Factors Influencing Students Reading Comprehension Difficulties Amidst The Use Of Modular Distance Learning Approach In Mindanao State University Sulu – Senior High School

This research was conducted to determine the factors influencing students reading comprehension difficulties amidst the use of modular distance learning approach in Mindanao State University – Sulu Senior High School. It also aimed to understand reading comprehension and modular distance learning approach. It determines the reading comprehension difficulty level during modular distance learning approach as perceived by the students when they are classified in terms of strand. This study used mix – method. Data were gathered through the use of Focus Group Discussion and self-made survey questionnaire. Weighted mean and t-test were used. Purposive sampling design was utilized for the selection of the ten MSU – Sulu SHS Teachers and convenient sampling design was used for the selection of 25% population of MSU – Sulu SHS Students during the school year 2020 - 2021. The findings of this study revealed that reading comprehension is the ability of the students to analyze, decode, integrate prior knowledge, interpret and clearly understand the words, sentence, or compositions particularly the content and its contexts. The different strategies used in teaching reading comprehension as well as different strategies that can be used during the modular learning approach were presented. The emphasis on modular distance learning was found that it can be used as an alternative learning approach that uses self-learning modules. It was also revealed that both internal and external factors have influence students reading comprehension difficulties amidst the use of modular distance learning approach. Students’ perception on reading comprehension difficulty level during modular distance learning approach is difficult. There is no significant difference on students’ reading comprehension difficulty level amidst the use of modular distance learning approach as perceived by the students that resulted to the acceptance of the null hypothesis. The study recommended that the school administrators should initiate trainings, seminars and workshops about different strategies that is timely to help their faculty members improve the reading comprehension of the students. The school administrators should also supervise their teachers to use strategies that are appropriate and applicable on the type of learning style they are using. The teachers should use strategies and learning resources that suits the kind of learners and the type of learning style they have. The teachers should also exert extra effort in facilitating the students’ learning even in the absence of face-to-face interaction. The parents should guide and monitor their children’s learning at home.

Speakers use more redundant referents with language learners: Evidence for communicatively-efficient referential choice

According to the communicative efficiency hypothesis, speakers should produce more linguistic material when comprehension difficulty increases. Here, we investigate a potential source of comprehension difficulty – listeners’ language proficiency – on speakers’ productions, using referential choice as a case study. On the one hand, the extent to which referential choice is impacted by the listener is debated. On the other hand, referential choice is impacted by communicative efficiency: pronouns are used less than longer referring expressions for less predictable referents (Tily & Piantadosi, 2009). Here, we compare participants’ descriptions of the same picture book to children, adult L2 learners and adult native speakers. We find that speakers use longer references when their interlocutors are learners – child and adult learners alike, illustrating an effect of listeners’ proficiency (regardless of age) on production choices. Importantly, the effect is stronger for child learners, pointing to possible differences between speech directed to child and adult learners. We discuss implications for theories of language change.

Sentence complexity as an indicator of L2 learner’s listening difficulty

This paper investigates the effect of sentence complexity, specifically lexical and syntactic surprisal, on L2 listening difficulty. Psycholinguistic studies revealed that surprisal cases correlate with textual comprehension difficulty. Based on surprisal theory, these cases are less probable or expected, considering the precedent context, thus require more complex processing to comprehend. Little is known about the influence of the surprisal factor on L2 listening comprehension. We aim to examine this effect and propose to include these cases in captioning to assist L2 listeners. Since conventional captions include the whole transcript, we use Partial and Synchronized Caption (PSC) with limited textual clues, which allows for highlighting surprisal cases to reduce ambiguity. In our experiment, intermediate learners of English (undergraduates) were asked to transcribe and paraphrase videos containing surprisal cases. Results revealed that learners faced difficulty when encountering surprisal, which was partially addressed with the help of PSC, yet more assistance was required.

COMPREHENSION OF FOCUS-TO-ACCENTUATION MAPPING IN SENTENCES WITH ONLY BY ADVANCED CANTONESE LEARNERS AND DUTCH LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

This study investigates L2 comprehension of focus-to-accentuation mapping in English sentences with focus particle only by advanced learners of English whose L1 was either Cantonese or Dutch. Two experiments were conducted to examine (a) whether L2 learners could map accentuation to focus; and (b) whether they could perceive accentuation in English sentences. Results show that accentuation played little role in Cantonese learners’ comprehension of focus, whereas it affected how accurately and quickly Dutch learners and native controls comprehended focus. Dutch learners were even more efficient than native controls in comprehending focus-to-accentuation mapping. Furthermore, both L2 groups could successfully perceive accentuation in English sentences. These findings suggest that multiple interfaces might not be equally problematic for L2 learners with different L1s, and convergence at multiple interfaces in L2 is possible. The comprehension difficulty observed in Cantonese learners can be attributed to their less detailed representation of focus-to-accentuation mapping in L2.

Incremental language comprehension difficulty predicts activity in the language network but not the multiple demand network

What role do domain-general executive functions play in human language comprehension? To address this question, we examine the relationship between behavioral measures of comprehension and neural activity in the domain-general “multiple demand” (MD) network, which has been linked to constructs like attention, working memory, inhibitory control, and selection, and implicated in diverse goal-directed behaviors. Specifically, fMRI data collected during naturalistic story listening are compared to theory-neutral measures of online comprehension difficulty and incremental processing load (reading times and eye-fixation durations). Critically, to ensure that variance in these measures is driven by features of the linguistic stimulus rather than reflecting participant-or trial-level variability, the neuroimaging and behavioral datasets were collected in non-overlapping samples. We find no behavioral-neural link in functionally localized MD regions; instead, this link is found in the domain-specific, fronto-temporal “core language network”, in both left hemispheric areas and their right hemispheric homologues. These results argue against strong involvement of domain-general executive circuits in language comprehension.

Sentence comprehension in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer’s type

Sentence comprehension is diminished in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT). However, the underlying reason for such deficits is still not entirely clear. The Syntactic Deficit Hypothesis attributes sentence comprehension deficits in DAT patients to the impairment in syntactic ability, whereas the Processing Resource Deficit Hypothesis proposes that sentence comprehension deficits are the result of working memory deficiency. This study investigated the deficits in sentence comprehension in Chinese-speaking DAT patients with different degrees of severity using sentence-picture matching tasks. The study revealed a significant effect of syntactic complexity in patients and healthy controls, but the effect was stronger in patients than in healthy controls. When working memory demand was minimized, the effect of syntactic complexity was only significant in patients with moderate DAT, but not in healthy controls or those with mild DAT. The findings suggest that in patients with mild DAT, working memory decline was the major source of sentence comprehension difficulty and in patients with moderate DAT, working memory decline and syntactic impairment jointly contributed to the impairments in sentence comprehension. The source of sentence comprehension deficits varied with degree of dementia severity.

Effects of working memory intervention on students with reading comprehension difficulties

ABSTRACT Purpose: to investigate the effectiveness of a working memory-based intervention proposal for reading comprehension. Methods: 43 children divided into two groups according to their performance in a reading comprehension test - G1: children with reading comprehension difficulty; G2: children with no difficulties. All the children were evaluated regarding reading, writing, sentence reading comprehension, and phonological working memory - PWM (repetition of pseudo-words and digits). After this evaluation, children from G1 participated in an intervention program (15 meetings) that stimulated the PWM. Following the intervention, all the children were reevaluated. The results were compared intra- and intergroup, and pertinent statistical tests were applied, by adopting the significance level lower than 0.05%. Results: after the intervention program, the children of G1 showed a significant improvement in all tests. In the intergroup analysis, at the time of evaluation, G1 was different from G2 in reading, writing and reading comprehension. In the reevaluation, G1 equaled G2 in reading and got closer to G2 in writing and reading comprehension. Conclusion: PWM training brought benefits to children with academic difficulties. Thus, these strategies could be used in the classroom, aiming to promote learning.