Oral Narrative Intervention by Tele-Practice in a Case with Developmental Language Disorder

Background: A narrative requires the integration and management of linguistic and cognitive skills. It has been observed that children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have difficulties in narrating stories. This research proposes an intervention in a case of a child 9 years and 2 months old with DLD, with the aim of improving his oral narrative skills through a retelling task via telepractice. Methods: In the evaluation, standardized tests have been used and a ‘remembering a story’ task, with a story titled The Lost Backpack, elaborated by one of the authors. Narratives were elicited in two sessions, and were transcribed, coded, and analysed using the Child Language Data Exchange System CHILDES Project tool. The participant received a total of 10 sessions through the Skype platform, which included intervention-addressed explicit instruction about the narrative structure and the use of discourse markers to improve cohesion in story retelling. Results: Significant changes were observed in the retelling of the story at microstructure and macrostructure levels: an increase of the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU), Types and Tokens, specific vocabulary, discourse markers and the recall of events. Conclusions: These results demonstrate the effectiveness of intervention in narrative skills through the oral retelling of a story with visual support via tele-practice.

The Role of Linguistic Typology, Target Language Proficiency and Prototypes in Learning Aspectual Contrasts in Italian as Additional Language

The study examines how prototypes and typological relationships between the L1, the L2 and the target language (TL) interact with TL proficiency in learning Italian as additional language. Low-proficiency and high-proficiency undergraduate learners of Italian (N = 25) with Swedish as L1 performed an oral retelling story test, aiming to elicit the Italian aspectual contrast perfective-imperfective. Their tense selection was analyzed considering the predicates’ lexical aspect and the learners’ knowledge of a Romance L2, or lack thereof. The findings show that the typological proximity between the L2 and the TL exerts a differential role depending on TL proficiency. Initially, it is beneficial for accelerating the overall emergence of the imperfetto as an aspectual marker. However, the prototype factor and, more specifically, the predicates’ dynamicity influences the selection of past inflectional morphology. At more advanced stages, knowledge of a Romance language helps learners move beyond prototypical associations with the passato prossimo, but it does not seem to influence the use of the imperfetto among high-proficiency learners. These results are discussed in the light of research on the second and additional language learning of aspectual contrasts in Romance languages.

О переводе двух песен эпоса «Гесер» Б. Бергманом

Introduction. In 1802–1803, Benjamin Bergmann made a trip to the Kalmyk steppes to collect historical, literary, and folklore material on the Kalmyks and the Kalmyk culture. The result of this journey was the 1804–1805 publication of “Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803” (Nomadic wanderings among Kalmyks in 1802–1803) in Riga, which up to the present day has not lost its importance as a source of information on the culture and life of the Kalmyks in the 18th and 19th centuries. The four-volume work contains translations of various texts from Kalmyk into German, including the two songs of the “Geser” epos. This is in fact the earliest translation of “Geser” songs into a European language. Data. The German translation of the two “Geser” songs published by Bergmann in his work has been used as the material for the present research. The aim of the article. Bergmann’s translation of the songs is often mentioned in scholarly publications, but so far, no Russian translation of the songs in full has been made. To facilitate the research of the Oirat-Kalmyk “Geser” and especially of the songs in question, this article presents their scientific translation into Russian made by the present author. Also, the article discusses the character of the Kalmyk originals of the epic songs. So far it has been believed that an oral retelling was the source for the German translation of the songs. However, there is sufficient evidence for a new hypothesis because the analysis of the data undertaken in this study indicates that apparently there was a written Oirat source for the translation. Conclusions. Besides the complete Russian translation of the “Geser” sagas offered here, the article puts forward the hypothesis of the written nature of the original source, which served as the basis for Bergmann’s German translation.

Don't Wake Up Tiger by Britta Teckentrup

Nosy Crow Limited. Don’t Wake Up Tiger, 2018. Version unlisted. Apple App Store, https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/dont-wake-up-tiger/id1336103707?mt=8 Suggested Age Range: Preschool (ages 3-5)Cost: $1.39 Don’t Wake Up Tiger follows the aesthetically inviting, kinesthetically engaging style and storytelling present in Britta Teckentrup’s 2016 picture book, Don’t Wake Up the Tiger. This iOS app includes an oral retelling (narrated by Charlotte Rose Allen) with kinesthetic prompts, as well as a song clip, and two themed games. A gentle story about animal friends working together for a tiger’s birthday surprise, this multimedia text is a virtually wordless version of the physical book. Embracing the narrative and interactive style common to Teckentrup’s other works, the user can see the effects of their actions animated, such as blowing on a balloon, rubbing Tiger’s nose and rocking him to sleep, rather than relying on illustrations in the book to mimic such movements through page turns. There are instances in which written text might have been more purposefully integrated for this audience, for example, including highlighted lyrics to the familiar Happy Birthday song or inserting key words during the story, such as “pop” when a balloon bursts. Prompts given during the story are only offered once orally by the narrator (accompanied by a vague visual aid), and are thereafter primarily text-based, possibly necessitating a supervising adult to intervene with additional prompting, particularly during the first play. Although these details do not detract from the overall quality of the app, such minutiae may deter first time users if they cannot complete the actions and play/listen/interact with the story intuitively on their own. Both games offered are themed with the characters and colour palette from the story, and are of varying levels of difficulty; Matching Pairs is a traditional flip and pair memory activity, while Spot the Difference is a side-by-side attention to detail task, comparing two images at a time and touching on the item(s) that are different. Simple and charming, Don’t Wake Up Tiger is a lovely, low-key reinterpretation of the physical book, and would make a nice addition to any preschooler’s app selection. Recommended for public libraries and early childhood settings, this app is best suited for children aged three to five. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewed by: Alexandra Adams Alex is a busy mom and elementary school teacher, with a passion for early childhood education and the arts. She is currently working on her MLIS at the University of Alberta.

‘Dime De Que Se Trató/Tell me what it was about’: Exploring emergent bilinguals’ linguistic resources in reading assessments with parent participation

The purpose of this study was to explore the ways emergent bilingual first-graders draw on multiple linguistic resources during reading assessments and the participation of their Spanish-dominant parents in those assessments, as children engaged in English and Spanish retelling tasks. Informed by a translanguaging lens, sociopsycholinguistic and holistic approaches to reading and critical approaches to family literacy, the analysis centres on assessment sessions with two mother–child dyads whose children attended school in a relatively new migration setting. Primary data were drawn from four reading assessment sessions and audio-recordings over a 7-month period with each child, individual interviews and home visits with mothers, and field notes from research team members. The analysis examined linguistic patterns related to second-language approximations and code-switching in miscues and oral retellings. The analysis also includes coding of strategies and resources children used in their English and Spanish retelling of the same text, using their home language to retell the texts to their mothers. Findings illustrate that while children’s miscues may be shaped by their developing control of syntactic structures and new vocabulary, they draw from multiple language resources in English retellings, conveying their complex understandings of texts. We also found that the children negotiated translating and retelling for their parents in different ways, shaped by their family literacy practices. These involved co-construction of stories, a focus on accuracy and the paraphrasing and embellishing of stories and dialogue. Insights from this study highlight the complexity of pooled language resources in young children’s repertoires. Findings also document the situated nature of oral retelling at home, when parents engage children in the sharing and translating of English books in ways that align with existing roles, practices and goals. Implications for equitable literacy assessment in new migration contexts are discussed.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ORAL RETELLING STRATEGY AND WRITTEN RETELLING STRATEGY ON STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARISON

Reading comprehension skill is important in our social lives which relates to texts, emails, networking sites, and many others. In order to find an effective teaching reading technique, there are studies conducted and developed. One of the strategies to teach reading is called retelling. Many studies found that retelling strategy is effective to teach reading comprehension (Sylvia(2015); Ebaugh (2013); Schisler (2008)). However, there is a contradictory result between those studies found related to the implementation of two types of retelling strategy: oral and written retelling. Sylvia’s (2015) study claims that the written retelling significantly better than oral retelling strategy. However, Schisler’s (2008) study shows result in vice versa. Ebaugh’s (2013) study reveals that there were no significant differences between those two strategies. From the contradictory results seen from previous studies, further study is still needed to figure out more reliable research result on the effectiveness of both strategies.