The development of vocabulary and morphological awareness: A longitudinal study with college EFL students

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yih-Lin Belinda Jiang ◽  
Li-Jen Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Morphological Awareness ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Skilled Readers ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Academic Year

AbstractWhile the relationship between vocabulary, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension has been examined extensively, research on this relationship among adult second language learners has only been explored recently. The present study addresses this gap by examining how adult English as a foreign language learners developed different types of English vocabulary and morphological awareness over the course of one academic year. Participants included 523 college freshmen in Taiwan with varying reading proficiency levels. Results from a series of mixed-measure analyses of variance revealed that (a) even the more proficient college English as a foreign language learners failed to fully grasp morphological principles; (b) the gap in vocabulary between the less skilled readers, the average, and the skilled readers widened significantly over the course of one academic year; (c) the effect of phonological and orthographic changes involved in morphologically complex words differed for the assessment of base meaning, but did not vary across proficiency levels; (d) progress in different aspects of morphological awareness, such as interpreting the meaning of the suffix or identifying the base of a morphologically complex word, varied significantly among readers of different proficiency levels; and (e) suffixes of different parts of speech posed different challenges to learners. Theoretical and pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

scholarly journals The Use of Listening Comprehension Strategies in Distance Language Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Aysel Deregözü
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
Language Education ◽  
State Universities ◽  
Comprehension Strategies ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Academic Year

This study aims to examine the listening comprehension strategies used by foreign language learners who are learning languages through distance education. It also aims to explore how the use of listening comprehension strategies differs in terms of three variables, namely, gender, L2, and department majored. To do this, the Listening Strategy Inventory was administered to students attending English and German language classes through distance education at three state universities in Turkey. The data were collected during the 2020-2021 academic year. The study used quantitative analysis methods. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and the statistical analyses independent samples t-test. The findings revealed that students use listening comprehension strategies at a moderate level. The most commonly used listening comprehension strategies were those for while listening and nonverbal strategies, while learners use word-oriented strategies the least. The study also revealed statistically significant differences by gender in foreign language learners’ listening comprehension strategies, but no significant differences for department majored and L2 variables. It is recommended that individual differences be considered when teaching listening comprehension strategies to foreign language learners.

scholarly journals Offers by Greek FL learners

Pragmatics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 531-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spyridoula Bella
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Grammatical Structures

This study investigates developmental patterns in the ability of Greek foreign language learners to make offers. Drawing data from role-plays and retrospective verbal reports it attempts to explore the initiative offer strategies, the syntactic modification and the degree of insistence that learners of three different proficiency levels (lower intermediate, intermediate and advanced) employ when performing offers in two symmetrical (-P, -D) and two asymmetrical (+P, +D) situations. The results suggest that, although there is a great deal of grammatical and pragmalinguistic development regarding both initiative offer strategies and syntactic modification devices, this does not guarantee concomitant levels of sociopragmatic development (cf. Bardovi-Harlig 1999). Specifically, it is shown that learners of increased proficiency tend to overgeneralise complex grammatical structures like interrogative constructions and the conditional in situations in which NSs employ more direct and simple grammatical means in order to achieve a solidarity effect. Furthermore, the learners appear to lag far behind NSs in the appropriate use of insistence. The findings of the study lend support to both the developmental stages of pragmatic competence acknowledged in the relevant literature (Ellis 1992; Achiba 2003) and to Bialystok's (1993) model regarding the acquisition of pragmatic competence.

scholarly journals Pronunciation Acquisition of the Inflectional Morpheme –ed in English by Nicaraguan Spanish Speakers

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angel M. Dávila
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Differential Rate ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Nicaraguan Spanish

This descriptive non-experimental quantitative study investigated if the pronunciation of the –ed morphemeim proves as the English proficiency level develops. A random sampling design was used to recruit research participants.  A target sample of 48 Nicaraguan English as a foreign language students were chosen from an accessible population (N= 91) to participate in this research.  The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 24, with a mean age of 21 years.  They belonged to three English proficiency levels: high beginners, intermediate, and high intermediate. Findings showed that more advanced English as a Foreign Language learners had a significantly higher pronunciation accuracy on the production of the allomorphs, /t/ and /d/. Their error rate on these two allomorphs was as low as 9% and 8%, respectively. Concerning the /əd, ɪd/ allomorph, no significant differences were found among proficiency levels.  These results were interpreted in view of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (Eckman, 1977) and the Similarity Differential Rate Hypothesis (Major & Kim, 1996). The trends in the data definitely suggested support for the Similarity Differential Rate Hypothesis which postulates that markedness by itself cannot explain the development of L2 learners as they improve their L2 proficiency level. This study offers implications for the teaching of the three phonological realizations of the -ed past tense inflection.

Picture or non-picture? The influence of narrative task types on lower- and higher-proficiency EFL learners’ oral production

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuyan Qiu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Task Types

Abstract Picture-based storytelling tasks, i. e. telling a story relying on some pictures, and short speech tasks, i. e. producing a speech with a given topic without pictures, are two types of oral narrative tasks widely adopted in previous studies. However, few have discussed what effects these two types of tasks may exert on second language learners’ speaking performance. In this study, sixty English as a foreign language learners, divided into lower- and higher-proficiency groups, performed a picture-based storytelling task and a short speech task. Stimulated recalls were collected from seventeen participants. Their oral discourses were analysed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Stimulated recalls were analysed based on Levelt’s speaking model. The short speech tasks raised participants’ accuracy and lexical complexity and were more effective for higher-proficient learners regarding structural complexity. The findings yield suggestions for designing oral narrative tasks for EFL learners with different L2 proficiency levels.

scholarly journals Advanced second language learners experience difficulties processing reduced word pronunciation variants

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Ernestus ◽  
Mirte E. Dikmans ◽  
Ghislaine Giezenaar
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Reduced Word ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Syntactic Information

Abstract Words are often pronounced with fewer segments in casual conversations than in formal speech. Previous research has shown that foreign language learners and beginning second language learners experience problems processing reduced speech. We examined whether this also holds for advanced second language learners. We designed a dictation task in Dutch consisting of sentences spliced from casual conversations and an unreduced counterpart of this task, with the same sentences carefully articulated by the same speaker. Advanced second language learners of Dutch produced substantially more transcription errors for the reduced than for the unreduced sentences. These errors made the sentences incomprehensible or led to non-intended meanings. The learners often did not rely on the semantic and syntactic information in the sentence or on the subsegmental cues to overcome the reductions. Hence, advanced second language learners also appear to suffer from the reduced pronunciation variants of words that are abundant in everyday conversations.

Constructions at work in foreign language learners’ mind

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-242
Author(s):  
Annalisa Baicchi ◽  
Paolo Della Putta
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mind

Abstract This article reports empirical evidence of constructional priming effects in L2 learners of English and Italian. The well-known pioneering experiment carried out by Bencini and Goldberg (2000) with L1 speakers of English paved the way for our investigation. We employed the same protocol to ascertain whether constructions have an ontological status also in the mind of L2 learners. We conducted experiments with four groups of learners whose language proficiency levels correspond to the B1 and B2 levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The results we obtained in our cross-linguistic experiments demonstrate that learners are reliant on constructional templates when they are required to produce linguistic generalizations.

Extended discourse in first and second language acquisition: A challenge and an opportunity

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Snow
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Educational Setting ◽  
Word Generation ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Effective Component

AbstractFirst language learners acquire vocabulary in the context of participation in discourse, and the quantity and richness of that discourse is the best predictor of their progress. Similarly, we argue, engagement in discourse, in particular debate and discussion, is an effective component of classroom instruction for second and foreign language learners. Evidence supporting the effectiveness of a particular discussion-based program, Word Generation, is presented, in particular its effectiveness with current and former second language learners of English. Principles implemented in Word Generation that could be applied in any educational setting are identified.

Phonological development in two-way bilingual immersion

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandy Renee Menke
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Language Immersion ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Immersion Programs ◽  
Foreign Language Immersion

In spite of the well-documented advantage of an early age of acquisition, findings from one-way (foreign language) immersion programs suggest that this instructional context is insufficient for acquisition of nativelike articulations by child foreign language learners. It has been suggested that the lack of exposure to native speaking peers may contribute to reported non-native pronunciation. This study expands upon the previous research with child second language learners of Spanish, exploring how children, who learn academic content in Spanish, alongside native Spanish-speaking peers produce the Spanish vowels. Few differences are observed between the learner and peer native speaker groups, suggesting that the direct contact with native speakers of Spanish afforded by two-way bilingual immersion promotes phonological acquisition.

scholarly journals Cultural Translation of Idioms in Textbook Advanced English from the Perspective of Grammar

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyan Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Comparison Analysis ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

For foreign language learners, there is a dead corner for them. Now that idioms may lead to a serious misunderstanding, for they overload much information and background culture. Therefore, English idioms need specify the right meanings of Chinese ones, which is essential for the second language learners to get a better understanding of the writer’s intention. This thesis adopts literature review and comparison analysis, and tends to explore the relationship between English idioms translation and Chinese ones in Advanced English complied by Zhang Hanxi, in order to find a better way of relatively appropriate rending, in addition, to provide some suggestions for English language teachers in the teaching.

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