Integrating Concordance Tools Into L2 Vocabulary Instruction

Since its emergence, corpora have made investigating language possible in a precise and objective way. Language practitioners are now equipped with concordancing tools that can check millions of utterances in seconds. These tools have caused a revolution in processing and analyzing a language for different purposes. Teachers now can examine the information in a textbook by referring back to corpus tools, keep track of the target language use, and infer generalizations that are hardly provided by traditional language books. After presenting a theoretical and historical overview of corpora and concordancers, this chapter discusses the role of corpora and concordancing tools in English language teaching (ELT), specifically in vocabulary instruction, and presents four corpus-based activity ideas that the classroom practitioners can easily utilize in their classes.

“Los Programadores Debieron Pensarse Como Dos Veces”: Exploring the Intersections of Language, Power, and Technology with Bi/Multilingual Students

Critical computing approaches to K-12 computer science education aim to promote justice in computing and the wider world. Despite being intertwined with inequitable power dynamics in computing, issues of linguistic (in)justice have received less attention in critical computing. In this article, I draw on theoretical ideas from sociolinguistics and critical computing to analyze qualitative data collected in computing and technology-integrated language and humanities classes serving emergent bi/multilingual middle school students. Conversations about language, technology, and power were close at hand in focal classrooms, and surfaced in moments when students acted as users and critics of, and tinkerers with, digital tools. Students exercised agency in relation to both technology and language—using their budding understandings of language to question digital tools, and their engagements with tools to challenge traditional language ideologies. I build on past scholarship and the findings of this analysis to argue for the development of critical translingual computing education —an approach that would engage especially language-minoritized students in critical computing to build on and affirm their language practices and promote linguistic justice in computer science education, fields, and tools.

LAUREEN MYRACLE'S INTERNET GIRLS AND CENSORSHIP: DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AS A CHALLENGE TO IDEOLOGICAL CONTROL THROUGH LANGUAGE AND AS A FIELD FOR FACING GENDER ROLES

Taking L. Myracle’s Internet Girls novel series as a starting point, this article tries to investigate and hopefully unveil the reasons behind the censorship imposed on the series by the “gatekeepers of canonicity and morality.” The article is a literature review and semi-content analysis. After a brief discussion about the term Young Adult literature and the subversion of the argumentut forws pard as a justification of the banning of the books, we examine the relationship between the epistolary novelistic form and the female voice. Finally, we focus on the most distinctive feature of the novels: the exclusive use of online chatting to advance the narrative. The role of digital communication in Y.A. literature and the youth’s idiomatic language on the net are also discussed. Our main argument is that the root causes triggering the adult censors’ distress and challenging their standards are not the controversial sexuality and attitudes of the characters. Rather, it is their language and writing in internet chatting. Digital communication is imbued with webspeak. It becomes a field of intergenerational tension, a vehicle of undermining pedagogical censorship. This type of communication evades the absolute control of some adults not savvy in webspeak. A number of these individuals -possibly a social group that is over-represented in the teaching and school librarian professions- perceive digital communication as a threat to traditional language codes. Their reaction to the Internet Girls concerns not only the content of the books but –first and foremost– the style and the code these books are written. What is more, the girls’ “digital” conversations allow for free self- expression. Prescribed boundaries of politically correct female attitude are transgressed leading to harsher adult public outcry.

Δύνασαι πάλιν αὐτὸν ἐγεῖραι Cristianizzazione del lessico funerario e del linguaggio epico nella risurrezione di Lazzaro (Cometa, Anth. Pal. 15.40)

This paper offers an analysis of the epigram composed by Cometas for the resurrection of Lazarus (Anth. Pal. 15.40) and its relationship with funerary and epic models, showing how the traditional language of grief and divinity is transformed by the Christian faith. The text contains many expressions that can be compared with epigrammatic language and variations of Homeric verses and formulae, particularly in the description of Christ, where Usurpation and Kontrastimitation can be identified.

Promoting informal learning by integrating smartphones into the language classroom

Although smartphones have become normalised in people’s everyday behaviours, they remain under-exploited from a language learning perspective. This paper describes a study in an Irish university which explored the nature and extent of language learners’ existing use of smartphones for informal learning purposes through a survey, a case study, and a group interview. The results showed that firstly, smartphones played only a limited and tangential role in their language learning, and secondly, that learners had narrow perceptions of what ‘actual, proper study’ entails, demonstrated by their overwhelming preference for more traditional language learning resources and practices. The paper finishes by making suggestions regarding how smartphones can be integrated into the language classroom, at both third and second level, to help broaden learner perceptions of what language study is, and consequently, allow smartphones to play a more significant role in their learning practices.

Is it a blessing? The impact of Covid-19 on non-traditional language learners’ satisfaction at Saudi Electronic University

This study examines non-traditional language learners’ interactions and satisfaction with online learning in the Saudi context during the pandemic. Saudi Electronic University (SEU) is unique in Saudi Arabia as it has adopted a blended mode of teaching and students’ completion of both online and class-based materials is mandatory. It enables non-traditional students to further their studies. In a quantitative study, 732 students completed a questionnaire which examines the online learning experiences of these learners. The survey assessed learners’ self-efficacy for completing an online course, interactions with content, instructor, other students, and overall satisfaction. The paper examines whether moving to entirely online learning during the pandemic has affected their life and study positively or negatively.

Impairment and Plasticity of Language-Related White Matter in Patients With Brain Arteriovenous Malformations

Background and Purpose: Language dysfunction is rarely seen in patients with unruptured brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) albeit the AVM nidus involving language areas, which provides a unique disease model to study language reorganization. The objective of this study was to investigate the impairment and reorganization patterns and characteristics of language-related white matter in AVMs located at different brain areas. Methods: Thirty-three patients with AVMs involving language areas were prospectively enrolled. Patients were categorized into 3 groups according to the lesion locations: the frontal (14 patients), temporal (15 patients), and parietal groups (4 patients). Thirty age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled as comparison. All participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging scans, and automated fiber quantification method was applied to quantitatively study the difference of segmented language-related white matter connectivity between 3 AVM groups and control group. Results: Language functions were normal in all subjects according to Western Aphasia Battery test. In the frontal group, fractional anisotropy (FA) value decreased in the left arcuate fascicle and increased in left superior longitudinal fasciculus and uncinate fascicle; in the temporal group, FA values decreased in left inferior fronto-occipital fascicle and inferior longitudinal fascicle and increased in right anterior thalamic radiation and uncinate fascicle; in the parietal group, FA values decreased in left arcuate fascicle and inferior longitudinal fascicle and increased in bilateral anterior thalamic radiations and uncinate fascicles and right inferior fronto-occipital fascicle. In fascicles with decreased FA values, the increase of radial diffusivity was common, and fascicles with increased FA values usually presented along with increased axial diffusivity values. Conclusions: Remodeling of language-related white matter occurs when traditional language areas are involved by AVM nidus, and its reorganization patterns vary with locations of AVM nidus. Fascicle impairment is mainly caused by the myelin deficits, and its plasticity may be dominated by the axon remodeling procedure.

Shifting towards the action-oriented approach in Higher Education: language learners’ perceptions

In the updated version of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment – Companion Volume (Council of Europe 2020), the Action-Oriented Approach is highlighted as the most viable approach for learning languages. The present study explored students’ reflections on the collaborative project based on this approach. The project was offered to the learners at a tertiary level during a course of English (C1 level). Analysis of the data revealed that the project appeared to be useful for the development of both general and communicative language competences. Although collaboration was indicated among the most satisfactory aspects, the learners also experienced the most difficulties with it. Despite the finding that most students considered such a project to be of acceptable difficulty, their level of satisfaction differed significantly. The results point to some potential challenges while shifting to the Action-Oriented Approach as a more active language learning approach. Not all students may be ready for the new type of language learning which requires higher levels of cognitive effort and more collaboration in comparison to traditional language classes. As this approach marks a significant turn in language education, it is anticipated that both the detailed presentation of the project and students’ reflections on it will help to increase the awareness of other language educators seeking to design quality action-based projects.

Problemy wspierania międzypokoleniowej transmisji języka mniejszości w społecznościach mniejszościowych. Na przykładzie staroobrzędowców mieszkających w Polsce

Since Poland is an ethnically and linguistically homogeneous country, the lack of knowledge of the mother tongue in minority communities occurs much often than of the Polish language. The intergenerational transmission of language in a small community (ca. 1000 people) of the Old Believers in North-Eastern Poland differs from bigger minorities, such as Germans, Lithuanians or Belarussians, who have the possibility to teach their mother tongue as a school subject. Young Old Believers are more proficient in the Polish language, and the traditional dialect fulfills the function of the 2nd language, and in some aspects can be even treated as a foreign language. Due to the structural and lexical differences, resulting from the influence of the Polish language, the Old Believers’ dialect significantly differs from the literary variety of Russian which is taught as a school subject in Poland. Despite of the demographic and administrative problems (there is no possibility to establish a school teaching of the Russian dialect in Poland), the Old Believers have elaborated some mechanisms of teaching their traditional language, which will be characterized in the article, as well as their effects and future perspectives for the self-made language education system in the minority community.