علی محمد فضیلت فر

This study investigated the motivation of Burundi junior secondary school students learning simultaneously three foreign languages: French, English, and Kiswahili. A 65-item questionnaire was employed to sample the views of 348 (grade 7 through 9) learners from state schools. Using Dörnyei’s (2009) L2 motivational self-system as the main theoretical framework, this study specifically explored temporal changes in L2 motivation of the participants over the three-year period across the three target languages. In doing so, the present study adopted a quantitative research design with a cross-sectional approach and the obtained data were analysed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics namely a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and stepwise multiple regression analyses. Statistical analyses were computed using SPSS - version 22. The results indicated that there were significant differences in most of the measured motivational scales across the three languages with ninth grade students scoring significantly lower than their peers from lower school grades. Moreover, the results revealed that L2 learning experience and ideal L2 self were the two variables that respectively predicted most the students’ intended effort to learn each language. One school grade-related difference was that international posture appeared as a significant factor among seventh grade students in relation to French learning and among ninth grade pupils regarding English learning. Another finding, which was unexpected, was that English (L3) appeared to be the most popular foreign language among these students. In the light of the results, pedagogical implications are discussed based on the socio-educational context of Burundi.

This study employed the Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM) to investigate the effect of cross-linguistic influence (CLI), target language proficiency as well as their interaction in the acquisition of L3 English past perfect, present progressive, and present perfect tenses by L1 Kirundi-L2 French bilinguals. In that perspective, 90 learners including 30 L1 Kirundi-L2 English bilinguals, 30 L1 French-L2 English bilinguals, and 30 L1 Kirundi-L2 French-L3 English trilinguals completed an Oxford Quick Placement Test, a Background Information Questionnaire, and a Grammaticality Judgment Task. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of variance, post hoc comparisons, and independent sample tests. Results revealed that neither Kirundi nor French exerted an exclusive influence in the L3 past perfect and present progressive tenses. However, concerning the L3 present perfect, the results indicated a significantly facilitative effect from L2 French.  The results showed also a significant effect of target language proficiency: while lower-proficiency learners experienced a relatively negative influence from previous languages, higher-proficiency learners utilized their complex multicompetence to overcome difficulties linked to structural differences. Besides structural similarity reported in the already existing L3A studies, the findings herein point to L3 learners’ complex multicompetence as a new factor capable of driving CLI in the LPM framework.

If an adequate picture of reading comprehension deficits is to be obtained, the problem of structural knowledge needs to be explored. Once the words in a sentence are recognized, the structure of the sentence needs to be figured out. This understanding plays a crucial role in helping the readers to compute the appropriate relationship between the "people or objects" referred to in the sentences. Individual words within the sentences as well as their order influence the assignment of structural roles to a sentence. Mitchel, Cuetos and Zagar (1990) argue that two kinds of 8 computation are carried out by a reader: understanding the categories of word strings and managing the order in which they appear in sentences. The order of the items used in a sentence like "The dog chased the cat" and its reversal of the roles in the same sentence "The cat chased the dog" illustrate the significance of word ordering in sentence interpretation. Thus, for a reader, a grammatical sentence is not merely a haphazard collection of words, but an arrangement of words which must include identifiable relationships. In this regard, of course, there are formal signals which help readers to recognize sentence structures (Taha, 1983) among which two structures will be discussed later in this article. But we need to explore a little bit about structure understanding before we go to these structures.

This study aims to identify the role of transfer in the L3 acquisition of indefinite frequency adverbs, be it L1, L2 or both; and to find out whether CLI occurs on a feature-by-feature basis or as a wholesale phenomenon. Also, this study intends to investigate the influence of the learners' L2 proficiency on the L3 acquisition of indefinite frequency adverbs; and to examine the effect of different task modalities on the facilitative/detrimental role of background languages in the transfer of indefinite frequency adverbs in the early stages of German learning. To this end, we studied 30 Persian-speaking L3 learners with previous L2 knowledge of English. We collected data from a grammaticality judgement task to account for learners' receptive knowledge and an element rearrangement task to measure learners' production. The data were analyzed using multivariate tests and paired samples t-tests, which allowed us to estimate the effects of background languages, learners' L2 proficiency, and task type on the acquisition of indefinite frequency adverbs in L3. The results contradicted the wholesale CLI and supported the hybrid transfer models of CEM and LPM, which claim that transfer occurs property by property. The results also refuted the role of micro-variables, including learners' L2 proficiency and task type.

Despite some investigations highlighting the role of English literary texts in learner identity construction, few studies have explored how integrating translated short stories from learners’ native culture impacts L2 learners’ identity reconstruction in EFL contexts. This study addresses how learning English through Persian short stories translated into English can affect reader identity reconstruction of Iranian undergraduate students of English. The researchers selected three translated stories of loyalty, justice, and love themes. After collecting the data through five WhatsApp semi-structured interviews and five open-ended questionnaires, the researchers applied qualitative content analysis to the data related to readers’ self-descriptions of the initial L2 learning experiences, the story-based instructional stage, and their aspirations. The findings revealed significant alterations in the emotional and attitudinal states of the learners throughout the stages. Despite prioritizing different cultural and linguistic resources, the three participants highlighted the contribution of resources in language learning in the story-based stage and in their aspirations. All participants focused on the scaffolding role of their native language and culture in enhancing classroom interactions. The results would enlighten materials developers to integrate translated literary texts from Persian literature into language teaching programs

Considering the EFL context, many teachers experience difficulty in incorporating what is learned in their pedagogical practices. This study attempted to discover the perception of in-service EFL teachers with various age groups, teaching experiences, and genders on the efficiency of the program in developing teachers’ content, pedagogical content, and pedagogical knowledge. The participants were selected from two groups of teachers who passed specific courses at Farhangian University and those who graduated from other universities which offered BA programs in TEFL. To this end, a questionnaire was constructed based on an extensive examination of the stated objectives of the current curriculum and was pilot-tested with 40 EFL teachers in both groups. As many as 160 high school teachers in Farhangian groups and 135 teachers in Non-Farhangian completed the revised questionnaire. A semi-structured interview consisting of ten open-ended questions was conducted with 20 of the participants in Farhangian and 20 teachers in Non-Farhangian groups. Based on MANOVA analysis, the effect of gender in Farhangian groups was statistically significant. The result of MANCOVA specified that there was no statistically significant mean difference between the two groups regarding the efficacy of the program in content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and pedagogical knowledge (PK).

The present study compares the motivation of Burundi junior high school students from urban and rural settings to learn L2 French and L3 English, mainly focusing on Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System. A total of 348 (grade 7 through 9) pupils participated in the present study which used a 40-item questionnaire to collect the data. The results indicated that the students from both learning contexts have distinct motivational dispositions for learning both French and English. French is more popular among rural school learners while English enjoys more popularity among urban school students. Moreover, region-specific differences were found in the participants with learners from rural schools exhibiting more positive motivation to learn both languages than their urban counterparts. The results also revealed that, independent of the region, L2 learning experience and ideal L2 self were the two variables that respectively predicted most the students’ intended effort to learn each target language. One region and language-related difference was that the variable of international posture emerged as a significant contributor to the students’ intended language learning effort only among urban school learners uniquely in relation to their English learning. In the light of the results of this study, pedagogical implications are provided.