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Journal of Language Teaching and Learning (PASAA)

The PASAA Journal (PASAA) is a scholarly, peer-reviewed language journal of the Chulalongkorn University Language Institute (CULI), Thailand. It is the oldest professional English language teaching (ELT) journal in the country. The journal is made possible through funding provided by Chulalongkorn University for the publication of academic work. PASAA is a wide range of topics included second/foreign language learning and teaching, materials development, curriculum design and development, language testing and assessment, identities in foreign language learning, critical pedagogy, and teacher training and professional development.

Current Issue

Journal of Language Teaching and Learning (PASAA)
Volume: 60, Issue: 1 (July - December 2020)

	The Relationship between Self-Regulation and Use of Language Learning Strategies in Secondary School Students
	Furkan CANBAY
	Page: 1 - 22
	[Abstract] [PDF] This study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-regulation and use of language learning strategies. The participants were 264 secondary school students from a foundation school. The study employed Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, which was developed by Oxford (1990), Self-Regulation Skills Scale, which was developed by Arslan (2011), and the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher as data collection instruments. The data, which were gathered from these tools, were analysed through SPSS 18.0 program. The findings showed that the students had a medium level of language strategy use although they were young learners and had a little previous learning experience. It was also seen that there was a relationship between self-regulation and use of language learning strategies. Additionally, it was found out that age, level of income and education level of mothers influenced the development of self-regulation in children. It may be claimed that teaching students selfregulation strategies at early ages can back up their educational development and language learning.

	The Most Frequent Opaque Idioms in English News
	Wenhua Hsu
	Page: 23 - 59
	[Abstract] [PDF] This research aimed to establish a pedagogically useful list of the most frequent opaque idioms in English news. It began by compiling an idiom search list from six prestigious idiom dictionaries. Through a set of criteria, 4,864 semantically non-compositional idioms were culled as search entries to interrogate the News on the Web (NOW) Corpus—the largest news corpus to date. A total of 525 most frequent opaque idioms were ultimately selected. To verify if they merit pedagogical concern, the 525 idioms were tested on the Voice of America (VOA) News Corpus. Results show that they accounted for 0.59% and 0.61% of running words of the NOW and VOA Corpora respectively. Despite a small percentage, knowledge of opaque idioms may contribute to filling the rift of lexical coverage that individual words fail to account for in news articles. For English learners, this opaque idiom list provides a window to the vast number of idioms used in daily news and can serve as a reference in setting lexical goals at the initial phase of idiom learning.

	Beyond Motivation: Investigating Thai English Major Students' Grit
	George Gyamfi, Yuanxing Lai
	Page: 60 - 96
	[Abstract] [PDF] Success in language learning has generally been attributed to students' motivation. However, beyond motivation is grit, a psychological construct that has rarely been mentioned in language learning research. This study therefore aimed to investigate the grit of 171 Thai students studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and the factors that might have influenced their grit as EFL learners. A questionnaire based on adapted grit scales and a focusgroup discussion were used to collect the data. A statistical analysis was conducted on the questionnaire-derived data. Meta-inferences were made in relation to the transcribed orally- collected data from the focus group discussion in order to draw relevant conclusions. The findings revealed that participants' socio-cultural context influenced their consistency of interest and perseverance of effort at an above moderate level. This may have resulted in making them adaptable in their approach to achieving their learning goals. Future careers, societal needs, life purpose and the reputation as an English major student were found to contribute to the variance. It is suggested that a more perseverance-oriented approach coupled with proper mentoring sessions that is context-relevant should be incorporated into EFL programs to enhance students' interest and effort in attaining their goals.

	Effects of Global Englishes-informed Pedagogy in Raising Chinese University Students' Global Englishes Awareness
	Huashan Lu, Adcharawan Buripakdi
	Page: 97 - 133
	[Abstract] [PDF] The spread of English as a global language has resulted in many changes in sociolinguistic realities, which challenges the foundations of how language should be taught and learned. To match today's sociolinguistic realities, researchers have called for a paradigm shift from the traditional pedagogy to a new pedagogy that can prepare students to use English in international communication involving different varieties of English and its cultures. However, little research has been done in implementing a Global Englishes (GE)-informed pedagogy in English language classrooms, especially in mainland China. This research attempts to examine the effects of a GE-informed pedagogy in developing Chinese university students' GE awareness. 82 university students participated in this study and received a 12-week intervention of a GEinformed instruction. Data collection methods included questionnaires and interviews. Paired-samples t-test and content analysis were used to analyze the data. The results show that students' GE awareness was significantly raised after taking the course. Specifically, students acknowledged the diversity of English, assessed English from a GE perspective, and their self-confidence increased in international communication. This paper argues for the importance of raising GE awareness and calls for a more critical approach to ELT in China.

	Google Translate and Translation Quality: A Case of Translating Academic Abstracts from Thai to English
	Angkana Tongpoon-Patanasorn, Karl Griffith
	Page: 134 - 163
	[Abstract] [PDF] Machine translation (MT), especially Google Translate (GT), is widely used by language learners and those who need help with translation. MT research, particularly that which examines the quality and usability of the translation produced by the MT, only makes up a handful of studies. Moreover, only a few of them have looked at translation quality and problems of translated texts from the user's first language to a second language, and none has been conducted to examine translations produced by the updated system of GT (i.e., the Neural Machine Translation System). The purposes of this study are to examine the quality of abstracts translated from Thai, the user's first language, to English, the target language, using GT by evaluating their comprehensibility and usability levels and to examine frequent error types. Fifty-four abstracts were selected from academic journals in eight disciplines of Humanities and Social Sciences. They were rated by two experts using coding schemes. The results revealed overall comprehensibility and usability were both at a moderate level. That means the quality of the abstracts translated by GT may not meet the language requirements needed for academic writing. The most frequent errors produced by GT were those of capitalization, punctuation, and fragmentation.

	The Development of an Online Reader Self-Perception Scale for EFL University Students
	Wanpen Poomarin, Dumrong Adunyarittigun
	Page: 164 - 198
	[Abstract] [PDF] Self-perception, which mediates between knowledge and behavior, increasingly plays an important role in the determination of the ability to comprehend and respond to information on the Internet. Teachers need to gain insights about how EFL readers feel about themselves as readers in the Internet-based learning environment. There is a critical need for appropriate instruments to provide such information. This study was aimed at developing a scale to measure self-perception of online reading for EFL students at the university level. The scale was refined and validated through multiple procedures: interview, experts' validation, and observation through the think-aloud method before being administered to Thai university students. The exploratory factor analysis showed that the existence of two dimensions represented the clearly interpretable relationship and the identification of each dimension. Cronbach's alpha internal reliabilities also indicated a strong coherence of the items on each dimension. The results show that the final scale was constructed with two components - Social Reference and Self-Reflection, in which the first scale included four constructs: Performance Accomplishment, Physiological States, Social Feedback, and Vicarious Experience. Implications for pedagogical practices, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are presented.

	Grammar in Writing: Teachers' Reflections
	Christine Anita Xavier, Hing Mui Hong, Willy A. Renandya
	Page: 199 - 221
	[Abstract] [PDF] act There has been much debate over the role of grammar instruction in the teaching of writing - whether grammar and writing should be taught separately, or in an integrated manner in the English Language writing class. This paper describes an action research project aimed at contributing to this debate through some teachers' reflections on integrating grammar and writing in the writing class. Five experienced English Language teachers in a Singapore primary school were concerned that while their students performed reasonably well in grammar tasks done in isolation, they struggled with the effective use of grammar in writing tasks. The teachers participated in the project by attending professional development sessions to enhance their knowledge of grammar as a meaning-making resource, before engaging in teacher inquiry of some student compositions to better understand how their students used grammar in writing. They then proceeded to revise existing writing instructional materials to explicitly integrate grammar and writing. Finally, the teachers were asked to reflect, on paper, on their experience in being part of the project. Results show that the action research process led to teachers' enhanced grammar content knowledge, better understanding of students' gaps in writing, and improved teaching practices in the writing class.

	Research in Critical Pedagogy: Implications for English Language Classrooms in Asia
	Paolo Nino Valdez
	Page: 222 - 236
	[Abstract] [PDF] Recent scholarship in English language teaching has identified two important directions in developing sociopolitically responsive education; namely, Post Method Pedagogy and Situated Literacies. In this meta-analytic work, I describe the prominent issues involved in research concerning critical pedagogy in English language teaching research. Specifically, this paper initially examines the theoretical and methodological approaches employed in investigations in the area, and proceeds with identifying established trends and potential issues concerning the applications of critical pedagogy in varied multilingual, multicultural contexts in Asia. Analysis of different investigations in the region suggests that, while critical pedagogy may be responsive to different needs (learner, sociopolitical, cultural), it also focuses on varying productive spaces of engagement, incorporation of multiliteracies and transformational practices.

	Review Strategies in a First-Year University Undergraduate Thai EFL Writing Context
	Walaipun Puengpipattrakul
	Page: 237 - 274
	[Abstract] [PDF] In response to educational issues at levels from national, institutional, to pedagogical concerns, this study aims to examine the influence and the effectiveness of the review strategies on the writing performance of first-year Thai undergraduates as well as how the perceived strategies are in the students' views. In the mixed-method study, the data were collected from 20 Science and 26 Education students who were enrolled in the 2013 academic year. The main findings are: The statistically significant effect of the review strategies were on the students' writing performance; t(45) = 17.06; p = .000 at the .05 level. The analyses of the students' writing-task score development from 184 selfrevised and peer-revised draft scripts showed that they effectively responded to the self-review strategy better than they did to the peer-review strategy; t(45) = 3.08; p = .004 at the .05 level. In the multi-dimensional comparisons of writing-score development, both self-review and peer-review strategies can be applied to all three proficiency groups of the Science and Education students. From the scripts of the students' responses to the questionnaires and a semistructured interview, the findings revealed some insights into aspects of students' affective-cognitive-social-contextual factors. Implications and recommendations for future studies are also considered.

	The English Present Perfect in Authentic Use and Textbooks: A Corpus-driven Study
	Chanakarn Chareonkul, Raksangob Wijitsopon
	Page: 275 - 308
	[Abstract] [PDF] One of the reasons why EFL learners have difficulties with the English present perfect tense is that little attention has been paid to the relationship between patterns and meanings of the tense (Yoshimura et al., 2014). To fill this gap, the present study takes a corpus-driven approach to the pattern-meaning interface of the present perfect, using British and American English corpora. It is found that the present perfect can express seven groups of meanings: 'accomplishment with relevance to the present', 'continuing from the past to the present', 'change of condition', 'experience', 'recency', 'discovery', and 'possession'. These meanings are found to be associated with distinctive cooccurrence patterns. The corpus-informed insights were then applied to an analysis of present perfect instances presented in textbooks used in Thailand's universities. It is found that the corresponding patterns and meanings can also be found in the sampled textbooks, but the textbooks tend to under-present a core meaning and highlight only a few uses of the present perfect. The study thereby offers a new perspective on the English present perfect and also provides empirical evidence for development of EFL textbooks and teaching materials.

	Book Title: Understanding and Teaching English Spelling: A Strategic Guide
	Duangkamon Klungthong
	Page: 309 - 313
	[PDF]

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