Effects of two teaching methods of connected speech in a Polish EFL classroom

The results demonstrate that in general, NF proved more effective than NNF. With regard to individual processes of connected speech, NF was more effective in production, whereas no such effect was found for perception

Error analysis of written and spoken English: practical suggestions

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Aptitude in the Classroom: an empirical study of the pedagogical functionality of the LLAMA test battery in an upper secondary school

This thesis explores the suitability of using aptitude testing and the LLAMA aptitude tests in a Norwegian upper secondary school class, and the potential pedagogical advantages such testing can have. Aptitude testing entails measuring language learners’ specific talent for learning foreign languages and this is an individual difference that exhibits considerable variation between learners (Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003). An empirical study was conducted on 22 participants of an upper secondary school class to see how the LLAMA, an aptitude test battery developed by Paul Meara (2005) would function. The testing was followed by a student questionnaire and two separate teacher interviews, created to investigate the experience and attitudes the teacher and the pupils showed towards aptitude testing and the LLAMA, as well as the potential pedagogical advantages this testing might have. The results showed that both the teacher and the pupils viewed the LLAMA as a suitable aptitude battery and that the age group was appropriate. The teacher was also positive towards the notion of aptitude testing. Several pedagogical advantages were found and could, with some effort from the teacher, help inform and individually adapt the teaching to each pupil, based on their aptitude profiles. From the findings of this project, I conclude that aptitude testing and using the LLAMA could help Norwegian teachers individually adapt their teaching and that this is something we should strive to use. I also suggest that there are several pedagogical advantages if the results from the testing are used accordingly and if a functional framework for how to use these results are developed.Keywords: LLAMA, Aptitude, Second Language Learning, Testing, Pedagog

Teacher’s methodology as a tool to enhance communicative competence and speaking skill in 9th graders students in Santa Marta

Learning English as a second language and to be a proficient user of English are the main goals for many students who use this language for different purposes. This study was conducted at two public institutions in the Cultural, Historical and Tourist District of Santa Marta. This inquiry was developed with a total population of 31 girls and 21 boys. The observations in the school number one, were developed during the first part of the first semester (2018), with a population of 18 girls and 10 boys; ages range between 13 and 17; meanwhile, the observations in the school number 2, were developed in the second semester of the same year, with a population of 13 girls and 11 boys; ages range between 13 and 17. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the teacher’s methodology in the student’s communicative competences and oral skills development. This study was conducted under the following research question: How does the methodology used in the classroom affect the oral interaction in the light of communicative competences in a 9th grade students in Santa Marta?; focusing on those methodological aspects than can help or hinder the development of speaking skill in two groups of 9th graders students in Santa Marta. A case study was conducted under a participatory perspective of the qualitative research, and some instruments such as interviews and class observations were used for collecting data. Analysis of class observations, student’s and teacher’s interviews revealed that some methodological aspects used by the teacher in the classroom, such as the excessive use of traditional way of teaching, the overuse of the grammar aspects of the language, the excessive use of L1 in the English class

Maturation Constraints on Language Development

Despite several decades of research and writing on the topic, serious differences of opinion persist as to the scope and source of maturational constraints on language development. While many accept the weak version of the critical period hypothesis for first language acquisition, there are those who deny any subsequent age-related decline in adult language learning abilities and/or reject the existence of sensitive periods for non-primary language acquisition. Further, even among those who acknowledge the existence of subsequent maturational constraints, there is considerable disagreement as to the linguistic domains to which they apply and as to their explanations. The issue is important since it bears fundamentally on second language acquisition theory building and because it has implications for practice in language teaching and other areas. This paper reviews findings from studies of first and second language development, concluding that they are consistent with the hypothesis that both are controlled by language specific biology, and that both are subject to maturational constraints, specifically sensitive periods during which learning is successful, and after which it is irregular and incomplete. Four potential explanations for the constraints are discussed: affective, cognitive, input and neurological factors. All are problematic, but only three seem wrong

The Effect of Using Inductive and Deductive Methods on 7th Grade Students’ Achievement in Grammar in Bethlehem District and their Attitudes toward EFL

This study aims to investigate the effect of using the inductive and deductive methods on 7th grade students’ achievement in grammar in Bethlehem District and their attitudes toward EFL. To achieve the purpose of the study, the researchers applied the instruments to a purposeful sample from 7th grade students at two schools, one for boys and the other for girls. Two groups, the experimental and the control ones were used in this study. The experimental group was taught by the inductive and deductive methods, and the control group was taught by the traditional method. To answer the main research question whether the inductive and deductive methods are more effective in teaching grammar rather than the traditional way, the researchers used a pre and post-tests to measure students' achievement in grammar. The researchers also designed a questionnaire to measure students' attitudes toward English as foreign language (EFL). In this study, the researchers used the quasi-experimental design and the used Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) for measuring the contrast between the experimental and control groups. The research concluded that there are statistical significant differences between the mean scores of 7th grade students' achievement in grammar, due to interaction between teaching method and gender and the differences were in favor of the male students in the experimental group. Also, the results showed that there are no statistical significant differences between attitudes towards EFL, due to interaction between teaching method and gender

Consciousness-Raising Strategy in Developing ELT Students Speaking Accuracy

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah strategi peningkatan kesadaran dapat meningkatkan kesadaran ketepatan berbicara siswa dan kemampuan ketepatan berbicara siswa. Penelitian ini menggunakan disain satu kali test awal dan test akhir. 26 siswa jurusan bahasa Inggris di universitas Lampung menjadi sampelnya. Peneliti menggunakan kuestioner dan test berbicara. Reliabilitas kuestioner 0.936. Reliabilitas test awal adalah 0.759 dan reliabilitas test akhir adalah 0.799. Data dianalisa secara statistik dengan Paired Sample T test. Untuk kesadaran ketepatan berbicara siswa, nilai T (6.074) adalah lebih tinggi daripada T-table (2.060) dengan alpha level 0.000 atau lebih rendah daripada 0.05 (? ? 0.05). Untuk kemampuan ketepatan berbicara nilai T (26.820) adalah lebih tinggi daripada T-table (2.060) dengan alpha level 0.000 atau lebih rendah dari 0.05 (? ? 0.05). Penemuan tersebut mengindikasikan strategi ketetapan berbicara siswa dapat menjadi sebuah solusi untuk meningkatkan ketepatan berbicara siswa.This research aimed to find out wheter consciousness-raising strategy could improve the students speaking accuracy consciousness and performance or not. The research used one group pre test-post test design. 26 students of English department at Lampung University became the sample. The researcher used questionnaire and speaking test. The reliability of the questionnaire was 0.936. The reliability of the pre-test was 0.759 and the reliability of the post-test was 0.799. The data were analyzed statistically by using Paired Sample T -test. For the students speaking accuracy consciousness, the T-value (6.074) is higher than the T-table (2.060) with alpha level 0.000 or lower than 0.05 (? ? 0.05). For the students speaking accuracy performance, the T-value (26.820) is higher than the T-table (2.060) with alpha level 0.000 or lower than 0.05 (? ? 0.05). The findings indicate that consciousness- raising strategy can be a solution to improve the students speaking accuracy.Keywords: consciousness-raising, speaking accuracy, strategy

SCREEN: Learning a Flat Syntactic and Semantic Spoken Language Analysis Using Artificial Neural Networks

In this paper, we describe a so-called screening approach for learning robust processing of spontaneously spoken language. A screening approach is a flat analysis which uses shallow sequences of category representations for analyzing an utterance at various syntactic, semantic and dialog levels. Rather than using a deeply structured symbolic analysis, we use a flat connectionist analysis. This screening approach aims at supporting speech and language processing by using (1) data-driven learning and (2) robustness of connectionist networks. In order to test this approach, we have developed the SCREEN system which is based on this new robust, learned and flat analysis. In this paper, we focus on a detailed description of SCREEN's architecture, the flat syntactic and semantic analysis, the interaction with a speech recognizer, and a detailed evaluation analysis of the robustness under the influence of noisy or incomplete input. The main result of this paper is that flat representations allow more robust processing of spontaneous spoken language than deeply structured representations. In particular, we show how the fault-tolerance and learning capability of connectionist networks can support a flat analysis for providing more robust spoken-language processing within an overall hybrid symbolic/connectionist framework.Comment: 51 pages, Postscript. To be published in Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 6(1), 199

Scrutinizing the effects of the 4/3/2 activity: repetition, increasing time pressure, accuracy enhancement and cognitive individual differences

A number of scholars have examined the pedagogical potential and theoretical relevance of adding time pressure to task repetition (i.e., the 4/3/2 activity). However, such fluency enhancement can impact on fluency but not necessarily accuracy aspects of L2 speech (e.g., Thai & Boers, 2016). To help L2 learners improve both fluency and accuracy, the present study examined the effects of task repetition, fluency enhancement and accuracy enhancement on the development of L2 fluency and accuracy. Furthermore, the study explored the extent to which such gains could be ascribed to learners’ cognitive individual differences, operationalized as four different constructs of foreign language aptitude: (a) associative memory, (b) phonemic coding, (c) language analytic ability and (d) sound sequence recognition. A total of 48 university-level students participated in three 20-minute dyadic sessions. They were randomly divided into four groups: (a) Control; (b) fluency enhancement (FE); (c) accuracy enhancement (AE) and (d) fluency enhancement + accuracy enhancement (FE+AE). Whereas those in the FE and FE+AE groups repeated a monologue task with increasing time pressure (4 → 3 → 2 minutes), those in the AE and FE+AE groups received corrective feedback from the researcher (i.e., accuracy enhancement). After the end of the treatment, all the participants took the LLAMA test (Meara, 2005). According to the results of statistical analyses, those who engaged in both FE and AE attained significantly more fluent and accurate L2 speech after the treatment at a broad level. However, when AE is introduced to elicit L2 learners’ focus on form, certain aspects of their fluency and accuracy development, especially those related to linguistic encoding (reduction in pauses between clauses and regular past tense forms), remain unchanged. Finally, the results of the language aptitude test scores suggest the complex relationship between cognitive individual differences, task conditions and L2 fluency and accuracy development