Search results for "Comprehension"

ETAT: Expository Text Analysis Tool.

2002

Qualitative methods that analyze the coherence of expository texts not only are time consuming, but also present challenges in collecting data on coding reliability. We describe software that analyzes expository texts more rapidly and produces a notable level of objectivity. ETAT (Expository Text Analysis Tool) analyzes the coherence of expository texts. ETAT adopts a symbolic representational system, known as conceptual graph structures. ETAT follows three steps: segmentation of a text into nodes, classification of the unidentified nodes, and linking the nodes with relational arcs. ETAT automatically constructs a graph in the form of nodes and their interrelationships, along with various a…

Letter knowledge predicts Grade 4 reading fluency and reading comprehension

2008

Abstract The present study examined the predictors of fourth graders' reading skills (reading comprehension, text reading and word chain reading). Reading skill antecedents of 158 children of 5–6 years of age were measured at the beginning of kindergarten; students' reading skills were measured in kindergarten and in Grades 1 and 4. The results showed that children's letter knowledge at the beginning of kindergarten was the most powerful predictor of their reading skills at the end of Grade 4. Other predictors were metacognitive awareness, gender, mother's level of education, and visual attention. Phonological awareness at kindergarten affected reading skills at Grade 4 through reading skil…

Future language teachers’ pedagogical landscapes during their subject studies

2015

This article examines the experiences, attitudes and perceptions language students have regarding the use of ICT in language teaching. In addition, the article analyses the key characteristics of language students’ pedagogical designs. The data come from a pedagogically oriented subject-studies course that focuses on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio. The data, which consist of language students’ reflections and course plans, have been analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings imply that language students’ pedagogical landscapes reflect their own experiences as learners. Furthermore, the literacy practices in languag…

From a bodily-based format of knowledge to symbols. The evolution of human language

2013

Although ontogeny cannot recapitulate phylogeny, a two-level model of the acquisition of language will be here proposed and its implication for the evolution of the faculty of language will be discussed. It is here proposed that the identification of the cognitive requirements of language during ontogeny could help us in the task of identifying the phylogenetic achievements that concurred, at some point, to the acquisition of language during phylogeny. In this model speaking will be considered as a complex ability that arises in two different steps. The first step of competence widely relies on a bodily-based format of knowledge. The second step relies on more abstract meta-representations …

Foreign Language Anxiety in the Context of Foreign Language Oral Performance, Language and Pronunciation Learning Strategies

2016

The aim of this chapter is to provide a theoretical background for the concept of language anxiety, emphasising the context of L2 oral performance and pronunciation. Thus, the construct of general anxiety is first explored and the definition of anxiety is analysed. Subsequently, the term foreign language anxiety is examined for the purpose of establishing its working definition. Next, a typology of causes of language anxiety experienced by L2 learners is proposed in order to fully grasp the complexity of the construct.

A Sociocultural Approach to Young Language Learners' Belief about Language Learning

2003

Can research into the diagnostic testing of reading in a second or foreign language contribute to SLA research?

2011

Language testing researchers have recently shown interest in diagnostic testing. However, diagnostic testing requires a better understanding of language abilities at a less general level than has been normal in language testing, and this has posed challenges to testers to define their diagnostic constructs both theoretically and operationally. In theory, second language acquisition (SLA) should be able to offer insights into the construct of reading in a second or foreign language (S/FL), and testing ought to be able to base diagnostic tests of S/FL reading on theoretical insights from SLA. It is, however, unclear whether this happens in practice. In this paper we examine the potential syne…

Maternal literacy teaching, causal attributions and children’s literacy skills in Finnish-speaking and language minority families

2016

Abstract This study investigated the effect of mothers’ (language minority group mothers, LM, n = 49, and Finnish speaking mothers, MP, n = 368) literacy teaching at home, and mothers’ causal attributions of their children’s (mean age 11.48 years) literacy skills at fourth grade in Finland. For Finnish speaking mothers, results showed a negative correlation between the amount of literacy taught at home and children’s performance on reading tests i.e., more teaching was associated with poorer performance and vice versa. Also, the more MP mothers measured their children’s success by their ability, the better their children performed in reading comprehension tests. In the LM group, maternal li…

Investigations in Teaching and Learning Languages : Studies in Honour of Hanna Komorowska

2013

Problemas históricos y dificultades de los estudiantes en la conceptualización de sustancia compuesto químico

2008

Este trabajo ofrece un análisis histórico sobre los problemas que tuvo que resolver la ciencia hasta llegar a la construcción de los conceptos macroscópicos de sustancia y compuesto químico en el contexto de la teoría daltoniana. Por otra parte, en él se muestran algunas de las dificultades de comprensión que estos conceptos ofrecen a los estudiantes. Para determinarlas, se realiza un estudio transversal con alumnos de 15 a 18 años, lo que permite evaluar el significado que otorgan a la idea de sustancia, al tiempo que se constata la necesidad de su comprensión para poder entender los cambios químicos. Por último, se plantea la existencia de ciertas semejanzas entre las ideas sobre la compo…