Learning language in cooperatively structured groups in a first-year level university classroom: a case study of Japanese as a foreign language
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study takes the form of action research investigating the feasibility and effectiveness of learning Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) in cooperatively structured groups at the university beginners' level. The evaluation of incorporating cooperatively structured group activities in JFL classes is framed by theoretical and empirical studies in the fields of SLA and cooperative learning. It embraces the idea that a theory of SLA should integrate various aspects of the L2 learning process and that cooperatively structured group work facilitates SLA by providing more input/output and scaffolding among learners and a more constructive affective and social environment for learning. An experimental and a comparison JFL beginner's level classes at a university in Southern Ontario framed the context of this study. I taught both experimental and comparison classes giving a variety of cooperatively structured group activity treatment over a 16 week period in the experimental class while giving comparison class a more teacher-fronted treatment. Results of the vocabulary and kanji quizzes I administered after each vocabulary and kanji learning activity in both experimental and comparison classes were compared quantitatively between the two classes. Data collected from questionnaires, interviews, teacher's journal in the experimental and comparison classes, and audio- and videotapes made in the experimental class were also used to qualitatively evaluate the experimental students' interactional patterns, attitudes towards cooperative group learning, and group cohesiveness, and to compare with the patterns and attitudes observed in the comparison class. The results of vocabulary and kanji quizzes and the post-test indicated that cooperatively structured activities seemed not to have differentially affected the linguistic performances of the students in the experimental class. Further investigation indicated, however, that a significant amount of linguistic input/outputs and scaffolding among students was present in their discourses. The results of questionnaires and interviews suggested that cooperatively structured groups provided the students with a favourable affective and social learning environment. These findings suggest that cooperatively structured group work may be valuable for beginner university level learners of a second language, and that pedagogical merits of second language learning using cooperatively structured groups should be further evaluated at this level.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.019 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".