List (C) (E) (W)

75%

50%

8.33%

2. jacket

91.7%

58.3%

58.3%

3. notes

83.3%

41.7%

16.7%

4. present

100%

91.7%

75%

5. claim

16.7%

0

0

Types of Variation 1. Substitution of the syllable-initial consonant /r/ by /l/ (C) 2. Absence of stress pattern (equal stress for the two syllables) (C) 3. Change of vowel quality from schwa /ə/ to long vowel /əʊ/ in the second syllable, combined with /w/ (C, E, W) 4. Deletion of the word-final consonant /l/ (C, E, W) 1. Replacing the open-mid vowel /æ/ with /e/ (C, E, W) 2. Vowel lengthening from schwa /ə/ (in the unstressed syllable) to a long vowel /e/ (C, E, W) 3. Not releasing the word-end stop-plosive consonant /t/ (C, E, W) 1. Confusion between the word-initial /n/ and /l/ sounds (C) 2. Monophthongizing the diphthong /əʊ/ as monophthong /ʊ/ (C, E, W) 3. Substitution of consonant /t/ by /k/ (C, E, W) 4. Re-syllabification from one syllable to two (C) 1. Dropping of the consonant /r/ in the consonant cluster /pr/ (C) 2. Vowel lengthening of /ɪ/ to /i:/ (C) 3. Devoicing of the voiced consonant /z/ to a voiceless consonant /s/ (C, E, W) 4. Not releasing the word-final stop-plosive consonant /t/ (C, E) 5. Absence of stress pattern (equal stress) (C) 1. Dropping of the consonant /l/ in the consonant cluster /kl/ (C) 2. Monophthongizing the diphthong /eɪ/ as /e/ (C)

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TABLE 5 Intra-Group Comparison of Phonological Features for MP Participants Across the Three Tasks Tokens

Rates of Variation Code-Mixing English Word List (C) (E) (W)

1. oral

100%

100%

83.3%

2. jacket

100%

100%

100%

3. notes

100%

100%

91.7%

4. present

100%

100%

100%

5. claim

58.3%

33.3%

33.3%

Types of Variation 1. Substitution of the syllable-initial consonant /r/ by /l/ (C) 2. Absence of stress pattern (equal stress for the two syllables) (C) 3.Change of vowel quality from schwa /ə/ to long vowel /əʊ/ in the second syllable, combined with /w/ (C, E, W) 4. Deletion of the word-final consonant /l/ (C, E, W) 5. Vowel shortening from /ɔ:/ to /ɒ/ (C, E, W) 1. Replacing the open-mid vowel /æ/ with /e/ (C, E, W) 2. Vowel lengthening from /ɪ/ (in the unstressed syllable) to a long vowel /e/ (C, E, W) 3. Not releasing the word-end stop-plosive consonant /t/ (C, E, W) 4. Dropping the word-final consonant /t/ (C, E, W) 1. Confusion between the word-initial /n/ and /l/ sounds (C E, W) 2. Monophthongizing the diphthong /əʊ/ as monophthong /ʊ/ (C, E, W) 3. Substitution of consonant /t/ by /k/ (C, E, W) 4. Re-syllabification from one syllable to two (C) 1. Dropping of the consonant /r/ in the consonant cluster /pr/ (C, E, W) 2. Vowel lengthening of /ɪ/ to /i:/ (C, E, W) 3. Devoicing of the voiced consonant /z/ to a voiceless consonant /s/ (C, E, W) 4. Deletion of the word-final stop-plosive consonant /t/ (C, E, W) 5. Absence of stress pattern (equal stress) (C, E, W) 1. Dropping of the consonant /l/ in the consonant cluster /kl/ (C, E, W) 2. Monophthongizing the diphthong /eɪ/ as /e/ (C, E, W)

Moreover, the results of these recording tasks questioned the previous hypothesis that HP and MP ESL learners would show relatively diverse effects in their pronunciation of various English words in a mixed code, where the difference in their English proficiency levels would explain the predicteddifferences in phonological features. In spite of the hypothesis, findings implythat similarities inphonological features in code-mixing between the HP and MP learners outweighed the observed differences. Using the token ‘oral’ as an example again, both HP and MP learners tended to delete the word-final consonant /l/, while our hypothesis predicted the HP participants would not demonstrate such a phonological variation. An alternative explanation is that HP ESL learners tended to adapt to the Cantonese accent when pronouncing English words embedded in Cantonese utterances, instead of adhering to the standard pronunciation, owing to the learners’ personal preferences. This is also supported by this study’s statistical findings from the survey on ESL learners’ attitudes toward code-mixing. In sum, the results of the questionnaire survey foundthat HP participants did not have a particularly positive attitude toward speaking with standard pronunciation in code-mixing, the details of which are explained in the following section. Although merely comparing the phonological changes in code-mixing between two proficiency groups does not prove the hypothesis correct, the follow-up analysis of the cross-task performance of participants yielded new insights into the research questions. Accordingly, the rates of variation of selected tokens across the three

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tasks produced by a single proficiency group reflected the trend in the various types of phonological variationin different contexts. In particular, for ‘oral’, the findings showed that HP participants replaced the syllable-initial /r/ consonant with /l/ only in the context of code-mixing but not in pure English and isolated words. Here as well, this observation can be explained by the HP learners’ phonological adaptation of the Cantonese accent in English pronunciation, since the consonant /r/ does not appear in the Cantonese sound system. It is noteworthy that this first-language influence prevailed only in the context of code-mixing but not in the other two pure English (L2) contexts, as shown by the phonological deviances in certain tokens in the HP group (those marked with C only in Table 3). Likewise, for the token ‘notes’, results showed that the MP participants resyllabified the word from one syllable to two, resulting in a pseudo-pronunciation, similar to producing the sounds of two Cantonese words. Following the analysis of the cross-tasks phonological deviances of one proficiency group is the comparison of the deviances between the HP and MP groups.

Survey Results on Attitudes Toward Code-Mixing The survey explored HP and MP ESL learners’ attitudes toward Cantonese-English code-mixing, attitudes toward Cantonese-accented English, and the relationship between code-mixing and language learning. It is comprised of 20 five-point Likert-type items. Regarding the participants’ attitudes toward code-mixing (items 1, 2, 4 and 20 as shown in Table 5), both HP and MP ESL learners largely agreed that they felt comfortable code-mixing (4.36 vs. 4.18). Of the total, 86.3% of MP participants responded positively to being comfortable with code-mixing, while the HP group was slightly less positive, with 81.7% agreeing with the statement. Second, both groups moderately agreed that they would practice more code-mixing when they achieved higher English language proficiency (3.68 vs. 3.36). In addition, 63.6% of the HP participants subscribed to the statement and only 36.6% of the MP group held the same view. TABLE 6 Survey Results for Items 1, 2, 4 and 20 HP

SA (%) 59

MP

31.8

54.5

13.6

-

-

4.18

.665

HP

9.1

54.5

31.8

4.5

-

3.68

.716

MP

4.5

31.8

59

4.5

-

3.36

.658

HP

4.5

22.7

4.5

45.5

22.7

2.41

1.221

MP

18.2

22.7

27.3

22.7

9.1

3.18

1.259

HP

4.5

4.5

9.09

63.6

18.2

2.14

.941

MP

-

13.6

31.8

50

4.5

2.55

.800

Group 1. I feel comfortable speaking with code-mixing (中英夾雜), e.g. 今日要唔要上lecture? 2. The higher the English language proficiency I achieve, the more code-mixing I would use. 4. I find it comfortable to speak in Cantonese completely without code-mixing. 20. People often ask me not to combine Cantonese and English in a conversation.

D (%) 4.5

SDi (%) -

M

SD

22.7

N (%) 13.6

4.36

.902

A (%)

t

p

.761

.451

1.535

.132

-2.067

.045*

-1.553

.128

5 = Strongly agree (SA); 4 = Agree (A); 3 = Neutral (N); 2 = Disagree (D); 1 = Strongly disagree (SDi) * p< .05, ** p< .01 For attitudes toward Cantonese-accented English (items 5 and 9-12 in Table 6), the two groups took a similar stance of somewhat appreciating spoken Hong Kong English (3.23 vs. 3.32). Nevertheless, a slightly larger portion of HP participants (22.7%) did not like Hong Kong English than the MP participants (13.6%). In their identities, both groups held a fairly positive view toward the comment that having a Cantonese accent in English acted as a symbol of identity as a Hongkonger (3.23 vs. 3.23), with more HP participants

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considering the Cantonese accent of English as an identity marker(54.5% vs. 44.4%). Both groups adequately agreed that speaking in Cantonese-accented English was natural for Hong Kong locals (3.82 vs. 3.82), with a significantly large portion of MP participants (81.8%) agreeing with the statement. A smaller portion of the HP group, though stilla high percentage (72.7%), also answered positively. TABLE 7 Survey Results for Items 5, and 9-12 A (%) 40.9

N (%) 27.3

D (%) 18.2

SDi (%) 4.5

M

SD

t

HP

SA (%) 4.5

3.23

.973

-.353

MP

-

45.5

40.9

13.6

-

3.32

.716

HP

-

54.5

18.2

22.7

4.5

3.23

.973

MP

4.5

40.9

31.8

18.2

4.5

3.23

.973

HP

13.6

59.1

22.7

4.5

-

3.82

.733

MP

4.5

77.3

13.6

4.5

-

3.82

.588

HP

-

13.6

18.2

54.5

3.6

2.32

.894

MP

-

9.1

54.5

36.4

-

2.73

.631

HP

9.1

18.2

18.2

40.9

3.6

2.68

1.210

MP

-

18.2

45.5

31.2

4.5

2.77

.813

Group 5. I like speaking Hong Kong English, e.g. actually; she is so charm; I'm looping this song, etc. 9. I think having a Cantonese accent in English is a symbol of identity as a Hongkonger. 10. I think speaking in Cantonese-accented English is natural for Hong Kong locals. 11. I think Hong Kong people who speak in standard pronunciation are not that localized. 12. I think Hong Kong English will become a new variety of English in the future, like Singaporean English.

p .726

.000 1.000 .000 1.000 -1.754 .088 -.292 .772

The rest of the items (3, 6-8 and 13-19 in Table 7) elicited the ESL learners’ responses to the relationship between code-mixing and language learning, including pronunciationlearning. Both groups were positive toward wanting to speak like a nativeEnglish speaker (4.45 vs. 4.05). A remarkable 95.5% of the HP group had a positive view and no participants held a negative view. On the other hand, a 86.4% majority of the MP participants wanted a near-native accent. HP participants tended to feel more discouraged when told that their pronunciation was incorrect (3.64 vs. 3.18). Accordingly, an exclusive 22.7% of the HP participants reacted strongly, while no MP participants held such a strong view. Considering code-mixing andEnglish pronunciation-learning, the HP group largely disagreed that codemixing would help them learn better English pronunciation, and the MP group viewed it less negatively (2.27 vs. 2.73). Among the HP participants, a largeportion (72.6%) did not think code-mixing helped improvetheir English pronunciation. Only 36.4% of the HP participants wanted to speak with standard pronunciation in code-mixing, while a larger portion of MP participants (59.1%) did. Forthe followingitems, the HP participants were more aware that they had a different English pronunciation when speaking in a mixed code than before participating in the research (3.5 vs. 3.18). When asked whether they could smoothly switch between Cantonese-accented English in code-mixing and standard pronunciation in English, HP participants tended to be more confident in their ability in switching than MP participants (4.23 vs. 3.64). Among the HP participants, a significant number (90.9%) was assured of their own ability. Of the MP participants, although a notablerate (68.2%) claimed to be able to switch between accents, 13.6% were still somewhat not confident. Both groups felt negatively towardEnglish teachers using code-mixing in class (2.73 vs. 2.59). Of the MP group, almost half (45.5%) did not prefer code-mixing in English classes. Slightly more than half of the HP participants (54.5%) were neutral toward the use of code-mixing in English classes. In the same setting, both groups seemingly preferred their English teachers using English as the medium of instruction (EMI)in class

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(3.91 vs. 3.95). When asked whether they liked their non-English teachers for EMI subjects(e.g. math class instructed in English) using code-mixing in class, MP participants seemed more positive than the HP group (3.14 vs. 3.45). More than half of the MP group (54.5%) liked the use of code-mixing in EMI subjects, except in English lessons, while only 31.8% of the HP participants liked this idea. TABLE 8 Survey Results for Items 3, 6-8 and 13-19 A (%) 4.5 13.6 40.9 50 45.5 59.1 36.4

N (%) 22.7 50 13.6 27.3 4.5 4.5 22.7

D (%) 68.1 31.8 22.7 13.6 9.1 31.8

SDi (%) 4.5 4.5 9.1 4.5

M

SD

HP MP HP MP HP MP HP

SA (%) 22.7 50 27.3 4.5

2.27 2.73 3.64 3.18 4.45 4.05 3.05

.631 .767 1.093 1.006 .596 .844 1.046

MP

-

59.1

31.8

4.5

4.5

3.45

.800

HP

22.7

40.9

4.5

27.3

4.5

3.5

1.263

MP

-

31.8

54.5

13.6

-

3.18

.665

HP MP

31.8 9.1

59.1 59.1

9.1 18.2

13.6

-

4.23 3.64

.612 .848

Group 3. Code-mixing helps me learn better English pronunciation. 6. I feel discouraged when I am told that my pronunciation is incorrect. 7. I want to speak like a native speaker when I learn English. 8. I want to speak with standard English pronunciation in codemixing. 13. I notice myself having a different pronunciation in English words when I speak with code-mixing before joining this research. 14. I can smoothly switch between the Cantonese accent in code-mixing and standard pronunciation in English depending on the context, e.g. chit-chatting with classmates, presenting a group project. 15. I like my English teachers using English-Cantonese code-mixing in class. 16. I prefer my English teachers using purely English as the medium of instruction in class. 17. I like my non-English-teaching HK teachers (teaching EMI subjects) using English-Cantonese code-mixing in class. 18. I prefer my non-English-teaching HK teachers (teaching EMI subjects) using only English in class. 19. Using English-Cantonese codemixing in class helps me better understand the content.

HP

4.5

4.5

54.5

31.8

4.5

2.73

.827

MP

-

22.7

31.8

27.3

18.2

2.59

1.054

HP

22.7

45.5

31.8

-

-

3.91

.750

MP

22.7

54.5

18.2

4.5

-

3.95

.785

HP

-

31.8

50

18.2

-

3.14

.710

MP

4.5

50

36.4

4.5

4.5

3.45

.858

HP

4.5

27.3

50

18.2

-

3.18

.795

MP

-

18.2

54.5

27.3

-

2.91

.684

HP

-

63.6

31.8

4.5

-

3.59

.590

MP

22.7

45.5

27.3

-

4.5

3.82

.958

t

p

-2.146

.038*

1.435

.159

1.857

.071

-1.457

.153

1.046

.304

2.651

.012**

.477

.635

-.196

.845

-1.340

.188

1.220

.229

-.947

.350

After running the independent samples t-test, results from items 3, 4 and 14 yielded statistical significance (p< .05). Regarding the relationship between code-mixing and pronunciation learning, in spite of the general positive attitudes toward code-mixing, both proficiency groups actually disapproved of the idea that codemixing helped improve their English pronunciation. This finding is in line with Chen’s (2013), as her Hong Kong participants also had negative viewstoward the notion. Also, it seemed clearthat Cantonese learners of English, regardless of their English proficiency levels, did not regard code-mixing as a way of learning English pronunciation, because a mixed code generally resulted in a Cantonese accented English, as in this study’s phonological findings, and this accent gave rise to numerous systematic pronunciation problems, as

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stated by Chan and Li (2010). Second, for responses to learners’ self-rated ability to switch between accents depending on the context, the MP learners regarded themselves as being fairly able to switch between the Cantonese accent and standard pronunciation, although the phonological data of the present study showedotherwise. The MP learners showed negligible differences in pronouncing English tokens across the three tasks indifferent contexts, which means they were actually less able to switch between accents than they believed. Finally, although Chen’s findings (2013) concluded that HKE speakers felt less comfortable about speaking Cantonese without code-mixing, this study revealed that ESL learners of lower proficiency derived more comfort from such a practice. An account for this observation is that the MP participants tended to make more attempts in speaking with standard English pronunciation in code-mixing, according to this study’s quantitative findings, while in fact, they were less able to pronounce ‘correctly’ as shown by their comparatively higher rates of variation in producing the tokens in the code-mixed task.

Conclusion In such a diglossic city as Hong Kong, phonological changes in the pronunciation of English words in Cantonese-English code-mixing are almost unavoidable, since Cantonese speakers of English are habituated to conforming to the phonological system of their native language, Cantonese. Together with typological differences between Chinese and English (Chan and Li, 2000; Chang, 2001), the previous reason explains why Cantonese ESL learners exhibitsuch an accent in theirHong Kong English.

Phonological Changes in Different Contexts in Relation to Proficiency Taking the learners’ English proficiency levels into account, the findings of this study implied that both HP and MP ESL learners employed phonological adaptation from Cantonese when pronouncing English words in Cantonese utterances. For example, both groups tended to delete the word-final liquid consonant /l/ in ‘oral’ when the word appeared in code-mixing. However, when the context was varied from a mixed code to pure English, learners of higher English proficiency demonstrated a higher accuracy of pronunciation by omitting such errors as lacking a stress pattern in bisyllabicwords such as ‘oral’ and ‘paper’.In contrast, the change in context from code-mixing to English did not cause learners of lower proficiency (MP) to restore the phonological features of standard English pronunciation. Nevertheless, HP learners tended to make some common basicmistakes, for example, not releasing the word-final stop-plosive consonant /t/ in the pronunciation of words such the noun ‘jacket’ and verb ‘present’, even in the contexts of pure English and an isolated list of words. We expected that the higher proficiency level of learners, the better the pronunciation. This tendency was only evident amongHP learners’ in the context of an isolated word list when compared to the MP learners.

Implications for Teaching One teaching implication is that English teachers or teachers in the field of English phonetics and phonology in tertiary education can make more pedagogical effort for HP ESL learners in the pronunciation of words atphrasal and sentential levels, since the task with the word list in this study indicated HP learners as the more successful group. For teaching English pronunciation to lower-proficiency ESL learners, special effort is needed in drawing their attention to commonly used words in the higher education context, as pronunciation problems such as monophthongizing diphthongs (e.g., the diphthong /əʊ/ in ‘notes’ becoming a monophthong /ʊ/) were serious, as observed in this study. Moreover, the finding that MP learners were less

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able to switch between accents than their self-perceived ability can also draw L2 teachers’ attention to helping lower-proficiency ESL learners to identify their own English pronunciation issues and attempt to remove deviated English due to code-switches in English classrooms. This study also identified some frequent “pronunciation errors” in contexts other than code-mixing, as those variationswere in the English contexts and could be regarded as “pronunciation errors” by other speakers of English. Moreover, these deviances were foundin both proficiency groups, meaning that even high-proficiency speakers would be prone to these errors. For instance, speakers tended to monophthongize diphthongs (e.g., /əʊ/ to /ʊ/), devoice voiced consonants (e.g., /z/ to /s/ in ‘size’ and ‘present’), and lengthen unstressed vowel (e.g., /ə/ to /e/ in ‘jacket’). These errors, as observed in the present study, might be due to first-language interference from Cantonese, since this language does not contain diphthongs, voiced consonants, or the schwa. Regardless of the linguistic reasoning behind the causes of such deviances, Cantonese learners should be made more aware of the linguistic similarities and differences between their first language and their second language (English). A practical way to raise this awareness is to implement the teaching of knowledge related to the contrastive paradigms between Cantonese and English. Tertiary education instructors of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses in Hong Kong are suggested to at least touch on the topic of Chinese-English contrastive phonology. This act could draw students’ attention to phonological differences between the Cantonese and English and thereby help them prevent or rectify some of the above pronunciation issues. In terms of attitudes, both proficiency groups of learners generally disregarded the idea that code-mixing improved their English pronunciation, since some of them would not speak with the Standard English pronunciation in Cantonese-English code-mixing. ESL teachers can take this learners’ preference into consideration when designing the pedagogical contentsfor English lessons, pronunciation training sessions in particular. Nonetheless, more of the lower-proficiency ESL learners hoped to speak with standard pronunciation in code-mixing but were unable to do so. This could explain previous research findings as to why learners with a lower L2 proficiency tended to use L1 to a greater extent in the classroom (Svensden, 2014). This study correlates learners’ phonological accuracy and willingness to use code-mixing, as we conjecture that lower-proficiency ESL learners speak with their L1 more frequently than code-mixing because they are less able to speak with standard pronunciation of words from the embedded language (i.e., the L2) in codemixing. However, a possible consequence that might arise would be that these lower-proficiency language learners’ have reduced opportunities to speak their L2 out of the language class, since they are unwilling to use code-mixing that involves inserted words in the L2. It is therefore suggested that ESL teachers can encourage learners to take the initiative to speak their L2 in other classes regardless of whether code-mixing is used, as the lack of authentic use of English has been identified as a problem in English education in Hong Kong, and also in other regions where English is a second or foreign language (Choi and Lee, 2008).

English Proficiency Findings from HP learners’ pronunciation also suggested that attaining a higher proficiency level in learning a second language as reflected by their overall public exam grades do not necessarily mean a more outstanding performance in lexical pronunciation from the second language, in spite of phonological accuracy being one of the important features reflecting oral proficiency (Iwashita et al., 2008). A candidate with an above-average grade in an English subject does not guarantee that he or she would also attain an aboveaverage level in oral proficiency. Upcoming studies related to English phonological features in Hong Kong are, therefore, advised to consider choosing participants’ grades attained in the speaking paper of public exams such as the HKDSE for a more precise indication of oral proficiency, rather than using the results of

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the HKDSE English section as an indicator. This will allow for the delineation of target participants for different research objectives. Alternatively, results of international standardized English tests such asIELTS and TOEFL can be used as indicators of learners’ English proficiency in future studies, instead of results from local public exams. It is hoped that this study’s analysis of phonological changes in code-mixing and the other two contexts demonstrated by HP and MP learners will offer guidance to ESL teachers in identifying the types of learner difficulties (Chan and Li, 2010) encountered by ESL learners of different proficiency levels in Hong Kong, and in appropriating various corrective measures to suit the needs of different learners.

Attitudes Toward Code-Mixing in Relation to Proficiency In the questionnaire results, the overall attitudes of ESL learners toward the use of code-mixing in daily life and in the classroom setting were generally positive, mirroring Chen’s findings (2013) regarding HKE speakers’ attitudes toward code-mixing. Both groups agreed with the naturalness of Cantonese-accented English and its function ofreflecting their sense of identity, echoing Lai’s (2010) findings. This mutual view was in line with Grovein his study on Hong Kong English (2009) that ‘some form of mixed-code becomes an identity carrier’, indicating that Cantonese ESL learners’ attitudes toward Cantonese-accented English were more governed by their identification as Hongkongers than the proficiency level they attained or demonstrated. A possible justification is the increasing readiness of the younger generation in accepting localized forms of English (Schneider, 2007), owing to their growing concern and awareness of the importance of locality, possibly exemplified by recent political movements and events in different parts of the world. This finding also validated Jenkin’s (2009) claim that ESL speakers takeinto consideration their own local identity when speaking a second language. It was also interesting to see that fewer MP learners treated the Cantonese accented English as a symbol of identity than HP learners, even though the MP participants exhibited relatively more features similar to those in Cantonese-accented English across all three tasks in the study. With respect to teaching and learning, both groups of ESL learners preferred teachers using codemixing in class, which enabled them to learn more effectively. This conclusion can only be applied to the situation for non-English EMI subjects, not English lessons, since learners disliked English teachers using a mixed code. This study anticipates that English teachers will try adopting pure English instruction in English language classes while accounting for the large variety of learners’ demands attributed to their varying English proficiency levels. Finally, this study attempted to offer insights into the existing literature on second language phonology or localized phonology, adding English proficiency level as a new area of investigation by adopting a researchbased approach in examining the Cantonese-accented English of HP and MP learners. It also endeavoured to compare the phonological changes of the two proficiency groups in three contexts—code-mixing, pure English and word lists—and explore the difference in learners’ attitude toward code-mixing by comparing the two proficiency groups. Possible future studies are encouraged to conduct follow-up interviews to acquire additional information from participants about their detailed comments on code-mixing, for example, whether they are always self-conscious of the phonological changes in code-mixing. With an established record of research examining code-mixing, it is hoped that more studies will be conducted in the direction of correlating English proficiency and phonological changes in code-mixing. Furthermore, as participants from the current study were English majors who would become English teachers in the future, or PE majors who would possibly become PE teachers in an EMI school, the phonological changes of these participants might yield significant impact on their students. Combining the findings for the two research questions, we anticipate that studies will emerge to provide implications for teacher education by examining the rates of variation in producing various English words in different contexts demonstrated by two distinctive proficiency groups.

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The Authors Tzi Dong Jeremy Nggraduated with his B.A. in Language Studies (English Major) at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. His main research interests include cross-linguistic phonology and Chinese-English contrastive grammar. Being a native speaker of Cantonese, he has always been interested in the pronunciation of accented English words in Hong Kong. During his undergraduate study at HKIEd, he worked as a student research assistant. He is pursuing M.A. in Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong while serving as a research assistant at the Faculty of Education in The University of Hong Kong. Department of Linguistics The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam, Hong Kong Tel: +852 93365067 Email: [email protected] Hsueh Chu Rebecca Chenis Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies in The Education University of Hong Kong. Her chief areas of interest are inter-language phonology, experimental phonetics and computer assisted language learning. She has carried out extensive research on issues of second language learners’ oral fluency and pronunciation, particularly the extent to which accent interferes with intelligibility. She has also studied native and non-native speaker reactions to Chineseaccented speech. Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies The EducationUniversity of Hong Kong No. 10, Lo Ping Rd., Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong Tel: +852 29487376 Email: [email protected]

References Altmann, H., &Kabak, B. (2010).Second language phonology. Kula, N., Botma, B., Nasukawa, K., Continuum companion to phonology. London: Continuum, 298-319. Bialystok, E., McBride-Chang, C., & Luk, G. (2005).Bilingualism, language proficiency, and learning to read in two writing systems.Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(4), 580. Chan, A. Y. W., & Li, D. C. S. (2000). English and Cantonese phonology in contrast: Explaining Cantonese ESL learners’ English pronunciation problems. Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 13(1), 67-85. Chan, J. Y. H., & Evans, S. (2011). Choosing an appropriate pronunciation model for the ELT classroom: A Hong Kong perspective.TheJournal of Asia TEFL, 8(4), 1-24. Chana, U., & Romaine, S. (1984). Evaluative reactions to Panjabi/English code ‐ switching. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 5(6), 447-473. Chang, J. (2001). Chinese speaker. In M. Swan & B. Smith (Eds.), Learner English: A teacherʼs guide to interference and otherproblems (2nd ed., pp. 310-324). Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press. Chen, H. C. (2011). Judgments of intelligibility and foreign accent by listeners of different language backgrounds. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 8(4), 61-83. Chen, H. C. (2013). Phonological changes in code-mixing and the effects on foreign accents: a comparative study. English Teaching & Learning, 37(4), 55-89.

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Choi, Y. H., & Lee, H. W. (2008).Current trends and issues in English language education in Asia.The Journal of AsiaTEFL, 5(2), 1-34. Deterding, D., Wong, J., & Kirkpatrick, A. (2008).The pronunciation of Hong Kong English. English WorldWide, 29(2), 148-175. Dewaele, J. M., & Wei, L. (2014).Attitudes towards code-switching among adult mono-and multilingual language users. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 35(3), 235-251. Groves, J. (2009). Hong Kong English: Does it exist?.HKBU Papers in Applied Language Studies, 13, 54-79. Hung, T. T. N. (2000). Towards a phonology of Hong Kong English.World Englishes,19(3), 337-356. Iwashita, N., Brown, A., McNamara, T., & O’Hagan, S. (2008). Assessed levels of second language speaking proficiency: How distinct?Applied Linguistics, 29(1), 24-49. Jalil, S. A. (2009). Grammatical perspectives on code-switching.Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem, 13(7), 1-11 Jenkins, J. (2009). English as a lingua franca: Interpretations and attitudes. World Englishes, 28(2), 200-207. Kootstra, G. J., Van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T. (2012). Priming of code-switches in sentences: The role of lexical repetition, cognates, and language proficiency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(4), 797-819. Lai M. L. (2010). Social class and language attitudes in Hong Kong.The International Multilingual Research Journal, 4(2), 83-106. Lee, J. (2012). A Corpus-based analysis of mixed code in Hong Kong speech.2012 International Conference on Asian Language Processing, 165-168. Li, D. C. S., (2000). Cantonese-English code-switching research in Hong Kong: a Y2K review. World Englishes, 19(3), 305-322. Luke, K. K. (1998). Why two languages might be better than one: Motivations of language mixing in Hong Kong. Language in Hong Kong at Century’s End, 145-159. Hong Kong: Hong KongUniversity Press. Luke, K. K., & Richards, J. C. (1982). “English in Hong Kong: functions and status”. English World-Wide, 3, 47-61. Muysken, P. (2004). Two linguistic systems in contact: Grammar, phonology and lexicon. The Handbook of Bilingualism, 147-168. Regan, P. M. J. (2010). Current attitudes towards language and codemixing in Hong Kong.(Unpublished master thesis).University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia. Setter, J. (2003).A comparison of speech rhythm in British and Hong Kong English.Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.Barcelona, August 2003.467-470. Sewell, A., & Chan, J. (2010).Patterns of variation in the consonantal phonology of Hong Kong English. English World-Wide, 31(2), 138-161. Schneider, E. W. (2007). Postcolonial English – Varieties around the world. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. Wong, M. L. (2012).Code switching in TV programs in Hong Kong [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlqsfP1MDKg

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Appendix A Script Sample (With Code-Mixing)

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Appendix B Script Sample (English Version) I’m a university student and also a small potato. But I’ve got many friends in secondary school. Some of them are now studying abroad. How happy! Some mysteriously disappeared after taking their oral exams. And there are always some former classmates who you’ve never got their phone numbers. Still, they can find you out of nowhere. Guess what they want? To sell a hi-tech jacket to you. They would say something like ‘you’ll be more like a man’ if you’re a boy, or ‘your sisters will praise your taste’ if you’re a girl. Wow. If I can get fans after wearing this thing, then I’m already a pop star. They’ll then ask which size you prefer. And you’ll suddenly realize they just want to earn some money. At this moment, you’re looking at the check your boss gave you yesterday. You stare at your computer, feeling that you work more slowly than the RAM of a defected computer. You are thinking whether you should work harder. But life isn’t fair. Because you forgot to book a basketball court. Then you’re hungry and you want a cake. But you need to reply to an email before mid-night and to print notes. But J said something fake to trick you. Oh, you realize you have to present a report tomorrow. Well, you also forgot to claim the expenses for the students’ association. Sigh! You should sleep for a little longer and order pizza later.

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Appendix C Script Sample (Without Code-Mixing) 1.

small

2.

potato

3.

friend

4.

happy

5.

oral

6.

number

7.

sell

8.

jacket

9.

man

10.

taste

11.

fans

12.

size

13.

check

14.

paper

15.

RAM

16.

book

17.

cake

18.

email

19.

print

20.

notes

21.

fake

22.

present

23.

report

24.

claim

25.

pizza

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THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016, 186-203 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.2.186

The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 © 2004 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

Students’ Attitudes Toward Undertaking Writing Activities on Extensive Reading Eunseok Ro University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, USA Jeongyeon Park Dong-A University, Korea

This study examines university students’ attitudes toward second language (L2) writing that is implemented as a follow-up activity to extensive reading (ER). Sixteen students voluntarily participated in the study, and their written reflections were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to explore these students’ attitudinal positionings toward the writing activity. The findings indicate that students not only displayed a favorable attitude toward the ER writing activity, but also appreciated its benefits and usefulness in the development of their writing skills and writing habits. The present study also suggests that well-integrated pedagogical practices can produce positive perceptions of L2 reading and writing among students, thus facilitating their engagement in the classroom activities. Keywords: extensive reading, appraisal theory, attitude, reading-writing, ER activity

Introduction In 1964, Harold Palmer introduced the terminology of extensive reading (ER) as a way to define reading instruction that focuses on rapid and wide-ranging reading for both language learning and real-world purposes (such as reading for pleasure). A few decades later, Day and Bamford (1998, 2002) adopted the term and introduced it in a second language (L2) setting with the focus on developing not only better L2 learning, but also the affective dimensions of L2 reading (i.e., attitude and motivation toward reading in the target language). Since then, ER has been implemented in various L2 teaching and learning contexts and provided an ample amount of empirical evidence supporting the view that a large amount of L2 reading over an extended time improves students’ reading ability and develops other areas of language, such as vocabulary, writing, and others (for overview, see Nakanishi, 2015). Unlike other reading approaches, ER encourages learners to pay attention to meaning rather than to language. Thus, it aims for their incidental learning from reading ‘extensively’ as oppose to deliberate learning with focus on form (Grabe, 2009).

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To provide practical support for language teachers, recent ER studies have started to pay more attention to post-reading activities for ER (e.g., Park, 2016; Song & Sardegna, 2014; Suk, 2016). For example, Song and Sardegna (2014) argued that the inclusion of ‘enhanced extensive reading instruction’ (i.e., when ER is combined with post-reading activities) in their classes was more effective than conducting a ‘reading only’ class for Korean secondary school students. They found that students with additional communicative output activities had better gains in preposition learning than did those students who only read in class. This finding supports the use of many of teacher resource books for ER (e.g., Bamford & Day, 2004; Day, 2012; Day & Bamfod, 1998; Jacobs & Farrell, 2012) that have been published to aid teachers with their ER implementations in their own classes. These books contain diverse ER follow-up activities that teachers can use for various pedagogical purposes in their classrooms. However, despite the fact that the focus of ER is not only on developing language proficiency, but also on learner affect (Yamashita, 2015), based on our knowledge, studies in the field have not as yet focused on investigating students’ affective or emotional dimensions of ER follow-up activities. Having integrated ER writing into a course, we wanted to seek how our students (mostly East Asians from Korea and Japan) perceived their experiences. Could we inform other ER practitioners that college-level students in an English-forAcademic-Purposes (EAP) writing context viewed the ER writing assignments positively (i.e., ten-minute writing about a book that these students have been reading)? That is, was the ER writing assignment acceptable to students when it was included in an academic writing class? At a more practical level with respect to ER practices, what could be the future prospects for including ER writing assignments in EAP in general and EAP in writing classes in particular? To answer these questions, we focused on examining the students’ attitudinal positionings toward ER writing by drawing on Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005; see the Method section below for more details) to gain an in-depth empirical understanding of how these students formulated their attitudes to evaluate their experiences and what implications their appraisals indeed have for the ER writing activity in general. According to Mori (2015), students in the EFL context usually do not have a strong intrinsic affection for L2 readings and have suggested teachers provide further extrinsic motivational factors to help these students read. The question then for the current study is whether students will achieve a positive attitude toward ER-writing activity in an EAP writing context, when most of these students are from East Asia countries, and further, what pedagogical implications can be drawn from studying their experiences and personal perspectives.

Literature Review The Reading and Writing Connection Reading and writing integration in L2 has been supported by L2 researchers and practitioners since the 1990s. Scholars have examined the relationship and claimed the two skills are interrelated (e.g., Belcher & Hirvela, 2001; Carson & Leki, 1993; Esmaeili, 2002; Kroll; 1993; Lee & Schallert, 2016; Leki, 1993; see also however, Kirin, 2010). Hypotheses on the L1 reading-writing connection indeed laid further foundations for understanding the two literacies in L2 (Hirvela, 2004), but those explanations based on L1 learning were seen as insufficient to explain how the two literacies actually interact in an L2 (Grabe, 2001). In addition, the complex nature of the relationship of reading-writing (Hudson, 2007) as well as the various different settings where L2 is taught, such as for ESL and EFL (Grabe, 2001), made it difficult to determine whether the integration of the two skills could actually lead to L2 enhancement. Thus, few attempts to integrate these two skills were made; reading and writing skills were separately taught, dividing the former as a receptive skill and the latter as a productive skill (Parodi, 2007). Despite a paucity of empirical evidence, one particular strand of research has continued to promote the

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reciprocal interaction of reading and writing, as meaningful integration between the two literacies is crucial in promoting coordination between the two (Hirvela, 2004). Reading is a positive resource for building knowledge that is useful for writing, while writing reinforces that knowledge. The two skills share active meaning-making and interactive characteristics (Hirvela, 2004; Leki, 1993). In fact, by investigating 300 EFL middle school students’ reading comprehension and scriptive writing performance after taking an year long reading-writing intervention, Lee and Schallert (2016) claimed that “individual can learn to read by writing as well as by reading and can learn to write by reading as well as by writing, as reading and writing involve some of the same subprocesses” (p. 143). Anderson and Briggs (2011) also argue that teaching students about the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing can accelerate their learning, especially struggling learners. Several earlier studies—more specifically on ER and writing—provide further evidence for a close relationship between L2 students’ reading and writing abilities. For example, Tudor and Hafiz (1989) found a positive influence of ER on students’ writing readiness and accuracy. Tsang (1996) also showed that students who engaged in ER demonstrated increased descriptive writing ability in both content and language use. In line with these earlier results, Park (2016) recently reported that those students who engaged in ER for one academic semester achieved higher essay scores than those students in traditional classes in content, organization, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics (see also Mermelstein, 2015). The studies on reading and writing indeed show a strong link between the two skills.

ER and Affect In addition to the benefits of ER for L2 students’ writing development, ER has been reported to have a positive influence on learner attitude or motivation toward reading as well. For example, Rodrigo, Greenberg, and Segal (2014) investigated how different reading interventions (ER vs. no-ER) affected low-literate adult reading patterns. Both groups’ responses indicated that they had a very positive experience with reading; however, only the ER group showed positive and statistically significant development in their reading habits. Similarly, de Burgh-Hirabe and Feryok (2013) qualitatively analyzed students’ motivational changes over time, i.e., before, during, and after the ER treatment. Interviews and journal entries of nine Japanese students of English showed that their motivation to read was dynamic, and it changed due to various factors that included individual participant goals, self-regulation, and the availability of ER materials. Further still, in an attempt to expand the application of ER to academic settings, Macalister (2008) explored whether ER could be appropriately integrated into an EAP context for international college students. His classroom research showed that adult L2 students who spent 15 minutes on reading in class for 12 weeks not only ended up positively perceiving ER as a language learning method, but also in some cases, gained in their positive motivation toward reading in the target language. In line with Macalister’s findings, Ro (2016) found that students in two different EAP contexts gained motivational enhancement during their ER experiences. His qualitative analysis showed that specific elements of teachers’ practices (e.g., the types of different ER activities) as well as the inherent characteristics of ER (e.g., the usefulness and joyfulness of ER) influenced students’ reading motivation and their amounts of reading. Despite these benefits of ER for writing and reading motivation, few language classes have made a commitment to ER, mainly because of the lack of accessibility to reading resources (Grabe, 2009), time-related issues (Grabe, 2001), and persistent doubts about the effect of ER on adult students (Macalister, 2008). As Macalister noted, the “unspoken belief that extensive reading is most appropriately integrated into the elementary or junior secondary school teaching programs” (p. 249) may hinder teachers in other settings from implementing ER for older students.

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Gaps and Research Questions Drawing on Macalister (2008) and Ro’s (2016) ER study on reading attitudes and motivation in EAP contexts, we went further to investigate students’ attitudes toward ER writing assignments in an EAP writing class with the goal to understand the reading and writing connection better and how we as teachers can better incorporate ER into an EAP writing class more meaningfully. Incorporation of writing has been not only highly recommended in ER classes (e.g., Day, 2012; Day & Bamford, 1998; Jacobs & Farrell, 2012), but also often has been used as a means to determine accountability for ER (e.g., Beglar, Hunt, & Kite, 2012; Iwahori, 2008; Mason & Krashen, 1997; Robb & Susser, 1989; Takase, 2007)1 . To our knowledge, however, despite the importance of the integration of writings in ER classes, most studies have not yet investigated students’ attitudinal evaluations toward writing activity that relates to ER. To address this gap, we seek to answer the following research questions: RQ 1. What are students’ attitudinal positionings toward ER writing activity in an EAP context? RQ 2. How do these students reflect or evaluate that activity? In particular, how do they formulate their reflections with the use of appraisals? Also, what implications do their appraisals have for the ER writing activity?

Methods The Context and the Participants This classroom-based case study was conducted in an EAP writing class in a four-year university in the United States during 2015. In the study, 16 (11 females and 5 males) of 21 available students participated in this voluntary study. Most of the students were from East Asia, with most coming from Korea (31.3%) and Japan (31.3%). Their academic backgrounds were diverse, but most were majoring in social science. This intermediate-level EAP writing course was designed to help international students develop writing skills for both personal and academic writing purposes, particularly focusing on writing fluency. The students had taken placement tests administered by the university and then placed into this intermediate level course based on their writing test results. Considering that most international students were required to take this course in their first semester at this university, the primary goal of the course was in improving not only academic writing skills, but also general L2 writing abilities for transitioning into an English-speaking academic community.

Procedures The writing class lasted about 75 minutes and was held twice a week for 16 weeks, thus totaling 40 contact hours in one semester. The writing classes normally include 20 minutes of free-writing activity at the beginning of each class. However, that time period was replaced by an in-class extensive reading activity in this writing class to promote integration of reading and writing: 15 minutes of reading in class and 5 minutes of discussion on the students’ 10-minute ER writing assignments (half accomplished in student pairs and half as a full class). The ER writing was provided as a homework assignment, and students were asked to write casually for 10 minutes on a book they were reading. Students were encouraged to use a timer to help them complete their 10minute ER writing within the assigned time limit. This requirement led the students to write 24 (approximately 1

Most of the studies mentioned here used book reports to track students’ readings.

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240 minutes total) personalized writings on their own readings throughout the semester, accounting for 15 % of their overall grade for the class. The ER writing assignment was provided to the students in hardcopies in every class with different topics, with the goal of increasing the students’ engagement with the books and facilitating their ER discussion in class. The writing topics were chosen carefully to incorporate various genres that the students were reading each week (see Appendix A). The topics for ER writing included writing about the stories, the characters, the books and their language learning aspects, and the topics were presented in association with a variety of writing skills that the students could practice using these topics, such as summarizing, describing, analyzing, arguing, and simply being creative. The remaining class time was dedicated to writing instruction that involved practicing different genres of writing, learning writing strategies, and exploring conventions. The second researcher, who had been teaching the same course more than a year, was the instructor for the class under observation here. The ER activities these students underwent were a part of her regular classroom procedure. As for the reading materials, approximately 250 books were available in the classroom library. The majority of these books were graded readers, ranging from Level Two to Level Six, and mostly published by Oxford, Cambridge, and Penguin. A wide range of topics, including both fiction and nonfiction, was available to meet the students’ various interests. Students were also encouraged to bring their own books to class if they failed to find one in the classroom library that interested them.

Data Sources We asked the students to contribute to this study by writing a self-reflection paper on their ER experiences at the end of the semester. To reduce any overt intention in gathering the focused data, we carefully designed the prompt to concentrate on the students’ reflections on their own experiences of ER in general. Students were encouraged to freely write about a) what they liked and disliked about ER, b) the usefulness of ER in learning English reading, speaking, listening, and writing, and c) their opinions about using ER and the ten-minute writing assignment for the purpose of learning English writing. The focus of the reflection essay was more geared toward ER and its usefulness and not too much on actual ER writing. However, the ER writing component was included in the prompt, so that the students could notice and perhaps discuss it if they found it necessary. Applying one of the sections in Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Framework, Attitude, we focused on investigating different types of these students’ lexical choices for expressing their attitudes, how these choices influenced their positions, the recipient (the teacher), and the evaluated target (ER writing).

Appraisal Theory as a Data Analytic Framework In this study, we used the Attitude section of the Appraisal Framework to investigate different types of students’ semantic choices for expressing their attitudes (Martin & White, 2005). According to Martin and White (2005), the Appraisal Framework is a particular approach used to describe the linguistic mechanisms of evaluation. Building on Systemic Functional Linguistics (see, e.g., Halliday, 1973; Hasan, 1989, 2001), the Appraisal Framework explores the way language is used to evaluate and manage interpersonal positionings and relationships. Within this system of Appraisal, Attitude is concerned with utterances that convey either negative or positive assessments (see Martin & White, 2005; White, 2005 for further description). There are three general domains of the sub-system of Attitude in Appraisal theory: (a) Affect, an exploration of one’s evaluation through emotion; (b) Judgment, an description of the sources of one’s evaluation of people vis-à-vis social norms, i.e., ethics; and (c) Appreciation, an examination of one’s evaluation of objects through the use of aesthetics and

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social values. Specifically, Affect concerns positive and negative emotional responses and dispositions that may be indicated through use of verbs of emotion (e.g., to love/to hate), adverbs (e.g., happily/sadly), adjectives of emotion (e.g., happy/sad), and nominalization (e.g., joy/despair). Judgment concerns language that directly or indirectly reflects on human behaviors and performance by criticizing them (e.g., you did a bad job) or praising (e.g., you did a great job), thereby condemning or applauding the behavior being considered. Finally under Appreciation come positive and negative assessments of objects or artifacts (a boring building), processes (e.g., a terrifying burst of lightening), and states of affairs (e.g., a beautiful sunset). It is important to note here that when emotional reactions (e.g., bored) are detached from any human experiencer of emotion and attached to the evaluated entity as a property that that entity intrinsically possesses (e.g., a boring building), that expression of emotion is considered as Appreciation rather than Affect. We drew upon these three categories of Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation in the course of the analysis here. The system includes both Attitude, which is expressed explicitly using attitudinal lexis and appraisal that is implied through the selection of ideational meanings. Under explicit Attitude, the evaluative/attitudinal words or combinations of words that overtly carry a positive or negative sense are examined (e.g., I liked it [an explicit positive affect]), while under implicit Attitude, those evaluative/attitudinal wordings that are not directly inscribed, but implicitly evoked in the interaction, are investigated (e.g., reading became more fluent eventually [implicit positive appreciation]).

Data Analysis The coding involved counting the number for the three semantic domains covering Affect (emotion), Judgment (ethics), and Appreciation (aesthetics and social values). To illustrate, “I can enjoy the books” (see Text E–indicated in the Result section below) is positive Affect, “I can do ER” (Text F) is positive Judgment, and “10 minute writing is good exercise” (Text A) is positive Appreciation. In addition to the explicit attitudinal lexis that directly evaluates the ER writing, implicit or more indirect inscription of discourses (e.g., 10 minutes writing provided opportunity to use grammar; Text B [Implicit Positive Appreciation]) is also recognized and analyzed. The analysis of these coded data provides a macro perspective on the ER writing patterns (see Figures 1 to 3 below). For a micro-perspective, we approached the data through a close study of the different ways in which meanings unfold in individual self-reflections, enabling closer attention to the formulation of both explicit and implicit linguistic choices. For the qualitative analysis, we provide one excerpt for each case of appraisals as an illustration. Selection was randomly done when there was more than one of the same kinds of appraisal. For example, we provide one case of how students praised the usefulness of ER through explicit positive appreciation (Text A) out of the 23 cases as seen in Figure 3 below. While the quantitative analysis of coded data provided an overview of the attitudes of the students, the qualitative analysis of the data enabled us to gain insight into how appraisals were used by students in their self-reflections. By orienting our focus on the students’ different types of semantic choices for expressing one’s attitudes (see Martin, 1992; Martin & Rose, 2006 for more information on how discourse semantics are investigated), the goal here is to make connections from patterns of students’ language choices in their self-reflections to the context above and beyond the text.

Results and Discussion Our initial focus here is to show the students’ general attitudes toward ER and introduce the thematic topics which emerged from their reflections before we deliver the quantitative overview of the students’ choices for

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their attitudes toward ER writing, and then discuss students’ specific uses of evaluative means in close text analysis. Five topics emerged from the coded data collected from the 16 self-reflections: TABLE 1 Five Topics from Coded Data ER Reading Books

Positive 115 53 3 3 5 7 32 6

ER for external benefits ER experience Reading in general ER reading experience ER resources Book choice & contents

ER Writing ER and Writing connections

Negative 1 – – 6 2 6 4 –

More details about the sub-categories of each topic are summarized in Appendix B. In brief, the students in general expressed positive attitudes toward ER particularly with respect to its benefits for their language learning (e.g., reading, writing, speaking, and listening), affective dimensions (reading and writing motivation), and reading habit development. Out of 243 instances of appraisals from the 16 self-reflections, 116 (48%) were on ER for external benefits, and only 1 was negative (ER’s limited influence on grammar knowledge). This result is in line with many other ER studies that have shown how ER promotes positive affective dimensions toward reading (e.g., de BurghHirabe & Feryok, 2013; Judge, 2011; Kirchhoff, 2013; Komiyama, 2009, 2013; Mori, 2002; Nishino, 2007; Ro, 2013, 2016; Takase, 2007). Although it makes sense that most of the comments were on ER and its usefulness considering the subtopics of the prompt, it still needs to be noted that all the students positioned themselves on the positive side for ER. In fact, 91% (221 out of 243) of the students’ total evaluations were positive. Ten students expressed some negative evaluations in their reflections that aligned with the moral obligations to respond to the prompt (the students were told to write the things that they ‘disliked about ER’). As noted by Grabe (2001, 2009), most of these negative assessments were associated with a lack of book resources (5 out of the 18 negative appraisals) or time- related issues (6/18). Despite general doubts about implementing ER in EAP contexts, it was mostly the external factors that seemed to hinder students from completely enjoying ER, not that they had to read graded readers in an academic writing class. Further, even with the moral obligation to write ‘dislikes’ in their reflections, six of the students chose not to mention any negative details regarding their experience with ER. This result implicitly shows their positive stance toward ER.

Attitude Toward ER Writing: Quantitative Approach Thirteen out of 16 students commented on ER writing in their reflections (32 positive and 4 negative). There were 5 positive Affect comments (approximately 14%), 2 negative Affect comments (6%), 2 positive Judgment comments (6%), 25 positive Appreciation views (70%), and 2 negative Appreciation views (6%). Overall, the EAP students positively evaluated the use of ER writing in their academic writing class, and they mostly used Appreciation as the form to assess and show their opinion toward the writing assignment. This result seems plausible, as they were evaluating the assignment as a ‘tool’ for learning and developing English writing skills and also relating it to their own ‘learning processes’. It is also important to note here that there were three students who did not orient toward reflecting their opinions about the activity, and this avoidance may have shown not only their disalignment with the teacher’s agenda, but also their possible negative stance toward the target of evaluation, particularly considering the fact that these students responded to every other question but this one.

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More specifically, three sub-topics regarding ER writing emerged from the 13 reflections: ER writing (a) in general (Figure 1; 7 positive and 2 negative); (b) writing topics (Figure 2; 2 positive and 2 negative); and (c) ER usefulness in language learning (Figure 3; positive 23). The outcome shows the distribution of instances of positive and negative attitudes within the students’ reflections exhibiting pro and con positions on the implementation of the ER writing assignment.

Figure 1. Attitudes toward the ER writing.

Figure 2. Attitudes toward the topics for ER writing.

Figure 3. Attitudes toward the usefulness of ER writing. The quantitative summary of the students’ appraisals provided students’ overall positive attitudinal positioning toward ER writing. Specifically, the students appreciated the activity for its usefulness in writing practice and

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language learning (see the qualitative section below for more information). This outcome was meaningful, given that it shows us that the students valued (positive Appreciation and Judgment) and enjoyed (positive Affect) the activity process. The frequent positive Appreciation and relatively less use of Judgment here can also be considered positive, since it shows that the actual process of doing the writing activity was the focus, not the assessment of how the students behaved toward the activity. In other words, being in the moment and doing the activity for its usefulness was the apparent focus for these students. However, a few students did express their negative feelings toward the activity and its writing topics via (negative) Affect (Figure 1) or Appreciation (Figure 2). Although this is more closely analyzed below from a qualitative perspective, the students’ negative evaluations of the activity and writing topics imply the need for possible intervention in the activity in an EAP context. To gain more in-depth empirical understanding of the students’ attitudes toward the activity and its practical concerns in the EAP writing classroom context, the micro-level of how meanings unfold in the students’ individual self-reflections are analyzed below.

Attitude Toward ER Writing: Qualitative Approach We analyzed each reflection closely by focusing on how the students’ attitudes were formulated in the text in order to better understand their evaluative positioning regarding the ER activity. Two attitudinal stances were found after examining the individual 13 self-reflections: Praises and complaints. We begin with the praises.

Praise A review of the data reveals that all but one student (S62) showed at least one positive attitude toward the use of the activity in their classroom context. Most of the students used positive Appreciation to praise it for its usefulness, as indicated in Figure 3. To illustrate, Excerpt 1 represents how the students used Appreciation in evaluating the activity.

Excerpt 1 Text A (S1): Explicit Positive Appreciation 10 min writing is good exercise to organize and summarize my idea and the content of a paper in just short time. Text B (S4): Implicit Positive Appreciation 10 minutes writing provided opportunity to use grammar that we studied in class. Sophisticated transitions, which became natural, added quality and color to my writings. Both good (Text A) and provided opportunity (Text B) are instances of Attitude expressed as positive Appreciation. While S1 explicitly evaluated the activity for its usefulness in practicing organizing and summarizing ideas in short time, S4 implicitly praised it for its benefits for improving writing skills. These actions show not only their positive stances toward the activity, but also their understanding of how the writing activity can be beneficial for their learning. Elsewhere in the data are instances of similar praise, but with different attitudinal formulations. For example, Excerpt 2 below shows the more complicated use of students’ evaluative resources in constructing their positive attitudes toward the activity: A combination of Implicit and Explicit Appreciation as well as the use of Appreciation and Affect.

2

S indicates students, with numbers 1–16 being randomly assigned.

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Excerpt 2 Text C (S7): Implicit and Explicit Positive Appreciation ER activity is including writing about story and speaking about events in the story to my classmate so I have to concentrate on my reading more than usual. Writing and speaking what happened in the book are make my writing and speaking skill better. I sometimes feel that I am not good at explaining so it is good practice to organize the events in the book before I write and speak. This activity helps when I write framework for essay. Text D (S8): Explicit Positive Affect and Appreciation When I did the 10 minutes writing project, I feel comfortable to write because I do not need to think about the grammar and vocabulary. … ((Omitted few sentences)) In all, I think the extensive reading and 10 minutes writing are good way to learn English writing, especially to the beginner of learning academic English writing. Text E (S12): Explicit Positive Appreciation and Affect I think the extensive reading and 10 min writing is very good for learning English writing. … ((Omitted few sentences)) In addition, writing 10 minute was not big burden to me, so I can enjoy the books and writing many reviews of books. Unlike Excerpt 1, cognitive (e.g., concentrate) and affective (e.g., comfortable and enjoy) dimensions of language learning are included when students were constructing their attitudes toward the activity in Excerpt 2. On the one hand, S7 implicitly evaluates the use of the activity by starting her reflection by describing what is required in doing ER (writing about story and speaking about events) and the need for her to engage in doing just that (so I have to concentrate on my reading), before explicitly and positively assessing the activity (… make my writing and speaking skill better). She undertakes this description to provide a rationale for and to support her assessment, thereby invoking the category of an expert or at least a reliable evaluator of the activity. In fact, she provides another account of why the activities helps her to write and speak better by framing herself as in need for such assistance (I am not good at explaining so it is good practice to organize the events in the book). Both S8 and S12, on the other hand, used Affect to express their positive feelings toward the activity in addition to their use of positive Appreciation: They both expressed the view that the activity was not a burden. Their formulations demonstrate that these students know the importance of affective dimensions when developing good writing habits (cf. Day & Bamford, 1998; Jacobs & Farrell, 2012). The next attitude category was Judgment, which was used by the students to implicitly evaluate the ER writing. The instances in Excerpt 3 include Judgment in terms of positive self-efficacy (Text F; I can do ER and 10-min writing constantly) and positive engagement (Text G; I started to write an English daily journal).

Excerpt 3 Text F (S13): Explicit Positive Appreciation and Implicit Positive Judgment I think ER and 10min writing is very good way to learn about English writing. I can’t write paper every day, but I can do ER and 10min writing constantly. The reason why is that they don’t take our time too much. Text G (S16): Implicit Positive Judgment and Appreciation 3) Opinions about using ER & 10min writing for the purpose of learning English writing: I started to write English daily journal. So I will keep doing this even I go back to Korea. For me, these things are really big step to improve reading and writing skills of learning English. The Judgments in these two cases indicate the students’ positive change of self-writing attitude (S13) or behavior (S16), thereby implicitly praising the ER activity that stimulated the development of a writing habit. In

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particular, as a response to the third sub-topic in the prompt (the one on ER writing), S16 showed not only her current engagement with the writing (thereby positively evaluating the ER activity that seems to have fostered her writing behavior), but also her willingness to continue writing in the future. In fact, Texts F and G both show that the ER writing facilitated the students’ motivation and willingness to write for language learning purposes and develop learner autonomy, thus implicitly emphasizing its importance in the language learning classroom. In short, we were able to see these students’ attitudinal positionings in their discursive practice of praising when evaluating the ER writing activity. We found evidence not only for students’ individual reasons for liking the activity, but also for some of their claims regarding writing motivation development over time. Next, we examine how these students constructed their negative attitudinal stances toward the activity with a focus on the explicit (strong) and the implicit (weak) complaints.

Complaints As mentioned previously, only four negative evaluations (three students—S6, S9, and S14) toward the ER activity were found throughout the 13 self-reflections. Given that the prompt did not explicitly ask for negative evaluations toward the ER writing, it is perhaps not surprising to find relatively few instances of negative Attitude in the data. This evidence in fact magnifies the seriousness of the four complaints that were mentioned in the reflections; these students said what they had to say, not what they should say. The use of the attitude category in the discursive practice of complaining in this study was straightforward: Students used explicit negative Affect when complaining about the activity in general (Excerpt 4) and implicit negative Appreciation when suggesting that the teacher come up with other forms or topics for the activity, thus complaining in a more subtle manner (Excerpt 5).

Excerpt 4 Text H (S6): Explicit Negative Affect The one thing I do not like in extensive reading is to write 10 minutes writing. Text I (S9): Explicit Negative Affect and Positive Appreciation I did not like the writing part too much mainly because it was a bit boring sometimes. However I understand that this is writing course and this is good way to break the borders in writing and make it as a habit as well.

Excerpt 5 Text J (S6): Implicit Negative Appreciation It is natural to write something after reading a book, because this is a writing course. However, the theme for this writing is sometimes difficult to write because everyone in our class reads different genre of books. If I improve this point, I want to change this writing activity from the style we are trying now into write just a summary what we read in a week or two days. Text K (S14): Explicit Positive and Implicit Negative Appreciation As I mentioned, ten minutes writing is another good tool for improving a writing skills. Summarizing a book content is good for putting events into chronologically order with emphasis on the particular events. From my point of view, it can help to better organize ideas, and write more natural way. Only thing I would improve, would be maybe some assignment or topics for writing. Compared to Excerpt 5, the way in which the complaints are constructed in Excerpt 4 is more explicit (with more explicit word choices, such as did not like and boring instead of framing the complaints as If I improve or one thing I would improve as in Excerpt 5), thereby possibly carrying heavier weight. In fact, these two students

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in Excerpt 4 (S6 and S9) were the ones who wrote relatively less in their ER writings than the others did during the semester. The main reasons for their negative evaluations were that the activity was either boring (S9, Text I) or difficult (S6, Text J). S6 even offered a possible solution to the problem. Instead of responding to the writing topics—which seem to have created the problem—she suggested that students write a summary of their books. This suggestion in fact functioned as an implicit negative attitude toward the writing topic, and also subtly complaining to the teacher who was supposed to be one of the readers of their reflections. Similarly, S14 also suggested a possible improvement in the writing topics (Text K) by taking an epistemic stance (cf. Heritage, 2012a; 2012b) as an experiencer over that issue. However, S9 and S14 still valued the activity for its language learning benefits, and there were two other students who showed positive attitudes toward the writing topics: S5 thought that the topics were interesting (Explicit positive affect), while S10 said that the topics helped him in practicing and developing his writing skills. These findings show that the students’ evaluations of the writing topics could be very subjective. Even with these complaints, however, all students except S6 expressed a positive attitude toward the ER writing activity, particularly for its usefulness in developing target language skills.

Conclusion The findings of the present study indicate that students in general have a favorable attitude toward and recognized the benefits of ER writing. As shown in excerpts taken from these particular student reflections, these students, either explicitly or implicitly, not only expressed their enjoyment and comfort level towards the writing activity, but they also appreciated its usefulness for improving different aspects of their writing skills. Even those who found the ER writing either boring or difficult acknowledged its value in building their long-term writing habits. In this respect, the present study clearly demonstrates the pedagogical possibility of incorporating ER using writing tasks. It is, however, also important to note that these findings do not lend themselves to broad generalization due to their modest sample size. Moreover, because the context of this study was an EAP setting, applicability to other contexts such as EFL could be limited. Nonetheless, similar trends can possibly be projected when considering the majority of the students who participated in this study were from East Asian countries. One of the implications we can suggest from these findings is the feasibility of implementing ER in an EAP setting. At first, it seemed that the idea of reading relatively easy materials might not be easily accepted in a tightly scheduled academic environment. However, as opposed to some skeptical views (see Grabe 2001, 2009; Macalister, 2008) and our initial concerns, these students did not exhibit any reluctance toward ER and the associated activity occurring in their EAP writing class; instead they rather found it enjoyable and still further appreciated its practicality in developing their writing habits and skills. Moreover, it is also worth noting that inclass ER time played a role in promoting a meaningful integration of reading and writing, which eventually led to the students’ positive reactions to both ER and the writing activity. This positive student perception of ER writing activity may answer another concern of the ER researchers’ mentioned earlier in this paper, the pedagogical use of follow-up activities in the ER approach classroom. We believe that follow-up activities without too much accountability will not only promote ER per se, but also maximize its benefits when ER is well integrated with other pedagogical practices (see also Day & Bamford, 1998; Jacobs & Farrell, 2012; Suk, 2016). Most importantly, these student reflections clearly show that the combination of ER and ER writing is perceived as an ecological means of improving student writing ability, and is well aligned with the goals of this course on foundational academic ESL writing. Grabe and Zhang’s (2013) recent article argued for teachers promoting the integration of L2 reading and writing in an academic context, pointing out its usefulness in developing fluency, which is fundamental to

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academic literacy. In support of their views and our findings on EAP students’ positive attitudes toward the ER writing activity, we suggest using these writing activities in EAP writing classes as one useful way to integrate ER and writing closely, thereby facilitating student learning and their engagement in reading and writing in L2. The topics and/or forms for this ER writing, however, need to be more carefully designed, considering the students’ negative comments and suggestions found in their reflections in this study. Providing options for students to choose either to respond to topics or write a summary might work better than only assigning them to answer a given prompt. Based on the findings of the present study, future research should investigate whether students’ positive or negative attitudes are related to certain writing topics or writing genres, and whether different topics can produce different language use, both grammatically and pragmatically, by students in their ER writing efforts.

Acknowledgements We wish to thank Christina Higgins and anonymous reviewers for their feedback on previous drafts of this paper. All errors it may contain remain our own.

The Authors Eunseok Ro is currently in the Ph.D. program in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is also an assistant editor for the Reading in a Foreign Language Journal. His research interests are in conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and diverse aspects of second language learning and teaching, particularly on extensive reading. Department of Second Language Studies University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa 1890 East West Rd Honolulu, HI 96822, USA Tel: +1 (808) 956-8610 Email: [email protected] Jeongyeon Park (corresponding author) is assistant professor at Dong-A University in Busan, Korea. Her research interests include teaching second language reading and writing and individual differences in second language learning. Department of English Language Education Dong-A University 550-37 Nakdong-daero, Saha-gu, Busan, South Korea Tel: +82-51-200-0941 Email: [email protected]

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Asia TEFL, 7, 285-308. Komiyama, R. (2009). Second language reading motivation of adult English-for-Academic-Purposes students. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. Komiyama, R. (2013). Factors underlying second language reading motivation of adult EAP students. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25, 149-169. Kroll, B. (1993). Teaching writing is teaching reading: Training the new teacher of ESL composition. In Carson, J. G., & Leki, I. (Eds.). Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives (pp. 61-81). Boston: Heinle and Heinle. Lee, J., & Schallert, D. L. (2016). Exploring the reading-writing connection: A yearlong classroom-based experimental study of middle school students developing literacy in a new language. Reading Research Quarterly, 51, 143-164. Leki, I. (1993). Reciprocal themes in ESL reading and writing. In J.G. Carson & I. Leki (Eds.), Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives (pp. 9-32). Boston: Heinle and Heinle. Macalister, J. (2008). Implementing extensive reading in an EAP programme. ELT Journal, 62, 248-256. Martin, J. R. (1992) English text: System and structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2006) Working with discourse (2nd ed). London: Continuum. Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. (2005). The language of evaluation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mason, B., & Krashen, S. (1997). Extensive reading in English as a foreign language. System, 25, 91-102. Mermelstein, A. D. (2015). Improving EFL learners’ writing through enhanced extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 27, 182-198. Mori, S. (2002). Redefining motivation to read in a foreign language. Reading in a Foreign Language, 14, 91110. Mori, S. (2015). If you build it, they will come: From a “Field of Dreams” to a more realistic view of extensive reading in an EFL context. Reading in a Foreign Language, 27, 129-135. Nakanishi, T. (2015). A meta-analysis of extensive reading research. TESOL Quarterly, 49, 6-37. doi: 10.1002/tesq.157 Nishino, T. (2007). Beginning to read extensively: A case study with Mako and Fumi. Reading in a Foreign Language, 19, 76-105. Palmer, H. E. (1964). The principles of language-study. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. (Original work published in 1921.) Park, J. (2016). Integrating reading and writing through extensive reading. ELT Journal, 70, 287-295. Parodi, G. (2007). Reading-writing connections: Discourse-oriented research. Reading and Writing, 20, 225250. Ro, E. (2013). A case study of extensive reading with an unmotivated L2 reader. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25, 213-233. Ro, E. (2016). Exploring teachers’ practices and students’ perceptions of extensive reading approach in EAP reading classes. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 22, 32-41. Robb, T. N., & Susser, B. (1989). Extensive reading vs. skills building in an EFL context. Reading in a Foreign Language, 5, 239-251. Rodrigo, V., Greenberg, D., & Segal, D. (2014). Changes in reading habits by low literate adults through extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 26, 73-91. Song, J., & Sardegna, V. G. (2014). EFL learners’ incidental acquisition of English prepositions through enhanced extensive reading instruction. RELC Journal, 45, 67-84. Suk, N. (2016). The effects of extensive reading on reading comprehension, reading rate, and vocabulary acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly. (Advance access published June 25, 2016). Takase, A. (2007). Japanese High School Students' Motivation for Extensive L2 Reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 19, 1-18.

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Tsang, W.-K. (1996). Comparing the Effects of Reading and Writing on Writing Performance. Applied Linguistics, 17, 210-233. doi:10.1093/applin/17.2.210 Tudor, I., & Hafiz, F. (1989). Extensive reading as a means of input to L2 learning. Journal of Research in Reading, 12, 164-178. White, P. R. R. (2005). An introductory tour through appraisal theory. http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/. Accessed 30 May, 2011. Yamashita, J. (2015). In search of the nature of extensive reading in L2: Cognitive, affective, and pedagogical perspectives. Reading in a Foreign Language, 27, 168-181.

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Appendix A Sample Writing Topics Summarizing: Summarize the story so far, including the main themes, events, and characters. Predicting: Based on what you have read so far, can you guess what will happen next? You can briefly summarize the story first and then develop your ideas from there. Describing: Choose characters in the book that you either liked or disliked, and explain why. You can describe their personality or behavior in relation to some events in the story. What was the most interesting/important event in the story? Please describe.

Analysing: Please choose one character in the story. Then, think of one gift that you want to give that character, and explain briefly why you have chosen that particular gift. What kinds of information did you learn from the book? Was it totally new to you? Or did you have some background knowledge about the topic? Describe one of the most important events in the story and explain how the main character dealt with or reacted to that specific incident. Did you find any interesting cultural information in the book? Is it different or similar to your culture? Arguing: If you could give some advice/compliments/encouragement to one of the characters in the story, what would that be? Why? If you were to write a new book title, what would that be? Why? Has any of the characters made an important decision in the story? Do you support his or her decision? If YES, explain how that decision has affected the plot (events of story). If NO, what kinds of decision would you make if you were the character? If you could change any part of the story (events, characters, etc.), how would you like to change it? And why? Creative Writing: Write new or different endings for the story. If you were the author, how would you end the story? Why? If you could create a character or a thing to make the story better or more interesting, who or what would that be? And why?

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Appendix B Topics Emerged from Student Reflections a) ER ER for external benefits ER (English skill, language improvement) ER (usefulness on reading and writing) ER (usefulness on reading) ER (usefulness on writing) ER (usefulness on speaking) ER (usefulness on listening) ER for vocabulary learning) ER for reading opportunity ER discussion ER for reading habit ER for understanding American culture ER for writing motivation ER (grammar knowledge) ER (guessing unknown words) ER (feeling comfortable about writing) ER (feeling positive about reading) b) Reading Reading in general Reading Reading English books

ER experience ER ER in classroom ER (comfortable to read in English) ER (entertaining and learning) ER as fun ER as requirement ER freedom to change books ER (easy) ER for relaxing ER (no pressure) ER (easy to carry) ER (short length) ER (appropriate amount of reading) ER (out-of-class)

ER reading experience Reading a lot Reading for two hours Reading for prolong time or for 90-120 pages a week Reading outside Silent reading in classroom Reading for learning foreign language Not enough time given for ER

c) Books ER resources Many kinds of books Book resources ER books in school library

Book choice & contents Choosing an interesting book Graded readers (right level) Book contents Book recording form (keeping track of their reading) British English

d) Ten-minute ER writing Ten-minute writing in general Writing topics Useful for language learning e) ER and writing connections Useful for reading and writing Easiness Less time consuming (compared to other homework) Useful for conversation

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THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016, 204-220 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.3.204

The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 © 2004 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

Identifying Reading Strategies to Teach Literal, Reorganisation and Inferential Comprehension Questions to ESL Students Muhammad Javed The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan Lin Siew Eng Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia Abdul Rashid Mohamed Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

Reading strategies assist English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers to teach reading comprehension effectively to ESL students in developing their reading comprehension abilities. This study aimed at identifying reading strategies used by teachers that help them teach literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions to ESL students. The target population was the ESL teachers teaching at the secondary school level in Penang, Malaysia. The ESL teachers from ten secondary schools who were teaching English to Form Four students were selected through convenient sampling. A questionnaire consisting of reading strategies that help ESL teachers teach literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions developed by the researchers was used to collect data. The data were analysed through descriptive statistics to determine the frequency of reading strategies used by the ESL teachers. The findings, based on the quantitative analysis of data, revealed that the ESL teachers use different reading strategies for teaching literal and reorganisation comprehension questions but a small repertoire of reading strategies was employed for teaching inferential comprehension questions. Therefore, the researchers suggested a productive means of reading strategies to employ for teaching reading comprehension, particularly for teaching inferential comprehension questions in order to enhance ESL students’ higher order thinking skills and reading comprehension abilities. Keywords:

ESL teachers, inferential reorganisation questions

questions,

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Introduction Reading comprehension is an interactive process in which the reader constructs meaning from the text by using his/her prior knowledge and comprehension strategies (Brevik, 2014; Orasanu & Penney, 1986; Rumelhart, 1978). Baker and Brown (1984) and Brown and Abeywickrama (2004) state that readers who fail to use appropriate reading comprehension strategies might suffer comprehension loss and show lower performance, therefore; the readers should employ appropriate comprehension strategies and guidelines to increase their comprehension and understanding (Brown, Armbruster, & Baker, 1986). The lower performance of Malaysian students in reading in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) literacy test 2012 for 15-year-old students (OECD, 2013) drew the researchers’ attention to secondary school ESL students’ proficiency in reading comprehension. According to OECD (2013), Malaysia ranked 52 out of 65 countries in the international assessment program and Malaysian students’ scores were 398 in reading, below the global average score of 496. According to Chu (2013), Malaysian students’ disappointing and declining results in the PISA 2012, particularly in reading, came as a blow to the Malaysian education system. The results were worse than the students of neighboring countries; Singapore (542), Thailand (441) and Vietnam (508). In spite of a good education system and infrastructure, Malaysian students were not performing in the area of reading. The low performance of Malaysian students in reading comprehension could be due to various factors. Factors which often serve to deter ESL students from gaining better scores are environmental factors, reading comprehension abilities and the way ESL teachers teach reading comprehension to ESL students. Their performance also depends on how teachers employ reading strategies for teaching reading comprehension questions. As a result, the use of reading strategies ultimately affects ESL students’ reading comprehension (Asraf & Ahmad, 2003). Therefore, in view of the situation, the current study addressed the issues of identifying reading strategies being used by ESL teachers to teach literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions at the secondary school level since teaching approach and student performance have a strong correlation (Diseth, 2011).

Reading Comprehension Strategies According to Maine (2013), reading comprehension strategies are conscious plans and sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of the text since teaching reading is an arduous task. The comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful and active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. Adler (2012) emphasises that the seven strategies of monitoring comprehension, meta-cognition, graphic and semantic organisation, answering questions, generating questions, recognising story structure and summarising have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension. These reading strategies facilitate readers to comprehend the text properly. Moreover, a great deal of research has documented the importance of using well-developed cognitive strategies such as repetition, guessing meanings from context and summarising textual material (Lapp, Flood, Brock, & Fisher, 2013; Zimmerman & Williams, 1982). According to Keene and Zimmermann (1997) as cited in Block, Gambrell, and Pressley (2002), although there are lots of reading strategies, the most effective reading strategies are the activating of prior knowledge, prioritising information, questioning the author and the text, drawing inferences, retelling or synthesising and using fix-up strategies to repair comprehension. According to Blachowicz, Blachowicz and Ogle (2008), cognitive and metacognitive strategies are effective strategies that readers use to accomplish the goal of comprehension. Cognitive strategies are mental processes involved in achieving something, whereas metacognitive strategies are the mental processes that help us think about and check how we are going to complete the task. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies

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may overlap depending on the purpose or goal. For example, as the cognitive strategies involved in making a cake or curry proceed (following each step in order), the metacognitive strategies assess and monitor the progress (to check whether any step has been missed). Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008) have stated that the term strategy has often been used synonymously with the term ‘skills’. They defined reading strategies as ‘deliberate goal-directed attempts to control and modify the reader’s efforts to decode text, understand the words and construct meanings of the text’ (p. 368). Zare and Othman (2013) conclude in their studies that there is a strong relationship between the use of reading strategy and reading comprehension. Therefore, in connection with reading comprehension, ESL students must understand a handful of comprehension question types and their structures. They must also recognise the question types and understand the purpose of the questions to identify their answers correctly (Bickerstaff, 2010; Henderson & Buskist, 2011; Kintsch & Vipond, 2014; Pressley, 2006). According to Barrett’s taxonomy, literal, reorganisation and inferential reading comprehension questions are crucial for ESL students to understand the main thrust of teaching reading skills. Appropriate reading comprehension strategies are helpful for locating the supporting details and main ideas, identifying simple cause and effect, acquiring the meanings of words by using contextual clues, making inferences and drawing conclusions in connection with the literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension skills as stated in Barrett’s taxonomy of reading comprehension (Alderson & Urquhart, 1984). Furthermore, using different reading strategies for each reading skill involves embedding literacy activities to inculcate the real spirit of teaching reading comprehension (Koda, 2005). Similarly, an adequate application of reading strategies might enhance ESL students’ comprehension efficiently and successfully (Boulware‐Gooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi, 2007). Therefore, ESL teachers must be aware of how to employ appropriate reading strategies for teaching reading comprehension to inculcate a body of knowledge. They must also be aware of learners’ needs, existing knowledge and capabilities to provide the skills and approaches to bridge the gaps (Carrell, Devine, & Eskey, 1988; Lewis, Yang, Rose, & Li, 2004). Otherwise, the reading comprehension process will not be accomplished successfully (Duke & Pearson, 2008). In connection with the use of reading strategies, Saraswathi (2004) emphasises that different reading strategies should be used simultaneously to identify the answers for literal comprehension questions. Spörer, Brunstein, and Kieschke (2009) add that some of the reading strategies such as reading the title of the passage, topic sentence and first paragraph support in identifying keywords might help answer literal comprehension questions. With reference to using reading strategies for answering reorganisation comprehension questions, Chaka and Booi-Ncetani (2015) suggest the SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite and review) strategy to identify answers of reorganisation comprehension questions. They also advise the teachers to employ different reading strategies, namely; activating prior knowledge, paraphrasing the text and adjusting reading speed to answer reorganisation comprehension questions. On the other hand, Humos and Mustafa (2014) and Zimmerman and Smit (2014) propose skimming and scanning the text to answer reorganisation comprehension questions. Furthermore, Nuttall (2005), Othman and Jaidi (2012) and Chik (2011) recommend that ESL teachers skim the text, read the signpost questions and consolidate the information taken from different parts of the text that assist them to answer reorganisation comprehension questions. For answering inferential comprehension questions, Klingner et al. (2004) propose some effective reading strategies such as summarising, paraphrasing, asking supplementary questions, using contextual clues, making predictions and revising predictions to answer inferential comprehension questions while Tovani (2004), Sibberson and Szymusiak (2003) and Gallagher (2009) suggest employing diverse reading strategies such as activating students’ previous knowledge, self-questionning the text, making connections between different ideas, using sensory images and synthesising information to answer inferential comprehension questions. Regarding comprehension questions, literal comprehension questions can be answered based on the information explicitly stated in the text, and answers of reorganisation comprehension questions can also be answered based on the information that is explicitly stated in the passage; although, information taken from

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different parts of the text needs to be analysed, integrated and synthesised. The answers of inferential comprehension questions are predicted and assumed based on the information and logical clues implicitly stated in the text. The reader must also make connections between previous knowledge and the learned information to answer inferential comprehension questions (Barrett, 1972). Barrett’s (1972) taxonomy of reading comprehension consists of five categories of reading skills: literal comprehension, reorganisation comprehension, inferential comprehension, evaluation and appreciation. The first three categories are related to teaching language skills, whereas the remaining two categories, evaluation and appreciation, concern the teaching of literature. Therefore, the present study focuses on the first three categories, namely literal comprehension, reorganisation comprehension and inferential comprehension. These categories are divided into different sub-skills in this taxonomy. All the categories and sub-skills are interlinked and interwoven with each other. This taxonomy deals specifically with reading comprehension. Day and Park (2005) have presented a reading comprehension taxonomy including a detailed picture of six types of comprehension: literal, reorganisation, inference, prediction, evaluation and personal response. This taxonomy is very useful for ESL teachers to make their own comprehension questions for texts and students to better understand what they read. It can be used to help students become efficient interactive readers (Vongkrachang & Chinwonno, 2015). All the sub-skills presented in Day and Park’s (2005) taxonomy are valuable and beneficial for ESL students to enhance their reading comprehension. However, as regards the present study, only the first three types of comprehension skills, literal, reorganisation and inference, which are similar to the first three categories of the Barrett’s taxonomy of reading comprehension, were addressed. Likewise, similar skills such as remembering (literal comprehension), understanding (reorganisation) and analysing and creating (inferential comprehension) taken from Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives revised by Anderson et al. (2001) were also a focus in the current study since they provide assistance in setting the goals of reading comprehension. Similarly, similar-skill specifications such as literal, reorganisation and inferencial taken from the Malaysian English language syllabus have also been addressed in this study.

Material and Methods Purpose of the Study The major objective of the study was to identify reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach three types of comprehension questions namely literal comprehension, reorganisation comprehension and inferential comprehension questions. Therefore, the current study aims at answering the following research questions: 1. What are the reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach literal comprehension questions? 2. What are the reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach reorganisation comprehension questions? 3. What are the reading strategies used by ESL teachers to teach inferential comprehension questions?

Population and Sampling The population for the study consists of ESL teachers teaching English to Form Four students at the secondary school level in Penang, Malaysia. In the Malaysian National Education System, Form Four is known as upper secondary and the students are aged from 15 to 16 years (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2013). Regarding the sample for the current study, the ESL teachers (N=84) were taken from 10 different

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secondary schools from Penang, Malaysia through convenient sampling as the research was conducted in secondary schools as part of the school of educational studies’ project of Universiti Sains Malaysia. The demographic characteristics of the sample are as follows: TABLE 1 Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents (N=84) Demographic characteristics School Gender Ethnicity

Teaching Experience (years)

Category Urban Rural Females Males Malays Chinese Indians Others Below 1-7 8-15 16-22 23-29 30 and above

Frequency 5(50%) 5(50%) 60 (71.43%) 24 (28.57%) 21 (25%) 38 (45.24%) 22 (26.19%) 3 (3.57%) 17 (20.24%) 21 (25%) 14 (16.67%) 17 (20.24%) 15 (17.86%)

Research Instrument A close-ended questionnaire consisting of 46 items to identify reading strategies for teaching literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions was developed by the researchers to collect data. A 5 point Likert scale questionnaire with 1 indicating ‘Never’, 2 ‘Rarely’, 3 ‘Sometimes’, 4 ‘Frequently’ and 5 ‘Always’ was used to collect quantitative data from the respondents. The reading strategies included in the questionnaire were in line with the reading skills stated in the Descriptors of Reading Ability adopted from Abdul Rashid, Lin, and Shaik Abdul Malik (2010), Barrett’s (1972) taxonomy of reading comprehension, Day and Park’s (2005) taxonomy of reading comprehension, Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives revised by Anderson et al. (2001), and skill specifications in the Malaysian English language syllabus.

Validity and Reliability of the Instrument A pilot study was conducted to test the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Two content experts, who were experienced TESOL university lecturers, analysed and examined the instrument to see whether it could measure what it intended to measure. With reference to the validity of the instrument, the content experts analysed and checked the validity of the tool with regard to the suitability of the Likert scale, the constructs, items for each construct, use of language suitable for the respondents, sequence of the items, relationship of the items with each other, use of terminologies related to reading strategies used in the items and length of the questionnaire. Finally, some changes were made to modify and refine the instrument based on the feedback and valuable input provided by the content experts. After testing the content validity, the reliability of the questionnaire was also determined. A pilot study was conducted using the questionnaire to find out the reliability. Forty-six ESL teachers from four secondary schools in Penang, Malaysia were selected for random administration of the questionnaire. Out of 46 ESL teachers, 38 respondents completed and returned the questionnaire; therefore, the return rate was 82 %. Cronbach’s Alpha was calculated for each construct of the questionnaire. Cronbach’s Alpha values of reading strategies for teaching literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions were 0.854, 0.943 and 0.906 respectively. These indicate a high level of reliability. The overall reliability coefficient of the

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questionnaire was 0.962, which also represents a high level of internal consistency. After determining the reliability of the instrument, the data were collected for the actual research.

Results and Discussion The results of the current study revealed to what extent the ESL teachers used reading strategies to teach literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions. Reading strategies used by the ESL teachers for each type of comprehension question are stated below.

Reading Strategies for Teaching Literal Comprehension Questions Two sub-skills, namely identifying supporting detail and locating the main idea from the text, were focused on under literal comprehension in this section. Table 2 illustrates the results of the respondents regarding using reading strategies to teach literal comprehension questions in pursuance of research question 1. It also indicates which reading strategies the ESL teachers use to a great extent or a smaller extent to identify supporting details and main ideas from the text. TABLE 2 ESL Teachers’ Use of Reading Strategies for Teaching Literal Comprehension Questions (N=84) Item Item No 1 Read the questions first before reading the passage 2

Preview the text

3

Identify the keywords from the questions

4

Find the topic sentence

5

Identify the keywords from the passage

6

Scan the text for a specific piece of information

7

Locate supporting details from the keywords

8

Distinguish between important and unimportant supporting details Skim the text to find out the main ideas/concepts

9

10 Read the signpost questions 11 Locate answers of the signpost questions through explicit information from the text. Average Response and SD * Number of respondents. Values in parentheses indicate percentage.

NeverRarelySometimesFrequentlyAlways Mean SD n* n* n* n* n* 5 28 25 21 5 2.92 1.144 (6) (33.3) (29.8) (25) (6) 1 20 36 25 2(2.4) 3.99 0.829 (1.2) (23.8) (42.9) (29.8) 2 2 16 36 28 4.03 0.849 (2.4) (2.4) (19) (42.9) (33.3) 2 8 25 34 15 3.62 0.968 (2.4) (9.5) (29.8) (40.5) (17.9) 1 6 18 37 22 3.87 0.929 (1.2) (7.1) (21.4) (44) (26.2) 2 2 16 33 31 4.06 0.936 (2.4) (2.4) (19) (39.3) (36.9) 1 5 23 37 18 3.79 0.893 (1.2) (6) (27.4) (44) (21.4) 2 9 27 32 14 3.56 0.976 (2.4) (10.7) (32.1) (38.1) (16.7) 2 2 17 40 23 3.95 0.89 (2.4) (2.4) (20.2) (47.6) (27.4) 1 31 28 18 6 2.96 0.929 (1.2) (36.9) (33.3) (21.4) (7.1) 1 29 30 15 9 3.02 0.948 (1.2) (34.5) (35.7) (17.9) (10.7) 3.61 0.936

The data presented in Table 2 indicate that skimming the text to find out the main ideas or concepts was the most widely used reading strategy. It was used by 47.6 % of the ESL teachers and ranked first (mean= 3.95) amongst all other reading strategies (item 9). 44 % of the ESL teachers frequently identified the keywords from the passage and located supporting details from the keywords in order to teach literal comprehension

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questions (items 5 and 7). 42.9 % of the ESL teachers responded that they frequently previewed the text and identified the keywords from the questions for teaching literal comprehension questions (items 2 and 3). Finding the topic sentence was also one of the reading strategies that was frequently employed (40.5 % of the ESL teachers) (item 4). Some other reading strategies such as scanning the text for a specific piece of information and distinguishing between important and unimportant supporting details were also frequently used by 39.3 % and 38.1 % of the ESL teachers respectively (see items 6 and 8). The data also indicate that there were only a few reading strategies that were always used by the ESL teachers. Approximately 37 % of the ESL teachers scanned the text for a specific piece of information (item 6), whereas only 6 % read the questions first before reading the passage (item 1). It appeared from the data that the majority of the ESL teachers did not always use a variety of reading strategies. On the other hand, there were a few reading strategies which the ESL teachers used rarely. Approximately 37 % rarely read the signpost questions for better reading comprehension (item 10), and 34.5 % of the respondents rarely located answers for the signpost questions through explicit information from the text (item 11). Moreover, the data indicate that a very small number of the ESL teachers, ranging between 1 % and 6 %, never used reading strategies to teach literal comprehension questions. Furthermore, 29.8 % of the ESL teachers sometimes read the questions first before reading the passage and approximately 35.7 % reported that sometimes they located answers of the signpost questions through explicit information from the text. In contrast, some of the reading strategies such as reading the questions first before reading the passage, reading the signpost questions and locating answers for the signpost questions through explicit information from the text were not widely used by the ESL teachers. However, the average response (3.61) indicates that the ESL teachers frequently used various reading strategies for teaching literal comprehension questions. The findings stated above are consistent with Saraswathi (2004) who concluded that ESL teachers employ multiple reading strategies to teach literal comprehension questions. A study conducted by Spörer, Brunstein, and Kieschke (2009) reveals that ESL teachers use various reading strategies, particularly asking questions, clarifying the main idea, reading the title of the passage, topic sentence and first paragraph of the text very carefully, and identifying words or concepts to teach literal comprehension questions. Similarly, Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, and Baker (2001) conclude in their studies that ESL teachers employ manifold comprehension strategies such as asking generic questions (with wh-question words like who, where and what), rereading the text, identifying the principal components of the story/text, examining and skimming pages to find supporting details and main ideas, looking for important words, and previewing the text to enhance ESL students’ literal comprehension capabilities. Moreover, the results of the study are in line with Prado and Plourde (2011) who declared that there was a significant increase in the ESL students’ reading comprehension after ESL teachers employed various reading strategies. The findings show that some of the reading strategies such as reading the questions first before reading the passage, reading the signpost questions, and locating answers of the signpost questions through explicit information from the text for teaching literal comprehension questions were not used optimally by the ESL teachers for teaching literal comprehension questions. These reading strategies were rarely used. These findings are not consistent with Nuttall (2005), Weyers and McMillan (2011), Merkuri and Boboli (2012), Saraswathi (2004), and Kirton (2012) who found in their studies that such types of reading strategies support ESL teachers in their teaching of literal comprehension questions.

Reading Strategies for Teaching Reorganisation Comprehension Questions The second objective of the study was to identify reading strategies used by ESL teachers for teaching reorganisation comprehension questions. This section shows to what extent the ESL teachers used reading

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strategies to teach reorganisation comprehension questions. Three sub-skills, identifying simple cause and effect, acquiring the meanings of words by using contextual clues and extracting supporting details, were the reading strategies focused on for teaching reorganisation comprehension questions in line with research question 2. The results are shown in Table 3. TABLE 3 ESL Teachers’ Use of Reading Strategies for Teaching Reorganisation Comprehension Questions (N=84) Never Rarely Sometimes Frequently Always Mean SD n* n* n* n* n* Read the questions first 3 7 23 31 20 12 3.69 1.041 before reading the passage (3.6) (8.3) (27.4) (36.9) (23.8) 1 39 22 20 2 13 Preview the text 2.80 0.841 (1.2) (46.4) (26.2) (23.8) (2.4) Identify the key concepts from the 1 42 22 1 18 14 2.92 0.799 questions (1.2) (50.0) (26.2) (1.2) (21.4) Read the signpost questions (questions 28 33 1 18 4 15 2.25 0.905 indicated beside the text) (33.3) (39.3) (1.2) (21.4) (4.8) Summarise the text to identify supporting 39 21 14 9 1 16 1.95 0.923 details (46.4) (25.0) (16.7) (10.7) (1.2) Identify the key concepts from the 1 2 18 42 21 17 3.95 0.820 passage (1.2) (2.4) (21.4) (50.0) (25.0) Identify difficult/new words to figure out 2 7 13 36 26 18 3.92 1.008 their meanings with the contextual clues (2.4) (8.3) (15.5) (42.9) (31.0) Skim the text to find out the cause and 1 38 22 6 17 19 3.00 0.900 effect (1.2) (45.2) (26.2) (7.1) (20.2) 2 6 25 Scan the text to find out the cause and 36 15 20 3.67 0.936 effect (2.4) (7.1) (29.8) (42.9) (17.9) Connect the previous knowledge with the 3 2 27 39 13 21 3.68 0.894 learned information (3.6) (2.4) (32.1) (46.4) (15.5) Analyse the information to find the 22 38 21 2 1 22 2.07 0.847 answers (26.2) (45.2) (25.0) (2.4) (1.2) Reorganise the information to locate the 2 5 28 35 14 23 3.64 0.914 answers (2.4) (6.0) (33.3) (41.7) (16.7) Locate supporting details from the 1 42 23 13 5 24 2.75 0.841 keywords (1.2) (50.0) (27.4) (15.5) (6.0) Distinguish between important and 2 6 23 39 14 25 3.68 0.920 unimportant supporting details (2.4) (7.1) (27.4) (46.4) (16.7) 5 12 37 22 8 26 Reread the text to find supporting details 3.19 1.000 (6.0) (14.3) (44.0) (26.2) (9.5) 6 Synthesise the information not clearly 2 10 32 34 3.38 0.877 27 (40.5) (7.1) stated in the text (2.4) (11.9) (38.1) Consolidate (combine) the information 34 28 15 1 6 28 2.01 0.883 from more than a single source (40.5) (33.3) (17.9) (1.2) (7.1) Integrate the information clearly stated 2 8 36 32 6 29 3.38 0.849 from the text to support the main points (2.4) (9.5) (42.9) (38.1) (7.1) Formulate the correct answer of the 3 1 31 35 14 30 3.67 0.896 questions (3.6) (1.2) (36.9) (41.7) (16.7) Average Response and SD 3.14 0.899 * Number of respondents. Values in parentheses indicate percentage. Item No

Item

The data presented in Table 3 indicate that the respondents frequently used some of the reading strategies for teaching reorganisation comprehension questions (see items 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29 and 30). 50 % of the ESL teachers frequently identified the key concepts from the passage (item 17) and 46.4 % frequently connected their previous knowledge with the learned information (item 21) and distinguished between important and unimportant supporting details (item 25). 42.9 % of respondents identified difficult

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and/or new words to figure out their meanings from the contextual clues (item 18) and scanned the text to find the cause and effect relationship (item 20). In addition, 41.7 % of informants reported that they reorganised information (item 23) and formulated the correct answer of the reorganisation comprehension questions (item 30) to answer reorganisation comprehension questions. The data also reflect that very few ESL teachers constantly used certain reading strategies. For example, only 1 % ESL teachers always summarised the text to identify supporting details (item 16) and analysed the information to locate the answers (item 22). However, 25 % ESL teachers always identified the key concepts from the passage to find the answers for reorganisation comprehension questions (item 17). There were some reading strategies that were rarely or sometimes used by the ESL teachers for teaching reorganisation comprehension questions. In this regard, 50 % of the ESL teachers rarely identified the key concepts from the questions (item 14) and located supporting details from the keywords (item 24), and 45.2 % of respondents reported that they rarely skimmed the text to find out the cause and effect relationship (item 19) or analysed the information to answer reorganisation comprehension questions (item 22). The ESL teachers reported that they sometimes employed different reading strategies. 44 % of the respondents thought that rereading the text to find supporting details was helpful (item 26), whereas, 42.9 % believed that sometimes integrating the information clearly stated in the text to support the main points was important for teaching reorganisation comprehension questions (item 29). The above-mentioned findings are consistent with Chaka and Booi-Ncetani (2015) who have employed various similar reading strategies. They found in their study that ESL teachers employed the SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite and review) strategy to teach reading comprehension to Grade 10 ESL learners at a senior secondary school level. Their study also indicates that the ESL teachers used diverse reading strategies such as paraphrasing the text in order to simplify the text, adjusting reading speed in line with the purpose and nature of the text, and activating prior knowledge to answer reorganisation comprehension questions. In addition, Humos and Mustafa (2014) and Zimmerman and Smit (2014) revealed in their studies that two reading strategies, namely skimming and scanning, helped ESL teachers to enhance ESL students’ reading comprehension abilities. Based on the findings of the study, more than 46 % of the respondents assumed that summarising the text to identify supporting details never helped them (item 16) and 40 % of the ESL teachers were of the view that consolidating the information from more than a single source also did not support them to teach reorganisation comprehension questions (item 28). Likewise, a small number of the respondents, ranging between 1 % and 7 %, stated that they never used reading strategies (see items 12-14, 17-21 and 23-27). Finally, it can be concluded, based on the average response (3.14), that most of the reading strategies were sometimes used by the ESL teachers rather than frequently or always. This finding is inconsistent with Nuttall (2005), Othman and Jaidi (2012), and Chik (2011) who concluded in their studies that different reading strategies, particularly reading the signpost questions, skimming the text to find out the cause and effect relation, and consolidating the information from more than a single source should be employed as these reading strategies are beneficial not only for ESL teachers, but also for ESL students to enhance their reading abilities.

Reading Strategies for Teaching Inferential Comprehension Questions Research question three was formulated to identify reading strategies used by the ESL teachers for teaching inferential comprehension questions such as making inferences and drawing conclusions. This section indicates to what extent the ESL teachers use reading strategies to teach inferential comprehension questions. The results are presented in Table 4.

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TABLE 4 ESL Teachers’ Use of Reading Strategies for Teaching Inferential Comprehension Questions (N=84) Item No 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Items Test the students’ previous knowledge about the current topic Read the questions first before reading the passage Identify the clue words from the questions Identify the contextual clues from the text Reread the text to draw conclusion Utilise prior knowledge to infer details from the key concepts Try to understand the writer’s intention Make assumptions Provide justification for the acceptance or rejection of the assumptions Reformulate the assumptions

Never n*

Rarely n*

Sometimes n*

Frequently n*

Always n*

Mean

SD

33 (39.3)

34 (40.5)

14 (16.7)

2 (2.4)

1 (1.2)

1.86

0.855

29 (34.5) 1 (1.2) 1 (1.2) 1 (1.2)

26 (31.0) 4 (4.8) 3 (3.6) 4 (4.8)

21 (25.0) 19 (22.6) 22 (26.2) 16 (19.0)

6 (7.1) 38 (45.2) 37 (44.0) 40 (47.6)

2 (2.4) 22 (26.2) 21 (25.0) 23 (27.4)

2.12

0.998

3.90

0.887

3.88

0.870

3.95

0.877

1 (1.2)

1 (1.2)

30 (35.7)

37 (44.0)

15 (17.9)

3.76

0.801

35 (41.7) 33 (39.3)

30 (35.7) 34 (40.5)

13 (15.5) 8 (9.5)

5 (6.0) 5 (6.0)

1 (1.2) 4 (4.8)

1.89

0.859

1.96

0.910

35 (41.7)

33 (39.3)

9 (10.7)

4 (4.8)

3 (3.6)

1.89

0.886

33 (39.3) 2 (2.4)

27 (32.1) 2 (2.4)

10 (11.9) 24 (28.6)

11 (13.1) 41 (48.8)

3 (3.6) 15 (17.9)

2.10

0.987

3.77

0.855

2 (2.4)

27 (32.1)

38 (45.2)

16 (19.0)

3.57

0.854

32 (38.1) 6 (7.1) 3 (3.6) 3 (3.6)

10 (11.9) 26 (31.0) 23 (27.4) 29 (34.5)

4 (4.8) 39 (46.4) 44 (52.4) 33 (39.3)

2 (2.4) 12 (14.3) 12 (14.3) 17 (20.2)

1.86

0.854

3.65

0.857

3.73

0.841

3.71

0.913

2.98

0.881

Relate the text to personal experiences 42 Guide the students to share 1 the reasoning regarding (1.2) predictions 43 Make multiple interpretations 36 about the inference (42.9) 44 Recollect information from 1 the memory (1.2) 45 Ask the students to make 2 inferences about the text (2.4) 46 Ask the students to draw 2 conclusions from the text (2.4) Average Response and SD * Number of respondents. Values in parentheses indicate percentage.

Table 4 shows that 52.4 % of the ESL teachers frequently asked the students to make inferences about the text (item 45) since it is an effective reading strategy. 48.8 % respondents believed in frequently relating the text to personal experiences (item 41), which they felt was more helpful as compared to other reading strategies. A small number of the informants (4.8 %) reported that they frequently provided justifications for the acceptance or rejection of the assumptions they formed and made multiple interpretations about the inferences (item 39). In addition, only 2.4 % of the ESL teachers tested the students’ previous knowledge about the current topic (item 31). Table 4 also indicates that there were some reading strategies, which the ESL teachers rarely or sometimes used rather than frequently. 40.5 % of the ESL teachers rarely tested their students’ previous knowledge about the current topic (item 31) and made assumptions (item 38). Approximately 39 % of the respondents rarely provided justifications for the acceptance or rejection of the assumptions they formed (item 39) and made

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multiple interpretations for making inferences (item 43). Moreover, 9.5 % of the respondents sometimes made assumptions (item 38), whereas 34.5 % of the respondents asked their students to draw conclusions from the text (item 46). 35.7 % of the ESL teachers sometimes utilised their prior knowledge to infer details from the key concepts (item 36). Approximately 43 % of the ESL teachers never made multiple interpretations about the inferences (item 43), while approximately 42 % of the respondents never tried to understand the writer’s intentions (item 37) and provide justifications for the acceptance or rejection of the assumptions they formulated (item 39). The data presented in Table 4 also indicate that asking the students to make inferences about the text was the most widely used reading strategy by the ESL teachers for teaching inferential comprehension questions (see item 45). The findings reveal that the ESL teachers frequently used various reading strategies for teaching inferential comprehension questions. The results show that making assumptions or guessing to make inferences was a frequently used reading strategy. This finding is consistent with the findings of the study conducted by Klingner et al. (2004) who employed different reading comprehension strategies such as making predictions, revising predictions, summarising, paraphrasing, generating different questions, using contextual clues and monitoring understanding to teach inferential comprehension questions to ESL students at the secondary school level. The finding is also in line with the results of Tovani (2004), Sibberson and Szymusiak (2003) and Gallagher (2009) who concluded that ESL teachers use multiple reading strategies such as to activate students’ background knowledge, make connections, self-question the text, locate contextual clues from the text, use sensory images and synthesise information to teach inferential comprehension questions. The ESL teachers ignored a number of the reading strategies, namely; testing the students’ previous knowledge about the current topic and reading the questions first before reading the passage for answering inferential comprehension questions. This finding is inconsistent with Darling-Hammond, Amrein-Beardsley, Haertel, and Rothstein (2012), Liu, Chen, and Chang (2010) and Nuttall (2005) who revealed that ESL teachers found such types of reading strategies useful to answer inferential comprehension questions. The results are also inconsistent with a study carried out by Lee (2011) who found that using graphic organising was an effective reading strategy for better comprehension. To sum up, it can be concluded on the basis of the results of the current study that the ESL teachers tended to use more reading strategies to answer literal comprehension questions than they did when teaching how to answer reorganisation and/or inferential comprehension questions. Based on the data presented in Tables 2, 3 and 4, it can be concluded that the ESL teachers indeed used reading comprehension strategies to enhance their students’ literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension. A comparison is made in Figure 1 based on the mean scores of the reading strategies used by the ESL teachers for teaching literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions.

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Figure 1. A comparison of reading strategies used by the ESL teachers to teach reading comprehension questions. Figure 1 indicates that the mean scores for teaching literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension were 3.61, 3.14, and 2.98, respectively. These scores reveal that the ESL teachers used more reading comprehension strategies to teach how to answer literal comprehension questions as compared to reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions.

Conclusions Reading comprehension strategies help readers to make sense of what the text is about and ultimately they play a vital role in developing ESL students’ reading abilities to enhance their academic performance. The analysis of the current study provides in-depth information about what reading comprehension strategies ESL teachers used for teaching different types of comprehension questions. The study concluded that the teachers used a range of reading strategies for teaching literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions. Nevertheless, they used a small repertoire of reading strategies for teaching inferential comprehension questions. Therefore, there is still a need for more diverse reading strategies for teaching inferential comprehension questions to enhance the reading comprehension abilities and higher order thinking capabilities of Malaysian ESL students. Hence, the researchers would like to recommend that ESL teachers develop an array of reading strategies to be used for teaching reading comprehension questions, particularly for inferential comprehension questions, since they enhance ESL students’ reading comprehension abilities and higher order thinking skills.

Limitations of the Study One of the limitations of the current study is that the researchers addressed only three major reading skills, literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension, from Barrett’s taxonomy of reading comprehension, Day and Park’s taxonomy of reading comprehension, Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives and the Malaysian English language syllabus. This was because only these reading skills are used for teaching reading comprehension, whereas the rest of the reading skills stated in the aforementioned taxonomies and Malaysian English language syllabus are used for teaching literature. The final limitation of the current study is that the study included only 84 ESL teachers teaching Form Four

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students from Penang, Malaysia. Targeting more participants can help identify more reading strategies for answering literal, reorganisation and inferential comprehension questions. Future studies could select participants from other states of Malaysia to identify more reading strategies being used by ESL teachers for teaching comprehension questions.

Acknowledgements The researchers would like to thank the principals of the selected schools who granted them permission to collect data from the ESL teachers. The researchers are thankful to the ESL teachers who filled the questionnaires for the purpose of the quantitative data. The researchers are also thankful to Universiti Sains Malaysia for providing the Short Term Grant to complete this project.

The Authors Muhammad Javed (corresponding author) is serving as Assistant Professor in Educational Training Department at The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar Campus, Pakistan, and is currently in the PhD Education (TESOL) program at the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia. His research interests include TESOL, English as a second language, language acquisition and learning, grammar teaching, language assessment, English language teacher training and language curriculum development. Department of Educational Training The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Bahawalnagar Campus, Pakistan Phone: +92 3014737292 Email: [email protected] Lin Siew Eng earned her Certificate in Education (TESL) from the Seri Kota Teachers’ College in Kuala Lumpur. She started her career as an English language teacher. She later went on to pursue her Bachelor in Education in the Teaching of English as a Second Language in Universiti Putra Malaysia. She continued to pursue her MA and Ph.D. in English Language Teaching at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Her areas of specialization are Teaching of English as a Second Language and Reading. After the completion of her PhD degree, she joined Universiti Sains Malaysia as a senior lecturer in the School of Educational Studies. Her areas of research are Reading Benchmarking and Reading Matrix Development. School of Educational Studies Universiti Sains Malaysia Jalan Sungai Dua, 11800 Georgetown, Pulau Penang, Malaysia Phone: +60125129373 Email: [email protected] Abdul Rashid Mohamed is currently serving as Professor of Education in the School of Educational Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia as well as the advisor for the Malaysian Education Deans’ Council. Previously, he also worked as Dean of the School of Educational Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia for many years. He

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is a consultant to the Malaysian Ministry of Education as well as the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Maldives and also advises the Sabah Foundation and Villa College of the Maldives. He is Chief Editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education and the Malaysian Education Deans’ Council Journal. One of his major research activities is the InSPIRE Project on low performing Primary Schools in Sabah. Prof. Dr. Abdul Rashid holds a PhD in TESOL from East Anglia University in the UK. School of Educational Studies Universiti Sains Malaysia Jalan Sungai Dua, 11800 Georgetown, Pulau Penang, Malaysia Phone: 604-6533235 Email: [email protected] Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail started his career as an English teacher in 1981. Subsequently, he was selected as a research officer to the InSPIRE (Integrated System of Program Instruction for the Rural Environment) Project, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia – a research centre that conducts research and development of teaching and learning in the rural areas of Borneo, Malaysia. The project was funded by IDRC Canada and Sabah Foundation. He obtained his MSc and PhD in the field of Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Currently, he is the Deputy Dean of Academics at the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. His areas of expertise are Curriculum Studies, Educational Administration and English Language Studies. While his research areas are Assessment and Benchmark of Reading Comprehension, Curriculum Development and School Effectiveness. School of Educational Studies Universiti Sains Malaysia Jalan Sungai Dua, 11800 Georgetown, Pulau Penang, Malaysia Phone: 60134128211 Email: [email protected]

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THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 2016, 221-240 http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2016.13.3.4.221

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Using Auditory Word Repetition to Improve L2 Pronunciation of English Schwa by Japanese Learners: From the Perspective of Phonological Processing Kaori Sugiura Ritsumeikan University, Japan

This study investigates the effects of immediate repetition of auditory words on L2 pronunciation improvement of English schwa by Japanese EFL learners. More specifically, the study is concerned with how the amount of input (i.e., five or ten repetitions) and stimuli characteristics (i.e., the position of schwa in a word, word familiarity) influences the repetition effect. The study consists of a study and a test phase: In the study phase, participants listened to and repeated words. In the test phase, they repeated spoken stimuli including previously heard as well as new words, both ten minutes and one week after the study phase. The auditory materials consisted of 32 real words. The duration ratio of schwa to a stressed vowel in a word and the quality of the schwa were acoustically examined. A repetition effect was mainly found in the durational aspect. Repeating the stimuli more than five times did not differentiate the effect. One week after the study phase, the effect persisted only for initial schwa, which is weakly represented in the participants’ mental representation. The pedagogical implications for L2 pronunciation teaching from the view of language processing are discussed. Keywords: L2 pronunciation improvement, English schwa, immediate repetition, auditory words, phonological processing

Introduction A large amount of L2 pronunciation research has directly examined the effect of specific pronunciation instruction methods and has provided practical and useful insights for the ESL/EFL classroom; however, these studies are likely influenced by a variety of factors, including teachers, students, materials, and classroom environments. By controlling these influential factors, the present study sheds light on L2 pronunciation instruction from the perspective of language processing. That is, this study focused on L2 learners’ sensitivity to phonological information in L2 input when learning L2 pronunciation by manipulating the amount (i.e., the number of repetitions) and characteristics (i.e., word stress patterns and word familiarity) of the input during auditory repetition tasks. The effect of the immediate repetition of auditory information on L2 learning has been widely examined by

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shadowing activities (i.e., learners listen attentively to incoming sentence-level information and vocalize it simultaneously) and other oral repetition tasks. Previous research has highlighted the potential effectiveness of the repetition of oral speech, even in adult L2 learners (e.g., Hori, 2008; Mori, 2011; Ofuka & Gilbert, 2013); however, during these activities, several factors of auditory input, such as discourse, semantics, structure, and word familiarity, may influence the effects of repetition on pronunciation. Thus, the issue that remains unclear is whether these effects occur due to the repetition of auditory input alone. To exclusively investigate the immediate auditory repetition effect on L2 pronunciation improvement, the present study used word-level stimuli in the framework of an auditory priming experiment, which is described in detail in this article. The target sound investigated in the present study is the English sound schwa produced by EFL Japanese learners. A reduced vowel schwa appears most frequently in unstressed syllables in stress-timed languages, which are characterized by alternations of stressed and unstressed syllables (Bolinger, 1965). The phonetic characteristics of schwa are shorter duration and lower pitch and intensity compared to a vowel in a stressed syllable (Wallace, 1994). The quality of schwa is greatly influenced by the adjacent phonetic environments (e.g., Kondo, 2000). The present study focused on two phonetic aspects of schwa: the duration ratio of schwa to a stressed vowel in a word (henceforth, the duration ratio) and the quality (the first and second formant frequencies of schwa, henceforth F1 and F2), both of which influence the creation of English rhythm (e.g., for the duration ratio, Beckman, 1986; for the quality of the schwa, Grabe & Low 2002). The English schwa sound has not been extensively explored in L2 production and perception research; however, the English schwa sound produced by L2 leaners should receive more attention in L2 pronunciation studies. Numerous studies have shown that the accurate production of prosody, including rhythm that involves schwa, by L2 leaners has a more serious impact on the perceived foreign accent and intelligibility to native listeners than segmental sounds (e.g., Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, & Koehler, 1992; Moyer, 1999; Munro & Derwing, 1999; Pennington & Richards, 1986; Tien, 2013). Also, research that investigated Adult EFL learners with an L1 syllable-timed rhythm background has shown that the transfer of L1 rhythm to the L2 rhythm has a possible impact on reducing the learners’ speech intelligibility (Tien, 2013). On the other hand, some studies that focused on Japanese leaners of English have shown that segmental factors, such as consonant deletion (Suenobu, Kanzaki, & Yamane, 1992) and vowel errors (Kashiwagi & Snyder, 2010), significantly hinder intelligibility (for the former, intelligibility for native English listeners, and for the latter, intelligibility for both native English and Japanese listeners). Moreover, from the perspective of international communication, Jenkins’ (2000) Lingua Franca Core proposes that the instruction of weak forms including schwa is unnecessary because those produced by L2 learners do not affect intelligibility among non-native speakers. However, as mentioned previously, a large number of studies have proposed the importance of prosody in intelligibility for native listeners. Most importantly, many L2 leaners desire to acquire native-like pronunciation (Derwing, 2003; Scales, Wennerstrom, Richard, & Wu, 2006). Thus, it is worthwhile for them to try to produce a native-like English rhythm, including pronouncing the English schwa sound accurately. Despite the importance of learning English rhythms, in general, L2 learners have difficulty acquiring it due to the transfer from their L1 language. For Japanese English learners, there is a significant difference between the English and Japanese rhythm systems. English has a stress-timed rhythm in which schwa plays a crucial role, as previously mentioned, while Japanese has a mora-timed rhythm in which each syllable is of roughly equal length and the reduced vowel schwa is not required (Vance, 1987). In addition, Japanese does not possess a phoneme similar to schwa. Therefore, Japanese leaners tend to reflect their L1 phonology in their L2 English production (see Ueyama, 2000, for her acoustic study of prosodic transfer between English and Japanese). In summary, the present study aimed to examine whether Japanese learners can improve their pronunciation of the English schwa sound through the immediate repetition of auditory words in a laboratory setting and to

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determine the amount of input that should be used and whether or not input characteristics (i.e., word stress patterns and word familiarity) enhance pronunciation.

Literature Review Auditory Word Repetition Repetition of auditory words involves the auditory priming effect (Church & Fisher, 1998), a subconscious phenomenon in which previously encountered auditory input is processed faster and more accurately than previously unheard input (implicit learning). This implicit learning occurs because the phonetic/phonological information contained in spoken words is encoded and stored in listeners’ implicit memory, facilitating subsequent speech processing. Previous studies have revealed that just one instance of hearing of a word can facilitate subsequent speech perception of the word (e.g., Hori & Sugiura, 2013; Sugiura & Hori, 2012; Trofimovich, 2005; Trofimovich, 2008; Trofimovich & Gatbonton, 2006). Since there is a strong relationship between speech perception and production (Galantucci, Fowler, & Turvey, 2006) in speech acquisition, increased repetition of presented auditory words can raise learners’ sensitivity to phonetic/phonological information in L2 auditory input, and this greater sensitivity is expected to promote pronunciation accuracy as well. In addition, the repetition effect lasts from several minutes to days or even weeks (Church & Schacter, 1994; Goldinger 1996), and this characteristic seems to play a role in the constant development of speech processing (McDonough & Trofimovich 2009, p. 24). To examine the immediate repetition effect on L2 pronunciation learning, the present study employed the psycholinguistic experimental paradigm of auditory priming. This type of experiment consists of study and test phases: In the study phase, participants encode novel phonetic and phonological information, and in the test phase, they are asked to retrieve learned information (Trofimovich & Gatbonton, 2006). In this experiment, participants are expected to pronounce words more accurately if they have been exposed to them before (here, through immediate repetition). To the author’s knowledge, no previous studies have employed the framework of auditory priming experiment to investigate the role of repetitive practice in improving L2 pronunciation.

English Schwa: Difficult to Pronounce for Japanese Learners of English Japanese learners of English have difficulties in learning the English schwa sound (Akita, 2001; Kondo, 2000; Lee, Guion, & Harada, 2006; Sugiura, 2006; Tomita, Yamada, & Takatsuka, 2010) due to the difference between English and Japanese phonologies. In terms of vowels, American English includes nine phonemic vowels (Ladefoged, 1993), including full vowels /i/, /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /e/, /ʌ/, /ʊ/, /ɔ/, and /a/ and a reduced vowel /ə/ in the vowel space. English has phonetically contrastive vowels, such as a lax vowel /ɪ/, as in bit /bɪt/, and a tense vowel /i/, as in beet /bit/. Conversely, Japanese contains only five full vowels (i.e., /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, and /u/) (e.g., Imaishi, 1997). They are phonemically contrastive vowels in terms of length. The Japanese short vowels have long counterparts: /a/ vs. /aa/, /e/ vs. /ee/, /i/ vs. /ii/, /o/ vs. /oo/, and /u/ vs. /uu/. For instance, in biru (building), a short vowel /i/ is used, whereas in biiru (beer), a long vowel is used (Ueyama, 2000). According to the phonetic feature hypothesis proposed by McAllister, Flege, and Piske (2002), L2 learners cannot utilize the phonetic features (i.e., pitch, intensity, duration, and quality) that they do not employ in L1 processing, and the established ways to process L1 speech thus tend to persist both in L2 processing and production. Therefore, Japanese speakers, who are sensitive to the length of vowels in their L1 languages, might find it relatively easy to pronounce the duration aspect of the English schwa but not the quality aspect. However, from the perspective of language rhythm, previous research has reported that Japanese learners tend to

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pronounce schwa with inadequate shortening, reflecting their L1 with a mora-timed rhythm in which each syllable is roughly of equal length (Sugiura, 2006). Regarding vowel quality, in addition to the fact that Japanese speakers are likely to be insensitive to the phonetic feature of quality, as mentioned earlier, Japanese does not possess a mid-central vowel that is equivalent to the English schwa; therefore, it is plausible that Japanese learners of English are inclined to mispronounce the English schwa sound in peripheral areas in the acoustic vowel space, reflecting their L1 vowels (e.g., Lee et al., 2006; Sugiura, 2006).

Current Study Of particular interest was the efficiency with which learners take in and integrate a target feature from language input during the repetition of auditory words and how they utilize the information to accurately pronounce the target sound. To facilitate learners’ intake and integration of L2 input, two types of manipulation in auditory input were considered in the present study: the amount of input (i.e., five or 10 repetitions) and stimuli characteristics, or quality (i.e., the position of schwa in the word and word familiarity), that influence the repetition effect. Regarding the amount of input, only minimal research on L2 shadowing has discussed the number of repetitions required for maximum improvement of target sound pronunciation, particularly related to pitch range (see Hori, 2008; Miyake, 2009b). To provide specific suggestions for target sound acquisition and learning, research should be expanded to include other phonetic features of segmental sounds and prosody. The number of repetitions was selected based on previous findings that Japanese learners of English attained maximum improvement in their pronunciation at the fifth (Hori, 2008) and tenth (Miyake, 2009b) instances out of 15 repetitions. With respect to the position of schwa in a word (word stress pattern), a previous study showed that the acquisition of schwa is more problematic for intermediate Japanese learners of English in the initial syllable of a word (i.e., words with a weak–strong stress pattern, such as in agenda and possess), rather than in the final syllable of a word (i.e., words with a strong–weak stress pattern, such as in medium and basket) (Sugiura, 2006). It has remained unclear whether or not the weakness can be overcome by pronunciation training. Word familiarity, which is an indicator of how often a person hears or sees a target word (Yokokawa, 2009), also potentially influences the improvement of L2 pronunciation. If learners can obtain a repetition effect with low-familiarity words, then it is hypothesized that they are able to genuinely learn from phonetic/phonological information (Murao & Sasaki, 2008). Another topic of interest is the extent of the effect of auditory word repetition on pronunciation improvement. Research on L1 phonological processing indicates that repeated exposure to auditory input creates a long-lasting effect (days or weeks) (Church & Schacter, 1994; Goldinger, 1996); however, less attention has been focused on this issue in relation to L2 pronunciation improvement. If a long-term effect on auditory information indeed occurs, this phenomenon will contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms that govern L2 phonological acquisition and learning. The present study focused on the production of the English schwa sound by Japanese learners of English and investigated whether Japanese learners can improve their pronunciation through the immediate repetition of auditory words considering the persistence of the effect in particular. Specifically, it aimed to determine how much input (i.e., how many repetitions) and whether and how input characteristics (i.e., word stress patterns, word familiarity) influence improvement. This study was guided by two primary research questions:

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(1) Do Japanese learners of English improve their duration ratios of schwa to a stressed vowel (duration ratio) as well as the quality of schwa through auditory word repetition? If so, how do the differences in the number of repetitions (five vs. ten), the position of schwa within the word (initial vs. final syllable), and word familiarity (high vs. low) influence schwa pronunciation improvement in terms of duration ratio and vowel quality? (2) Does the effect of repetitive practice with auditory words continue for one week?

Method Participants Twelve Japanese learners of English (nine females and three males), aged 19-21, participated in this study. All were native speakers of Japanese and were non-English-major students enrolled in their second English semester course at a university in Japan. Their English level was low intermediate, ranging from TOEIC 400 to 550 (i.e., CEFR level A2). They were paid to participate in this study. To provide a norm for the study, two male native English speakers, both instructors of English as a foreign language at Japanese universities, participated in the present study. One is from Boston, U.S.A., and the other is from Hawaii, U.S.A.

Materials Thirty-two words of either two or three syllables were selected from a list of 3,000 high-frequency words in the British National Corpus (2007) (Table 1), based on word familiarity for Japanese learners of English and schwa position within the word. To determine word familiarity, the present study used a word familiarity list that was created based on word familiarity judgments for 3,000 words by a large number of Japanese EFL students with various proficiency levels (auditory version; Yokokawa, 2009). The rating scale ranges from 1 (lowest familiarity) to 7 (highest). Regarding the position of schwa, previous studies have shown that the phonetic realization of schwa differs between initial and final syllables (Flemming & Johnson, 2007; Wallace, 1994). Therefore, the words were divided into two sets based on schwa position, with both low- and highfamiliarity words in each set. The difference between high and low word familiarity was confirmed by Kruskal-Wallis tests for the initial- and final-schwa word sets (for initial schwa, high and low familiarity ratings were on average 6.0 and 2.8, respectively, p < .005; for final schwa, the ratings were on average 6.3 and 2.8, respectively, p < .01). In addition, words including schwa spellings , , , and were used. Spellings with and were excluded because those schwas tend to exhibit different phonetic qualities (Flemming & Johnson, 2007). All the words were read using the text-to-speech software Natural Reader 10.0 (2011) and recorded with the audio-processing software Audacity 1.3.12 (Mazzoni & Dannenberg, 2010) with a sampling rate of 44kHz. The same U.S.-accented female voice was used throughout. The words were then used to construct four study–test list pairs, with each pair containing a 16-word study list and a 32-word test list (i.e., all the words). Table 2 shows the phonetic characteristics of the auditory word stimuli produced by the text-to-speech software.

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TABLE 1 Linguistic Materials Position of Schwa

Spelling Familiarity

Word abroad High attend again Initial alarm facility Low award absorb capacity special High camera Final media Low agenda opera Note. The bolded letter indicates schwa’s position.

Rating 6.50 6.41 6.10 6.06 2.88 2.78 2.47 2.36 6.71 6.34 6.27 3.18 2.89

, Word supply support suggest suspend sustain supplier

Rating 6.20 5.87 5.71 5.52 3.58 2.90

famous August dangerous enormous religious

6.51 6.22 5.82 2.36 2.71

Word correct control

Rating 6.32 6.14

convey condemn

2.85 2.85

station lesson

6.31 6.14

reckon carbon

2.96 2.84

TABLE 2 Phonetic Information of Auditory Word Stimuli (Female Voice): Duration Ratio (ms) and the F1 and F2 (Hz) Values of Schwa Phonetic features Duration ratio F1 (Hz) F2 (Hz)

Initial schwa 0.32 626 1711

Final schwa 0.72 671 1759

Experimental Paradigm and Procedures The experiment consisted of study and test phases, as described above. During the study phase, participants listened to and repeated auditory words (eight words five times, and another eight words 10 times; 120 repetitions in total) individually presented at five-second intervals using SuperLab 4.0 (Cedrus Corporation, 2006). The words were randomized in both phases for each participant in order to minimize unwanted order effects. To ensure that all the participants concentrated on all stimuli in the study phase, they were asked to indicate on an accompanying form whether the auditorily presented words included a /t/ sound. After the study phase, the participants performed simple calculations for about ten minutes to clear their short-term memory and to create an interval between the study and test phases of the experiment. The test phase consisted of Test 1 (ten minutes after the study phase) and Test 2 (one week after the study phase). For the test phase, the participants repeated spoken stimuli as quickly as possible (Onishi, Chambers, & Fisher, 2002), including those already presented in the study phase as well as new words. Productions from the test phase were recorded using Audacity 1.3.12 (Mazzoni & Dannenberg, 2010) with a sampling rate of 44 kHz. Note here that both the study and test phases were preceded by three practice trials. In addition, to avoid strategic learning, participants were not told that the test phase would include words from the study phase. All sessions were conducted in a quiet room. The study and Test 1 sessions lasted approximately thirty minutes. Test 2 continued for ten minutes. To obtain the norm, two native English speakers were asked to repeat 36 auditory word stimuli. The native speakers’ pronunciation was recorded using Audacity 1.3.12 (Mazzoni & Dannenbeg, 2010) with a sampling rate of 44 kHz.

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Analysis Only words that were repeated correctly by the participants were used for the auditory measurements. For example, the production of words that differed from the target words (e.g., alarm → alone, convey → today, special → station), incorrect words (e.g., enormous → endromas*, condemn → condent*, capacity → compacity*), and the words with incorrect stress placement in Tests 1 and 2, 13% and 11%, respectively, were excluded from the analysis. The repetition effect was acoustically examined, using spectrograms created with the speech analysis software WaveSurfer 1.8.5 (2011). As a guide to identify schwas in the productions by the participants, the analysis of schwa was conducted in reference to the example acoustic data of the English schwa from previous studies: A duration ratio of schwa to a stressed vowel is 0.47 in a non-final syllable, while it is 0.63 in a final syllable (Wallace, 1994), and the quality of schwas occurring in the first or middle positions of a word has an F1 of 449 Hz and an F2 of 1922 Hz, while word-final schwas are 539 Hz for F1 and 1797 Hz for F2 (Flemming & Johnson, 2007). These F1 and F2 values of schwa vowels were obtained from female speakers. It should be noted that, to avoid gender effects on the acoustic properties due to the vocal tract lengths of the participants, all formant values in the productions of the participants, including both Japanese and English speakers, were normalized to one female participant. To do so, first, the average third formant frequency (henceforth, F3) in the female speaker of /ɛ/ in lesson, special, correct, agenda and attend was calculated. Second, the mean F3 of this speaker was used as the norm and was divided by the mean F3 for each participant. Finally, the F1 and F2 for each participant were multiplied by the factor obtained from their own F3 (see Lee et al., 2006). Regarding the judgment of whether the participants can benefit from the repetition effect, if the duration ratio in repeated words becomes significantly smaller than that in unrepeated words and also approaches native ratios, it can be assumed that a repetitive practice effect is obtained because Japanese learners of English tend to inaccurately produce high duration ratios (closer to 1.0) due to the transfer from Japanese mora-timed rhythm, in which each mora is of approximately equal length (e.g., Sugiura, 2006). As for vowel quality, if the F1 becomes significantly lower and F2 becomes higher in repeated words than those in unrepeated words, moving towards native norms, it can be said that a repetitive practice effect was obtained because relatively higher F1 and lower F2 values of schwa are expected from non-proficient Japanese participants, corresponding to articulatory targets closer to Japanese full vowels (e.g., Akita, 2001; Kondo, 2000; Sugiura, 2006; Tomita et al., 2010). Statistical analyses for the present study were separately conducted for each position of schwa (initial schwa and final schwa in a word) for both duration ratio and the quality of schwa because their acoustic characteristics are intrinsically different.

Results and Discussion Duration Ratio Initial schwa (weak-strong syllables) Table 3 and Figure 1 illustrate descriptive statistics for the duration ratio in Tests 1 and 2 (ten minutes and one week after the study phase, respectively). In order to examine whether the initial schwa produced by participants improved through repetition, and whether the repetition effect lasted, the duration ratio data was submitted to a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), performed using SPSS, with Repetition (unrepeated, repeated five times, repeated ten times), Familiarity (high, low) and Interval (ten minutes, one week) as factors. The analysis yielded a significant main effect only for Repetition, F (2, 354)= 5.029, p < .05, η2p

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= .028. A further analysis revealed that the duration ratios derived during both the five and ten repetition trials were significantly smaller than the duration ratios obtained in the unrepeated condition, p < .05, d = .038 (a small-sized effect) and p < .05, d = .036 (a small-sized effect), but no significant difference was found between the duration ratios obtained in the five and ten repetition conditions. No significant main effects were found for Familiarity, F (1, 355)= 0.392, p = .532, η2p = .001 or Interval, F (1, 355) = 0.209, p = .647, η2p = .001, and there were no significant interactions for Repetition × Familiarity, F (1, 355)= 0.705, p = .495, η2p = .004, for Repetition × Interval, F (2, 354) = 1.022, p = .361, η2p = .006, or for Repetition × Familiarity × Interval, F (2, 354) = 0.458, p = .633, η2p = .003. These results suggest that the repetitions were effective, but increasing the number of repetitions to ten does not differentiate the effect on pronunciation of initial schwa. In addition, word familiarity did not seem to influence the repetition effect on pronunciation. Moreover, the significant difference in duration ratios between the repeated and unrepeated conditions, and the absence of a significant difference in duration values between Test 1 (ten minutes) and Test 2 (one week) indicate that the practice effect obtained ten minutes after the repetition-based study phase remained unchanged for one week. That is, the repetitive effect lasted one week in this particular phonological aspect. TABLE 3 Mean Duration Ratios of Initial Schwa (ms) for Unrepeated and Repeated Words (Five, Ten Times) in Test 1 (Ten Minutes) and Test 2 (One Week) Test 1 (ten minutes)

Test 2 (one week)

High Unrepeated 0.46 (0.17) 5 times 0.36 (0.12) 10 times 0.38 (0.11) Native speakers 0.37 (0.11) Note. The value in parentheses is the standard deviation (SD).

Word Familiarity Low High 0.45 (0.20) 0.45 (0.17) 0.39 (0.15) 0.39 (0.17) 0.37 (0.18) 0.38 (0.11) 0.40 (0.13) 0.37 (0.11)

Low 0.39 (0.29) 0.37 (0.45) 0.39 (0.41) 0.40 (0.13)

Figure 1. Mean duration ratios for initial schwas in Test 1 (ten minutes) and Test 2 (one week). As the factor of word familiarity did not affect the repetition effect, it is not indicated in this graph.

Final schwa (strong-weak syllables) Table 4 and Figure 2 show descriptive statistics for the duration ratio of final schwa in Tests 1 and 2 (ten minutes and one week after the study phase, respectively). To investigate whether the final schwa produced by the participants improved as a result of the repetition task and whether the effect continued for one week, the

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data on the duration ratio of final schwa were treated in the same manner as in the statistical analysis for initial schwa. The analysis yielded a significant effect of Repetition, F (2, 251) = 10.615, p < .001, η2p = .081. A post-hoc test revealed that the duration ratios in the five- and ten-repetition conditions in Test 1 were significantly smaller than in the unrepeated condition, p < .05, d = 0.96 (a large-sized effect) and p < .001, d = 0.97 (a large-sized effect). Therefore, there was an improvement in pronunciation immediately after practice. There were no significant effects of Familiarity, F (1, 252) = 0.240, p = .625, η2p = .001 or Interval, F (1, 252) = 1.792, p = .182, η2p = .007. There was a significant interaction for Repetition × Interval, F (2, 251) = 5.026, p < .01, η2p = .040, but not for Repetition × Familiarity, F (2, 251) = 1.889, p = .153, η2p = .015 or for Repetition × Familiarity × Interval, F (2, 251) = 2.210, p = .112, η2p = .018. These results show that, again, word familiarity did not seem to influence the repetition effect on the improvement of final schwa. As for the persistent effect of repetition, for both five and ten repetitions in the study phase, the duration ratios in Test 2 (one week) were significantly larger than those in Test 1 (ten minutes), p < .05, d = 0.55 (a medium-sized effect) for five repetitions, and p < .05, d = 0.80 (a large-sized effect) for ten repetitions. That is, the repetition effect did not last one week for the final schwa. TABLE 4 Mean Duration Ratios of Final Schwa (ms) for Unrepeated and Repeated Words (Five, Ten Times) in Test 1 (Ten Minutes) and Test 2 (One Week) Test 1 (ten minutes)

Test 2 (one week)

High Unrepeated 0.72 (0.18) 5 times 0.53 (0.10) 10 times 0.59 (0.13) Native speakers 0.61 (0.32) Note. The value in parentheses is the standard deviation (SD).

Word Familiarity Low High 0.78 (0.27) 0.67 (0.16) 0.62 (0.14) 0.71 (0.19) 0.53 (0.12) 0.69 (0.17) 0.54 (0.13) 0.61 (0.32)

Low 0.71 (0.19) 0.55 (0.18) 0.65 (0.18) 0.54 (0.13)

Figure 2. Mean duration ratios for final schwas in Test 1 (ten minutes) and Test 2 (one week).

Discussion on the Duration Ratio Number of repetitions The results of this study indicate that no difference in the repetition effect was found between the five and ten repetition conditions either in the initial or final schwa sound; the participants required at least five spoken repetitions of words to improve their pronunciation of schwa in conditions in which the repetition effect was observed (all conditions, except for the final schwa in Test 2). This finding implies that more than five

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repetitions would not have positively influenced the acquisition of the target sound or the persistence of the repetition effect. As mentioned, previous studies also demonstrated that the performance of Japanese learners of English reaches a maximum improvement at around the fifth (Hori, 2008) or tenth (Miyake, 2009b) instances out of 15 repetitions. Thus, it seems unlikely that the number of repetitions correlates with the degree of prosodic improvement in L2 pronunciation (pitch range or duration ratio of schwa to a stressed vowel). This non-correlation may be attributed to extra-linguistic factors, such as attentional or motivational constraints.

Position of schwa and the persistence of the repetition effect The results of the present study showed that the repetition effect continued for one week for the initial schwa, while a long-lasting effect was not obtained for the final schwa. This contrasting effect could have been due to differences in the frequency of the stress patterns of the target words. The final schwa (a strong– weak stress pattern) should be much more common than the initial schwa (weak–strong) among L2 speakers considering the input frequency: 90% of the content words in a corpus of over 20,000 English words followed a strong–weak stress pattern (Cutler & Carter, 1987). Thus, it can be assumed that the initial schwa (weak– strong stress) is more weakly represented in participants’ mental representations. According to formal theories of learning (e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), increased learning practice has a significant impact on less familiar linguistic material. Several earlier studies on structural priming have supported this theory (e.g., Hartsuiker & Westenberg, 2000; Luka & Barsalou, 2005; Luka & Choi, 2012; Reitter, Keller, & Moore, 2011; Scheepers, 2003). In particular, Luka and Choi’s (2012) study on the persistent effect of structural priming indicated that for a novel structure (i.e., less familiar linguistic material), the effect continued for one week. Although these structural priming studies did not focus on learners’ sensitivity to auditory information in general or on word stress patterns in particular, their findings serve as useful scaffolds in understanding the present results, given that both syntactic and stress patterns are characterized by structural systems (i.e., regular and exceptional patterns).

Generalization to novel words Interestingly, the numerical data showed that a repetition effect did not occur in Test 1 (ten minutes), but it did occur in Test 2 (one week) for novel words (i.e., unrepeated words) with low familiarity and an initial schwa, which should be less common for Japanese learners of English in terms of duration. More specifically, the duration ratio in Test 1 was 0.45, but it improved to 0.39 in Test 2 when the duration ratio was 0.37 for a five-time repetition and 0.39 for a ten-time repetition of words. The native norm was 0.4. This might indicate that the effect of learning in the study phase was gradually generalized to unrepeated words over one week. This finding can be explained by “memory consolidation,” a theory that has been extensively discussed in the field of motor skill learning. It traditionally refers to a process in which a memory becomes increasingly stabilized as time passes (McGaugh, 2000). This suggests that immediately after training, skills are still only weakly consolidated in memory, but after a certain period, the repetitive training effect becomes stable (e.g., Karni, Tanne, Rubenstein, Askenasy, & Sagi, 1994). Note that this phenomenon is specifically related to procedural memory (i.e., knowledge about how to do things), which requires repetition training (Walker & Stickgold, 2006). Consolidation has recently been investigated in the context of learning new spoken words (e.g., Davis & Gaskell, 2009; Dumay & Gaskell, 2012; Henderson, Powell, Gaskell, & Norbury, 2014). Davis and Gaskell’s (2009) PET and fMRI study showed that for new words that are learned by listening and repeating (i.e., repetition), it takes some time to achieve a similar lexical status as familiar words because the novel mapping must be integrated with items of existing mapping and with several representations (e.g., semantic, phonological, and morphosyntactic). In the present study, a similar phenomenon was observed in a

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phonological aspect (i.e., word stress) of words: an accurate phonological representation was generated for untrained words (i.e., new words). That is, the representation of the target sound in trained words became stronger and more solid in itself due to repetition training (Truscott, 2014). This reinforced representation was gradually combined with a new representation (the target sound in untrained words) (Truscott, 2014). Because consolidation is an essential part of L2 learning, this finding is worth consideration.

Quality: F1 Values Initial schwa (weak-strong syllables) Table 5 and Figure 3 illustrate descriptive statistics for the F1 of the initial schwa in Tests 1 (ten minutes after the study phase) and Test 2 (one week after the study phase). The data on the F1 of the initial schwa in Tests 1 and 2 were subjected to a three-way ANOVA, with Repetition (unrepeated, repeated five, repeated ten times), Familiarity (high, low), and Interval (ten minutes, one week) as factors. The analysis yielded no significant main effects of Repetition, F (2, 317) = 0.588, p = .556, η2p = .004, Familiarity, F (1, 318) = 0.149, p = .700, η2p = .000, or Interval, F (1, 318) = 0.371, p = .543, η2p = .001. No significant interactions were found for Repetition × Interval, F (2, 317) = 0.009, p = .991, η2p = .000, for Repetition × Familiarity, F (2, 317)= 0.675, p = .510, η2p = .004, or for Repetition × Familiarity × Interval, F (2, 317)= 0.210, p = .811, η2p = .001. These findings indicate that no improvement in the F1 value of the initial schwa occurred in Tests 1 and 2, demonstrating that the F1 values of the initial schwa remained higher than the native norm. Thus, immediate repetition (five or ten times) with auditory words did not contribute to pronunciation improvement in terms of vowel quality for initial schwa. TABLE 5 Mean F1 of Initial Schwa (Hz) for Unrepeated and Repeated Words (Five, Ten Times) in Test 1 (Ten Minutes) and Test 2 (One Week) Test 1 (ten minutes)

Test 2 (one week)

High Unrepeated 605 (179) 5 times 629 (181) 10 times 605 (175) Native speakers 490 (98) Note. The value in parentheses is the standard deviation (SD).

Word Familiarity Low High 627 (186) 609 (141) 603 (122) 614 (141) 674 (171) 620 (176) 507 (137) 490 (98)

Figure 3. Mean F1 values of initial schwas: ten minutes vs. one week.

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Low 593 (166) 599 (160) 634 (192) 507 (137)

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Final schwa (strong-weak syllables) Table 6 displays descriptive statistics for the F1 values of final schwa for Test 1 (ten minutes) and Test 2 (one week later). Figure 4 illustrates the values in graph form. The data on the F1 of the final schwa in Tests 1 and 2 were treated in the same manner as in the analysis of the initial schwa. This analysis yielded no significant main effects of Repetition, F (2, 271) = 0.528, p = .591, η2p = .004, Familiarity, F (1, 272) = 0.129, p = .720, η2p = .000, or Interval, F (1, 272) = 0.540, p = .816, η2p = .001. No significant interactions were found for Repetition × Interval, F (2, 271) = 0.151, p = .860, η2p = .001, for Repetition × Familiarity, F (2, 271) = 0.656, p = .520, η2p = .005, or for Repetition × Familiarity × Interval F (2, 271) = 0.128, p = .880, η2p = .001. These findings reveal that no improvement in the F1 value of the final schwa occurred in Tests 1 and 2, indicating that immediate repetition (five or ten times) with auditory words did not facilitate improvement in final schwa pronunciation. As with the initial schwa, the F1 values of the final schwa produced by the Japanese participants tended to be higher than the native norm. TABLE 6 Mean F1 of Final Schwa (Hz) for Unrepeated and Repeated Words (Five, Ten times) in Test 1 (Ten Minutes) and Test 2 (One Week) Test 1 (ten minutes)

Test 2 (one week)

High Unrepeated 654 (254) 5 times 674 (171) 10 times 666 (170) Native speakers 577 (144) Note. The value in parentheses is the standard deviation (SD).

Word Familiarity Low High 640 (173) 672 (154) 701 (167) 694 (162) 675 (170) 653 (124) 586 (128) 577 (144)

Low 633 (142) 677 (137) 692 (155) 586 (128)

Figure 4. Mean F1 values of final schwas: ten minutes vs. one week.

Quality: F2 Values Initial schwa (weak-strong syllables) Table 7 displays descriptive statistics for the F2 values of initial schwa for Test 1 (ten minutes) and Test 2 (one week). Figure 5 illustrates the values in graph form. The analysis of F2 values of the initial schwa in Tests 1 and 2 was conducted in the same manner as for F1 values. The result yielded a significant main effect

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only for Interval, F (1, 318) = 3.959, p < .05, η2p = .013. No significant main effects were found for Repetition, F (2, 317) = 0.157, p = .855, η2p = .001 or Familiarity, F (1, 318) = 3.312, p = .070, η2p = .011. No significant interactions were obtained for Repetition × Interval, F (2, 317) = 1.570, p = .210, η2p = .010, for Repetition × Familiarity, F (2, 317) = 0.583, p = .559, η2p = .004, or for Repetition × Familiarity × Interval, F (2, 317) = 0.300, p = .971, η2p = .000. The main effect of Interval suggests that the mean F2 value of the initial schwa was significantly lower in Test 2 than in Test 1, showing that performance worsened one week after the study phase. Additionally, the absence of a significant difference between the repeated and unrepeated conditions suggests that a repetition effect did not occur. The F2 value of the initial schwa produced by the participants was lower than the native norm. Taken together, these findings indicate that the F2 value of the initial schwa did not improve through repetition. TABLE 7 Mean F2 of Initial Schwa (Hz) for Unrepeated and Repeated Words (Five, Ten Times) in Test 1 (Ten Minutes) and Test 2 (One Week) Test 1 (ten minutes)

Test 2 (one week)

High Unrepeated 1680 (444) 5 times 1590 (307) 10 times 1590 (307) Native speakers 1828 (475) Note. The value in parentheses is the standard deviation (SD).

Word Familiarity Low High 1610 (408) 1520 (278) 1600 (307) 1570 (282) 1500 (348) 1597 (437) 1705 (313) 1828 (475)

Low 1384 (425) 1539 (481) 1455 (374) 1705 (313)

Figure 5. Mean F2 values of initial schwas: ten minutes vs. one week.

Final schwa (strong-weak syllables) Table 8 shows descriptive statistics for the F2 values of the final schwa in Tests 1 and 2. Figure 6 plots the values. The analysis was identical to that performed for the F2 initial schwa. The analysis yielded significant main effects of Repetition, F (2, 271) = 4.466, p < .05, η2p = 0.033, and Familiarity, F (1, 272) = 4.128, F (1, 272) = 4.128, p < .05, η2p = .016, but no significant main effect of Interval, F (1, 272) = 0.498, p = .481, η2p = .002. There were no significant interactions for Repetition × Interval, F (2, 271) = 1.030, p = .359, η2p = .008, for Repetition × Familiarity, F (2, 271) = 0.879, p = .416, η2p = .007, or for Repetition × Familiarity × Interval, F (2, 271) = 0.652, p = .522, η2p = .005. A post-hoc test showed significant differences in the F2 value of the final schwa only between the no-

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repetition and five-repetition conditions, p < .05, d = 0.40 (a small-sized effect). The findings on the main effect of Repetition suggest that the overall F2 values of the final schwa under five repetitions were significantly higher than those under no repetition, and close to the native norm. The absence of a significant effect of Interval suggests that no difference occurred between the ten-minute and one-week intervals. These results indicate that the repetition effect that occurred in Test 1 (ten minutes) lasted for one week under the five-repetition condition in terms of the F2 values of the final schwa. TABLE 8 Mean F2 of Final Schwa (Hz) for Unrepeated and Repeated Words (Five, Ten Times) in Test 1 (Ten Minutes) and Test 2 (One Week) Test 1 (ten minutes)

Test 2 (one week)

High Unrepeated 1731 (315) 5 times 1894 (342) 10 times 1800 (233) Native speakers 1807 (201) Note. The value in parentheses is the standard deviation (SD).

Word Familiarity Low High 1570 (302) 1765 (303) 1759 (257) 1796 (367) 1822 (437) 1759 (341) 1909 (286) 1807 (201)

Low 1611 (304) 1803 (368) 1660 (280) 1909 (286)

Figure 6. Mean F2 values of final schwas: ten minutes vs. one week.

Discussion on Schwa Quality Overall findings In terms of the quality aspect of schwa, overall repetition effects were not observed (except for F2 of final schwa). In general, the participants’ F1 was relatively higher than the native norm, and their F2 was lower than the norm. These were characteristic of articulatory targets closer to the Japanese low vowel /a/ or /o/, as previously stated. These findings suggest that because schwa is spelled as , , and in the word stimuli, the participants may have pronounced it by reflecting the one-to-one grapheme–phoneme correspondence in their L1 phonological representations, which is consistent with previous studies (e.g., Lee et al., 2006; Sugiura, 2006). However, it might not be immediately clear why orthography would affect pronunciation in a test where the spelling is not provided. Young-Scholten and Archibald (2000) argued that adult learners in a foreign language learning context are likely to have had contact with written L2 words from the beginning of learning and are thus expected to possess orthographic representations for words that they have already stored in their lexicon. Given this situation, such learners tend to access written input and

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rely on these orthographic representations to pronounce words or to speak in a target language, even when written input is unavailable. This study indicates that the mere repetition of auditory words is only minimally effective in improving schwa quality, suggesting that participants were unable to sufficiently encode the phonetic information available in the auditory input and to restructure the preexisting phonological representation.

The persistence of the repetition effect for final schwa F2 values An interesting finding regarding the repetition effect on the quality of schwa is that contrary to duration ratio, a persistent repetition effect was found for final schwa (strong–weak stress pattern) under the fiverepetition condition in F2 values. Explaining the finding is somewhat challenging because this result contradicts the persistent effect found only with the initial schwa for duration ratio. However, as argued by Flemming and Jonson (2007), the final schwa is intrinsically more similar in quality to a full vowel than the initial schwa. Therefore, it can be assumed that even the Japanese participants, whose language does not have a central vowel, were able to easily articulate it. An issue that remains unclear; however, is why the repetition effect was observed only in F2 and not in F1. One of the possible accounts lies in individual variations in the accurate productions of schwa by the participants. Tomita et al. (2010) who investigated the pronunciation of schwa by Japanese learners with sufficient English ability has reported that one learner produced a target-like schwa in terms of F1 but not in terms of F2, while another participant exhibited the opposite pattern. Further research is necessary to fully explain this finding.

Conclusion Summary of Findings and Pedagogical Implications By employing the concept of the auditory priming effect, which is widely studied in L1 and L2 speech processing, the current study suggests the importance of reconsidering the value of the repetition of auditory words for L2 pronunciation improvement. The present study particularly focused on how the amount of input (five and ten repetitions) and the quality of input (initial/final schwa, high/low familiarity) influences a learner’s sensitivity to the phonetic/phonological information of presented auditory words as well as how these factors facilitate pronunciation learning. The experiment also evaluated the repetition effect, which was observed immediately after practice and was preserved for one week. Thus, this study provided several noteworthy findings, which are discussed in detail. Immediate auditory word repetition (five and ten times) improved the pronunciation of schwa by Japanese learners of English, particularly in terms of relative duration; however, repeating the target word more than five times did not differentiate the effect. It is unlikely that there is a linear relationship between the number of repetitions and pronunciation. This finding supports previous research on the optimum number of repetitions for improving prosody in terms of pitch range (Hori, 2008; Miyake, 2009b). From a pedagogical viewpoint, determining the optimal number of auditory word repetitions is meaningful in the pursuit of appropriate pronunciation instruction and learning the schwa sound; however, five repetitions might induce boredom. Therefore, researchers and instructors should develop ways to maintain learner motivation to continue practicing in communicative settings. Interestingly, the schwa position (word stress patterns) appeared to be related to the persistence of the repetition effect. For the duration ratio, the effect was observed in both initial and final schwas after a 10minute interval; however, one week later, repetition effectiveness was observed only for the initial schwa, which indicates an exceptional stress pattern for Japanese speakers and shows that it is more difficult for them

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to acquire than the schwa sound in the final syllable of a word. This finding suggests that a stress pattern that is uncommon to L2 learners may be more strongly embedded and remembered than a common stress pattern learned by auditory word repetition, which is meaningful from a teaching perspective. The most intriguing finding of this study was that in the durational aspect the generalization of repetition effects for novel words (i.e., unrepeated words) with low familiarity and the initial schwa sound, which are less common features for the participants, occurred one week after the study phase. This finding suggests that the information obtained from auditory input and repetition is gradually included in the language memory and processing system. ESL and EFL teachers should note that the repetitive effect might not appear for new items immediately after practice. Although this finding is limited to English stress rhythms in the present study, if the repetitive effect can be generalized to novel (unrepeated) words in other linguistic aspects, then this is a crucial finding for L2 language learning. Regarding vowel quality (i.e., F1 and F2), it appeared that mere repetition did not significantly contribute to improving the vowel quality of the schwa sound. Only the F2 value of the final schwa, which was a common stress pattern for Japanese participants, exhibited a persistent effect (one week); however, for the duration ratio, a persistent effect was observed in the initial schwa sound, which was a less common stress pattern for the participants. These asymmetric results may be attributed to the process in which information about phonetic features is stored in the mental lexicon and/or encoded in speech production; the duration ratio is involved in metrical structures accompanying regular and irregular patterns (rules), whereas vowel quality is related to phoneme information and/or movements of articulators, which do not have these patterns. Notably, the quality of the schwa sound produced by the participants tended to reflect their L1 one-to-one grapheme–phoneme correspondence in the present study, even though orthography was not presented in the practice or elicitation tasks. That is, the participants were less sensitive to formants and thus failed to improve their pronunciation in this respect. Based on the phonetic feature hypothesis proposed by McAllister et al. (2002), which is mentioned earlier in this paper, since Japanese contains phonemic vowel distinctions regarding length (i.e., long and short), Japanese speakers could have been able to utilize the phonetic feature of duration to produce the reduced English vowels in the manner of native English speakers but may not have been able to use quality information (Lee et al., 2006). The method of pronunciation training used in the present study was simple repetition, or implicit learning. Therefore, learners were not explicitly taught in regards to strong and weak vowels in words. To facilitate improvement of the quality of the schwa sound, it may be important to include explicit educational intervention in L2 pronunciation training. One method would be to direct the learners’ attention to the coarticulation strategy and to emphasize it during their exposure to spoken English input. The term coarticulation was proposed by Menzerath and Lacerda (1933) to refer to successive sounds articulated simultaneously, which is language-specific. Native speakers of English produce full vowels at the targeted position and leave the unstressed vowels, including schwa (only in the F2 value, Kondo, 2000), to contextual assimilation. That is, the English schwa sound is coarticulated more strongly with the surrounding segmental sounds than full vowels (Magen, 1998). Thus, the vowel contrast between full and unstressed vowels plays a crucial role in the coarticulatory pattern of English; however, a study has shown that the F2 values of nonproficient Japanese speakers are quite similar to Japanese vowels (Kondo, 2000) without allowing schwa to be assimilated to the neighboring segments. Japanese speakers of English should therefore learn an English coarticulation pattern by contrasting targeted full vowels and targetless (assimilation to surrounding segments) schwa in their pronunciation. A teaching method based on coarticulation could draw the participants’ attention to the visual information necessary for articulating schwa by showing internal articulatory movements, for example, high-low (F1) and front-back (F2) movements of the tongue on the computer screen, to improve the quality of schwa. Future studies are necessary to investigate the effectiveness of this approach.

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Limitations and Future Studies There are several limitations that call for further studies. Firstly, while the present study examined acoustic properties to investigate the improvement of pronunciation, it would also be informative to take speech intelligibility into account, considering the optimal goal of speech communication (Saito & Lyster, 2012). Secondly, the present study was limited to students at the low intermediate level (CEFR A2 level). Studies with learners at different levels will provide a better understanding of the repetition effect on improving L2 pronunciation of schwa. Moreover, further research is necessary to consider what specific linguistic features (e.g., prosodic information, rhythmic patterns) and under what conditions (e.g., speech rate, quality of voice) the phonetic information of auditory input are incorporated into phonological representations during auditory word repetition tasks. Such studies of pronunciation from the perspective of speech processing will provide further understanding of L2 phonological development, as well as more effective methods of teaching L2 pronunciation.

Acknowledgements The findings reported in this paper are based on my doctoral dissertation entitled Production of English schwa by Japanese speakers (Sugiura, 2015). This research was partially supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (No. 24720262, 26370681). I would like to thank the anonymous Asia TEFL reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

The Author Kaori SUGIURA has an M.A. in TESOL from New York University in the United States and a Ph.D. in Language, Communication, and Culture from Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan. She is currently an associate professor in the Department of Science and Engineering of Ritsumeikan University. Her research interests include L2 speech perception and production. College of Science and Engineering Ritsumeikan University 1-1-1 Noji-higashi, Kusatsu City, Shiga, 525-8577, Japan Tel: +81 77-599-4352 Email: [email protected]

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Book Review The Multilingual Turn: Implication for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education, by Stephen May (Ed.), New York and London, Routledge: Taylor and Francis, 2014, 229 pp., $45.60 (US), ISBN 978-0-415-53432-1 As a powerful legacy of the Western hegemony, the notion of monolingualism has long been seeping into subdisciplines of applied linguistics such as SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education. Despite a plethora of published scholarship feverishly promoting the contesting idea of multilingualism, scholars in these fields have remained nonchalant with the dissemination of knowledge and information. The publication of this new edited volume comprising nine chapters is another timely endeavor by potent doyens and doyennes in the fields of SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education to further reassert the import of embracing multilingualism amid the ongoing hegemonic forces of the lingering monolingual bias in applied linguistics. The first chapter by May bemoans the sluggish move the SLA, TESOL, and bilingualism fields have made to embrace a more additive approach to bi/multilingualism. Arguing that the dominance of linguistic-cognitive scholarship has potentially hindered such a move, May proposes Language Enhancing the Achievement of Pasifika (LEAP) as a path to cross the borderlands of the aforementioned fields. Ortega’s chapter begs for the abandonment of nativeness as organizing principles in the study of additional language learning, and instead calls attention to usage-based linguistics (UBL), a move to stay away from the monolingual bias and to step forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. Block’s chapter reconsiders the significance of adopting the idea of embodiment and multimodality in language acquisition. Block uses compelling illustrative examples from various cultural contexts to highlight the necessities for including multimodality in linguistic-cognitive SLA scholarship. Canagarajah’s chapter demonstrates how a practice-based view of language and performative competence through what he calls the “translingual practice,” can be empowering in helping students negotiate mutable language norms in the contact zone. Given the rich linguistic resources students bring to language learning, he calls for the openness of teachers to provide a space for learners to exhibit their performative competence. Norton’s chapter, drawing a perspective from the constructs of investment and imagined communities, explores the ways students in multilingual contexts negotiated connections between literacy, identity, and language teaching. Leung’s chapter reconfigures the once popular concept of communicative competence, highlighting the distinction between certified communicative competence in English Language Teaching and learners’ actual use of English. Specifically, he tries to unravel the persistent ambiguities between certified communicative comptence – via proficiency test scores – and the observed capacity of English language learners to communicate in context. The next chapter by Garcĭa and Flores addresses issues related to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

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now implemented in 42 of the 50 states in the U.S.A. In particular, they comment on the content of the standard, arguing that it has neglected current theories of bilingualism and the complex language practices of bilinguals, as well as the multilingualism of the U.S. student body. Wei’s chapter analyzes the use of the Chinese language in complementary schools in Britain with bi/multilingual students. Employing data on classroom interactions in six schools, Wei focuses co-learning of both English and Chinese and cultural practices during classroom interactions. In the last chapter, Blackledge, Cresse, and Takhi make the case of returning to the Bakhtinian notion of heteroglossia in an attempt to go beyond multilingualism and devise a pedagogy rooted in the communication patterns of students in late modern societies. Examining data from one classroom in a Panjabi complementary school in Birmingham, England, they emphasize the significance of language play like stylization, parody, and pastiche, in the teaching and learning contexts. Overall, this volume adds more rigors to the idea of multilingualism and further contributes to our understanding of the vibrant and robust multilingual practices in diverse multilingual sites. It is therefore a mustread collection for those passionate about pursuing the paradigmatic shift from monolingualism to multilingualism in language pedagogy. However, the use of the word turn in multilingual turn reflects a sheer irony, as it gives the impression that multilingual is a novel idea. In fact, multilingual practices have been in existence for quite a long time not only in the East, but in the West as well (Canagarajah, 2013; Sugiharto 2015). As such, a chapter that addresses the long history of multilingual practices both in the West and East needs to be included as a backdrop to which the other chapters can be coherently framed and presented to the readers. More importantly, with the inclusion of this additional chapter, the lively discussions on the contemporary multilingual practices in different multilingual settings offered in almost every chapter in the volume would have a solid historical account. References Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New York: Routledge. Sugiharto, S. (2015). The multilingual turn in applied linguistics? A perspective from the periphery. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 25(3), 414-421.

Setiono Sugiharto English Department, Faculty of Education and Language, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta, Indonesia Email: [email protected]

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The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 © 2004 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

Book Review Assessing Young Learners of English: Global and Local Perspectives, Marianne Nikolov (ed.), New York, Springer, 2016, 343 pp., $139 (US), ISBN 978-3-319-22421-3 This edited volume on assessing Young Learners of English (YLE), defined as children “between the ages of 5 and 12 or so” (p. 19 in the book) who learn English as a language additional to their mother tongue, appeals to me for three reasons: because of my role as a researcher in language assessment, a teacher educator of pre- and in-service English language teachers in an ESL context, and a parent of a six-year-old YLE. In particular, as a researcher with a background in assessing adult English learners, I am interested in knowing what distinguishes the assessment of YLE from that of adults, what is the current state of the art in assessing young learners, and what are the research gaps and future directions. Chapters 1 and 2 address the above questions and set the context for the following chapters. Specifically, Chap. 1 reviews the issues, trends, challenges and limitations of current research in YLE. Chap. 2 reviews the global enthusiasm for and turbulence surrounding an early-start over the past 30 years (from the 1990s to 2010s) and summarizes major findings from two international surveys of educators regarding the practices of YLE teaching and assessment in over 50 countries and educational contexts. Chapters 3 and 4 concern setting standards for YLE assessment. The study from Pearson (Chap. 3) approached this by developing a generic inventory of YLE descriptors with the well-known Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) as its start point, while the Hungary national project (Chap. 4) followed the CEFR approach to develop localized ‘can-do’ statements for Primary 1-6 students. The Pearson study provides a useful literature review on the differences of YLE from adult learners and the importance of such differences for standard setting. Also useful for assessment researchers are the details reported in this chapter concerning descriptor development and validation. For teachers and teacher educators, Chap. 4 provides useful lists of ageappropriate themes, task and text types for developing classroom-based assessment tasks for YLE. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 present three validation studies, two of which concern two international certificate exams of YLE language proficiency, i.e. TOEFL Primary and the computer-based Cambridge Young Learner English test. The study on TOEFL primary involved EFL teachers from 15 countries to judge the relevance and importance of test items in its reading and listening papers. The Cambridge study collected quantitative and qualitative data from young learners, their parents and examiners. The third study is from Poland; it validated a listening and reading test developed for 10-year-old primary students. Chapters 8 and 9 investigate two local concerns in Germany and China. The German study (Chap. 8) investigated the myth about “the early start”, i.e. does an earlier start make a difference? It compared two cohorts of YLE after 2 and 3.5 years of English instruction and found students starting earlier (at the age of 6) performed better than those that started later (at the age of 8) on receptive skills. The study from China (Chap. 9) analyzed two achievement test papers designed by classroom teachers for parallel courses using two sets of textbooks.

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Differences among the two test papers were found to align with the differential emphases of the two textbooks, which had an impact on students' motivation, perceived difficulty of learning and test results. Chapters 10 and 11 report two longitudinal studies investigating the impact of individual differences (e.g. selfconcept, motivation, aptitude) on YLE’s development of speaking and listening. The first study tracked the changes of motivation and self-concept; it found self-concept to have higher correlations with oral production than motivation. The second study found aptitude and parents’ education, followed by anxiety and beliefs about L2 learning, to be the strongest predictors of listening performance. The findings of the four studies are informative for pre- and in-service teachers, parents, policy makers, and curriculum planners. Teacher educators can use the four studies to introduce content analysis and basic quantitative research methods in YLE research and assessment. Chapters 12 and 13 focus on self and peer-assessment. Chapter 12 provides a literature review on selfassessment of and for learning and a classification of existing SA instruments on five dimensions, i.e., domain setting (general or specific), scale setting (the number of levels and the specificity of level descriptors), goal setting (the degree of autonomy and flexibility given to YLE), product or process oriented, and individual independent assessment or assisted. Chapter 13 deals with a classroom-based study in Taiwan investigating peer and self-assessment of oral presentations and their relations with teacher assessment. Overall, this volume provides readers with an updated ‘global and local perspective’ on the assessment of YLE as indicated by the book title. It has a collection of studies from diverse contexts: Hungary (Chap. 4 and 11), Poland (Chap. 6), Germany (Chap. 8), China (Chap. 9), Croatia (Chap. 10) and Taiwan (Chap. 13), as well as studies of three international certificate exams of YLE English language proficiency, i.e., Pearson Test of Young Learners, TOEFL Primary and Cambridge YLE test. The chapters cover various issues and stages in assessing YLE from the current state of the art in YLE research and practice (Chap. 1-2), standard setting (Chap. 3-4), test development and validation (Chap. 5-7) in the traditional testing paradigm, to self and peer-assessment and their applications in classrooms (Chap. 12-13). It also includes empirical studies (Chap. 8-11) addressing several important questions concerning YLE education and assessment, such as the effectiveness of an early-start, ageappropriate assessment methods and age-related concerns. As such, this book can be useful introductory material for teacher educators, their student teachers and graduate students interested in YLE education or assessment. Some chapters (3, 4 and 9) can be informative for those interested in constructing age-appropriate YLE assessment. Though the book does not provide exceptionally novel ideas or sophisticated research methods, assessment researchers may find the literature reviews (e.g. Chap. 1-3 on YLE and Chap. 12 on self-assessment), validation designs and data-collection instruments to be informative for their research. One weakness of this collective volume may be the editing and organization. For instance, the chapters could be numbered in the contents table and organized thematically in sections to enable selective reading by readers with different needs and priorities. Some chapters are in need of more careful editing to remove typos, mistakes, and inconsistencies in terminology across chapters (for instance, the age range of YLE is defined as ‘from 6 to 12 or so’ on page 2, but ‘5 to 12’ on page 19). Relating to this, the numbering of chapters in this book review is in strict accordance with the sequence of their appearance in the book.

Xie Qin Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Email:[email protected]

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The Journal of Asia TEFL http://journal.asiatefl.org/ e-ISSN 2466-1511 © 2004 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.

Book Review English as a Global Language in China: Deconstructing the Ideological Discourses of English in Language Education, by Pan Lin, Cham, Springer,, 2015,189 pp., $129 (US), ISBN: 978-3319103914 This book explores English language ideology in China in the context of English as a global language in a globalized world by using both the diachronic and synchronic approaches. The book is original and exemplary for its study in this area, in particular in the Chinese context where research on English language ideology has become significant in the field of education. The objectives of the research are clearly presented and the research gap which this study attempts to fill is well established. Overall, the book is a coherent piece of work with professional language and a systematic structure which makes an original contribution to research in this area. Included in this book is a deep comprehension of the existing literature. It clearly defines some major terminology such as language ideology, globalization, and synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Setting these concepts within the context of this research further strengthens the literature review. Moreover, the book introduces the study’s research methods comprehensively and clearly explains the procedures for data collection. The results are discussed in accordance with the research objectives, and diagrams help to present the results systematically and meaningfully. The book is reviewed in more detail on a chapter-by-chapter basis below. Chapter One discusses the context, purposes, questions, importance, and scope of the study. There is an increasing interest in English at various levels of schooling in China in the context of globalization. Thus, it is both important and necessary to investigate the ideologies of China’s English language education because Chinese and English are two important global languages. Chapter Two first reviews the theories of globalization from different dimensions. Then a theoretical framework for the investigation into language spread and linguistic ideology is created by employing a combination of economic and cultural approaches from both macro and micro perspectives. Chapter Three reviews and defines the technical term ‘language ideology’ with regard to English language teaching and learning in the context of globalization. A theoretical framework is later constructed for the investigation into the educational language ideology with a critical discussion on “colonial celebration, instrumentalism, laissez-faire liberalism, linguicide and linguicism as proposed by Pennycook and other scholars” (Pan, 2015: 33). Chapter Four historically reviews and critically discusses English language education in China from a diachronic perspective in China’s social, economic, and political contexts with an explanation of the production and reproduction of educational ideologies. The status and objectives of English language education and English language ideologies from the widely diverse past of the Chinese education system are

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examined in this chapter. How social politics have influenced language education in China and how Chinese national political ideologies have affected language planning and learning are also explained in this chapter. Chapter Five discusses English language ideologies evidenced by the Chinese official English language education policies and the social implications of those ideologies. Four dimensions of the Chinese Foreign Language Education Policies are mined for information relevant to the arguments in the next chapter. Chapter Six investigates whether China’s official national English language policies have been implemented well. This project researched teachers’ and students’ discourse, such as the status of English language in China, the objectives of English language teaching and learning, and the standards for English language teaching and learning. Chapter Seven discusses how the English language is perceived by learners in Olympic community English classes and corners. This study used interviews and group discussions to explore the reasons for these learners’ voluntary learning of English, their views on the status of English in China’s globalization, the possible threat the English language brings to Chinese language and culture, and the importance of the English language and its culture for Chinese society. Lastly in this chapter, the social, cultural, and political factors which possibly caused the ideologies of the English language and their implications under China’s globalization are discussed. Chapter Eight mainly addresses the social-cultural and educational implications of the English language ideologies reflected by the different levels of Chinese education within the temporal-spatial theoretical framework. It concludes with a discussion of the significance and limits of the research. Suggestions are given for language policy-makers, educators, in-service teachers, learners, and the state. Lastly, this research project was conducted in the context of China with the main research carried out in Beijing and further research in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. All of these are first-tier cities in China and relatively developed regions in which English language culture and learning English have already become popular. Therefore, future research is highly encouraged to draw attention to other areas of China as research fields, such as the west and amongst minority ethnic groups. An additional consideration is that the current research’s methodology employed interviews, group discussions, and survey questionnaires as tools for data collection and analysis. It can be limiting to study language ideology based on participants’ oral reports and written answers about their language beliefs. Research should also examine how language ideology is embodied in people’s daily practices, and more specifically in language teachers’ classroom teaching.

Ruifeng Lyu Graduate School, The Education University of Hong Kong, China Email: [email protected]

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