The role of Function Words to build syntactic knowledge in French-speaking children

The question of how children learn Function Words (FWs) is still a matter of debate among child language researchers. Are early multiword utterances based on lexically specific patterns or rather abstract grammatical relations? In this corpus study, we analyzed FWs having a highly predictable distribution in relation to Mean Length Utterance (MLU) an index of syntactic complexity in a large naturalistic sample of 315 monolingual French children aged 2 to 4 year-old. The data was annotated with a Part Of Speech Tagger (POS-T), belonging to computational tools from CHILDES. While eighteen FWs strongly correlated with MLU expressed either in word or in morpheme, stepwise regression analyses showed that subject pronouns predicted MLU. Factor analysis yielded a bifactor hierarchical model: The first factor loaded sixteen FWs among which eight had a strong developmental weight (third person singular verbs, subject pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, modals, demonstrative pronouns and plural markers), whereas the second factor loaded complex FWs (possessive verbs and object pronouns). These findings challenge the lexicalist account and support the view that children learn grammatical forms as a complex system based on early instead of late structure building. Children may acquire FWs as combining words and build syntactic knowledge as a complex abstract system which is not innate but learned from multiple word input sentences context. Notably, FWs were found to predict syntactic development and sentence complexity. These results open up new perspectives for clinical assessment and intervention.

Error Analyses and the Cognitive or Linguistic Influences on Children’s Spelling: Comparisons Between First- and Second-Language Learners

A collection of cognitive, linguistic, and spelling measures were administered to third- grade English L1 and L2 learners. To capture formative assessments of children’s developing mental graphemic representations (MGRs), spelling errors in isolation were subjected to analysis across three metrics: (1) Phonological constrained; (2) Visual- Orthographic; and (3) Correct Letter Sequences. There were no group differences on the cognitive or spelling accuracy measures, but L1 learners achieved higher scores than L2 on linguistic measures of vocabulary and syntactic knowledge. Analyses across the spelling metrics indicated that both L1 and L2 learners drew more heavily on their knowledge of graphophonemic rules and positional constraints in pronunciation for spelling. However, the contribution of underlying cognitive and linguistic resources to spelling differed as a function of scoring system and language group. Across spelling metrics, linguistic predictors (vocabulary and syntactic knowledge) accounted for more variance in L1 than L2 learners. The results are discussed in relation to conceptualization of spelling as an integral link between oral and written language in literacy development.

Learner-centred teaching in Tanzania: Geography teachers' perceptions and experiences

<p>The shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred teaching approaches is one of the aspects embarked on to address quality issues in delivery of secondary education in Tanzania. The basis for a shift in teaching paradigm has been motivated by the need for learners to effectively engage in the knowledge construction process.This thesis reports the findings about Learner-Centred Teaching (LCT) in Tanzania from the perceptions and experiences of secondary school geography teachers. Applying a lens of a critical perspective (CP) approach as a theoretical framework, the study sought to respond to the major question: how do geography teachers perceive and experience regarding Learner-Centred Teaching in Tanzania’s secondary school? The main question was guided by four sub-research questions which included: how do geography teachers in Tanzania understand LCT?; how does a teacher’s pedagogical reasoning and decision-making during the planning process reflect LCT beliefs?; how does a teacher’s teaching practice reflect LCT beliefs?; and how does a teacher’s evaluation of classroom instructional practices place the learner at the centre of instruction? The research focus was to assess the implementation of LCT approach as advocated by the educational policy and the mandated curriculum documents. The study utilised the interpretive and constructivist qualitative case study approach involving nine case studies purposely selected from three research sites. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and detailed reviews of teachers’ own teaching portfolios. Applying an interpretive generative inductive data analysis approach, data were analysed based on the specific meaning patterns that were emerging from individual case studies. Themes were developed by comparing and contrasting meaning patterns within and across case studies. Findings presented aspects which influence teachers’ practices of LCT including: the constructivist view of knowledge construction, role of language and cultural context in LCT, teacher-students’ power relation, and the nature of the curriculum. Other aspects raised include: teachers’ substantive and syntactic knowledge and classroom organisation and management. The study also presents some dilemmas against implementation of LCT. These dilemmas include language barrier, class sizes; curriculum design; and teacher shortage, and shortage of instructional resources. Other dilemmas include: lack of both inservice training for LCT and cultural-context specific curriculum relevance. The researcher recommends the need to address dilemmas in the implementation of LCT approaches such as: class sizes, curriculum design, and teacher shortage; shortage of instructional resources and facilities; and the medium of instruction; geography curriculum should be designed to allow teachers’ flexibility; and teachers’ need of mastery in the substantive and syntactic knowledge. Other recommendations include: teachers’ need of in-service training regarding the conceptual and theoretical understanding of LCT, its approaches, and application in geography classrooms; teachers’ use of an integrated-formative evaluation and assessment approaches; and the need of further research on aspects around the same topic, taking into consideration different theoretical orientations and methodological approaches. The study contributes knowledge to the international literature regarding LCT and its implementation complexities from the developing economy’s perspectives. In particular, the study contributes to the understanding of LCT from a CP theoretical framework. It also provides an avenue for debate and consideration on the importance of initial and in-service teacher education, the curriculum, and the need to integrate learners’ culture for effective implementation of LCT. The researcher has developed three models to support the practice of LCT. These are: the constructivist learning process; an integrated LCT based curriculum; and the classroom organisation and management framework models.</p>

Learner-centred teaching in Tanzania: Geography teachers' perceptions and experiences

<p>The shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred teaching approaches is one of the aspects embarked on to address quality issues in delivery of secondary education in Tanzania. The basis for a shift in teaching paradigm has been motivated by the need for learners to effectively engage in the knowledge construction process.This thesis reports the findings about Learner-Centred Teaching (LCT) in Tanzania from the perceptions and experiences of secondary school geography teachers. Applying a lens of a critical perspective (CP) approach as a theoretical framework, the study sought to respond to the major question: how do geography teachers perceive and experience regarding Learner-Centred Teaching in Tanzania’s secondary school? The main question was guided by four sub-research questions which included: how do geography teachers in Tanzania understand LCT?; how does a teacher’s pedagogical reasoning and decision-making during the planning process reflect LCT beliefs?; how does a teacher’s teaching practice reflect LCT beliefs?; and how does a teacher’s evaluation of classroom instructional practices place the learner at the centre of instruction? The research focus was to assess the implementation of LCT approach as advocated by the educational policy and the mandated curriculum documents. The study utilised the interpretive and constructivist qualitative case study approach involving nine case studies purposely selected from three research sites. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and detailed reviews of teachers’ own teaching portfolios. Applying an interpretive generative inductive data analysis approach, data were analysed based on the specific meaning patterns that were emerging from individual case studies. Themes were developed by comparing and contrasting meaning patterns within and across case studies. Findings presented aspects which influence teachers’ practices of LCT including: the constructivist view of knowledge construction, role of language and cultural context in LCT, teacher-students’ power relation, and the nature of the curriculum. Other aspects raised include: teachers’ substantive and syntactic knowledge and classroom organisation and management. The study also presents some dilemmas against implementation of LCT. These dilemmas include language barrier, class sizes; curriculum design; and teacher shortage, and shortage of instructional resources. Other dilemmas include: lack of both inservice training for LCT and cultural-context specific curriculum relevance. The researcher recommends the need to address dilemmas in the implementation of LCT approaches such as: class sizes, curriculum design, and teacher shortage; shortage of instructional resources and facilities; and the medium of instruction; geography curriculum should be designed to allow teachers’ flexibility; and teachers’ need of mastery in the substantive and syntactic knowledge. Other recommendations include: teachers’ need of in-service training regarding the conceptual and theoretical understanding of LCT, its approaches, and application in geography classrooms; teachers’ use of an integrated-formative evaluation and assessment approaches; and the need of further research on aspects around the same topic, taking into consideration different theoretical orientations and methodological approaches. The study contributes knowledge to the international literature regarding LCT and its implementation complexities from the developing economy’s perspectives. In particular, the study contributes to the understanding of LCT from a CP theoretical framework. It also provides an avenue for debate and consideration on the importance of initial and in-service teacher education, the curriculum, and the need to integrate learners’ culture for effective implementation of LCT. The researcher has developed three models to support the practice of LCT. These are: the constructivist learning process; an integrated LCT based curriculum; and the classroom organisation and management framework models.</p>

Learn from Syntax: Improving Pair-wise Aspect and Opinion Terms Extraction with Rich Syntactic Knowledge

In this paper, we propose to enhance the pair-wise aspect and opinion terms extraction (PAOTE) task by incorporating rich syntactic knowledge. We first build a syntax fusion encoder for encoding syntactic features, including a label-aware graph convolutional network (LAGCN) for modeling the dependency edges and labels, as well as the POS tags unifiedly, and a local-attention module encoding POS tags for better term boundary detection. During pairing, we then adopt Biaffine and Triaffine scoring for high-order aspect-opinion term pairing, in the meantime re-harnessing the syntax-enriched representations in LAGCN for syntactic-aware scoring. Experimental results on four benchmark datasets demonstrate that our model outperforms current state-of-the-art baselines, meanwhile yielding explainable predictions with syntactic knowledge.

Direct and Indirect Pathways of Variation in Length of Exposure to the Majority Language, Cognitive and Language Skills in Preschoolers’ Listening Narrative Comprehension

Listening narrative comprehension, according to the theoretical framework of the multicomponent model for comprehension, involves numerous skills that interact dynamically between each other and have the potential to give rise to individual differences in comprehension. The purpose of the current work was to define a comprehensive and complete multicomponent model of listening narrative comprehension in preschool age. We investigated how variation in Length of Exposure to majority Language (i.e., how long children have been exposed to the Italian language), lower-order cognitive (WM, inhibitory control, attention shifting), language skills (receptive vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, rapid naming), and higher-order cognitive skills (inferences, TOM, knowledge of story-structure) are related to listening narrative comprehension in Italian of 111 preschool children (Mage = 61 months; SD = 6.8) growing in a monolingual or multilingual context. Structural equation modeling results showed that the model explained 60% variance in listening narrative comprehension in Italian of children aged four to six and predicted the outcome both through direct and mediated paths, coherently with the multicomponent model of comprehension.

A parametric approach to the acquisition of syntax

Three case-studies, using longitudinal records of children's spontaneous speech, illustrate what happens when a child's syntax changes. The first, examining acquisition of English verb-particle constructions, shows a near-total absence of commission errors. The second, examining acquisition of prepositional questions in English or Spanish, shows that children (i) may go as long as 9 months producing both direct-object questions and declaratives with prepositional phrases, before first attempting a prepositional question; and (ii) at some point, abrubtly begin producing prepositional questions that are correctly formed for the target language. The third case study shows that in children acquiring English, the onset of verb-particle constructions occurs almost exactly when that child begins using novel noun-noun compounds. After a discussion of the implications for the nature of syntactic knowledge, and for the mechanisms by which it is acquired, two examples are presented of as-yet untested acquisitional predictions of parametric proposals in the syntax literature.

Analyzing trends in the aural decoding errors of Japanese EFL learners

Japanese EFL learners’ difficulty with accurately decoding connected English speech motivated this mixed methods study. The aural decoding capacities of 63 first-year Japanese university students, with low to intermediate level English proficiency, were first measured with a battery of paused transcription tests (PTT). The transcriptions were clusters of three-words that each possessed attributes typical of co-articulated speech. In addition, after each test, a subgroup of 10 participants individually listened to the same PTT and recounted introspective self-observations of their perceived difficulties with the aural decoding tasks in their L1. These quantitative and qualitative data were used to identify four trends in decoding errors which were categorized as follows: limited collocation familiarity, syntactic knowledge constraints, difficulties utilizing co-text, and L1 phonological influence. This study investigates some of the difficulties associated with aural decoding, highlights the challenges of identifying the origins of decoding errors and suggests that more focus is needed on developing decoding skills as well as knowledge of formulaic language in L2 listening education.