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Autor/s Aika MiuraTokyo University of Agriculture, Japan   ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate whether it is possible to assess learners’ sociopragmatic competence in learner spoken data by examining requests produced by Japanese learners of English. Various pragmalinguistic features of requests in shopping role plays in the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology Japanese Learner English (NICT JLE) Corpus were extracted and the appropriateness of these linguistic features was rated by twenty English language instructors (10 native speakers and 10 Japanese) in terms of their politeness in different shopping situations. A significantly high rate of agreement was only obtained in judging the requests negotiating for a refund or exchange of the purchased item. The Japanese informants showed a relatively lower agreement than the natives especially on requests asking for permission to test an item. The highly rated linguistic features were not frequently used in the corpus. Therefore, annotating the sociopragmatic information in the target corpus seems unrealistic.

Autor/s Irina Argüelles ÁlvarezMargarita Martínez NúñezAna Belén García HernandoAntonio da Silva FariñaUniversidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain   ABSTRACT The study presented herein is framed within the Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) approach and presents the results from the use of an original mobile app, developed by the research team, on the part of 73 students. The app prototype consists of multiple choice questions and answers that assess varied aspects of the grammar, vocabulary and use of English at level B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL). The application presents motivating gamification components that aim at enhancing students’ participation and regular use of the game. Some of these gamification features are response time, use of competition and training tests, and a score ranking based on nicknames. The study uses different indexes in order to describe the use of the platform and qualitative and quantitative indicators to reach positive conclusions related to students’ increased motivation and improvement in their grammar and vocabulary competence levels.

Autor/s María Dolores García-PastorGIEL – Universitat de València, Spain   ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the study of identity in digital identity texts produced by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners within a specific subject of the Teacher in Primary Education (English) degree at a Spanish university. To this end, 51 digital identity texts were analysed following a “positioning perspective”, which views identity in terms of “reflexive” and “interactive” positions (Davies & Harré 1990). Results show that learners constructed non-unitary identities whose subject positions were often contradictory. They also associated certain positions with silencing identities, transition identities and identities of competence within the reflexive and interactive categories (cf. Norton & Toohey 2011, Manyak 2004), while ascribing others to their viewers interactively. In general, students discursively presented themselves as competent actors through diverse semiotic and linguistic resources they deployed in an affective narrative style characteristic of some forms of digital communication (Jones & Hafner 2012, Page 2012).

Reviewed by Salvador Montaner VillalbaValencian International University, Spain   Over and above the fact that the latest educational technologies seem more exciting and more interesting than their earlier counterparts, because the implementation, use, and assessment of the originals was not guided by educational principles in language development, they could only really be utilized for entertainment purposes.

Autor/s Daniele FranceschiUniversity of Pisa, Italy   ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to show how Medical English teaching materials may be improved by introducing multimodal tasks encouraging a holistic approach to communication. Medical English for Specific Purposes textbooks and coursebooks typically focus on how to speak effectively, but they fail to prepare doctors to speak and behave affectively, although it has been demonstrated that how doctors communicate is as important as what they communicate in order to build a therapeutic alliance with their patients (Ambady et al. 2002; Cao et al. 2016; DiMatteo et al. 1980; Hall 1995, among others). Teaching materials should thus include activities aimed at strengthening doctors’ ability to offer patient-centred care through mindful communication in association with specific body signals. A proof-of-concept teaching unit is provided here in order to exemplify how ESP materials could be made more responsive to the needs of professional practice by adopting a method that brings together targets for learning Medical English as well as counselling techniques.

Autor/s Yolanda Joy Calvo BenziesUniversity of the Balearic Islands, Spain   ABSTRACT One of the most significant changes in language classrooms over recent decades has been the introduction of ICTs. Despite a broad range of previous research in the field, little work has been done to date on assessing the benefits of teaching pronunciation through ICTs, something surprising in view of the large number of existing programs and other materials specifically designed to improve learners’ pronunciation. This paper is intended to contribute to the field in that it will provide an overview of the materials currently available for teaching pronunciation through the use of ICTs, as well as an empirical preliminary study on ESP students’ first contact with using ICTs for learning pronunciation. Results indicate that these students enjoyed using these technological tools and would like to use them again to practise their pronunciation.

Autor/s Heidi VaaralaJuha JalkanenLanguage Centre, University of Jyväskylä, Finland   ABSTRACT Recent studies in the field of new literacies have indicated that a remarkable change in the way we access, consume and produce information has taken place. The boundaries between concepts such as authorship and ownership have become blurred. The repertoire of texts available to language learners is almost unlimited. One important purpose of language education is to provide students with functional tools to take advantage of these resources. In this article we discuss the benefits and challenges of teaching L2 reading comprehension in a multimodal learning environment from the perspective of course design. In addition, we attempt to find answers to the following questions: what kinds of assignments are meaningful from the learner’s perspective, and what added value does multimodality bring to a learning situation? A design-based research approach was implemented in this study in order to enable a dialogue between theory and practice. The students attending the reading comprehension course described in the article were advanced university students from various European countries, who studied Finnish as a second language. In comparison to traditional reading comprehension courses, it seems that L2 learners benefit from reading digital texts and using a web-based learning platform. The digital environment enabled the learners to read meaningful texts and to actively learn through texts and assignments. Moreover, the web-based learning environment enhanced the flexibility of the learning event – flexibility in terms of time, place, course content, and the learners’ language proficiency. However, the course feedback did not support the view that students would automatically be on the “better” side of the digital divide. Instead, they do need assistance in order to understand the new learning mindsets and especially learner autonomy.

Autor/s Elena Domínguez RomeroCarmen Maíz ArévaloUniversidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain   ABSTRACT In recent decades, multimodality has gained an increasing amount of attention. Accordingly, multimodal analysis has eventually widened its research into the realm of language teaching and learning in what is currently known as Applied Multimodality. The present article intends to make a contribution to this field by focusing on the role played by multimodality in listening comprehension, taking into account three main aspects: the arrangement of information value, salience and framing. In order to show the extent to which multimodality can affect our students’ comprehension, we provided a group of First Certificate university students with two versions of ten listening tasks. After analysing them, these original listening activities were processed using Photoshop so as to either improve or impoverish their multimodal input and students were required to work on one of the two versions. Results prove that, in general, multimodality has a say in hindering or helping listening comprehension.

Reviewed by Mónica-Stella Cárdenas-ClarósUniversity of Melbourne, Australia   1. INTRODUCTION Existing criteria for the evaluation of CALL materials have been mostly designed by language teachers and CALL scholars. Not surprisingly, the components of such criteria mostly examine aspects to do with the potential that materials offer for language learning, teacher fit and learner fit (Levy & Stockwell, 2006). The components of such criteria rarely evaluate features of multimedia instructional design and visual design despite the influence that these play in shaping potential learning outcomes (Mayers, 2009). Given these limitations, the guiding criteria to evaluate the website Using English for Academic Purposes (UEFAP) is nurtured by studies in CALL, visual design and multimedia instructional design. Table 1 summarizes each of the components. Following Chapelle (2001) the evaluation of the UEFAP website is judgmental in nature and results from the interaction with all the sections of the website in several occasions. Given the space limitations I will touch on the relevant aspects of each criteria component.

Reviewed by Nur YigitogluDepartment of Applied Linguistics and ESLGeorgia State University, USA   The interest in using corpora and corpus-based materials in language teaching and research continues to grow. Over the past few years, research by second language teaching specialists has emphasized the importance of using corpora and corpus-based materials in the second language learning classroom. This is true not only for research articles (Conrad 1999, Cortes 2007), but also for academic conferences such as those organized by the American Association of Corpus Linguistics (AACL). In Using CORPORA in the Language Learning Classroom: Corpus Linguistics for Teachers, Bennett aims to make the ideas of corpus linguistics accessible to second language teachers, graduate students specializing in applied linguistics, and teacher-trainers working with language instructors. The volume is divided into three main parts and eight chapters, and also includes two appendices and a conceptual index.