Language and Literacy Development

This study reports on a conceptual model that provides insight into the relationship between English reading proficiency and academic performance of first-year science and mathematics university students in Ghana, and an empirical test of that model. Longitudinal data were acquired from a sample of 133 students. Using three different mediation analyses, the study demonstrated significant medium-sized effects of English reading proficiency on students' grade point average (GPA) by the end of year 1 and a small but significant indirect relationship between reading proficiency and the final GPA scores by the end of year 4, mediated by the GPA scores after year 1. These findings show that the academic English reading proficiency of students in a non-western multilingual academic context is important for their academic achievement. It also found that academic results obtained by students in their first-year at University were a sound predictor for success at the end of their studies....

About This Column
What is figurative language, why does it matter, and how can teachers best share it with English language learners (ELLs)? In this column, I hope to remind you of the power and charm of figurative language, to explore its rightful place in the curriculum, and to share some pedagogical tips for teaching it effectively to ELLs.

suggested citation:  Lems, K.  (2018). Figurative language:  Are English language learners falling through the cracks?  Illinois Reading Council Journal 46(4), 66-71.

This article explores the role of posture in the language learning process, and concludes that it is sometimes critical for learning success. Principles of learning and moving are outlined. The history of physical movement in study is briefly traced. A Korean case study is presented of “failed” tertiary students who learn to learn on their feet. The paper is a practical guide for teachers who wish to experiment with physical movement and location in their own ESL/EFL classrooms .

Linguistics and the science of Anthropology have much in common. In fact, to a large
extent the two fields overlap. Field workers utilize research models of the ethnographic type
as well as approaches that are experimental, methods that are qualitative as well as
quantitative, for example. The study of language contact and bilingualism, topic of this paper,
presents a good opportunity for drawing on contributions from the two overlapping fields.
The focus of the following review of current research will be mainly from the cognitive
science point of view, divided into four areas of recent work: (1) bilingual development, first
and second language learning and language loss, (2) creolization and convergence, (3)
codeswitching and borrowing, and (4) problems related to the distinction between language
and dialect.

This study investigated whether two groups of 6-year-old beginning readers taught to read by a phonics and by a “book experience” non-phonics approach would differ in reading
comprehension as well as the processes of word recognition. The two groups were matched for word recognition but despite this, the phonics taught children had higher reading comprehension.
Phonics taught children produced more contextually appropriate errors, and in both single word and text reading made more spoken attempts at reading unknown words. The non-phonics taught children had much faster reading reaction times to familiar words but they scored less in phoneme segmentation and nonword reading tasks. Compared with the nonphonics group, the phonics group spent more time in attempts at identifying unknown words
and this included using contextual information, which apparently resulted in more rehearsal of the meaning of the story text and hence better reading comprehension performance.

The National Institutes of Health has deemed illiteracy a national health crisis based on reading proficiency rates among American children. In 2002, the National Early Literacy Panel identified six pre-reading skills that are most crucial precursors to reading mastery and predict future reading outcomes. Of those skills, phonological awareness, and in particular phonemic awareness, is the strongest independent predictor of early reading outcomes. However, limited research has addressed the development of these component skills due in part to the fact that many of the measures used to assess sub-skills such as phonemic awareness are oral production measures that cannot easily be administered with children under the age of five, and are not designed to detect implicit or emerging knowledge. To address this limitation, we developed and administered two receptive measures of phonemic awareness to 2.5-and 3.5-year-old children. We found evidence for the emergence of this component skill earlier in ontogeny than is currently acknowledged in the literature. Overall, children performed at above chance rates on measures of receptive phonemic awareness at the level of the individual phoneme as early as 2.5-years-old. Results are discussed in terms of the need for a paradigm shift in prevailing models of how phonological awareness develops, as well as the potential to
identify children at-risk for reading failure at an earlier point in ontogeny than is currently feasible.

TEACHING PRODUCTIVITY AND ITS ENEMIES is a distribution of my original doctoral dissertation "Language Tangle : Predicting and Facilitating Outcomes in Language Education" ( http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804346 )  with a new title better reflecting its actual theme, barriers to teaching productivity.

Although the keys to teaching success are elusive, some of the destructive forces at work against success have enough constancy to be worth the trouble of a well-developed defence system. I will collectively describe forces acting against teaching success as “the enemies of language teaching productivity”.  A productive teacher is one who adds to the learning productivity of students. A productive student is one who  acquires and retains what needs to be learned (a skill, a body of knowledge or a method of thinking) with the most efficient use of his or her mental resources, time and money...

As a working teacher, I am concerned with managing the psychology of my students as well as my own. The “enemies” in this ghostly arena of the human mind are well known to any experienced teacher. However, the bulk of this book is concerned with other distractors – enemies without. Typically they take the form of individuals and groups within institutions who have agendas which clash with what the teachers and students are trying to achieve. Productivity for these other players has an altogether different meaning from the learner’s pursuit of knowledge...

La notion de norme et de référence à la norme est absolument fondamentale pour qui s’intéresse aux langues humaines. Langues, dialectes, parlers et accents suivent tous des règles rigoureuses, que l’observation permet de déterminer. Il n’y a pas de langue sans grammaire : la langue est une norme.
Cependant, les langues du monde ne jouissent pas toutes de statuts égaux. Dans certains États, le ou les idiomes parlés par la majorité de la population sont normés (pourvus d’une norme de référence) et normalisés, c’est à dire soutenus par un appareil administratif et éducatif conséquent.
À l’inverse, de nombreuses communautés linguistiques, minoritaires ou trop pauvres, sont obligées d’utiliser d’autres langues que leur langue maternelle pour avoir accès à l’enseignement ou aux services publics. La normalisation des langues vernaculaires de ces groupes laissés pour compte est souhaitable pour deux raisons : 1. la préservation de la diversité culturelle de la planète ; 2. l’établissement de systèmes éducatifs et d’information plus performants, parce qu’utilisant la langue maternelle des communautés considérées.
Fixer la norme d’une langue peu décrite est loin d’être une sinécure, comme le montre l’exemple capverdien. Et en fin de compte, cette nouvelle norme n’aura d’utilité que si les pouvoirs publics favorisent sa normalisation, à savoir sa diffusion systématique auprès des populations concernées. L’aventure de la normalisation des langues vaut cependant la peine d’être vécue, en particulier dans nombre de pays du Tiers-Monde. En normant et en normalisant, le linguiste a un rôle essentiel à jouer dans les processus de développement économique.

It is a truism to state that literacy is important to life; it is impossible to escape it. In an age where literacy - even just as written text - is delivered via media as diverse as clothing, signs, bodies, music, rap, screens and paper, it cannot be missed. But it is still common when we speak of literacy to assume that we are thinking simply of words in a limited range of contexts and genres. As well, when we investigate it as a practice, we often do so simply in formal and institutional contexts. It is obvious that literacy is embedded in all of life, and that institutional and formal literacy can never be truly separated from the literacy practices of the world beyond school. This is not a new idea, but in the last 20 years, we have developed a richer understanding of what this might mean for the literacy practices sanctioned, supported, and used within schooling. Earlier discussions of the importance of community literacy by administrators, schools, and teachers, were generally framed by a recognition that the literacy experiences of home and community have a significant impact on literacy success at school. But much of this interest has been in how families and their literacy practices serve school agendas, with interest driven by limited definitions of literacy and at times deficit views of learning. This restricted view of the relationship between literacy practices in and out of school, has constrained attempts to build stronger relationships between schools and their communities. As Schultz and Hull state (see Schultz and Hull 2015, “Literacies in and Out of School in the United States,” Volume 2), our students are never simply in school or out of school, for their identities move with them, and their practices are carried with them across contexts. And yet, we still know far less than we need to know about the way literacy touches lives in surprising contexts and in varied forms. There is so much more to know, and hence we require new ways to help us understand literacy’s varied forms, purposes and uses. As well, we need to widen our contexts and arenas for exploration.

"Recently, educators have begun to consider what is required in literacy curricula and best teaching practices given the demands placed on the educator sector and on literacy in general.

Multiliteracies and Technology Enhanced Education: Social Practice and the Global Classroom features theoretical reflections and approaches on the use of multiliteracies and technologies in the improvement of education and social practices. Assisting educators at different teaching levels and fostering professional development and progress in this growing field, this innovative publication supports practitioners concerned with teaching at both a local and global level."

Reading buddies programs, which pair older and younger students to read books together on a regular basis, are common in many U.S. elementary schools. Yet, the research base on these programs is limited.
Therefore, we conducted a quasiexperimental study of a reading buddies program targeting vocabulary and comprehension. The program we studied paired fourth-grade students with kindergarten students to
read, talk, play, and write together. In all, 16 Grade 4 classrooms and 16 kindergarten classrooms participated in the treatment group and in the comparison group. The treatment included 10 one-hour sessions implemented over the course of roughly 10 weeks. Analyses revealed effects of treatment on proximal measures of vocabulary for both kindergarteners and fourth-grade students. However, there were no effects on distal measures for either group. Teachers’ perceptions of the program are presented, and findings are discussed in light of the extant literature.

2 Topics in Language Disorders/August 1998 as a major input of English competency. This is exactly the opposite of the main-stream model in which learning to read is a process that takes place after the child has acquired spoken English. A recent study based on the language ...

Students' knowledge of morphology can play a critical role in vocabulary development, and by extension, reading comprehension and student writing. This reflection describes the nature of this knowledge and how it may be developed through the examination of generative vocabulary knowledge and the role of the spelling system in developing this knowledge. In addition, it explores morphological development and the significant insights and understandings that students should attain: the basic nature of word formation processes, the spelling-meaning connection, the generativity of morphology: roots and affixes, etymology and morphology, and the role of morphological knowledge in learning other languages.

The number of children growing up in dual language environments is increasing in the United States. Despite the apparent benefits of speaking two languages, children learning English as a second language (ESL) often face struggles, as they may experience poverty and impoverished language input at home. Early exposure to a rich language environment is crucial for ESL children’s academic success. This article explores how six evidenced-based principles of language learning can be used to provide support for ESL children.

Based on the original conceptualisation of the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) as a personality trait by McCroskey and Baer (1985), researchers have found that individuals develop a personality orientation toward oral communication in their native language (L1). As a personality-related characteristic, WTC in L1 has been conceptualised as an individual’s general behavioural tendency across different situations. However, second/foreign language teachers may encounter a paradox: students with a general disposition toward L1 talking and/or students with high L2 oral competency, may be unwilling to seize communication opportunities when these arise. As research in the field of SLA/EFL teaching/learning has indicated that oral production may be a major facilitator toward language proficiency (Swain, 1985), the observed intraindividual differences between L1 and L2 communication behaviours led scholars to investigate WTC in language learning contexts. Researchers have found strong correlations between L2 WTC and L2 use indicating behavioural intention-type characteristics. Current literature describes L2 WTC as a dynamic and multidimensional construct, formed by the interaction between personality and learning context factors, that may facilitate or inhibit L2 communication. As oral communication is both a means and an end of modern language instruction, the current paper presents the origins and significance of L2 WTC and concludes with some research-based propositions that may help students step into language use.

The purpose of the study was to determine the level of reading comprehension and problem solving skills of the Grade VI pupils of Basak Elementary School enrolled school year 2018-2019.The research design used was descriptive – correlational to determine the relationship between reading comprehension and problem solving skills.  Participants were determined through G*Power which resulted to 44 (88%) participants. Stratified sampling was utilized to determine the number of participants in each section. The researcher employed questionnaires that determine the level of reading comprehension and problem solving skills of the participants. The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between reading comprehension and problem solving skills. Majority of the participant were female and in section one. Female outperformed male in both reading comprehension and problem solving skills due to local tradition, enthusiasm and willingness. Results exhibit that there is a relationship between reading comprehension and problem-solving skills at .098 significant level.

This article emerged from a study that focused on some similarities and differences between the Primary Reading Programme (PRP) and the Primary Literacy Programme (PLP) in Zambia. The two programmes were compared in terms of overall aims or purpose, programme package, teaching and learning materials, recommended teaching and learning methods, classroom organisation, assessment patterns, treatment of learners with varying abilities, and

Η πανδημία του ιού Covid-19 έχει επηρεάσει εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο με τις περισσότερες χώρες να έχουν εφαρμόσει ανα περιόδους περιορισμούς ή ακόμη και απαγορεύσεις στις καθημερινές διακινήσεις των ατόμων. Οι ιδιάζουσες αυτές  κοινωνικο-ιστορικές  συνθήκες  έχουν  οδηγήσει  στην  αύξηση  της συμμετοχικότητας  των  ανθρώπων  στα  διαδικτυακά  περιβάλλοντα.  Παράλληλα,  οι επίσημοι  εκπαιδευτικοί  φορείς  τουλάχιστον  σε  ό,τι  αφορά  την  Ελλάδα  και  την Κύπρο, για πρώτη φορά  έχουν εφαρμόσει την εξ αποστάσεως εκπαίδευση σε όλες τις βαθμίδες, χωρίς ωστόσο να απουσιάζουν τα προβλήματα και οι δυσκολίες τόσο σε εργαλειακό όσο και σε λειτουργικό επίπεδο. Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο, στο παρόν άρθρο παρουσιάζονται  οι  τρόποι  με  τους  οποίους  σύγχρονα  ψηφιακά  περιβάλλοντα γραμματισμού, όπως τα βιντεοπαιχνίδια σοβαρού σκοπού, μπορούν να συμβάλουν στην εξ αποστάσεως εκπαίδευση για την εκμάθηση της ελληνικής ως δεύτερης|ξένης γλώσσας. Συγκεκριμένα, το άρθρο παρουσιάζει την πρώτη έρευνα η οποία εξετάζει πώς  ένα  ελληνικό  βιντεοπαιχνίδι  σοβαρού  σκοπού,  το Einstownτο  οποίο  έχει σχεδιαστεί  για  διδασκαλία  μαθηματικών  και  φυσικής,  μπορεί  να  αποτελέσει λειτουργικό  περιβάλλον  γραμματισμού  για  την  εκμάθηση  της  ελληνικής  ως δεύτερης|ξένης γλώσσας σε ενήλικες. Η μεθοδολογία που υιοθετείται είναι η μελέτη περίπτωσης με ενσωματωμένη σχεδίαση. Οι συμμετέχουσες της έρευνας είναι δύο ενήλικες γυναίκες με μεταναστευτική βιογραφία, που ζουν μόνιμα στην Ελλάδα και οι οποίες δεν είχαν έρθει σε επαφή ξανά με βιντεοπαιχνίδια. Τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας  αναδεικνύουν  ότι  το  βιντεοπαιχνίδι Einstownαποτελεί  ένα  ψηφιακό περιβάλλον γραμματισμού μέσα από το οποίο αναπτύσσεται η ενεργή μάθηση, οι συμμετέχουσες αναπτύσσουν μεταξύ τους συνεργασία και επιτελούν ψηφιακές και μη ψηφιακές  πρακτικές  γραμματισμού  με  αποτέλεσμα  την  ενίσχυση  της  εκμάθησης λεξιλογίου που προσφέρει το βιντεοπαιχνίδι κατά την παιγνίδραση.

We investigated the relationship between Chichewa (L1) and English (L2) literacies in Malawi. Through our use of hierarchical linear modeling, we found that cross-language literacy transfer between Chichewa and English did occur, but that the pattern and the strength of the relationships varied depending on the literacy domain (i.e., reading or writing) and grade level. Our work has implications for students, teachers, and policy makers in countries like Malawi, where the language of the former colonial power is the official language (L2) of the country and students must be prepared to participate within a globalized society.

This study investigated the comprehension and production of articles, quantifiers, binding relations and passive constructions as later developing constructions (LDCs) by 27 Grade (Gr) 1 monolingual Afrikaans-speaking learners with Afrikaans as language of learning and teaching (LOLT), 31 bilingual isiXhosa-speaking learners with English as LOLT and 31 monolingual isiXhosa-speaking learners with isiXhosa as LOLT in three non-fee-paying schools, each in a different low socio-economic status area, in the Stellenbosch area of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The overarching aim of this study was to determine which LDCs these learners are capable of comprehending and producing at the start of Gr 1 and what progress they make in terms of these LDCs during their Gr 1 year. The English and isiXhosa LOLT groups were then compared on how they fared on the LDCs in their respective LOLTs in order to ascertain whether the English language proficiency of the English group is at such a level at the start of Gr 1 that they can, without disadvantage, undergo schooling successfully in English. Data were collected on articles, binding relations, quantifiers and passive constructions by using the informal language assessment instrument, the Receptive and Expressive Activities for Language Therapy (Southwood & Van Dulm 2012a), which makes use of picture selection- and pointing tasks for assessment of comprehension and sentence completion, picture description- and question answering tasks for assessment of production. The results showed that for the Afrikaans and English groups all four LDCs are indeed later developing and are only mastered after the end of Gr 1. For the isiXhosa group, quantifiers and passive production are mastered by the end of Gr 1. In terms of the language-in-education and teaching policy, the results show that the time allocated to listening to and producing language in Gr 1 is sufficient for children whose first language is also their LOLT, whereas it is not sufficient in the case of English additional language learners. The latter group made significant progress in all LDCs assessed, but still performed worse than their isiXhosa-speaking peers, for whom there was a match between first language and LOLT. The implication of the results are that (i) the Foundation Phase school curriculum should be refined so as to consider the needs of all Gr 1 learners, as learners enter Gr 1 with different language skills and different levels of preparation for the tasks which lie before them, (ii) teachers should be assisted to foster the development of language skills in additional language learners, and (iii) the institution of a universal Gr R year, which is free to those who cannot afford school fees, should be considered a necessity. Without ensuring that all children enter Gr 1 with an adequate language foundation on which literacy development can build, historical inequalities still present in South Africa will likely be perpetuated rather than systematically removed.

At a time when scientific literacy is recognised as essential for participatory Australian citizenship, science education has struggled to find a pedagogy that engages educationally marginalised students while at the same time assisting them to them becoming scientifically literate. The study reported here, titled Scaffolding science: a pedagogy for marginalised students, investigates an alternative pedagogic paradigm, scaffolding pedagogy, based on socio-cultural, language-focused principles. It draws on three complementary theories: Vygotsky’s sociocultural activity theory, Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics, and Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse.
The methodology is a classroom discourse analysis of a series of lessons around energy transformation with 7-8 year-old students in a suburban disadvantaged early primary classroom. Its focus is two-fold: firstly it provides a pre- and post-topic analysis of the oral and written performance of a number of case study students to ascertain changes in their language use. Secondly, it provides a discourse analysis of classroom interactions in the seven lessons in the topic. It identifies the changing nature of teacher scaffolding techniques across time as students gradually appropriate scientific language, as well as identifying the issues encountered by the teacher as she endeavoured to develop a principled scaffolding pedagogy in the teaching of science.
The study argues that student use of scientific language is fundamental to the ongoing learning of scientific knowledge. It supports the development of summary texts, called focus texts, to assist the teacher in a consistent use of scientific language, increasing the opportunities for its appropriation by marginalised students.
The study identifies the paradox of ‘hands-on’ science which brings about high student engagement, but neglects the development of the required language because of its situated nature. It proposes pedagogic strategies that may help to ameliorate the current situation in primary school science education.

Στόχος του κεφαλαίου αυτού είναι να παρουσιαστούν και να συζητηθούν σημαντικές θεωρητικές προσεγγίσεις καθώς και ερευνητικά δεδομένα για την παραγωγή του γραπτού λόγου. Στην αρχή, θα γίνει μία συνοπτική παρουσίαση των πρώτων μοντέλων για την παραγωγή γραπτού λόγου στους ενηλίκους, όπως του Μοντέλου των Γνωστικών Διαδικασιών των Hayes και Flower (1980), καθώς και της μετέπειτα αναθεώρησής του, «Νέο Πλαίσιο Κατανόησης της Γνωστικής Λειτουργίας και του Συναισθήματος στην Παραγωγή Γραπτού Λόγου» (Hayes 1996), αλλά και των μοντέλων και των θεωρήσεων/προσεγγίσεων που ακολούθησαν και τα οποία εστίασαν στην αναπτυξιακή πορεία της παραγωγής του γραπτού λόγου. Έτσι, θα συζητηθεί η Απλή θεώρηση της Παραγωγής Γραπτού Λόγου (Juel, Griffith, Gough, 1986), το μοντέλο Παράθεσης/Δήλωσης της Γνώσης» και το Μοντέλο «Μετασχηματισμού της Γνώσης» (Bereiter & Scardamalia 1987), το μοντέλο «Συγκρότησης της γνώσης» (Gallbraith 1999, 2008), η Απλή θεώρηση της Παραγωγής Γραπτού Λόγου (Berninger & Amtmann 2003), η «Όχι τόσο Απλή Θεώρηση της Παραγωγής Γραπτού Λόγου» (Berninger & Winn, 2006) και η «Γνωστική Αναπτυξιακή Προσέγγιση Παραγωγής Γραπτού Λόγου (Kellogg 2008). Στο τέλος της ενότητας αυτής θα παρουσιασθεί το νέο μοντέλο παραγωγής γραπτού λόγου από τον Hayes (2012b) και οι σύγχρονες προσπάθειές του για αποτύπωση της παραγωγής λόγου στα παιδιά (Hayes 2011, Hayes 2012b). Στη συνέχεια, θα συζητηθούν οι αναπτυξιακοί παράγοντες που σχετίζονται με την παραγωγή του γραπτού λόγου μέσα από ερευνητικά δεδομένα, ενώ στην τελευταία ενότητα θα παρουσιαστούν ερευνητικά πορίσματα αναφορικά τόσο με υποκείμενους αναπτυξιακούς παράγοντες, όσο και με την ίδια την παραγωγή του γραπτού λόγου σε παιδιά με Αναπτυξιακή Γλωσσική Διαταραχή, καθώς και σε παιδιά με Ειδική Διαταραχή της Ανάγνωσης. Τέλος, θα αναδειχθούν οι βασικές ερευνητικές, κλινικές και εκπαιδευτικές προεκτάσεις της μελέτης στο πεδίο αυτό.

In this study we argue that narrative storytelling and expository discussion, as 2 distinct discourse genres, differ both in linguistic expression and in their underlying principles of organization--schema-based in narratives and category-based in exposition. Innovative ...

Abstract : Many users of a second language, especially English, have little productive mastery of the language. Rather, some requirement in their life forces them to use limited subroutines (maybe quite small and formulaic) which are effectively encapsulated as special elements within L1.

This paper proposes that fractional language learning is a valid objective for large numbers of users, and briefly examines some of the contexts in which it has a pragmatic application. It notes that much fractional language learning occurs outside of formal educational environments, and then goes on to consider how both the classroom teaching and evaluation can be adapted to give proper recognition to student achievements on a fractional scale. The paper suggests that this kind of graduated recognition is in fact likely to enhance outcomes across the full spectrum of language teaching, and can be consciously incorporated into curriculum design.

A paradigm shift to teacher acceptance (and community acceptance) of fractional language learning has strong implications for assessment practices. Most current measures of language assessment offer little or no recognition to the achievements of learners in the pre-production phase of acquisition. Attempts at language use in this phase are routinely punished by existing assessment tools. Partly as a result of this discouragement, large numbers of students never progress to independent language production. Fractional language objectives are one remedy for this deep flaw in language teaching outcomes.

"This paper will cover what incidental and instructional vocabulary acquisition entails; how each is thought to work, and how each affects the acquisition of language. To achieve any sort of acquisition first we have to know what a word is. After that incidentiality is examined and show to hinge on sufficient, and meaningful, exposure to lexical items. Thereafter we look at instructional vocabulary training and reminded that strategy training and rote learning has been shown to enhance and support vocabulary acquisition. Lastly we ponder upon how vocabulary could be taught by applying incidental exposure in conjunction with instructional teaching using meaningful feedback and extensive peer group-work.

Keywords: Incidental vocabulary acquisition, instructional vocabulary training, incidental exposure, exposure, receptive knowledge, productive knowledge, communication, group-work, feedback, input, learning strategy, facilitator of learning."

This article concerns Regional and minority languages in Ukrainian legislation. I try to investigate different languages at the territory of Ukraine. Why do some of them have protectio but other - not. Moreover, I pay attention to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages usage in Ukraine.