Most papers presented here are either unpublished or work in progress. For the unpublished papers (designated by ) access is limited to those in the position to review them; you will need the access code to download the papers. For the papers that are work in progress, only descriptions are provided here.
TESOL
How Native English Speakers Interpret Function Words in EnglishELLs whose native languages significantly differ from English with grammar tend to have difficulty using and interpreting English function words such as relative pronouns (e.g., who, that, and whose) used in a sentence. This tendency is further pronounced when the grammatical differences involve word order and when instructional methods mainly involve the grammar translation method or direct approach (grammar rules are implicitly learned). When your native language significantly differs from English with word order, it feels extremely awkward or incomprehensible for you to think and verbalize thought in English order, which often resorts to your interpreting English sentences in the word order of your native language. By doing so, you tend to interpret the English function words differently than L1 English speakers do. In some cases, since English and your native language do not align very well with each other grammatically, some function words in English may not have their equivalents in your language, in which case you tend to treat those function words even more differently than L1 English speakers do. To lay a solid ground to better understand and teach these English function words to ELLs who experience difficulty with those words, I have surveyed and summarized how L1 English speakers understand English function words.
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RESEARCH METHODS
Flashlight Effect as a Better Alternative to Study Learner's Text Analysis Process in TESOL ResearchEye tracking is a method often used to study people's reading habits. While a conventional eye tracking method is suited for tracking both voluntary and involuntary eye movements to examine how efficiently or effectively people read printed text, it may not be ideal for studies of more attentional and controlled reading habits such as investigating whether ELLs obey English word order when they read English text; involuntary eye moves can harm the validity of data. As a better alternative, I propose the flashlight method and examine its reliability and validity for measuring reading habits in word order research.
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MULTIMEDIA LEARNING
Evaluating Image Principle in Videos for Vocabulary InstructionNumerous web videos that teach vocabulary fall into the category of talking-head videos. While talking-head videos are engaging for learners, the image principle from Mayer's cognitive theory of multimedia learning suggests that learners should be better served by content-relevant images that closely illustrate the meaning and the usage of the target word than by a talking-head explaining them verbally. The image principle also suggests that talking-head may promote vocabulary learning by increasing student attention and motivation by inducing social responses through social cues such as facial expressions and gestures. Can social cues outweigh content-relevant images for vocabulary learning? Can people learn better from both social cues and content-relevant images than from social cues alone or content-relevant images alone? If so, how they should complement each other rather than taking away from each other? This paper investigates those questions.
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