Toward understanding the second language learning of Arab students in Israel and Canada: The relationship of attitudes and cultural background to reading comprehension

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salim Abu-Rabia ◽  
Grace Feuerverger
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Arab Students ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals ‘I said it!’ ‘I’m first!’: Gender and language-learner identities

2011 ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Harold Andrés Peña
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Feminist Poststructuralist ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Learner Identities

While there has been an upsurge of research studying the relationship of gender and second language learning in cross-cultural contexts, far less has been investigated about preschool children’s gender and learner identities in contexts where English is a foreign language. In this paper I describe how gendered discourses are at stake in the classroom and how these discourses are related to the learner identities of a group of Colombian preschoolers. I use a Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) approach to pin down moments in which the assertion of power is manifested in second language practices like ‘classroom races’ during literacy activities. This assertion of power positions participants differently. Findings suggest the need to understand how children negotiate subject positions discursively in language learning activities. I am suggesting the need to erode discourses of approval that marginalize girls and favour boys.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Artificial and Second Language Learning

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 822-847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Ettlinger ◽  
Kara Morgan-Short ◽  
Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg ◽  
Patrick C.M. Wong
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals The relationship between students’ second language learning anxiety and language proficiency

10.32698/0141 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Asnadia Binti Alias ◽  
Nur Atikah Binti Noor Rashid
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Test Anxiety ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Learning Anxiety ◽  
Language Learning Anxiety ◽  
Spearman Test ◽  
The Relationship

Students in Malaysian Polytechnics must enrol in a second language course as one of the compulsory courses offered by the institution. There is no placement test for polytechnics students to enrol in English language class. Therefore, students with different level of proficiency are mixed together in a classroom to learn English language. Consequently, students encountered difficulties in learning the second language due to feeling of anxiety. Hence, the aim of this study was to determine the correlation between students’ language learning anxiety and their language proficiency. This study involved of 96 semester three students from Civil Engineering Department, Politeknik Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin which have been chosen randomly. A 33 item questionnaire of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was analysed using SPSS 22. The study revealed that the students experienced moderate level of language learning anxiety. Correlations – Spearman Test was used to determine the relationship between students’ second language learning anxiety and language proficiency. Three types of anxiety was tested which are Test Anxiety, Communication Apprehension and Fear of Negative Evaluation. Correlations – Spearman Test demonstrated that only Test Anxiety showed significant relationship with students’ language proficiency. Several implications have been discussed to offer suggestions to the lecturers in dealing with students learning anxiety. Lecturers should be careful in correcting students’ error to avoid students feel humiliated. This is because students tend to feel anxious whenever lecturers correct their mistakes in the classroom. A further research should be carried out by using two approaches; qualitative and quantitative and adds more variables such as attitude and motivation towards learning a second language.

scholarly journals How does CLIL affect the acquisition of reading comprehension in the mother tongue? A comparative study in secondary education

2017 ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Esther Nieto
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Do So

In the last two decades, CLIL (content and language integrated learning) programmes, in which school subjects such as history, geography or mathematics are taught by means of an additional language, have rapidly spread over all the world, since CLIL has been deemed to be an innovative and effective approach for second language learning. Therefore, research on CLIL has precisely focused on the acquisition of the L2, while other aspects, such as the assimilation of the content taught by means of the second language or the impact of CLIL programmes on the mother tongue have received less attention.In this sense, this paper examines how CLIL programmes affect the development of reading comprehension in the mother tongue. To do so, the outcomes in a test of reading comprehension of CLIL (n = 1,119) and non-CLIL students (= 15,984) enrolled in the 2nd year of secondary education (13-14 years-old) were compared. The results indicated that the acquisition of literal reading comprehension and inferential reading comprehension in the mother tongue significantly benefit from CLIL, whereas no significant differences have been detected in critical reading comprehension. The reading skills most benefited by CLIL were global comprehension, lexical comprehension, understanding of space-time relationships, integration of extra-textual information, and identification of extra-textual relations.These data are explained by the critical importance of reading strategies to succeed in CLIL settings, and by the transfer of these strategies between L1 and L2 and vice versa. This hypothesis is supported by previous research on immersion programmes.

scholarly journals Collaborative Instructional Strategies and Attitudes toward Second Language Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
Carolyn F. Pardo-Tolentino ◽  
Rischelle G. Aggabao
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Instructional Strategies ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Mind Mapping ◽  
Collaborative Strategies ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Experimental Group

This paper examines the effectiveness of using collaborative instructional strategies in teaching second language and presents the attitudes toward using these collaborative strategies among Grade 8 students. To determine the results, the experimental research design was used to test the relationship between the variables. Findings revealed that five collaborative learning strategies namely think-pair-share, jigsaw puzzle, mind mapping, round robin, and send a problem were assessed as satisfactory by the respondents. Though the data show these collaborative strategies received the same assessment, “send a problem” has the highest average mean. With regard to the respondents’ performance in the pretest and posttest, students who belong in the experimental group show a slight increase in scores than those students in the control group. Students from both groups have the same perception in using these collaborative strategies. Thus, the researchers believe that using collaborative instructional strategies help learners understand better the second language.

INPUT, INTERACTION, AND THE SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNER.Susan M. Gass. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997. Pp. xi + 189. $45.00 cloth, $22.50 paper.

2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-115
Author(s):  
James F. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Second Language Learner ◽  
Second Language Development ◽  
Readable Book ◽  
The Relationship

Input, interaction, and the second language learner is, as the title suggests, a view of the relationship among input, interaction, and second language development. Susan M. Gass has written an extremely readable book that explicates many of the most discussed issues in second language learning in the 1990s. Her intention, successfully achieved, is to demonstrate where theories and frameworks coincide, not just collide.

Generative phonology and contrastive studies

1976 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacek Fisiak
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Precise Formulation ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Theoretical Status ◽  
Methodological Status ◽  
The Relationship

The development of contrastive studies (CS) in recent years, judging by the proliferation of projects and published materials, has been accompanied since the late sixties by vigorous discussions and controversies concerning the theoretical status of CS, their form and their place in both general and applied linguistics.Many linguists and language teachers have gone so far as to reject the validity and usefulness of CS (cf. Alatis, 1968). It seems that this attitude results from a number of misunderstandings created by such factors as the peculiar methodological status of CS, the lack of a clear-cut distinction between theoretical and applied CS (Stockwell, 1968:25; Fisiak, 1971:88ff), and the lack of any precise formulation of the different aims of theoretical CS and applied CS, as well as the confusion of the relationship between CS, psycholinguistic theories of interference and errors, and the theory of second language learning (Zabrocki, 1976). Some confusion also stems from the misunderstanding of the relationship between CS and linguistic theory.

scholarly journals Brain white matter structure and COMT gene are linked to second-language learning in adults

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (26) ◽  
pp. 7249-7254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping C. Mamiya ◽  
Todd L. Richards ◽  
Bradley P. Coe ◽  
Evan E. Eichler ◽  
Patricia K. Kuhl
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
White Matter ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Fractional Anisotropy ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Language Immersion ◽  
Radial Diffusivity ◽  
Immersion Program ◽  
Brain White Matter ◽  
The Relationship

Adult human brains retain the capacity to undergo tissue reorganization during second-language learning. Brain-imaging studies show a relationship between neuroanatomical properties and learning for adults exposed to a second language. However, the role of genetic factors in this relationship has not been investigated. The goal of the current study was twofold: (i) to characterize the relationship between brain white matter fiber-tract properties and second-language immersion using diffusion tensor imaging, and (ii) to determine whether polymorphisms in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene affect the relationship. We recruited incoming Chinese students enrolled in the University of Washington and scanned their brains one time. We measured the diffusion properties of the white matter fiber tracts and correlated them with the number of days each student had been in the immersion program at the time of the brain scan. We found that higher numbers of days in the English immersion program correlated with higher fractional anisotropy and lower radial diffusivity in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus. We show that fractional anisotropy declined once the subjects finished the immersion program. The relationship between brain white matter fiber-tract properties and immersion varied in subjects with different COMT genotypes. Subjects with the Methionine (Met)/Valine (Val) and Val/Val genotypes showed higher fractional anisotropy and lower radial diffusivity during immersion, which reversed immediately after immersion ended, whereas those with the Met/Met genotype did not show these relationships. Statistical modeling revealed that subjects’ grades in the language immersion program were best predicted by fractional anisotropy and COMT genotype.

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