Anna Trebits
University of Hildesheim, English Department, Faculty Member
- Language Pedagogy, Bilingualism, Cognitive Psychology, Corpus Linguistics & Language Pedagogy, Syllabus Design, Task-based language teaching, and 23 moreSecond Language Acquisition, Research methods in applied linguistics, Teaching English as a Second Language, Working Memory, Foreign Language Anxiety, Interlanguage and Intercultural Pragmatics Cross Cultural Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Collocations, Phrasal Verbs, Corpus Analysis, Academic English, Materials Design, EU English, Written, Phonological Short term Memory, Narrative Task Performance, Spoken L2 Performance, EU terminology, Data driven Activities, Complex Working Memory, Task dased Language Teaching, Cognition Hypothesis, and Intercultural Pragmaticsedit
Sample pages of the book can be viewed at http://www.euenglish.hu The book is unique in a number of aspects. Firstly, it combines a syllabus based on EU content with systematic skills development involving the four core skills and... more
Sample pages of the book can be viewed at http://www.euenglish.hu
The book is unique in a number of aspects. Firstly, it combines a syllabus based on EU content with systematic skills development involving the four core skills and featuring ‘how to boxes’, ‘small talk sections’ and ‘internet research projects’, as well. Secondly, the tasks in this book are based on authentic materials taken from a large collection of English language EU documents (EU corpora), which makes it possible for learners to learn how language is really used in English language EU documents. Thirdly, it gives an insight into the multilingual functioning of the EU and a detailed, learner-friendly English glossary with the most up-to-date standard EU terms and with references to the changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. It is complete with Study Pages on EU terminology. Apart from the Terminology section, the international edition contains 14 units, a Grammar Reminder&Practice section, as well as an Answer Key and Audio Scripts for all listening material. It can be used for classroom coursebook or for self-study.
The book is unique in a number of aspects. Firstly, it combines a syllabus based on EU content with systematic skills development involving the four core skills and featuring ‘how to boxes’, ‘small talk sections’ and ‘internet research projects’, as well. Secondly, the tasks in this book are based on authentic materials taken from a large collection of English language EU documents (EU corpora), which makes it possible for learners to learn how language is really used in English language EU documents. Thirdly, it gives an insight into the multilingual functioning of the EU and a detailed, learner-friendly English glossary with the most up-to-date standard EU terms and with references to the changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. It is complete with Study Pages on EU terminology. Apart from the Terminology section, the international edition contains 14 units, a Grammar Reminder&Practice section, as well as an Answer Key and Audio Scripts for all listening material. It can be used for classroom coursebook or for self-study.
Research Interests:
This paper argues that teaching grammar is necessary in foreign language classrooms although this is not common practice in many EFL settings. It argues that it is important to help learners direct their attention to those linguistic... more
This paper argues that teaching grammar is necessary in foreign language classrooms although this is not common practice in many EFL settings. It argues that it is important to help learners direct their attention to those linguistic forms in the foreign language that are easy to miss because of certain interesting characteristics of human cognition, attention, and information processing. The paper also offers an example of how to incorporate grammar into communicative lessons using the reflective cycle of teaching grammatical forms.
Research Interests: Cognition, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), Attention, Grammar, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and 8 moreCognitive processes, methodology of teaching EFL, English EFL TEFL learning, Inattentional Blindness, Grammar Teaching, Focus on Form, ESL/EFL Writing, and TESOL TBLT ESOL Applied Linguistics ELT Teaching English Education
Research Interests:
This paper investigated the relationship between multilingualism, code-switching, target language contact and pragmatic and grammatical awareness in learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Participants (N = 144) were university... more
This paper investigated the relationship between multilingualism, code-switching, target language contact and pragmatic and grammatical awareness in learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Participants (N = 144) were university students enrolled in English language courses at a German university. The study employed a cross-sectional design with degree of multilingualism, frequency of code-switching and intensity of target language contact as between-subject factors. The linguistic measure of pragmatic and grammatical awareness was a written appropriateness and accuracy judgement test involving three speech acts: apologies, refusals and requests. In addition, participants completed two questionnaires assessing their language background, code-switching behaviour and the intensity of their contact with the English language. Regression analyses revealed that degree of multilingualism was a strong positive predictor of pragmatic awareness in an EFL learning environment. Frequent code-switching appeared to enhance pragmatic awareness in those participants who grew up with two languages, but not those who were monolingual in childhood and became bilingual through education. Moreover, the results demonstrated that intensity of target language contact emerged as the only predictor of both pragmatic and grammatical awareness in this study.
Research Interests:
Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive task complexity and individual differences in input, processing and output anxiety (IPOA) on L2 narrative production. The participants were enrolled in a... more
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive task complexity and individual differences in input, processing and output anxiety (IPOA) on L2 narrative production. The participants were enrolled in a bilingual secondary educational program. They performed two narrative tasks in speech and writing. The participants’ level of anxiety was assessed using the IPOA scale (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1994). The results demonstrate that spoken and written modalities are influenced differently by anxiety with the impact of output anxiety being significantly stronger in speech than in writing. Another important finding was that input and processing anxiety had both facilitating and debilitating effects on learners’ L2 output. As regards the effect of task complexity on participants’ narratives, the findings suggest that the different stages of language production need to be taken into account
when categorizing tasks on the basis of the cognitive load they impose on learners.
Keywords: cognitive task complexity; narrative tasks; input, processing and output anxiety, individual differences; Cognition Hypothesis; accuracy
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive task complexity and individual differences in input, processing and output anxiety (IPOA) on L2 narrative production. The participants were enrolled in a bilingual secondary educational program. They performed two narrative tasks in speech and writing. The participants’ level of anxiety was assessed using the IPOA scale (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1994). The results demonstrate that spoken and written modalities are influenced differently by anxiety with the impact of output anxiety being significantly stronger in speech than in writing. Another important finding was that input and processing anxiety had both facilitating and debilitating effects on learners’ L2 output. As regards the effect of task complexity on participants’ narratives, the findings suggest that the different stages of language production need to be taken into account
when categorizing tasks on the basis of the cognitive load they impose on learners.
Keywords: cognitive task complexity; narrative tasks; input, processing and output anxiety, individual differences; Cognition Hypothesis; accuracy
Research Interests:
The study reported in this paper investigated the relationship between components of aptitude and the fluency, lexical variety, syntactic complexity, and accuracy of performance in two types of written and spoken narrative tasks. We also... more
The study reported in this paper investigated the relationship between components of aptitude and the fluency, lexical variety, syntactic complexity, and accuracy of performance in two types of written and spoken narrative tasks. We also addressed the question of how narrative performance varies in tasks of different cognitive complexity in the written and spoken modes. Our findings indicate a complex interaction between aptitude components and task performance under different conditions. The components of aptitude that seemed to be most strongly related to the complexity and accuracy of production were inductive ability and grammatical sensitivity. The results also show that in writing the participants used more varied vocabulary than in speech, but their performance was similar in terms of syntactic complexity.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This study explores the use of phrasal verbs in English language documents of the European Union (EU) as part of a larger-scale project examining the use of English in EU texts from various aspects including lexical, lexico-grammatical... more
This study explores the use of phrasal verbs in English language documents of the European Union (EU) as part of a larger-scale project examining the use of English in EU texts from various aspects including lexical, lexico-grammatical and textual features. Phrasal verbs, known to represent one of the most difficult aspects of learning English, are highly productive and widely used by native speakers. The purpose of this study is to identify the most frequent phrasal verb combinations in EU documents. To this end, an EU English Corpus of approximately 200,000 running words was built using texts which are representative of the fields of activities of the EU. The analysis revealed that the top 25 phrasal verbs account for more than 60% of all phrasal verb constructions in the corpus. The results also show that in terms of the frequency of phrasal verbs, EU documents show some similarity to written academic English. The paper also illustrates some instructional activities and the pedagogical relevance of the findings.
Research Interests:
This paper reports the findings of a study which forms part of a larger-scale research project investigating the use of English in the documents of the European Union (EU). The documents of the EU show various features of texts written... more
This paper reports the findings of a study which forms part of a larger-scale research project investigating the use of English in the documents of the European Union (EU). The documents of the EU show various features of texts written for legal, business and other specific purposes. Moreover, the translation services of the EU institutions often produce texts that exhibit features which in terms of textual organization neither link them to the source language nor to the target language of texts. The aim of the present corpus-based study is to describe one type of cohesion: the use of conjunctions in EU documents in order to uncover some of the textual organization patterns they show. Therefore, an EU English Corpus of approximately 200,000 running words was built using texts which represent the diverse fields of activities of the EU. The analysis compares the use of conjunctions in EU-related and general English texts using the database of the British National Corpus (BNC). The paper also illustrates some data-driven instructional activities that may be used in EFL/ESL classrooms when teaching English for EU purposes.
Research Interests:
The present study aims to explore the characteristics of lexical elements in English language documents of the European Union (EU). As the EU is involved in a wide range of activities, the documents related to it exhibit features of texts... more
The present study aims to explore the characteristics of lexical elements in English language documents of the European Union (EU). As the EU is involved in a wide range of activities, the documents related to it exhibit features of texts written for legal, business, political and other specific purposes. The aim of this corpus-based research is to identify and describe the lexical elements whose mastery is indispensable for those who wish to work in cooperation with or inside a European institution. An EU English Corpus consisting of approximately 200,000 words was built using texts which are representative of the various fields of activities of the EU. The analysis uncovered the most frequent lexical elements and collocation patterns as well as their most common uses and senses in this particular variety of the English language. This article discusses and demonstrates the methods of analysis through the detailed presentation of three of the most frequently occurring lexical elements. The pedagogical relevance of the study is that its findings can be directly used for the development of special English language course books and supplementary materials for EU and International Relations courses.