The Language
Café at Lunchtime

The Situation…...
October-December 2016
• 12.40-13.10 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday andFriday• Eat lunch and communicate in an L2• Usually 2-3 L1 English speakers in attendance• Attendance is encouraged but not mandatory• Most attendees are first year students• Free self-service drinks• Relaxed environment, not a classroom

Investigative Aims
• What are both teachers’ and students’ current
perceptions of the café’s state and success?
• What are the motivating factors for student
attendance at the café and how could nonattendees be encouraged to attend?
• Would more structure in terms of materials tosupport conversation be a welcome addition
to the café?

Theoretical Context• Shamim - ‘Front-zoners’• Skehan - ‘Carrot and Stick
Hypothesis’• Krashen - ‘Low Anxiety
Environment’• Yashima - ‘International Posture’Extrinsic Motivating
Factors to Learn• ‘Once any chance for receiving reward iseliminated, learners may cease to applyeffort.’- MacIntyre and Gardner (1991)

Intrinsic Motivating
Factors to Learn• ‘International Posture is ‘a far-sighted
somewhat vague long-term objective
related to using English forinternational/intercultural communication’- Yashima at el (2004)

Intrinsic MotivatingFactors to Learn• ‘A more powerful category of reward is
one which is intrinsically driven within thelearner’- Brown (2002)

Language Anxiety‘A low-anxiety environment for L2 speaking is easy
to say but difficult to provide.’-Krashen (1981)‘It is not uncommon to find people who tend to avoid
entering L2 communication situations even if they
possess a high level of communicative competence.
This implies that there is a further layer of mediating
factors between the competence to communicate andputting this competence into practice’- Dornyei (2005)

The Research…..
• Interviews with teachers• Questionnaire administered to 100 firstyear students in their compulsory English
classQuantitative Data Resultsfrom 100 Students
Have you been to the Language Café at lunchtime thissemester?
YES 23 NO 77

How many times have you been there?
Once 5
Under five 9
Five to ten 3
Over ten 6•Reasons for Attendance(multiple choices allowed for the 23)
To talk to foreign teachers in a foreign language
20
To talk to other students in a foreign language
13To listen to others talk9
To talk to others in Japanese3
To quietly eat lunch
1Others4

Reasons for Non-Attendance (multiple choices for the 77)
I lack confidence in my ability to take part in conversation
58
Free talk makes me anxious
46
I want to speak in Japanese at lunchtime
31
The time is inconvenient for me
20
I’m too busy
20
I want to be alone at lunchtime
4
I’m not interested in hearing or speaking a foreign language at the cafe
4

The reaction….
April 2017

•The ‘Language
Menu’•The attendance card

Greetings
Hello.
Hi!
Good afternoon. (more formal)

Life Talk
How’s it going?
How’s life?
How have you been?
What’s up?
How was your weekend? (good question on Monday)
How’s your day/week going?
Do you have any plans for ___________?
Follow-Up Questions
Ask questions to continue the conversation
What Where When Who Why How
News Talk
Talk about recent news- from on campus to around the world!

Did you read/see/hear the news about _______?
What do you think about________?

Quotes from teachers to
provoke discussion…...
• The café is a place to practice English who can’t
afford to go abroad, and this is as about as close
an environment as they are going to be able tofind.

Quotes from teachers to
provoke discussion…...
• I recently went in (the café) and saw a table ofstudents speaking in Japanese, and encouraged
them to speak English, and then they did. Unlessthere is a rule there, how can they speak English?
Who is going to be the first one to insist they all
speak English? As long as it’s imposed on them,
they’ll do it. You need a native speaker to lightthe match.

Quotes from teachers toprovoke discussion…...
• The high school mentality of performing when
the teachers are around isn’t good, they should
think more like adults and take care of their own
education. It’s not just getting a grade, learning
is for learning.

Quotes from teachers toprovoke discussion…...
• The card gets them in the door, and that’s OK but
they will then realize why they are there (thecafé.)Aida, Y. (1994) Examination of Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope's Construct ofForeign Language Anxiety: The Case of Students of Japanese. The ModernLanguage Journal 78 (2) p155-168
Allright, D. & Bailey, K. (1991) Focus on the Language Classroom
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Brown, D. (2002) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching New
York: LongmanBrown, D (2002) English Language Teaching in the “Post-Method Era:
Toward Better Diagnosis, Treatment and Assessment in Methodology inLanguage Teaching, eds Richards, J. & Renandya, W. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press p 178-188
Dornyei, Z. (2003) Attitudes, Orientations and Motivations in Language
Learning Michigan: Language Learning Research Club
Dornyei, Z. (2001) Teaching and Researching Motivation Harlow: Pearson
Dornyei, Z. (2003) Questionnaires in Second Language Research New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Dornyei, Z. (2005) The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual
Differences in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, LEA.
Ellis, R. (1994) The Study of Second Language Acquisition Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Ellis, R. (1999) Understanding Second Language Acquisition Oxford:
Oxford University Press
Ellis, R. & Barkhuizen, G. (2005) Analyzing Learner Language Oxford:
Oxford University Press

Firth, A. & Wagner J (1997) On Discourse, Communication, and(Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research The Modern Language
Journal, 81(3), p285-300
Horwitz, E. Horwitz, K. & Cope, J. (1986) Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety The Modern Language Journal, 70(2), p125-132
Krashen, S. (1981) Second Language Acquisition and Second Language
Learning Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall International
Lightbown, P & Spada, N. (1999) How Languages are Learned Oxford:
Oxford University Press
MacIntyre, P (2007) Willingness to Communicate in the SecondLanguage: Understanding the Decision to Speak as a Volitional Process
The Modern Language Journal, 91(4), p564-576
Shamim, F. (2006) In or Out of the Zone: Location as a Feature ofInteraction in Large ESL Classes in Pakistan in Voices from theLanguage Classroom (eds) Bailey, K. & Nunan, D. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Yashima, T. (2002) Willingness to Communicate in a Second Language:
The Japanese EFL Context. The Modern Language Journal, 86(1), p54–66.
Yashima, T., Zenuk-Nishide, L. & Shimizu, K. (2004) The Influence ofAttitudes and Affect on Willingness to Communicate and SecondLanguage Communication. Language Learning, 54(1), p119–152.