How young children make sense of two different writing systems: Korean written in the Hangul alphabet, and English written in the Roman alphabet

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyung Min Nam

Although many young children become literate within an environment in which different writing systems exist, there is little research on what children know about different writing systems and how they understand and develop them when they are learning more than one simultaneously. This qualitative study discusses how Korean EFL (English as a Foreign Language) children understand two different writing systems, the Korean alphabet, Hangul, and the Roman alphabet, used for English, within a peer teaching setting. The findings show that they were able not only to discover key orthographic principles which characterise each writing system but also to find similarities and differences between Hangul and English from different points of view: shapes of letters (block shaped vs linear), language units (syllables vs letters) and sound–letter relationship (shallow orthography vs deep orthography). The paper suggests that young children are able to look for key concepts in different writing systems by constructing their own ideas about the principles of reading and writing from an early age as active language learners.

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Eduardo Cote Parra

<p>The purpose of this action research was to explore the types of interactions that foreign language learners experience while using a wiki as a supporting tool for a face-to-face research course. This design allowed me to play a dual role: first, I studied my own classroom setting and students. Second, I implemented a pedagogical intervention based on a collaborative online learning interaction. The data were gathered from participants’ posts, and the findings revealed that class tasks promoted an asynchronous voluntary interaction among participants in which they shared knowledge and experiences while expressing the opinions and points of view that enabled them to actively participate in the face-to-face class.</p><p>El propósito de esta investigación acción fue explorar el tipo de interacciones que estudiantes de lenguas extranjeras presentaron al utilizar una wiki como herramienta de soporte de un curso presencial. Este diseño me permitió desempeñar un doble papel. Por una parte, estudié mi propio salón de clase y estudiantes; por otra, implementé una intervención pedagógica con base en una interacción colaborativa en línea. La información se recolectó por medio de 128 aportes hechos por los participantes. Los hallazgos revelan que las actividades de clase permitieron una interacción asincrónica voluntaria entre los participantes en la cual ellos compartieron saberes y experiencias, a la vez que expresaron opiniones y puntos de vista que les permitieron participar activamente en la clase presencial.</p>


1999 ◽  
Vol 125-126 ◽  
pp. 229-251
Author(s):  
Sue-San Ghahremani-Ghajar ◽  
Diana Masny

The importance of efficiently processing letters and gaining orthographic automaticity has been stressed in first language (L1) reading research. While this level has been well defined in L1 reading, it has received little attention in EFL reading, especially when the writing system in L1 differs from the one in L2. This study investigates the influence of L1 literacy and knowledge of a writing system (Farsi) on reading and processing Roman letters in English. Sixty students were selected from an Iranian university. Results showed that the students process strings of letters in Farsi and Roman script in the same way and produce upward M-shaped patterns. The findings are discussed in the light of the research for Arabic and other scripts. The implications for classroom practices in facilitating foreign language learners’ reading ability are also explored.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-172
Author(s):  
Charles Lock

This essay questions the assumption that the roman alphabet is more purely phonetic than any other, and that other scripts and writing-systems are less efficient, whether for the production of texts or for their comprehension. Those who habitually use roman letters are asked to consider their competence to understand other writing systems. The work of Stanley Morison emphasizes the ideological significance of alphabets and of particular letter-forms. M.B. Parkes and Paul B. Saenger are cited to indicate how punctuation and spacing are aspects of the roman-letter writing system that cannot be treated as purely phonetic. Beyond the world of roman letters there is a focus on Syriac and the Xi’an stele, which was printed by Athanasius Kircher in 1667 and marks the first publication in the west of a substantial text in Chinese.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 697
Author(s):  
Linna Meilia Rasiban ◽  
Dadang Sudana ◽  
Dedi Sutedi

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to explore university students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of recognizing Japanese Kanji characters by using mnemonic strategies and of understanding Kanji’s meanings. Fifty Indonesian university students majoring in Japanese Language Education participated in this study. Data were collected through an online questionnaire survey and an in-depth interview with Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) students. Drawing on the analysis of questionnaire and interview data, students reported that the use of mnemonic strategies successfully enhanced their comprehension of Japanese Kanji characters lexically and semantically. The findings also showed that the mnemonic strategy was so applicable that students could recognize Japanese Kanji characters. The use of technology also mediated the adoption of the mnemonic strategy. Thus, the implication of the study is that by using different mnemonic strategies along with the use of technology, Japanese teachers could teach Japanese Kanji characters to students whose writing systems background is other than Latin/Roman alphabet systems.


Author(s):  
Ali Akbar Khansir ◽  
Afsaneh Salehabadi

As the topic suggests, the research paper presents Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners. Error analysis always tries to resolve language learners’ problems in acquiring second or foreign language setting. Learning to English pronunciation is perhaps as important as learning listening skill, speaking, and spelling. Errors in English pronunciation create several problems for English language learners in their works. In other words, most of the English language errors of pronunciation are due to the lack of knowledge of language learners. However, all the students in our sample are of age group (16-25) at Bushehr language institute and they are all Iranian nationals. In addition, all of them were female learners. An English pronunciation (consonant) test was used to get information about the knowledge of the learners in English pronunciation. Findings of this article indicated that the first and second hypotheses of this article were accepted, but the third hypothesis was rejected. However, the findings of this paper showed that the Iranian EFL students have problem to pronounce English sounds correctly.


2008 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euen Hyuk Sarah Jung ◽  
Kim, Young Jae

Author(s):  
Norhazlina Husin ◽  
Nuranisah Tan Abdullah ◽  
Aini Aziz

Abstract The teaching of Japanese language as third language to foreign students has its own issues and challenges. It does not merely involve only teaching the four language skills. Japanese language has its own unique values. These unique values also tend to differentiate the teaching of Japanese language as a third language from other third language acquisitions. The teaching of Japanese language as third language to foreign students also involves the teaching of its writing system. This makes the teaching of Japanese language rather complicated because Japanese language has three forms of writings, namely: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Students are required to fully understand the Hiragana system of writing first before proceeding to learn the other two forms of writings. The main challenge in the teaching of Japanese writing systems is the time allocated that can be considered as very limited as other language aspects need to be taught too. This, which relates directly to students’ factor very much contribute to the challenges foreseen. Students are likely to face problems in understanding and using the writings as they simultaneously need to adhere to the findings teaching and learning schedules. This article discusses on the analysis conducted in terms of the learning of the Hiragana and Katagana systems of writing among foreign students. The discussion in this article is based on the teaching of Japanese language to students of Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Shah Alam. Keywords: Third language, Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moh. Rofid Fikroni

Bearing in mind that the learners’ speaking skill had become the main goal in learning language, grammatical competence is believed to have a big role within foreign language learners’ language production, especially in spoken form. Moreover, the learners’ grammatical competence is also closely related to the Monitor Hypothesis proposed by Krashen (1982) in which it says that the acquired system will function as monitor or editor to the language production. The students’ monitor performance will vary based on how they make use of their acquired system. They may use it optimally (monitor optimal user), overly (monitor over-user), or they may not use it at all (monitor under-user). Therefore, learners’ grammatical competence has its own role, which is very crucial, within learners’ language production, which is not only to produce the language, but also to monitor the language production itself. Because of this reason, focus on form instruction will give a great impact for students’ grammatical competence within their communicative competence. This paper aims to present ideas about the how crucial the role grammatical competence within learners’ L2 communication.


2003 ◽  
Vol 139-140 ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Paul Bogaards ◽  
Elisabeth Van Der Linden ◽  
Lydius Nienhuis

The research to be reported on in this paper was originally motivated by the finding that about 70% of the mistakes made by university students when translating from their mother tongue (Dutch) into their foreign language (French) were lexical in nature (NIENHUIS et al. 1989). This was partially confinned in the investigation described in NIENHUIS et al. (1993). A closer look at the individual errors suggested that many problems were caused by words with more than one meaning which each require different translations in the target language. In the research reported on in this paper, we checked our fmdings in the light of what is known about the structure of the bilingual lexicon and about the ways bilinguals have access to the elements of their two languages. On the basis of the model of the bilingual lexicon presented by KROLL & Sholl (1992) an adapted model is proposed for the processing of lexical ambiguity. This leads to a tentative schema of the mental activities that language learners have to perfonn when they are translating from their mother tongue into a foreign language, The second part of the paper describes two experiments we have carried out in order to find empirical support for such a schema. The last section of the paper contains a discussion of the results obtained as well as the conclusions that can be drawn.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document