This paper aims at identifying the teacher-related factors which contribute to positive emotions ... more This paper aims at identifying the teacher-related factors which contribute to positive emotions and learner engagement in a young learners’ (6–12 years old) foreign language (FL) classroom. We are interested in the relationship between teacher and learner emotions and the way teacher behaviour, mindset and instructional practices contribute to learner engagement. The analysis is based on video recordings of 45 lessons conducted by trainee teachers. The data include teacher and learner verbal and non-verbal contributions to classroom interaction. To begin with, periods of heightened learner engagement (PHEs) are identified in the data basing on a list of descriptors of behavioural engagement identified in previous research. PHEs are then analysed from the teacher’s perspective. We seek to determine those teacher behaviours and instructional practices which coincide with the emergence of highest engagement. The results show that learner engagement and the emergence of positive emotions in children is contingent upon the teacher’s mindset and his/her pedagogic decisions and choices. Positively-oriented teachers who display positive emotions inspire a similar mindset in learners creating a positively charged learning environment. We also found that certain types of pedagogic intervention are inherently more substantively engaging than others. The characteristics of engagement-generating teacher instruction are discussed and instances of practices conducive to learner engagement are presented.
This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the u... more This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the use of formulaic sequences in the speech of highly proficient L2 learners. Two samples of learner speech were randomly drawn and analysed. Formulaic sequences were identified on the basis of two distinct procedures: a frequency-based, distributional approach which returned a set of recurrent sequences (n-grams) and an intuition and criterion-based, linguistic procedure which returned a set of phrasemes. Formulaic material was then removed from the data. Breakdown and speed fluency measures were obtained for the following types of speech: baseline (pre-removal), formulaic, non-formulaic (postremoval). The results show significant differences between baseline and post-removal fluency scores for both learners. Also, formulaic speech is produced more fluently than non-formulaic speech. However, the comparison of the fluency scores of n-grams and phrasemes returned inconsistent results with si...
This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the u... more This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the use of formulaic sequences in the speech of highly proficient L2 learners. Two samples of learner speech were randomly drawn and analysed. Formulaic sequences were identified on the basis of two distinct procedures: a frequency-based, distributional approach which returned a set of recurrent sequences (n-grams) and an intuition and criterion-based, linguistic procedure which returned a set of phrasemes. Formulaic material was then removed from the data. Breakdown and speed fluency measures were obtained for the following types of speech: baseline (pre-removal), formulaic, non-formulaic (post-removal). The results show significant differences between baseline and post-removal fluency scores for both learners. Also, formulaic speech is produced more fluently than non-formulaic speech. However, the comparison of the fluency scores of n-grams and phrasemes returned inconsistent results with s...
Playing comes to children as naturally as breathing and is one of the most predominant forms of a... more Playing comes to children as naturally as breathing and is one of the most predominant forms of activity in a child's life from infancy to adolescence. In fact, the right to engage in developmentally-appropriate play and leisure activities is now recognised internationally as one of the basic human rights of children (UNCRC, Article 31, 1989). Children's playful disposition constitutes a powerful developmental drive whose educational potential cannot be ignored. In order to initiate and maintain meaningful interaction and create developmentallyappropriate learning opportunities, foreign language (FL) teachers of young learners' need to acknowledge play as a central element of early foreign language pedagogy. This paper takes up the issue of learning through play and argues that play-based activities should constitute the core of good classroom practice in young learners' FL instruction. It begins with a definition of play and a discussion of the centrality of play in early and later child development. It then considers the rationale for incorporating elements of play in the FL classroom and presents a range of its benefits and possible applications. Finally, a typology and examples of play-based tasks for very young and young learners are provided followed by some practical guidelines for implementing play in the classroom. The paper concludes with a list of resources for teachers who are willing to integrate play in their curricula.
Although various dimensions of speech fluency have so far generated a great deal of research inte... more Although various dimensions of speech fluency have so far generated a great deal of research interest, very few accounts have tackled the issue of the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency. Also, little empirical evidence has been provided to support the claim that language users are more fluent in their mother tongue than in a foreign/second language. This study examines the fluency gap between L1 and L2 fluency using a battery of objectively quantifiable temporal measures of speed and breakdown fluency. It also attempts to identify those temporal fluency variables which are affected by the individual way of speaking rather than the degree of automatisation of speech processing and which underlie oral performance both in L1 and L2. The analysis draws on transcriptions of elicited speech samples in L1 (Polish) and L2 (English).
In order to initiate and maintain meaningful interaction in a young learner L2 classroom, an adul... more In order to initiate and maintain meaningful interaction in a young learner L2 classroom, an adult teacher needs to approach children in ways consistent with their developmental profile and adjust teaching methodology so as to accommodate young learners' current skills. This requires the ability to predict the child's possible responses to classroom events by imagining what s/he might think and how s/he might behave when presented with specific instructions. Bearing in mind that the teacher's perception of the world is purely and completely adult in nature, in order to be effective, educators need to create a mental image or a concept of a young learner by gathering knowledge about his or her developmental characteristics and fully grasping the pedagogical implications of this knowledge. In this paper, we aim to explore the role of imagination in the conceptualisation of a child as a second language learner amongst university level pre-service teachers involved in an early primary EFL education programme. We report on qualitative research based on data obtained in the course of a two semester teacher training course of 35 BA and 30 MA students majoring in English. In the study, we focused on the working image of the child's developmental characteristics created by the participants and their ability to employ this in their teaching. Our data show a substantial discrepancy between the participants' theoretical conceptions concerning the business of teaching and the actual actions undertaken during lessons with young learners. Although participants were able to successfully identify the most distinctive devel-Ewa Guz, Ma gorzata Tetiurka 420 opmental characteristics of primary-level learners, they experienced difficulty with integrating them into actual classroom practice.
This paper aims at identifying the teacher-related factors which contribute to positive emotions ... more This paper aims at identifying the teacher-related factors which contribute to positive emotions and learner engagement in a young learners’ (6–12 years old) foreign language (FL) classroom. We are interested in the relationship between teacher and learner emotions and the way teacher behaviour, mindset and instructional practices contribute to learner engagement. The analysis is based on video recordings of 45 lessons conducted by trainee teachers. The data include teacher and learner verbal and non-verbal contributions to classroom interaction. To begin with, periods of heightened learner engagement (PHEs) are identified in the data basing on a list of descriptors of behavioural engagement identified in previous research. PHEs are then analysed from the teacher’s perspective. We seek to determine those teacher behaviours and instructional practices which coincide with the emergence of highest engagement. The results show that learner engagement and the emergence of positive emotions in children is contingent upon the teacher’s mindset and his/her pedagogic decisions and choices. Positively-oriented teachers who display positive emotions inspire a similar mindset in learners creating a positively charged learning environment. We also found that certain types of pedagogic intervention are inherently more substantively engaging than others. The characteristics of engagement-generating teacher instruction are discussed and instances of practices conducive to learner engagement are presented.
This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the u... more This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the use of formulaic sequences in the speech of highly proficient L2 learners. Two samples of learner speech were randomly drawn and analysed. Formulaic sequences were identified on the basis of two distinct procedures: a frequency-based, distributional approach which returned a set of recurrent sequences (n-grams) and an intuition and criterion-based, linguistic procedure which returned a set of phrasemes. Formulaic material was then removed from the data. Breakdown and speed fluency measures were obtained for the following types of speech: baseline (pre-removal), formulaic, non-formulaic (postremoval). The results show significant differences between baseline and post-removal fluency scores for both learners. Also, formulaic speech is produced more fluently than non-formulaic speech. However, the comparison of the fluency scores of n-grams and phrasemes returned inconsistent results with si...
This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the u... more This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the use of formulaic sequences in the speech of highly proficient L2 learners. Two samples of learner speech were randomly drawn and analysed. Formulaic sequences were identified on the basis of two distinct procedures: a frequency-based, distributional approach which returned a set of recurrent sequences (n-grams) and an intuition and criterion-based, linguistic procedure which returned a set of phrasemes. Formulaic material was then removed from the data. Breakdown and speed fluency measures were obtained for the following types of speech: baseline (pre-removal), formulaic, non-formulaic (post-removal). The results show significant differences between baseline and post-removal fluency scores for both learners. Also, formulaic speech is produced more fluently than non-formulaic speech. However, the comparison of the fluency scores of n-grams and phrasemes returned inconsistent results with s...
Playing comes to children as naturally as breathing and is one of the most predominant forms of a... more Playing comes to children as naturally as breathing and is one of the most predominant forms of activity in a child's life from infancy to adolescence. In fact, the right to engage in developmentally-appropriate play and leisure activities is now recognised internationally as one of the basic human rights of children (UNCRC, Article 31, 1989). Children's playful disposition constitutes a powerful developmental drive whose educational potential cannot be ignored. In order to initiate and maintain meaningful interaction and create developmentallyappropriate learning opportunities, foreign language (FL) teachers of young learners' need to acknowledge play as a central element of early foreign language pedagogy. This paper takes up the issue of learning through play and argues that play-based activities should constitute the core of good classroom practice in young learners' FL instruction. It begins with a definition of play and a discussion of the centrality of play in early and later child development. It then considers the rationale for incorporating elements of play in the FL classroom and presents a range of its benefits and possible applications. Finally, a typology and examples of play-based tasks for very young and young learners are provided followed by some practical guidelines for implementing play in the classroom. The paper concludes with a list of resources for teachers who are willing to integrate play in their curricula.
Although various dimensions of speech fluency have so far generated a great deal of research inte... more Although various dimensions of speech fluency have so far generated a great deal of research interest, very few accounts have tackled the issue of the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency. Also, little empirical evidence has been provided to support the claim that language users are more fluent in their mother tongue than in a foreign/second language. This study examines the fluency gap between L1 and L2 fluency using a battery of objectively quantifiable temporal measures of speed and breakdown fluency. It also attempts to identify those temporal fluency variables which are affected by the individual way of speaking rather than the degree of automatisation of speech processing and which underlie oral performance both in L1 and L2. The analysis draws on transcriptions of elicited speech samples in L1 (Polish) and L2 (English).
In order to initiate and maintain meaningful interaction in a young learner L2 classroom, an adul... more In order to initiate and maintain meaningful interaction in a young learner L2 classroom, an adult teacher needs to approach children in ways consistent with their developmental profile and adjust teaching methodology so as to accommodate young learners' current skills. This requires the ability to predict the child's possible responses to classroom events by imagining what s/he might think and how s/he might behave when presented with specific instructions. Bearing in mind that the teacher's perception of the world is purely and completely adult in nature, in order to be effective, educators need to create a mental image or a concept of a young learner by gathering knowledge about his or her developmental characteristics and fully grasping the pedagogical implications of this knowledge. In this paper, we aim to explore the role of imagination in the conceptualisation of a child as a second language learner amongst university level pre-service teachers involved in an early primary EFL education programme. We report on qualitative research based on data obtained in the course of a two semester teacher training course of 35 BA and 30 MA students majoring in English. In the study, we focused on the working image of the child's developmental characteristics created by the participants and their ability to employ this in their teaching. Our data show a substantial discrepancy between the participants' theoretical conceptions concerning the business of teaching and the actual actions undertaken during lessons with young learners. Although participants were able to successfully identify the most distinctive devel-Ewa Guz, Ma gorzata Tetiurka 420 opmental characteristics of primary-level learners, they experienced difficulty with integrating them into actual classroom practice.
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