Cultural Differences in Self-Perceptions of Ability, Confidence, and Perceptions of Difficulty: Pedagogical Implications for the Language Classroom (original) (raw)
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System, 1999
English as Foreign Language (EFL) in East Asia involves major sociocultural issues. Modern, Western-based methodologies such as Communicative Language Learning (CLL, Communicative Language Teaching, CLT in this paper) and its further development Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching (TBLLT, Ellis, 2003), feature principles which can conflict with some of the fundamental values of Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHC) education and hinder their adoption in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Hong-Kong and Vietnam. This article introduces a sociocultural, ethnographic perspective on EFL in East Asia which contextualizes language teaching in its broader educational and cultural environment. Teacher-centeredness, book and writing focuses, memorization strategies within a grammar-translation approach are in contradiction with modern language teaching methodologies' focuses on learner-centeredness and teachers' facilitating roles, student participation and interactions, communication competence and learner autonomy. The text advocates for a mean between Western and Eastern learning cultures through a context-based, culturally-sensitive approach and introduces classroom's strategies for the implementation of CLL and TBLLT in China and East Asia.
First-year Japanese University Students' Language
Japan's government has mandated a shift from traditional to communicative methodologies in secondary English classrooms (Tanabe, 2004), but it is unclear whether this has affected student beliefs about language learning. This study investigates the beliefs of 315 incoming university students at a large private university in Japan from 2006 through 2011 using Sakui and Gaies's (1999) 45-item beliefs survey. Factor analysis found four belief factors: Positive Attitude, L1 Instruction Orientation, Traditional Orientation, and Expectations for School. Although ANOVA found no significant differences among the cohorts for the means of the four belief factors or for English proficiency scores, cluster analysis found three orientations: traditionalist, independent, and persevering. Learner beliefs about the insufficiency of English education at school, the importance of listening and speaking practice, and the role of culture and other outside factors appear relatively stable in spite of curricular changes. However, in contrast to earlier studies (Riley, 2006; Sakui & Gaies, 1999), learner beliefs are not linked to traditional or communicative methodologies, but to personal goals, language choice, and the growing normalcy of English. We conclude that students' beliefs, though stable, are also sensitive to social change, evolving even before curriculum changes are implemented.
This study reports on aspects of a larger study of over 600 Japanese high school students taken from ten schools in one prefecture and their attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language (Ingram, Kono, O'Neill & Sasaki, 2008). It compares the cross-cultural attitudes of those who performed highly on the STEP Test with those who had low performance on the STEP Test Students rated seventeen items on a semantic differential scale to elicit their attitudes towards English speaking people, Japanese people, European people, Asian people, the Japanese, Indigenous Ainu people, their own English language teachers and themselves. They also provided their opinions about cultural diversity in society, foreign language learning and their preferred ways of learning EFL at school. Based on percentage positive response ratings the results showed that those students who had achieved higher levels of English proficiency on the STEP Test tended to be more positive towards English speaking people and Europeans in general, and to a little extent more critical of their own culture, Asian people in general and themselves but in some respects more positive towards the Ainu people. There was also evidence of students who had higher proficiency levels recognising the need to engage more frequently in learning experiences that involved the English language and culture, and meaningful communication.
Tendencies for future research on English Speaking Anxiety in Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) students and teachers, 2020
This paper examines the causes and consequences of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Speaking was the skill that contributed most to a high FLA level and that approximately one-third of students presented a moderate FLA level. The situations experienced by Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHC) students were chosen as the focus of our research because they have higher FLA rates of all ethnic groups. This work aims to shed light on English Speaking Anxiety and observe the tendencies to enable future research in this field. The research is based on a series of papers collected from journals. The findings are related to the influence of emotional factors that contribute to anxiety in the classroom and to teachers' attitudes. A high anxiety rate may be related not only to a natural propensity to anxiety, but also to factors related to teachers' activities and attributes. The studies showed that the tone of voice, gender, and the teacher's dress code affected levels of anxiety experienced by students.
2017
This research was conducted to investigate foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) among Japanese college students taking English as a foreign language (EFL), focusing mainly on the relationship between FLCA and first language (L1) use in English task-based classes. Factors possibly affecting FLCA, such as gender, proficiency level, enthusiasm, self-confidence, and teacher-type preference, were also investigated to obtain a holistic picture. A cross-sectional research design with a mixed-methods approach (questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews) was adopted. Japanese EFL college students were found to have various degrees of FLCA. Overall, students with the highest anxiety levels were females (who felt stronger self-consciousness and peer pressure), beginners, and those who had poorer comprehension, showed less enthusiasm, studied less at home, spoke less English outside class, had lower self-confidence, took fewer risks, exhibited a higher desire to use Japanese in ...
Developing the Inventory of Cultural Components to Assess Perception in Language Learning
Novitas¬ ROYAL, 2012
As culture and language learning are regarded as inseparable, language teaching classes are expected to cover some elements of cultural values. The present study aims to deal with the components of culture by explaining the construction of the Inventory of Cultural Components which was developed by the researcher. The initial version of the 5-scale Likert type inventory which constituted of 58 items was administered to a number of 580 participants at the departments of English Language Teaching and Turkish Language Teaching during the spring term of 2011-2012 academic year. Reduction and categorization of the items were provided by factor analysis and reliability of the scale was calculated. The overall results indicated Cronbach’s alpha reliability of .94 for the nine-component 45-itemed scale. Thus, researchers might benefit from the instrument to identify the cultural components being included in language teaching curriculum.
Learning and Individual Differences, 2021
To investigate the role of Chinese culture on students' motivation, self-efficacy, willingness, and frequency for completing a difficult public task (speaking English as a foreign language), we investigated the extent to which Chinese English-learning students' distal achievement motives of hope for success and fear of failure were related to their proximal achievement goals, and subsequently predicted their classroom speaking self-efficacy, willingness to communicate, and frequency for speaking English in class-a task that is both difficult and public. Our results confirmed that students' achievement motives were hierarchically related to their achievement goals, and their speaking self-efficacy and willingness to communicate directly related to their speaking-frequency. However, our data-driven model revealed that (1) hope for success had a negative relationship with performance avoidance goals, (2) hope for success had a direct, positive relationship with speaking self-efficacy, and (3) mastery approach goals directly related to willingness to communicate-but not to speaking self-efficacy. Our analysis showed that correlations, after correcting for measurement errors, were very high for hope for success and fear of failure, as well as among all achievement goals. We discuss trajectories and relationships of these powerful motives and goals for conducting a difficult task (e.g., publicly speaking a foreign language) within a highly competitive environment (Chinese educational system), and provide insights into the power of cognitive hope and fear of shame, particularly within a context that has strong press for competitive accomplishments. 1.1. Achievement strivings in China-potentially shaming? The Chinese educational system is steeped in Confucian tradition, a tradition that emphasizes high achievement through effort (Hong & Salili, 2000; Stankov, 2010). Perhaps because of the strong emphasis on effort and high achievement, research has shown that people in