EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATES AND INTERNATIONAL TEACHING ASSISTANTS
Abstract
The trend of non-native English speakers (NNESs) outnumbering native English speakers (NESs) (Crystal, 2012) has challenged the privilege of native varieties of English. With this trend, more and more researchers have realized that successful communication relies on both sides of interlocutors - NNESs as speakers and NESs as listeners. This dissertation investigates effective ways to enhance intelligible communication between NNESs and NESs from the angle of NESs as listeners. It aims to highlight the importance of improving NESs’ perception of NNESs’ English speech in broader efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This dissertation includes three independent but relevant studies regarding the intelligible communication between American undergraduates (UGs) and international teaching assistants (ITAs). The first study is a meta-analytic review. This review used a meta-analytic methods-Robust Variance Estimation to examine the effectiveness of interventions on improving the intelligibility of NNESs’ English speech, and to identify factors affecting the effectiveness of these interventions. The second study investigated how different types of intervention activities aiming to ameliorate UGs’ biased language ideology could help to improve their perceptions of ITAs’ foreign-accented English speech and teaching ability. The third study used the data collected from the pre-intervention survey about UGs’ previous experience with ITAs, their openness to foreign-accented English, as well as their perceptions of ITAs’ English speech to identify significant factors affecting their perceptions of ITAs’ English speech and teaching ability.
Based on the findings of this dissertation, implications about how to improve UGs’ attitudes towards ITAs in educational institutions were discussed. Recommendations about how to address methodological issues for future studies were also made at the end of studies.
Subject
second language learnersnative English speakers
non-native English speakers, communication
intelligibility
comprehensibility
Citation
Hu, Xueyan (2020). EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATES AND INTERNATIONAL TEACHING ASSISTANTS. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /192320.