27.2940, Review: Applied Ling; Language Acq: Paradowski (2015)

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Subject: 27.2940, Review: Applied Ling; Language Acq: Paradowski (2015)

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Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:10:31
From: Kristin Lange [klange at email.arizona.edu]
Subject: Productive Foreign Language Skills for an Intercultural World

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-2347.html

EDITOR: Michał B.  Paradowski
TITLE: Productive Foreign Language Skills for an Intercultural World
SUBTITLE: A Guide (not only) for Teachers
SERIES TITLE: Foreign Language Teaching in Europe - Volume 13
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Kristin Lange, University of Arizona

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

Michel B. Paradowski’s “Review of Productive Foreign Language Skills for an
Intercultural World” provides fourteen chapters by researchers, educators, and
teacher trainers from diverse settings on teaching and language skills that
“are crucial to 21st century language instruction” (p. 7) but often neglected
in the classroom. Five sections focus on different skills sets; section one is
about advanced speaking skills, section two about communicative competence for
the workplace, section three about facilitating cultural exchanges, section
four about intercultural competence from the teacher’s perspective, and
section five about writing skills. The majority of the chapters report on
research studies; however, terms, concepts, and policy, and teaching
recommendations are addressed as well.

The first section of the volume features three contributions investigating the
development and promotion of advanced speaking skills in English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) classrooms, specifically discourse markers, foreign language
anxiety, and speaking skills in Business English courses. Do Thi Quy Thu and
Richard B. Baldauf Jr. researched the use of discourse markers (DM) in
Vietnamese non-native speakers (NNS) and learners of English and compared it
to the use of Australian native speakers (NS) of English. DM found in the
recorded and transcribed conversations were categorized according to Fung and
Carter’s (2007) functional paradigm into interpersonal, referential,
structural, and cognitive DM. Using repeated measures ANOVA the researchers
found a significant difference between NS and NNSs’ frequency of DM with
“substantially lower frequency rate of all DMs” (p. 21) in the NNS data. The
frequency of the four categories of DM also differed significantly, with NS
using more interpersonal and referential DM, and NNS producing mostly DM for
formal functions. Do Thi Quy Thu and Baldauf Jr. hypothesize that
textbook-based learning and lack of interpersonal communication with NS could
explain their results and suggest a few possible pedagogical implications.

The following chapter in this section, written by Michael B. Paradowski,
Klaudia Dmowska, and Dagmara Czasak, deals with foreign language anxiety and
how it relates to speaking in the FL classroom. Drawing from data collected
through questionnaires that were issued to EFL learners in various
institutional settings, the researchers could generate types and reasons for
foreign language anxiety and learners’ coping strategies, as well as
differences among women and men, and adults and teenagers. The researchers
include the most favorable methods for conquering foreign language anxiety
from the learners ’perspective and discuss how those could be implemented in
the FL classroom. The authors also suggests a variety of strategies applicable
to several instructional contexts and forms of anxiety.

The third contribution to this section by Agnieszka Dzięcioł-Pędich offers a
theoretical and argumentative piece on the challenges English instructors face
when teaching Business English at institutes of higher education. After
summarizing the design of many tertiary language courses based on
communicative language teaching (CLT) frameworks and European language
policies, as well as outlining what the development of speaking skills in CLT
encompasses, Dzięcioł-Pędich lists several challenges instructors of Business
English often face, such as requirements set by government institutes, the
scope and quality of speaking activities in coursebooks, lack of opportunity
for practical application, and teachers’ professional training. The last part
of this chapter gives some useful suggestions about the way teachers could
overcome these challenges.

The second section of the volume also addresses speaking skills, but with a
focus on communicative competence for intercultural business settings.
Veronika-Diana Armaşu suggests several activities within a task-based
framework as understood by Ellis, that not only prepare language learners for
their future as intercultural business language users, but also aim to
incorporate learners’ previous knowledge and their environment to the best
effect. After giving brief summaries of her students’ profiles, oral
proficiency, and task-based language teaching (TBLT), Armaşu suggests and
describes five types of tasks that can be part of a larger speaking project. A
short evaluation and reflection of TBLT for promoting oral proficiency in
intercultural business settings in general follows.

In the other contribution to this section, Miya Komori-Glatz expands on TBLT
and incorporates an innovative and interdisciplinary approach when looking at
productive/speaking skills not only from an EFL perspective, but also from
human resource management (HRM) and how this paradigm understands
communicating effectively. Using research studies from both fields
Komori-Glatz argues that language teaching should be a part of business
programs and that traditional language teaching should be complemented with
“pragmatic and skill-based intercultural competence” (p. 100). She also
discusses activities that incorporate strategies such as backchannelling,
repetition, or the use of discourse markers. 

The third section in Paradowski’s edited volume offers two discussions that
aim to promote learners’ intercultural skills through direct intercultural
encounters. Gregory Thompson introduces the idea of adding a service learning
component to an advanced language course. Collecting data with reflective
journals and surveys throughout five years, Thompson’s  research addresses
whether service learning could promote not only oral proficiency, but also
students’ cultural awareness and intercultural competencies. He was also
interested in finding out if students could apply the knowledge they had
gathered in the classroom to the service learning context (p. 123). The
analysis of the data showed that service learning can have very positive
effects on student learning in terms of conversation and intercultural skills;
and it also allows them to connect classroom learning to authentic contexts.

The second paper in this section, a contribution by Constanza Tolosa, Helen
Villers and Martin East, looks at a school in New Zealand which has integrated
a telecollaboration component with English learners from Colombia into their
Spanish classes. The reciprocal peer-tutoring project aimed to promote
students’ writing skills as well as to “provide authentic opportunities for
foreign language interaction and intercultural communication” (p. 133).
Through interviews with the school’s principal, teachers of Spanish, and
students who participated in the online project, the researchers could
evaluate the program. Although Tolosa, Villers, and East do not explain on how
the program was developed and implemented, they could show through their data
analysis that online-peer tutoring especially promotes intercultural
communication and skills. 

The fourth section of the volume features four chapters with a focus on
fostering intercultural communicative competence, and especially the teachers’
perspective. The four chapters use Michael Byram’s (1997) and/or Claire
Kramsch’s (1993) work to frame their studies. The first contribution, a case
study by Chiu-Hui Wu, investigates the practices that three EFL teachers at a
college in Taiwan employ to promote intercultural communication, and also
focuses on the beliefs these teachers hold and how those inform their teaching
practices. Through the analysis of qualitative data (interviews, classroom
observation, student documents), Wu found two recurring themes in EFL
teachers’ practices and beliefs: understanding author/teacher bias and the use
of stereotypes to foster cultural sensitivity. She then suggests several
strategies that can promote intercultural competence, as well as implications
specifically for the EFL context.

Extending the EFL-context to Spain, Isabel Alonso-Belmonte and María
Fernández-Agüero analyze the internationally oriented textbook series Real
English; however, they also use their chapter to provide foreign language
instructors with information on the theories and frameworks of intercultural
competence. Framing their study in the grounded theory approach, the textbook
analysis identifies several limitations and weaknesses in Real English,
although internationally oriented. To compensate for those, Alonso-Belmonte
and Fernández-Agüero suggest several activities, techniques and material
focusing on experiential learning, ethnographic research, and task-based
activities. 

Connecting to the previous contribution is Ewa Maciejewska-Stępień’s analysis
and evaluation of the Sokrates- Lingua PICTURE project (Portfolio
Intercultural Communication: Towards Using Real Experiences). The project was
specifically designed to compensate for the limitations of foreign language
textbooks in regard to intercultural communication and offers language
teachers alternative modules that they can integrate into their classrooms.
Her evaluation, for which she used feedback questionnaires and interviews with
teachers, focuses on the quality of the PICTURE project. Although learners and
teachers gave the PICTURE project a generally positive evaluation, some
weaknesses could be identified, such as learners’ self-assessment throughout
the different modules. These weaknesses are addressed in Maciejewska-Stępień’s
suggestions for an intercultural syllabus.

The final contribution in this section, written by Ewa Bandura, looks at a
self-assessment tool for foreign language teachers, the European Portfolio for
Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL). Although the EPOSTL aims to stimulate
several areas of didactic knowledge and teaching skills, Bandura was
especially interested in the role of intercultural competence and how the
EPOSTL enhances student teachers’ professional awareness in this area. Bandura
started her evaluation with discourse analysis methods of terms such as
“inter-”, “cross-”, and “socio-cultural”. She then used Byram’s model of
intercultural competences as well as descriptions of intercultural competence
in the Common European Framework of reference for languages (CEFR), to
investigate in how far these concepts are represented in EPOSTL. In the next
step, nine teacher trainees evaluated themselves and also reflected on the
EPOSTL as a tool for self-evaluation and on how far intercultural
communication played a role in it. The analysis of this qualitative data
reveals that the EPOSTL is a useful tool for self-evaluation; however, it does
not necessarily further a teacher trainee’s understanding of intercultural
competence.

The final section of this volume features three chapters related to the
development of writing skills. Sabina A. Nowak investigated how
self-evaluation can be used as a tool to develop ESL students’ academic
writing skills. Using the homework assignments from 30 English Philology
students that specifically asked them to reflect on their writing, Nowak
analyzed the data according to students’ needs, problems, strengths, and
weaknesses. Nowak’s study also included an evaluation of the writing course
itself and self-reflection as an effective strategy for writing development.
In her findings, Nowak reports that the majority of the students could use the
self-evaluations as a learning experience and reflect on their writing skills,
and it affected their self-confidence. Furthermore, the self-evaluation
assignment not only encouraged reflection about the course but about students’
own learning.

In the following contribution, Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska compares the use of
connectors in writing samples from Polish EFL learners and British native
speakers, including expert writers and students. Leńko-Szymańska used three
different corpora to gather her samples, the International Corpus of Learner
English (ICLE), the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOC-NESS), and
the Freiburg-London-Oslo-Bergen (FLOB) corpus. The quantitative analysis of
this data indicates that Polish EFL learners use linking expressions most
frequently, followed closely by native speaker student writers. British expert
writers use linking expressions three times less than the other two groups.
The qualitative analysis found that both student groups used linking
expressions correctly; however, unlike the expert writers, they often relied
on them heavily to mask “a more global problem of the  lack of logic in the
structure of the argument” (p. 237). As her analysis indicates that the
overuse of connectors is a novice writer issue, rather than L1 influence, 
Leńko-Szymańska suggests that the role of connectors in writing coherent
discourse should be de-emphasized and other strategies, such as semantic
relationships, should be focused on.

The final contribution in this volume comes from Behzad Ghonsooly and Seyyed
Mohammad Reza Adel and investigates the effects of modes of discourse
(narration and exposition) in the L1 and EFL writing of advanced Iranian EFL
learners. This discourse analysis study asked 40 Iranian EFL learners to
produce narrative and expository texts in their L1 and EFL. Their writing was
then rated according to a scale adopted from Engelhard, Gordon & Gabrielson
(1992), which involved an overall rating of the written texts as well as
specific elements (content, organization, sentence, formation, mechanics).
Statistical analyses of these ratings indicate that it is more difficult to
write an expository text than a narrative text in both languages and that the
learners’ L1, although influential, has a variant effect on learners’ ability
to write in English. In their conclusion, the authors point out the
complexities of writing as a skill, and suggest that writing studies need to
include several variables in their design (not only proficiency and modes of
discourse), and that writing competence may differ across different genres.

EVALUATION

Productive Foreign Language Skills for an Intercultural World (2015) is a
great resource, reference, and inspiration for foreign language educators and
scholars as is already indicated in its subtitle - “a guide not only for
teachers”. The 21 contributing authors cover a wide range of topics within
speaking, writing, and intercultural skills, including language anxiety,
corpora, teacher training, and English for Business, to name just a few. The
thematic scope and target audiences differ in the individual contributions,
with some focusing more on the research methods and discussion, the study
design, or specific suggestions and implications for teaching, but each
individual contribution finds an effective balance in theory and practice for
a broad audience. Although nine of the 14 contributions situate themselves in
Europe, and eleven specifically focus on English as a foreign language, they
are still applicable to several teaching and language contexts. The individual
authors succeed in giving just enough information about relevant language
policies in their respective countries and about their teaching institution;
this allows readers to follow their narrative without being caught up in minor
or exhausting details about their specific teaching contexts.

However, there are also a few limitations within this volume. Particularly for
an edited volume, it is important that the individual contributions are
synthesized and structured in a manner that allows coherence. Although the
editor provides an introduction to the volume, introductions to the five
sections of the volume and a discussion or closing section, as well as an
author or subject index, are missing. These elements could have pointed out
connections between the different studies more clearly. Furthermore, how the
individual studies have been categorized is not always clear, and sometimes
their connection to the theme of the section is questionable, or individual
contributions in sections seem too distinct from each other to build onto each
other. For instance, Dzięcioł-Pędich’s and Armaşu’s studies both focus on oral
proficiency and business English; yet, they are in two separate sections.
Short introductions to each of the five sections, in which the editor and/or
the authors highlight the contributions’ connection to the volume section and
to each other, could have facilitated a more cohesive edition.

Another aspect that could have been addressed more clearly is the editor’s
definition of productive skills. He does address important aspects of the term
from several contexts, i.e. productive skills as literally the skills that
produce language (writing and speaking), skills based on learners’ needs and
expectations, and skills that are in higher demand in the 21st century. Yet,
it is not clear to the reader how and to what extent the variety of topics
featured in the collection, such as the use of discourse markers, language
anxiety, advanced writing, or service learning fit this definition. Similarly,
the frameworks that are used by the individual contributors are coherent and
well-applied to the specific study contexts; however, there is a lack of
clarification of why these frameworks (task-based language teaching, Byram’s
model of intercultural communicative competence, 1997) have been chosen over
others. Most of the contributions in the volume endorse a CLT approach and
focus on native speakers as the ideal for language learners (Komori-Glatz is
an exception); however, none of the authors position their study within these
frameworks or give reasons why they chose them over others.

In sum, I found the book very interesting, relevant, and accessible for anyone
interested specifically in writing and speaking skills, and intercultural
competence, and recommend it as a great resource to everybody interested in
foreign language learning and teaching.

REFERENCES 

Byram, Michael. 1997. Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative
competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Engelhard, George, Belita Gordon & Stephen Gabrielson. 1992. The influences of
mode of discourse, experiential demand, and gender on the quality of student
writing. Research in the Teaching of English 26. 315-336.

Fung, Loretta, & Ronald Carter. 2007. Discourse markers and spoken English:
Native and learner use in pedagogic settings. Applied Linguistics 28(3).
410-439.

Kramsch, Claire. 1993. Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Kristin Lange is a Ph.D. candidate in the interdisciplinary doctoral program
in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at the University of
Arizona, pursuing a major in Second Language Pedagogy and Administration and a
minor in German Studies. Her research interests include everyday literacies,
literary texts and film in foreign language education, technology-enhanced
language learning, and intercultural competence in foreign language education.





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