论英语交际能力与中外文化差异

要掌握两种语言，必须掌握两种文化。判断一个英语学习者是否掌握了英语，不仅要看他是否掌握听、说、读写等能力和技巧。更要看他是否正确而有效地用英语进行交际。事实上，许多英语学习者在用英语和使用英语的国家的人进行交流时，常常会造出不少笑话，产生误解。其原因是：我们国家和使用英语的国家之间存在着一定的文化差异。不同国家有着不同的文化习俗，这使得在语言的表达上也存在一定的差异。因此，在英语的教和学的过程中，除了要使学习者掌握英语基本知识外，还要使他们掌握我们国家和英语国家之间的文化差异。以提高他们用英语交际的能力。     

Cross-lagged cross-subject bidirectional predictions among achievements in mathematics,English language and Chinese language of school children

This study aimed to explore the cross-lagged association of achievements in mathematics and languages. While the effect of language on achievements in mathematics is well-documented, few studies have examined the reciprocal relationships among mathematics, the Chinese language and the English language in the same study. This study conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinal achievement data collected through the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 48,547 third-grade, unbalanced bilingual students who were measured three times over six years: in 2007 (in Grade 3), 2010 (Grade 6) and 2013 (Grade 9). Multilevel cross-lagged analysis found prior achievement in a subject was the strongest predictor of achievement in that subject three years later. Furthermore, cross-subject bidirectional prediction was found among achievements in mathematics, Chinese language and English language for students from Grade 3 to Grade 6 and from Grade 6 to Grade 9.     

The Social Adjustment of Three, Young, High-Achieving Korean-English Bilingual Students in Kindergarten

This research article describes the English acquisition of three, young, high-achieving, Korean, bilingual students, their academic development and their social/psychological adjustment in school. All observations and interviews were conducted in the natural classroom setting. The Korean children underwent different school experiences, partially contingent upon their English proficiency, but they generally demonstrated rapid English acquisition and healthy adjustment to school. The study findings suggest that teachers and parents play an important role in supporting their bilingual children's adjustments to new environments while preserving fundamental aspects of their original culture. Recommendations for both mainstream andbilingual teachers are suggested to further an understanding of Korean children, as English language learners and enable these children to become bilingual in Korean and English.     

English Language Proficiency and Bilingual Verbal Ability Among Chinese,Dominican, and Haitian Immigrant Students

This article describes English language proficiency and bilingual verbal ability for a sample of 209 students aged 10 to 16 from three immigrant groups—Chinese, Dominican, and Haitian. Sources of data included structured student interviews, parent interviews, and individual language assessments. On average, students' English language proficiency was far below their age and grade level with significant differences among the groups. Estimates of students' language ability improved once their skills in their first language were considered as demonstrated by the bilingual verbal ability scores. Results from this study demonstrate the need to consider both English and first language skills in assessing the language abilities of these students and in promoting educational access and equity for recent immigrants.     

中西思维模式对二语写作语篇模式的影响

语言与文化背景的不同,思维方式势必存在差异。任何一种语言,不单单是在句子构造上,就语篇模式上也表现出运用此种语言民族的思维特点。可东西方思维模式的不同,在学习外语时无可回避地受到母语影响。Kap lan昔日提出了英语思维是直线型,但东方语言思维却是螺旋型的看法,同时指出二语学习人的英语写作呈现其母语思维特点。本文就大一新生的英语作文进行剖析,考证了Kap lan对于语篇模式与思维特征的看法,并且也对思维模式与二语写作中语篇模式之间的联系进行深入探究。     

Developmental and individual differences in Chinese writing

The goal of the present study was to examine the generalizability of a model of the underlying dimensions of written composition across writing systems (Chinese Mandarin vs. English) and level of writing skill. A five-factor model of writing originally developed from analyses of 1st and 4th grade English writing samples was applied to Chinese writing samples obtained from 4th and 7th grade students. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare the fits of alternative models of written composition. The results suggest that the five-factor model of written composition generalizes to Chinese writing samples and applies to both less skilled (Grade 4) and more skilled (Grade 7) writing, with differences in factor means between grades that vary in magnitude across factors.     

Morphological awareness and bilingual word learning: a longitudinal structural equation modeling study

This longitudinal study examined the contribution of morphological awareness to bilingual word learning of Malay–English bilingual children in Singapore where English is the medium of instruction. Participants took morphological awareness and lexical inference tasks in both English and Malay twice with an interval of about half a year, the first time at the end of Grade 3 (Time 1) and the second time at the end of the first semester of Grade 4 (Time 2). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that within both languages, morphological awareness significantly predicted lexical inference at Time 1 as well as Time 2, and the contribution also became strengthened over time. Cross-linguistic SEM analyses showed that concurrently at both Time 1 and Time 2, English morphological awareness only had a significant indirect effect on Malay lexical inference. The exact indirect relationships, however, varied between Time 1 and Time 2. In addition, an indirect effect of Time 1 English morphological awareness on Time 2 Malay lexical inference also surfaced. These findings suggest concurrent as well as longitudinal cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness from English to Malay.     

Bilingualism,Biliteracy, and Learning to Read: Interactions Among Languages and Writing Systems

Four groups of children in first grade were compared on early literacy tasks. Children in three of the groups were bilingual, each group representing a different combination of language and writing system, and children in the fourth group were monolingual speakers of English. All the bilingual children used both languages daily and were learning to read in both languages. The children solved decoding and phonological awareness tasks, and the bilinguals completed all tasks in both languages. Initial differences between the groups in factors that contribute to early literacy were controlled in an analysis of covariance, and the results showed a general increment in reading ability for all the bilingual children but a larger advantage for children learning two alphabetic systems. Similarly, bilinguals transferred literacy skills across languages only when both languages were written in the same system. Therefore, the extent of the bilingual facilitation for early reading depends on the relation between the two languages and writing systems.     

Predictors of English spelling in bilingual and monolingual children in Grade 1: the case of Cantonese and Tagalog

In order to examine the effect of the home language on the spelling development in English in children who are learning English as a second language (ESL learners), it is best to directly compare groups of ESL learners from various home language backgrounds. This study compared the oral language, phonological awareness, reading, and spelling performance of Tagalog–English bilingual, Cantonese–English bilingual, and monolingual English-speaking children in Grade 1. The bilingual children had lower scores than the monolinguals on measures of oral proficiency, but demonstrated similar or better performance on most phonological awareness, reading, and spelling tasks after controlling for vocabulary size in English. A series of moderated regression analysis revealed that although phonological awareness was associated with English spelling performance regardless of language background, the associations between specific spelling tasks and related underlying skills seemed to differ across language groups.     

英语习作错误分析

根据对“99届英语专业58名学生的一次英语习作的错误统计,并结合错误分析理论,分析了学生习作中所存在的各类问题,反映了英语写作技能与其它技能的关系。     

Parallel literacy classes and hidden strengths: learning to read in English,Urdu and classical Arabic

The aim of this article is to explore young bilingual children’s early literacy experiences in three different languages, English, Urdu and classical Arabic, and in three strikingly different types of classes in England. It draws on a larger ethnographic study that sets out to discover what kinds of advantages or additional strengths bilingual children might bring from their community literacy practices and from their experiences of learning to read in two or more languages simultaneously into their English literacy lessons. The main focus of the article is on one bilingual boy, Ikram, of Pakistani background, who at the beginning of the study was 5 years old. The participant observations in these three different types of classes and audio and video tapes of some these lessons show that at the age of 7 Ikram has begun to read in three languages. I argue that in doing so he is developing additional strengths that are generally overlooked. These new types of literacy strengths derive from the fact he is learning to read simultaneously in three languages. Yet they remain hidden within his English lessons.     

Cognate Awareness in French Immersion Students: Contributions to Grade 2 Reading Comprehension

Cognate awareness is the ability to recognize the cognate relationship between words in two etymologically related languages. The current study examined the development of cognate awareness and its contribution to French (second language) reading comprehension among Canadian French immersion children. Eighty-one students were tested at the end of Grade 1 and again at the end of Grade 2. Children were administered a cognate awareness task in French, in which they were asked to decide whether a French word had a cognate in English. Overall, performance on the cognate awareness task was significantly above chance at both time points, and it improved overtime. Thus, for the majority of the participants, cognate awareness was evident as early as first grade. Regressions revealed that cognate awareness measured in Grades 1 and 2 made a significant contribution to Grade 2 French reading comprehension, beyond multiple controls. The results of the study suggest that cognate awareness is a unique aspect of second-language reading comprehension in young bilingual children.     

English language acquisition and educational attainment at the end of secondary school

There has been relatively little empirical research on the impact of stage of fluency in English of bilingual pupils. However, this issue is increasingly important given growth in the bilingual school population in England of over one‐third between 1997 and 2004 to around 10% of the school population. This study evaluates the relationship between stage of English fluency and performance in public examinations at age 16 for all pupils within an inner London local education authority. Two methodological approaches are used to study the associations. The first looks at the context and the trend data for the case‐study local authority (LEA) in terms of languages spoken and the performance of bilingual pupils in schools. This is followed by a detailed statistical regression analysis to isolate the unique association between level of fluency in English and pupils' performance at age 16, after controlling for the effect of a range of other pupil and school background factors. The results confirm a strong relationship between stage of fluency in English and educational attainment, with the performance of bilingual pupils increasing as measured stage of fluency in English increases. Pupils in the early stages of fluency perform at very low levels, while bilingual pupils who are fully fluent in English perform better, on average, than English‐only speakers. However, the latter results are not due to bilingualism per se since the difference is no longer statistically significant after controlling for other measured pupil background variables. All EAL (English as an Additional Language) pupils make better than expected progress over the two years between age 14 and age 16. The final section questions the appropriateness of the Qualification and Curriculum Authority's (QCA) approach to the assessment of bilingual pupils, which contrasts with the local authority's good practice. Based on the findings of this study, we argue that there is a need to develop a national assessment strategy that better meets the needs of bilingual learners. The policy implications for national and local government and for school improvement practitioners are reviewed.     

What bilingual poets can do: Re‐visioning English education for biliteracy

This paper describes a bilingual‐bidialectal poetry writing programme set up in a community library in the southeastern United States for multi‐age learners. The authors explore the use of poetry as a vehicle for biliteracy development. The analysis draws on observations of the students’ engagement with poetry both in terms of their writing and the teachers’ responses. The paper discusses how poetry can inform a critical, multicultural approach to developing biliteracy in students of all ages and degrees of competence in written English. The authors theorise the role that poetry can play in creating positive learning environments for such students.     

Student Journals and Student-constructed Questions in a Primary Mathematics Classroom

Eleven Grade 6 students from a class of 26 Canadian children (comprising both Grade 5 and Grade 6 students) were the focus of a 15-week study on students' mathematical learning through writing, where Student Journals (SJ) and Student-Constructed Questions (SCQ) were used by the class teacher as an integral part of her lessons on common and decimal fractions. Student interviews, classroom observations and a teacher interview complemented the analysis of SJ and SCQ. Both writing tasks evidenced students' mathematical learning, but while the SCQ indicated students' fraction knowledge more clearly, the SJ did not communicate students' understanding of fractions as well as student's verbal discussion and explanations did.     

Shifting Deficit Paradigms of Latino Emerging Bilingual Students’ Literacy Achievement: Documenting Biliterate Trajectories

The purpose of this single-subject longitudinal study was to examine the Spanish and English biliterate development of U.S. Latino Spanish/English speaking students, who we call emerging bilingual students, as they participated in an innovative biliteracy instructional program titled Literacy Squared®. Findings indicate that across the three years of the study, participating students made gains in Spanish and English reading and writing. This study provides support for Literacy Squared as an innovative biliterate program. Further, the study provides evidence for the need to consider alternative methods to document Latino Spanish/English students’ biliteracy development such as through the use of biliterate trajectories.     

高职高专英语专业学生英语写作情况调查与分析

国内外的研究表明,英语写作有助于提高英语语言交际能力。以深圳职业技术学院应用外语系2001级69名专业学生为对象,采用问卷和面谈等研究工具,着重调查分析英语专业学生的英语写作时间分配,写作困难和解决困难的方式,学生对教师评改作业的要求,提出提高学生写作水平的对策。     

The Linguistic Mass/Count Distinction as an Indicator of Referent Categorization in Monolingual and Bilingual Children

This study examines the acquisition of the linguistic mass/count distinction in English by bilingual (Spanish-English) children. The goal of the study is to explore whether bilingual children, like their monolingual peers, can draw information from the linguistic context in which a new noun id presented to determine whether the new word refers to an object or a substance. Results indicate that at 7 years of age, even bilinguals who are strong in English do not yet draw such inferences. By 9 years of age, however, bilinguals who are strong in English have response patterns similar to those of their monolingual peers but bilinguals who have lower English abilities still lag behind their monolingual peers in drawing such inferences.     

Students’ motivation and teachers’ teaching practices towards the use of blogs for writing of online journals

This research paper explores students’ motivation and teachers’ teaching practices towards the writing of compositions in the conventional paper-based (paper and pencil) and the online blogs mode. Six classes of Grade 5 (224 students) and four English teachers in an elementary-level future school in Singapore were involved in this study. A total of four written assignments were given to the students – two conventional paper and pencil and two online blog-written assignments. No significant difference was found in students’ scores on these assignments. However, the submission rate for the conventional paper-based assignments was 93.8% as compared to 75% for the online blogs entries. Although both students and teachers in this study are savvy information communication technology users who have been exposed to one-to-one computing since Grade 1, the use of blogs for journal writing was not natural to both parties. Teachers found that it was more cumbersome to grade and give comments on students’ online blog posts via the online platform and likewise, students also faced issues with the submission of their online writing assignments. Some students quoted that they preferred writing via conventional paper and pencil mode, experienced network connection and technical issues, had poor time management, experienced forgetfulness and distraction from the computers and the Internet for not submitting their online writing assignments. This study also once again highlighted the importance of the teacher, as one out of the four teachers managed to get all her students to submit their writing assignments. The in-depth analysis of the interviews with the teachers and students, students’ perception survey, students’ performance in their writing tasks (both online and paper-based) and submission rates had revealed useful insights and considerations on the use of blogs to engage students in writing.     

基于双语语料库的英语教学“双驱”模式探索

基于双语语料库的英语教学＂双驱＂模式可以将数据驱动和母语驱动结合起来,为学生搭建＂双驱＂动力,引领学生语言应用能力的有效提升。教师可以通过语料库的检索整理出微型文本,通过间接数据驱动的形式、从英汉对比的角度引导学生发现英语词汇、语法的规律;也可以通过学生对双语语料库直接检索的方式,引导他们有效提高翻译和写作水平。