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Article published In: Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 9:1 (2022) ► pp.87–109

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Effectiveness of a CL-informed approach to English preposition acquisition by young Chinese learners

ORCiD logo with link | Fudan University
ORCiD logo with link | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Published online: 30 May 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.20017.pan
Abstract
While increasing efforts have been made to teach English prepositions to EFL learners from a Cognitive Linguistics (CL) perspective, the bulk of the extant research has focused on adult learners at the advanced English proficiency level and reported only quantitative results. Limited attention has been paid to elementary learners, and there has been little qualitative evidence of the pedagogical effectiveness of CL-informed approaches. This study aims to address these issues with a quasi-experiment embedded in an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Twenty-two young Chinese learners received two types of instruction, respectively, to learn locative prepositions in, on, and at. A conceptual metaphor time as space that originates in CL was exploited as the intervention for the experimental group, whereas a data-driven approach was adopted for the control group. Quantitative data collected from the participants through a set of tests and qualitative data collected from the instructor with a semi-structured interview generally supported the effectiveness and, to a lesser extent, the efficiency of the CL-informed approach. The paper concludes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications derived from the empirical results.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Challenge for EFL learners to acquire English prepositions
    • 2.2CL-informed approaches to teaching English prepositions
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Pilot studies
    • 3.2Participants in the main study
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Intervention
    • 3.5Instruments
      • 3.5.1The tests
      • 3.5.2The semi-structured interview
    • 3.6Data analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Statistical results
    • 4.2Findings from the interview
      • 4.2.1The instructor’s perceptions of the two instructional approaches
      • 4.2.2The instructor’s perceptions of the students’ performance in the two approaches
      • 4.2.3Pedagogical suggestions
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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