Australian Review of Applied Linguistics - Volume 41, Issue 3, 2018

Abstract

In the famous Djuranydjura story from North-East Arnhem Land, when the visiting ‘Macassan’ offers the Yolŋu ancestral dog rice, shoes and blankets, he rejects them all, in favour of his own land and resources. At Gäwa homeland on Elcho Island, this powerful story is reinterpreted to include the arrival of balanda (white) teachers, and their focus on English literacy. However, it is not that English literacy is devalued, but that it must maintain its proper place; negotiated to sit alongside the foundational literacy of the land, and Warramiri language itself. An approach of applying such a ‘Bothways’ pedagogy through utilising the ‘Accelerated Literacy’ methodology for both languages and cultures is outlined to demonstrate that strengthened identity is attainable when the community moves together.

Abstract

This study looks at the Chinese-learning experiences of six classroom learners who continued to the end of secondary school in Victoria, Australia, through in-depth interviews. Various systemic deterrents to continued Chinese language study are identified by the participants, including: (1) the schooling journey, including transition between primary and high school and disruption from uninterested students in compulsory classes; (2) the curriculum and the learning demands dictated by the form of assessment; (3) the risk of poor assessment results prejudicing post-school study options, in particular because the cohort includes large numbers of home speaker learners. In Victoria, Australia, a large part of what schools provide is dictated by the metasystem of education and the assessments at which it aims. Thus the structural deterrents to Chinese classroom learner continuation identified are within the power of government agencies to change, in order to enable more of these students to continue.

Abstract

A substantial number of studies have been conducted in various second language teacher education settings. Yet, evidence about the effectiveness of teacher preparation continues to be debated and research findings about the efficacy of preparing language teachers are still somewhat inconclusive. As a further complication, even though pronunciation has regained some of its prominence in second language teaching, only minimal understanding exists about the preparation of pronunciation instructors in teacher education. The aim of this paper is to address this gap and to advance our understanding of teacher learning by first combining the findings from four research-based articles on learning to teach English pronunciation and then by introducing a new and innovative conceptual framework that reflects effective pronunciation teacher preparation in an Australian context.

Abstract

This study investigated Korean-as-a-foreign-language (KFL) students’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) in relation to five affective variables (i.e., unwillingness to communicate, classroom risk-taking, classroom sociability, motivation, and self-efficacy) as well as to self-rated Korean proficiency. One hundred and fifty-two KFL students who were enrolled in Korean classes in a large public university in Australia completed survey items for the study. Overall, KFL students in Australia showed moderate levels of anxiety (M = 2.79) and unwillingness to communicate (M = 2.58). Additionally, their levels of motivation (M = 3.92) and self-efficacy (M = 3.41) were high. Five affective variables were proven to be significantly related with FLA: a positive correlation between FLA and unwillingness to communicate; and negative correlations between FLA and classroom risk-taking, classroom sociability, motivation and self-efficacy. Among the variables, self-efficacy and self-rated overall Korean proficiency were found to be the best predictors of FLA.

This article reviews Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide (Vol. 7)