The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher

Although teacher feedback and teacher support are believed as important predictors of student resilience, few studies have compared their effects on student resilience and explored how such effects are mediated by students’ achievement goals. To address this gap, this study analysed the PISA 2018 student survey data on the four variables (i.e., student resilience, teacher feedback, teacher support and achievement goals) obtained from 41,872 participants (girls = 20,527; boys = 21,345) in six academically high-performing East Asian countries/ economies. The findings showed that (i) mastery and performance-approach goals significantly and positively predicted student resilience while the impacts of performance-avoidance goals on student resilience were negative; (ii) teacher feedback exerted a significant positive influence on student resilience both directly and indirectly, and the indirect influence was mediated by students’ achievement goals; and (iii) teacher support had only an indirect significant positive effect on student resilience mediated by achievement goals. This study establishes a mediation model to associate teacher feedback and support with student resilience via students’ achievement goals. It also reveals the cultural relevance of student resilience. The findings have implications for East Asian teachers to cultivate resilient students in changing times.

A number of recent studies have identified classroom blogging as a promising approach to teaching writing in English as a second language (ESL) in non-Anglophone higher education settings. However, many of these research designs are methodologically inadequate and their results suffer from overestimated effects on students’ learning performance. In this regard, whether or not classroom blogging can be safely recommended as an effective approach to teaching writing in the ESL classroom, as suggested by previous researchers, needs a well-designed empirical reassessment. For this very purpose, this paper reports on a study which attempts to overcome these limitations by conducting a 36-week, comparative experiment recruiting two groups of ESL undergraduates. The experimental group (EG) was taught how to write in English using a blog-based approach, while the control group (CG) was taught using traditional paper-based materials and methods. The writing performance, learning motivations, and self-efficacy beliefs of both groups were assessed using two sets of pre- and post-tests in terms of writing tasks and a questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed using paired-sample t tests, analysis of covariance, and multivariate analysis of covariance. The results of the study show that (1) both groups made significant improvements in all of their performance in writing and in their learning motivations and self-efficacy beliefs; (2) no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of their writing proficiency; but a closer examination shows that (3) the CG significantly outperformed the EG in terms of learning motivation.

Recognising that active involvement with the target language is important in learning a second language, this research compared the participation style of the language learners in different discussion settings; online and face-to-face. The personality (extroversion and introversion) and language proficiency (high-intermediate and low-intermediate) of the 48 participants were looked into. Qualitative data were obtained through observation, survey and online feedback session to substantiate the main data gathered from the quasi-experiment. The findings revealed that the use of synchronous online setting helps elicit more contribution of words and balance the participation of ESL learners especially among the introverts and the less proficient learners. The findings also implied that language instructors can capitalise on this setting to elicit more participation from selected group of students and encourage more balanced participation in the language classroom. In addition, the findings of this study showed that the medium played a role in influencing the messages produced by certain group of learners more than the others.

The integration of technologies might have important effects on language education. There is growing evidence that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs intersect to shape teaching behaviors. However, due to the emergence of technology-enhanced instructions in language classrooms, the strength of the relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and the integration of technology in their teacher developmental programs may be less clear. Therefore, this study was to investigate the relationships between teachers’ self-efficacy emotions and attitudes toward the implementation of technologies in EFL pre-service teacher developmental programs. This study surveyed 250 pre-service teachers’ concerns on teaching with technology-based instructions and investigated the role of individual differences such as self-efficacy, knowledge, and other demographics in their teacher developmental programs. Structural equation modeling was conducted using data from Chinese pre-service EFL teachers. The results showed that teachers’ self-efficacy mediated the relationship between their emotion (joy, pride, love, anger, exhaustion, hopelessness) and their technologies implementation attitudes. The independent variables were significant moderators between age, teaching experience, and self-efficacy. Process-focused self-efficacy as one the sub-scales of the self-efficacy was found to be significantly related to teachers’ positive attitudes toward the implementation of technologies in teacher developmental programs, whereas product-focused self-efficacy as the other sub-scale of self-efficacy was not. The findings proposed implications for teacher educators and teacher education programs in modification of curriculums and instructions. They also will prepare teachers for teaching effectively in language classrooms.

This article reports an investigative study of business communication needs of English major undergraduates and their perceptions of effective business English curriculum in a Chinese university. Surveys in two stages were administered in 2015 during the Business English Communication course delivery process to 138 English major undergraduates in a public university located in the east of China. The results include stronger English speaking needs, diverse English writing genres, wide native and non-native English speaker contacts, and difficulties in comprehending original English communication. The participants valued business knowledge introductions, company cases, and authentic material input. They also perceived practice-oriented approaches such as presentations and role play as important parts of effective business English curriculum. The results help to further adapt the business English curriculum based on the recent national benchmark and bring better business communicative competence development outcomes, which have theoretical, practical, and policy implications for both China and the world.

Recent research has highlighted the value of incorporating metacognitive prompts into cooperative learning. This study explores effects of the presence or absence of metacognitive prompts in group or individual learning on metacognitive awareness and EFL writing outcomes. A total of 170 university students were assigned to one of four treatment conditions: collaborative learning with metacognitive prompts (COOP + META), collaborative learning without metacognitive prompts (COOP), individual learning with metacognitive prompts (INDI + META), and individual learning without metacognitive prompts (INDI). After treatment, learners exposed to metacognitive prompts in a cooperative learning setting outperformed the other groups in metacognitive awareness and EFL writing. Multiple regression analysis also showed that enhanced metacognitive awareness significantly predicted English writing outcomes. Results revealed metacognitive regulation was a more significant predictor of writing outcome. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating metacognitive prompts within collaborative writing settings.

Although there are studies on the pragmatic assessment, to date no research has been done on native English raters’ criteria for the assessment of EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. Focusing on this topic, this study pursued two purposes. The first one was to find the criteria for rating the speech act of apology in L2 by native English teachers. The second was to investigate whether there was rater bias in native English teachers’ rating of apology. To this end, 51 native English teachers rated six different pragmatic situations for an apology discourse completion task (DCT) which were accompanied by an L2 learner’s response to each situation. Besides rating, the raters were asked to describe the way they rated the response to each DCT situation. The content analysis of raters’ descriptions revealed five criteria they mostly applied in their rating: expression of apology, situation explanation, repair offer, promise for future, and politeness. FACETS was used to find the rater bias. Results indicated that raters showed different degrees of severity and leniency in their ratings, which contradicts the myth of native speakers being a benchmark in language assessment, including pragmatic assessment.

The curriculum for teaching undergraduate university students in Iran majoring in English generally includes paragraph writing in the second year and essay writing (4–5 paragraphs) in the third year. The first-year course ‘Grammar and Writing (I & II)’ offered in two consecutive semesters covers grammar only, despite the inclusion of writing in the title, and rarely goes beyond sentence-level writing in support of the newly taught grammar. This one-year delay in focusing on writing per se has been a source of frustration for those students who have to deal with the demanding writing tasks or large-scale written assignments such as extended essays and papers later during their academic or professional life. The current study describes and evaluates a teaching intervention for the potential development of a writing curriculum in first-year writing classes. A pre-test–post-test control group design was employed to compare the effect of the writing instruction within the process genre approach with that of the traditional grammar and sentence-level writing on the fluency, accuracy and quality of students’ (n = 68) paragraph and essay writing during two consecutive semesters. Findings from the tests and a focus group discussion revealed that students in the treatment group outperformed their control group counterparts at both paragraph and essay levels. The findings could inspire similar EFL programmes to design a writing curriculum and instruction commensurate with the real needs of their students.

Gratitude is a key construct in positive psychology. Previous studies seldom examined the salient contextual correlates of gratitude in early adolescence in non-Western society. This study examined the relations among family functioning, class environment, and gratitude in a sample of 202 Chinese elementary school students. The results showed that family cohesion was positively correlated with gratitude toward parents, helpers, and adversity. Family adaptability had a positive correlation with gratitude toward life and a sense of abundance in life. Meanwhile, relationships with classmates were significantly and positively correlated with gratitude toward helpers, adversity, and life, whereas learning burden was negatively correlated with a sense of abundance in life. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.