Disentangling the impact of semantic and formal factors in the acquisition of number inflections: Noun, adjective and verb agreement in written French

In written French, the acquisition of the nominal plural (-s) occurs earlier and faster than the acquisition of the verbal plural (-nt) (Totereau, Thevenin & Fayol, 1997, Learning to Spell). The reasons for this difference are not well known. The objective of the present research is to test two alternative hypotheses, which may provide an account of this difference by exploiting a particularity of written French: The agreement of adjectives. According to the first hypothesis, the nominal plural is acquired before the verbal plural because it is semantically grounded, unlike the latter. According to the second, the early emergence of noun agreements is due to the fact that -s occurs more consistently than -nt. These two hypotheses lead to different predictions, that can be tested empirically, with regard to the agreement of adjectives. These predictions were studied in three experiments using sentences recall or completion tasks presented to children from 7 to 10 years old. The results confirm the semantic hypothesis but reveal an impact of consistency on performance.     

从语法范畴视角解释日本学生英语书面语错误

本文在语言学研究理论基础上,通过分析日本英语学习者书面语中的典型错误,从数、性、格、人称、时态和词序六个方面重点讨论了由于语法范畴的差异性导致的语言错误,呈现了日本英语学习者在语言学习过程中的中介语发展进程,解释了他们的中介语特征。研究结果为进一步的语言研究提供了语言事实材料,同时也加深了外语教师对语言内部结构的理解,从而探寻有效的外语教学途径。     

Effectiveness of a heritage educational program for the acquisition of oral and written French and Tahitian in French Polynesia

The research examines the effects of a bilingual pedagogical program (French/Tahitian) on the acquisition of oral and written French as well as the Tahitian language itself in primary schools in French Polynesia. 125 children divided into an experimental group (partially schooled in Tahitian for 300 min per week) and a control group (schooled in French) were followed from the second year of kindergarten to Grade 1 and tested on Tahitian and French language competence. The results show that the program appears to have a positive impact on Tahitian proficiency, without any negative effect on learning of French (oral and reading).     

从二语习得角度看大学专业课程双语教学

大学专业课程双语教学模式已经是我国大学专业课程教学的主要内容之一。专业课程双语教学除了能有效提升学生的外语能力外,还能有效提升学生运用英语思维学习掌握专业知识。本文论述了国内双语教学的问题及主要模式,指出从二语习得的角度进行专业课双语教学的可能。     

The effect of self-explanation and prediction on the development of principled understanding of chess in novices

The present study was designed to test the effect of self-explanation and prediction on the development of principled understanding of novices learning to play chess. First-year psychology students, who had no chess experience, first learned the basic rules of chess and were afterwards divided in three conditions. They either observed (control condition), predicted, or predicted and self-explained the moves of the computer playing a chess endgame of King and Rook against King. Finally, in the test phase, participants had to play the endgame against the computer and were required to checkmate the opponent King. Apart from their test performance, the conditions were compared on quality of move predictions in the learning phase. The self-explanation condition showed better understanding of the endgame principles than the two other conditions, as indicated by the move predictions in the learning phase that more often exemplified correct application of chess principles. Moreover, participants in the self-explanation condition more often checkmated the black King in the test phase than participants in the two other conditions. However, no differences emerged between the prediction and observation condition. This study showed that, even for novices, providing self-explanations stimulates the discovery of domain principles of chess.     

Reading and writing to learn in secondary education: online processing activity and written products in summarizing and synthesizing tasks

The research reported here employed a multiple-case study methodology to assess the online cognitive and metacognitive activities of 15-year-old secondary students as they read informational texts and wrote a new text in order to learn, and the relation of these activities to the written products they were asked to generate. To investigate the influence of the task, students were required to perform two different tasks which differed in complexity and familiarity. The first task was reading a single text and making a written summary of it, while the second consisted in reading two texts and making a written synthesis of them. To gather information about how students construct meaning from informational texts, we asked students to think aloud as they read and wrote in order to provide us with information about their comprehension and composition processes. We also examined their reading and writing activities during the tasks. The results show that to a large extent secondary school students lack the cognitive and metacognitive processes that would enable them to make strategic use of reading and writing. They also show that, although there are no major differences in the way secondary school students tackle these different tasks, those who create the most elaborate products evidence a more recursive and flexible use of reading and writing. The most obvious conclusion as far as the repercussions of these findings are concerned is that there is an urgent need for work on tasks of this kind in the classroom.     

Alphabetic access route in beginning reading acquisition in Portuguese: The role of letter-name knowledge

The present study investigates Ehri's (Ehri & Wilce 1985; Scott & Ehri 1990) hypothesis that knowledge of the alphabet enables children to learn to read by processing and storing letter-sound relations in words. In particular, it examines whether letter-name knowledge facilitates the learning of spellings in which the names of one or more letters can be heard in the pronunciation of the words. Preschool children who could not read any word out of context were divided into two groups on the basis of their ability to name the letters of the alphabet: one group knew the names of the letters while the other did not. Both groups were taught to read two types of simplified spellings: visual spellings, that is, spellings whose letters did not correspond to sounds in the pronunciations of the words but which were visually more salient (e.g., X_QKO for the word cerveja), and phonetic spellings, that is, spellings whose letters corresponded to sounds in the pronunciation of the words (e.g., CRVA for the word cerveja). In all phonetic spellings, the name of at least one letter could be clearly heard in the pronunciation of the words. Results corroborated Ehri's hypothesis. The children who did not know the names of the letters learned to read the visual spellings more easily than the phonetic ones. On the other hand, the children who knew the names of the letters showed the opposite pattern, that is, they learned the phonetic spellings more easily than the visual ones.     

From feedback to revisions: Effects of feedback features and perceptions

Although the effects of peer feedback have been studied from a number of perspectives, much remains to be learned about what leads students to act (or not) on their peers’ feedback in revisions. The present study examined the relationship between peer feedback features, student perceptions as potential mediators (understanding versus agreement with the feedback), and the likelihood of students’ implementation of the feedback. Peer feedback, back-evaluation comments, and revisions from 185 US high school students were analyzed. Investigated feedback features included four cognitive features (identification, explanation, solution, suggestion), and two affective features (mitigating praise, hedges). Logistic regression analyses revealed that: (1) both understanding and agreement with feedback predicted implementation; (2) presence of solutions predicted understanding of feedback; (3) mitigating praise predicted agreement of the problem; and (4) explanation and hedges predicted implementation separately from perception effects. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The effects of written attempts prior to correct visual presentation on spelling acquisition and retention

Students learned difficult spelling words via three different teaching methods. They either saw the correct spelling before attempting it, or could attempt to spell the word once, or several times, prior to viewing the correct spelling. Results showed that attempting to spell and test the words before viewing them facilitated acquisition of the words. The teaching methods did not differentially influence long-term retention. The locus of the effects of some teaching methods, when the words are thoroughly learned, is to be found during initial acquisition rather than evidenced in retention. Asking students to generate and test spellings prior to correct presentation facilitates encoding and acquisition of the correct spelling.     

从二语习得的角度浅析可理解性输入对非英语专业大学生英语写作的影响

本文以二语习得与可理解性输入理论为基础,尝试着了解并分析当前大学英语写作教学输入模式及其存在的不足之处,从而在教学过程中试图通过增强可理解性输入来促进学生对输入材料的理解与吸收,最后使其有效地运用于写作之中。     

Acquisition of reading and written spelling in a transparent orthography: Two non parallel processes?

Reading and written spelling skills for words and non-words of varying length and orthographic complexity were investigated in normal Italian first and second graders. The regularity and transparency of the mapping between letters and phonemes make Italian orthography an unlikely candidate for discrepancies between reading and spelling to emerge. This notwithstanding, the results showed that reading accuracy is significantly better than spelling. The difference is particularly striking in first graders, but it is still evident in 2nd graders, though most strongly on non-words. The data show that reading and written spelling are non parallel processes and that the developmental asynchrony reflects a partial structural independence of the two systems.     

情感因素对二语习得的影响

在二语习得的过程中,情感因素和认知因素并不是两个对立的因素,它们亦都无法独立影响语言学习。情感因素在语言习得的过程中作用颇重。积极的情感因素会使语言认知系统处理最佳状态,起到激智作用。因此,关注语言学习中的情感因素能够使语言学习更加有效。本文着重从情感因素的四大方面进行了分析很阐述。     

The role of output speech in literacy acquisition: Evidence from congenital anarthria

A case study of literacy acquisition in acongenitally speechless child (SM) isreported. In spite of a complete oral apraxia(due to bilateral focal brain damage), SMdeveloped normal intelligence and acquired complete mastery of reading and writing skills.Furthermore, both his verbal memory andmetaphonological skills were surprisinglypreserved. However, he showed a relativeimpairment in writing non-words. Theimplications of these findings for thedevelopmental interactions between language andliteracy are discussed.     

省略结构的儿童语言获得研究

本文通过实验研究儿童省略结构的获得。本文所讨论的省略结构指的是"也是"结构、"也+情态动词"结构以及空宾结构。这三种结构在汉语生成语法有关的讨论中常常被笼统地称作VP省略结构。本文的研究发现,前两种结构的句法语义表现和英语等语言中的VP省略结构比较相似,因为其解读遵守平行原则,即要求省略部分与先行部分的句法和语义对等;而空宾结构的表现则不怎么像VP省略结构,因为其解读可以不受平行原则的制约。支持这一分析的证据来自我们的实验研究,实验结果显示4岁儿童和成人解读"也是"和"也+情态动词"结构遵守平行原则,而解读空宾结构不受该原则限制。该项研究还发现3岁儿童还不具备区分这三种结构的能力。本文认为这三种结构的解读涉及句法和语义的跨模组运算,而跨模组运算能力的成熟要受到年龄因素的限制,这一研究结果为语法发育论提供了证据。     

西方企业反收购的经验和启示

西方企业的反收购措施的部署大致可分为两类：预防性和主动性的。预防性的措施是为了减少财务上成功的敌意收购的可能性，而主动性的措施在敌意报价后采取。我国企业的反收购尚处于起步阶段，反收购体系不完善，我们可以借鉴西方企业成熟的反收购策略，进行一定程度的变异，移植到我国特有的国情中。     

克拉申的二语习得理论对儿童英语词汇教学的指导

中国加入世贸组织,与世界经济往来日益密切,英语的学习越来越重要。因此我国儿童很早就进入英语培训学校学习。因而对于影响儿童二语习得因素的研究就至关重要。而克拉申的二语习得理论对少儿英语的学习起着重大作用。这里我们用克拉申的假说谈谈如何促进儿童快速有效的记忆单词。     

The influence of early linguistic skills and family factors on literacy acquisition in Chinese children: Follow-up from age 3 to age 11

The present longitudinal study investigated the predictive power of preschool linguistic skills and early family factors on children's comprehensive literacy skills at the end of primary school in 262 Chinese children. The results indicated that a substantial (20–34%) share of variance of 5th grade (age 11) literacy skills in Chinese could be explained by early family factors (age 3) and linguistic skills (age 3–age 5). Family socioeconomic status and parent-child reading tuition were associated with different literacy measures. A differential pattern of prediction was also observed among different literacy skills. Furthermore, path analyses indicated that the relationships between early family factors and literacy skills at age 11 were mediated by specific linguistic and cognitive skills at preschool.     

The hidden depths of new word knowledge: Using graded measures of orthographic and semantic learning to measure vocabulary acquisition

We investigated whether the presence of orthography promotes new word learning (orthographic facilitation). In Study 1 (N = 41) and Study 2 (N = 74), children were taught 16 unknown polysyllabic words. Half of the words appeared with orthography present and half without orthography. Learning assessments captured the degree of semantic and orthographic learning; they were administered one week after teaching (Studies 1 and 2), and, unusually, eight months later (Study 1 only). Bayesian analyses indicated that the presence of orthography was associated with more word learning, though this effect was estimated with more certainty for orthographic than semantic learning. Newly learned word knowledge was well retained over time, indicating that our paradigm was sufficient to support long-term learning. Our approach provides an example of how word learning studies can look beyond simple accuracy measures to reveal the cumulative nature of lexical learning.     

克拉申二语习得理论在大学英语听力教学中的应用

我国的大学英语听力教学一直存在着诸多问题,教材缺乏时代性,听力课缺乏互动,学生学的聋子英语,哑巴英语。本文从克拉申的输入假设与情感过滤假设理论出发,联系听力课堂教学实践,加大语言输入,降低情感过滤从而提高大学英语听力。