Joanna Zawodniak

The Contribution of Metaphor to University Students’ Explicit Knowledge About ELT Methodology

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between metaphor and a group of English students’ awareness of and engagement with various ELT methodology issues (feedback, induction, error, etc.). The study, conducted among 27 EFL students of English philology, was based on the triangular approach intended to yield both quantitative and qualitative data from a questionnaire and an argumentative paragraph. The analysis of obtained results reveals ontological correspondence between the concrete source domains from which the respondents derived their comments and the abstract target domains referring to various ELT concepts that they tried to explore and understand. An overall conclusion is that the conceptual and linguistic layers of metaphor can be viewed as a constructive tool for transforming language students’ implicit beliefs and assumptions into the explicit and thus more meaningfully as well as effectively exploited system of knowledge about L2 pedagogy ideas and principles.

On the possible interactions of varied EFL activities and learning styles with EFL students’ motivational changes

ABSTRACT L2 classroom is a place and process that undergoes an array of incessant and concurrent changes affecting its main agents, i.e. the teacher and students in a non-linear and unpredictable manner. Various aspects of their cognitive and affective potential fluctuate and intensify or weaken depending on what is going on in a particular L2 learning/teaching environment at a particular point of time. The present paper, drawing on the idea of complexity, multifariousness and spatiotemporal situatedness of a language classroom, is intended to examine the likelihood and dynamics of the reciprocal co-occurrence of a range of practical English learning activities, learning styles and changes in motivation. In the first, theoretical part the authors will present literature review with a special regard to the complex dynamic systems perspective on motivation. The second part is devoted to a discussion of findings from the qualitatively and quantitatively oriented research conducted on two groups of English philology students. Data gathering instruments included the questionnaires investigating the subjects’ while-class and after-class involvement, the learning style survey, the teachers evaluation of conducted classes and participant observation. Obtained results revealed certain patterns of motivational variability in relation to the students’ general learning preferences.

The Code-Switching Dimension of Guided Fantasies in Young Learner L2 Classroom

uf020The paper reports on a study of young L2 (second language) English learners’ dual code use as activated through a series of specially designed guided fantasies. The original concept of guided fantasies as a monolingually organised relaxation technique was extended to the area of bilingual reception and production. The goal was to examine the relationship between child imaginative faculty and a tendency to transfer understandings across the L1 (first language) and L2. The research consisted in exposing a class of 10 nine-year-old children to eight guided fantasies expected to playfully attract their conscious attention to language properties and enable them to profit from L1 knowledge in L2 learning. The data were collected through the heuristically oriented qualitative study drawing on participant observation accompanied by field notes and recordings of student behaviours. The findings highlighted guided fantasies in their redefined form as a useful tool for encouraging young learners to rely on L1 competence in making sense of L2 underlying principles.