Exploring Mothers’ Experience of a Linguistic Feedback Technology for Children at Risk of Poor Language Development: Qualitative Pilot Study

Background The early language environment is important for language development and a child’s life-course trajectory. Risk factors associated with poor language development outcomes in children include maternal anxiety and depression, low educational attainment, substance misuse, and low socioeconomic status. Language Environment Analysis (LENA) is a wearable technology designed to promote caregivers’ engagement in supporting their children’s language development. LENA provides quantitative linguistic feedback, which has been shown to improve caregiver language output, thus enhancing a child’s language environment. There is limited research on the uptake of this technology by families with developmentally at-risk children. Objective This qualitative study aims to explore the conditions under which mothers with children at risk of poor developmental outcomes are willing to adopt the use of LENA to monitor and improve caregiver language output. Methods Using a qualitative interpretive design, semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 8 mothers. Participants were recruited purposively to select the maximal variation of socioeconomic and ethnodemographic backgrounds. The transcribed interview data were analyzed thematically and interpretatively. Themes were mapped abductively to an extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, which included contextual factors for LENA acceptance. Results Factors that influenced the intention to use LENA included both technology-specific acceptance factors and contextual factors. Technology acceptance themes included reassurance, feeling overwhelmed, and trust. These themes were mapped to performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence. Contextual themes included emergent success and the intrusion of past difficulties. These were mapped to parenting self-efficacy and perceived risk. The theme of building on success described behavioral intention. Mothers were more likely to adopt LENA when the technology was viewed as acceptable, and this was influenced by parenting self-efficacy and perceived risk. Conclusions LENA is a technology that is acceptable to mothers with children who are at risk of poor language development outcomes. Further studies are needed to establish LENA’s effectiveness as an adjunct to strategies to enrich a child’s early language environment.

Inauthentic Newsfeeds and Agenda Setting in a Coordinated Inauthentic Information Operation

The 2015–2017 Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA)’s coordinated information operation is one of the earliest and most studied of the social media age. A set of 38 city-specific inauthentic “newsfeeds” made up a large, underanalyzed part of its English-language output. We label 1,000 tweets from the IRA newsfeeds and a matched set of real news sources from those same cities with up to five labels indicating the tweet represents a world in unrest and, if so, of what sort. We train a natural language classifier to extend these labels to 268 k IRA tweets and 1.13 million control tweets. Compared to the controls, tweets from the IRA were 34% more likely to represent unrest, especially crime and identity danger, and this difference jumped to about twice as likely in the months immediately before the election. Agenda setting by media is well-known and well-studied, but this weaponization by a coordinated information operation is novel.

Presentation of Progressive and Resultative Functions of te iru Form in the Basic Japanese Textbook “Situational Functional Japanese”

Many studies regarding the acquisition of te iru focus on the learner’s language output. There are very few researches that focus on textbooks as the input in language studies. There is a possibility that introducing grammatical items in textbooks tends to lead the learners to misuse te iru. It is necessary to clarify the grammatical items' characteristics in the basic level textbooks as a language input. Especially, in the study abroad, such as in Indonesia, non-textbook sources for Japanese input are limited. Therefore Indonesian Japanese learners mostly depend on textbooks. This research will discuss the introduction of te iru in the basic level textbooks from the input viewpoint. This research examines how te iru is introduced in “Situational Functional Japanese”. The data in this research include the main textbook and the grammatical explanation, from which te iru sentences are collected and classified. In order to identify the general tendency of te iru in textbooks, te ita, te inai and subordinate sentences are also included as data. Each textbook recognizes that five usages are introduced in the explanation of SFJ, but only two usages are written in explaining the usage of te iru. Their usage is resultative and progressive. And, te inai and te ita are also introduced in SFJ. Moreover, if we look at the distribution of the example sentences of te iru in SFJ the example sentences can still be found, some of which show an increase in subsequent chapters.

The use of active strategies for teaching Latin syntax: a case study of a Brazilian classroom experience

In this paper, by showing a case study of a Latin teaching experience in Brazil, we discuss the relevance and usefulness of incorporating active strategies into the teaching of Latin syntax in a Brazilian university context. We mean here by active strategies any language practise consisting of producing language output, either orally or through writing, as a means of creating texts in this language to respond to classroom tasks. Our point is that through the development of task-based lessons with active strategies we may more easily engage students in their learning process and make more effective the learning of Latin syntax. We present a brief introductory discussion on what we consider to be how Latin is currently taught in Brazil, then we present an active teaching approach experience, and then we provide with some more conceptual arguments to justify such approach to this classical language.

THE CULTIVATION OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION TALENTS IN SINO-FOREIGN COOPERATIVE EDUCATION

The study mainly explores the main characteristics, existing problems and corresponding solutions of Sino-foreign cooperative education in cultivating intercultural communication talents. It adopts exploratory analysis and case studies through data collected principally from QMUL Engineering School, NPU and Glasgow College, UESTC. It is found that students in Sino-foreign cooperative education have strong intercultural communication competence since they have: 1) a good master of foreign language; 2) more opportunities to communicate and exchange with foreigners; 3) strong acceptance towards multi-cultures; 4) strong initiative and practical-ness to work or study abroad. However, problems and challenges exist, such as poor language output, superficial intercultural communication and unstable intercultural communicative approach. It is suggested to adopt diversified assessment modes, create an intercultural communicative environment and build an intercultural assistant mechanism to comprehensively promote the cultivation of intercultural communication talents in Sino-foreign cooperative education.

Exploring Mothers’ Experience of a Linguistic Feedback Technology for Children at Risk of Poor Language Development: Qualitative Pilot Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The early language environment is important for language development and a child’s life-course trajectory. Risk factors associated with poor language development outcomes in children include maternal anxiety and depression, low educational attainment, substance misuse, and low socioeconomic status. Language Environment Analysis (LENA) is a wearable technology designed to promote caregivers’ engagement in supporting their children’s language development. LENA provides quantitative linguistic feedback, which has been shown to improve caregiver language output, thus enhancing a child’s language environment. There is limited research on the uptake of this technology by families with developmentally at-risk children. OBJECTIVE This qualitative study aims to explore the conditions under which mothers with children at risk of poor developmental outcomes are willing to adopt the use of LENA to monitor and improve caregiver language output. METHODS Using a qualitative interpretive design, semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 8 mothers. Participants were recruited purposively to select the maximal variation of socioeconomic and ethnodemographic backgrounds. The transcribed interview data were analyzed thematically and interpretatively. Themes were mapped abductively to an extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, which included contextual factors for LENA acceptance. RESULTS Factors that influenced the intention to use LENA included both technology-specific acceptance factors and contextual factors. Technology acceptance themes included reassurance, feeling overwhelmed, and trust. These themes were mapped to performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence. Contextual themes included emergent success and the intrusion of past difficulties. These were mapped to parenting self-efficacy and perceived risk. The theme of building on success described behavioral intention. Mothers were more likely to adopt LENA when the technology was viewed as acceptable, and this was influenced by parenting self-efficacy and perceived risk. CONCLUSIONS LENA is a technology that is acceptable to mothers with children who are at risk of poor language development outcomes. Further studies are needed to establish LENA’s effectiveness as an adjunct to strategies to enrich a child’s early language environment.

Prefabricated Chunks and Second Language Output

Based on the theory of prefabricated language chunks, this article will mainly discuss the role of prefabricated language chunks in improving the quality of second language output. The explicit input of English chunks requires certain teaching strategies, so the teaching of prefabricated chunks should first distinguish the corresponding chunk features, combine instructive input with autonomous input, and design reasonable chunk output training, which promotes the prefabricated language chunks transformed into internal knowledge from input, thereby improving the level of second language output.

A Study on Classroom Feedback and Effectiveness in College English Teaching

The classroom feedback of English teachers plays an important role in classroom teaching. It is part of the comprehensible input of students and also effectively promotes the language output of students. With the continuous promotion of mixed teaching mode, college English classroom feedback has different characteristics from the original teaching feedback. How to make good use of the feedback of college English class under the mixed teaching mode and improve its effectiveness is a subject that needs to be studied seriously.

Insights Into Category Sorting Flexibility in Bilingual Children: Results of a Cognitive Lab Study

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore how bilingual children shift sets to gain flexibility when forming categories. Using a cognitive lab approach focused on understanding how learners approach problems, we asked children to sort 10 sets of pictures representing common objects in two different ways and to explain their rationale for the sort. We explored the relationship between age and language use on their performance. Method Forty-six typically developing Spanish–English bilingual children (25 girls, 21 boys) participated in the study. They ranged in age from 4;0 to 10;11 (years;months). Receptive and expressive responses to a novel category sorting task were collected. Results Forty-four of the 46 children tested were able to perform the category sorting task. Within language, receptive and expressive category sorting scores were positively and significantly correlated while only expressive scores were significantly associated across languages. There were significant correlations between the sorting scores and age and language output and input. Children's ability to provide expressive responses explaining their sort strategy was moderately correlated with their language experience, especially English output. Conclusions The category sorting task proved useful in eliciting sorting behaviors and naming from the children tested. The age effect suggests that sorting may reflect their general developmental experience rather than their language-specific experience. The cognitive lab approach allowed us to understand how children shift sets and verbalize their understanding of the categorization process. Knowing how children approach this task can inform future work to develop ways to strategically select language intervention goals and document progress.