Phonological and Morphological Awareness in Second Language Learning

The subjects of phonology and morphology are investigated in this study to see if they have a significant influence in second language learning. This study examines the main features of phonology and morphology in order to determine how understanding of these features contributes in the acquisition and teaching of a second language. The current study successfully establishes the major functions of phonology and morphology in second language training, as well as knowledge of these two disciplines.

DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES ON JOKO WIDODO’S SPEECH FOR ENGLISH EDUCATION

This study aims to determine the frequency and process of derivational and inflectional morphemes in Joko Widodo's speech at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The study used descriptive qualitative analysis methods. The data were analyzed using Fromkin's principle. The data analysis yielded 133 terms made up of derivational and inflectional morphemes. Derivational morphemes accounted for 50.37 percent of all occurrences in this study, while inflectional morphemes accounted for 49.63 percent. The researchers discovered several derivation processes that modify grammatical classes while remaining unchanged, such as noun form, adjective form, verb form, adverb form, adjective form, noun to noun, and adjective to adjective. In this study, five types of Inflectional morphemes were found: -s (plural and third-person singular), -ing (progressive), -ed (past tense), and -er (comparative). Morphemes are an important feature of language so it is important for students to learn in school, especially for language learners. Morphological awareness, which we describe as a basic understanding of the morphemic structure of words, is required of the learner. Finally, the implications of this research will be an inspiration for further research in morphological processing, especially regarding derivational and inflectional morphemes.

Reading Comprehension Predictors in European Portuguese Adults

Research on the predictors of reading comprehension has been largely focused on school-aged children and mainly in opaque orthographies, hindering the generalization of the results to adult populations and more transparent orthographies. In the present study, we aim to test two versions of the Simple View of Reading (SVR): the original model and an extended version, including reading fluency and vocabulary. Additional mediation models were analyzed to verify if other reading comprehension predictors (rapid automatized naming, phonological decoding, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and working memory) have direct effects or if they are mediated through word reading and reading fluency. A sample of 67 typical adult Portuguese readers participated in this study. The SVR model accounted for 27% of the variance in reading comprehension, with oral language comprehension displaying a larger contribution than word reading. In the extended SVR model, reading fluency and vocabulary provided an additional and significant contribution of 7% to the explained variance. Moreover, vocabulary influenced reading comprehension directly and indirectly, via oral language comprehension. In the final mediation model, the total mediation hypothesis was rejected, and only morphological awareness showed a direct effect on reading comprehension. These results provide preliminary evidence that the SVR (with the possible addition of vocabulary) might be a reliable model to explain reading comprehension in adult typical readers in a semitransparent orthography. Furthermore, oral language comprehension and vocabulary were the best predictors in the study, suggesting that remediation programs addressing reading comprehension in adults should promote these abilities.

Supporting Content and Disciplinary Literacy Success for Adolescents With LLD: A Blended and Contextualized Morphological Awareness Strategy Approach

Purpose: As adolescents progress through the upper grades, reading and writing demands become increasingly challenging for students with and without a language and literacy deficit (LLD). The literacy education community recommends that reading and writing instruction be infused in the academic curriculum and emphasizes disciplinary literacy practices. Disciplinary literacy may be too advanced for adolescents with LLD who have not yet mastered foundational written language skills. Method: A discussion is provided for how general strategy instruction, also referred to as a content area or a content literacy approach, might be integrated with disciplinary literacy practices for adolescents with and without LLD. We specifically present how morphological awareness intervention, with an explicit focus on meaning structure and related language analysis of words, can be linked to learning academic vocabulary. Our blended approach includes both content and disciplinary literacy strategies in the context of the academic science curriculum. Conclusions: Adolescents with and without LLD require ongoing support of their literacy development well beyond the elementary school years. It is important that this support include not only mastery of foundational general strategies to access complex text content in a proficient manner but also active and explicit reflection on the social complexities of text as it relates to specific disciplines. Together, such instruction and intervention, when directly applied to the academic curriculum, can help older students of all abilities achieve the optimal comprehension and learning required for academic success.

Morphological Awareness and Word Complexity in an EFL Context

This study examined the relationship between morphological awareness and word complexity (simple versus complex words) in an EFL context. The participants in this study were 100 fourth-year secondary school Arts students in Tunisia. Students’ morphological awareness was measured by the Morphological Awareness Test. Vocabulary size was tested using an adapted version of Nation’s (2001) Vocabulary Levels Test as a receptive measure of vocabulary size. Half of the vocabulary test items were made complex to check the participants’ performance on simple and complex words. The informants’ scores were high on the overall morphological awareness task, and the best performance was on inflectional morphemes. This could be very useful for teachers to build on, improve, and construct better future teaching practices. Finally, morphological awareness differentiated between students’ performance on simple versus complex words.

Morphological Awareness in L2 Chinese Reading Comprehension: Testing of Mediating Routes

This study aims to examine the contribution of morphological awareness to second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension through potential mediating factors. Adult L2 Chinese learners (n = 447) participated in the study and completed two morphological awareness tasks (segmentation and discrimination), two vocabulary knowledge tasks (character knowledge and word-meaning knowledge), one lexical inference task, and one reading comprehension task. By testing alternative path models, this study identified the preferred model assuming the covariates of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge jointly contributed to L2 Chinese reading comprehension through lexical inference. The written modality of morphological awareness induced the activation of both morphological and orthographic information in print. The result suggests that morphological awareness (in the form of grapho-morphological knowledge) and vocabulary knowledge seem to be two parallel components under the same construct predicting Chinese reading comprehension. More importantly, this study underscores the intermediary effect of lexical inference in associating morphological awareness and reading comprehension in L2 Chinese learners.