Metaphoric competence and communicative language ability

Recent developments in cognitive linguistics have highlighted the importance as well as the ubiquity of metaphor in language. Despite this, the ability of second language learners to use metaphors is often still not seen as a core ability. In this paper, we take a model of communicative competence that has been widely influential in both language teaching and language testing, namely Bachman (1990), and argue, giving a range of examples of language use and learner difficulty, that metaphoric competence has in fact an important role to play in all areas of communicative competence. In other words, it can contribute centrally to grammatical competence, textual competence, illocutionary competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Metaphor is thus highly relevant to second language learning, teaching and testing, from the earliest to the most advanced stages of learning

Perception and Acquisition of Natural Authentic English Speech for Chinese Learners Using DIT\u27s Speech Technologies

Given that Chinese language learners are greatly influenced by their mother-tongue, which is a tone language rather than an intonation language, learning and coping with authentic English speech seems more difficult than for learners of other languages. The focus of the current research is, on the basis of analysis of the nature of spoken English and spoken Chinese, to help Chinese learners derive benefit from ICT technologies developed by the Technological University Dublin (DIT). The thesis concentrates on investigating the application of speech technologies in bridging the gap between students’ internalised, idealised formulations and natural, authentic English speech. Part of the testing carried out by the present author demonstrates the acceptability of a slow-down algorithm in facilitating Chinese learners of English in re-producing formulaic language. This algorithm is useful because it can slow down audio files to any desired speed between 100% and 40% without distortion, so as to allow language learners to pay attention to the real, rapid flow of ‘messy’ speech and follow the intonation patterns contained in them. The rationale for and the application of natural, dialogic native-to-native English speech to language learning is also explored. The Chinese language learners involved in this study are exposed to authentic, native speech patterns by providing them access to real, informal dialogue in various contexts. In the course of this analysis, the influence of speed of delivery and pitch range on the categorisation of formulaic language is also investigated. The study investigates the potential of the speech tools available to the present author as an effective EFL learning facility, especially for speakers of tone languages, and their role in helping language learners achieve confluent interaction in an English L1 environment

Teaching in real time : a pedagogical analysis of the dynamic structuring of interactive subject matter discourse in the classrooms of student teachers on teaching practice

It would be difficult to overstate the complexity of the task a student teacher undertakes when she assumes responsibility for teaching her subject to a class during teaching practice. Vet, while issues surrounding teaching practice - such as the attitudes of trainees and their socialization - have frequently been studied (Zeichner, 1986a; Wragg,1982; Al-Hidabi, 1986), it is only recently that the actual classroom teaching of student teachers has attracted much sustained research attention (see, for example, Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1986a, b, c; Leinhardt & Greeno, 1986; Bork & Livingstone, 1989). Consequently, little is known in detail about what students do, moment by moment, while engaging in the key practical component of their professional training. Considering that teaching practice - variously called the practicum, field experience, professional experience, teaching rounds, and so on - plays an essential part in all schemes of training (Collins, 1982), that training institutions in general have tended to increase the proportion of time devoted to school experience (Furlong, et al., 1988) and that students have frequently been found to view the practicum as the most valuable aspect of their course (Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Turney et al., 1985), the fact that the teaching of student teachers has been so little studied appears somewhat anomalous. This situation contrasts markedly with what is known about leaching in general from studies of experienced teachers. Research into the cognitive aspects of pedagogy has revealed something of the manifold complexities inherent in teaching. Thus the teacher may be viewed as a reflective professional who demonstrates 'knowledge-in- action' (Schon, 1983). Similar conceptions underlie perspectives which focus variously upon 'teacher decision making (Calderhead, 1980), 'teacher's craft knowledge' (McNamara & Desforges, 1978; Desforges & MacNamara,1979), or 'the knowledge base for teaching' (Shulman, 1986a, 1967). Drawing from such overlapping viewpoints, a composite picture of teaching emerges. Interacting with, say, thirty disparate individuals, who comprise the pupils in her care, the teacher engages in activities designed to illuminate her subject (Shulman, 1990). Her action is based on rapid and intricate discriminations among a multiplicity of overlapping events which often pass with bewildering speed (Doyle, 1986). She must simultaneously manage both the social order in the classroom and the development of academic work, and, where there is conflict between these twin goals, the former concern often seems to be accorded priority (Carter & Doyle, 1987). Thus the teacher's action seems designed to ensure that orderly states of activity are initiated and sustained (Brown & McIntyre,1989). An additional aspect of the teacher's action, which pervades the classroom, is the way she improvises pedagogical language, in an interactive setting, in an attempt to disclose subject matter knowledge (Erickson, 1982). The teacher also possesses an awareness of the differential abilities of pupils in the class and seeks to involve them in appropriate ways (Calderhead, 1980). Yet all her pedagogical action may be orchestrated into a seamless performance of such skill that its intricacy can easily be overlooked by an observer (McNamara, 1980). Thus it would appear that if teaching practice is conceived as an opportunity for learning through attempting to emulate what experienced teachers do, the student faces a central difficulty: much of the professional activity teachers engage in is not directly observable (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1986a, b, c). The student teacher may view the overt actions of a co-operating teacher, but she is not privy to the professional discriminations which inform these actions. Nor have teachers, in common with other professionals, been found to be naturally able to be explicit about their expertise in this regard (Berliner, 1986; McIntyre et el., 1988). And the student suffers still other disadvantages. Salient among these is the fact that she has to teach pupils she is barely acquainted with. Thus she does not possess the knowledge of the class, built up over many dozens of hours of interaction, that the co-operating teacher has, and so is likely to be hesitant in interpreting pupil behaviour. Nor does she have the store of knowledge, built up from years of exposure to other pupils and classes, that the experienced teacher may fall back on when she encounters a new class (Wragg & Wood, 1984). Similarly, while she may be enthused by her subject, she does not have the pedagogical knowledge of the subject matter that the experienced teacher will have accumulated (Shulman,1987). For instance, she is unlikely to know accurately what may be expected of pupils of different ages and abilities. Nor will she be keenly aware of the common misunderstandings that may need to be guarded against when she introduces pupils to a particular topic. Neither will she possess a store of useful analogies for explaining certain concepts, and so on (see, Shulman, 1986a, 1990; Wilson, et al. 1986)

A Transformer-Based Model With Self-Distillation for Multimodal Emotion Recognition in Conversations

Emotion recognition in conversations (ERC), the task of recognizing the emotion of each utterance in a conversation, is crucial for building empathetic machines. Existing studies focus mainly on capturing context- and speaker-sensitive dependencies on the textual modality but ignore the significance of multimodal information. Different from emotion recognition in textual conversations, capturing intra- and inter-modal interactions between utterances, learning weights between different modalities, and enhancing modal representations play important roles in multimodal ERC. In this paper, we propose a transformer-based model with self-distillation (SDT) for the task. The transformer-based model captures intra- and inter-modal interactions by utilizing intra- and inter-modal transformers, and learns weights between modalities dynamically by designing a hierarchical gated fusion strategy. Furthermore, to learn more expressive modal representations, we treat soft labels of the proposed model as extra training supervision. Specifically, we introduce self-distillation to transfer knowledge of hard and soft labels from the proposed model to each modality. Experiments on IEMOCAP and MELD datasets demonstrate that SDT outperforms previous state-of-the-art baselines.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Multimedia (TMM

Formando las contribuciones del aprendiente en el aula de idioma extranjero: Una perspectiva desde el análisis de conversación

Indexación: Scopus.The present study sought to demonstrate the importance that the shaping of learner contributions has in the provision of opportunities for participation and learning in the EFL classroom. A particular set of interactional features that can shape learners' utterances were examined: scaffolding, requests for clarification and confirmation checks. These features have been found to promote language participation and learning from a classroom discourse perspective (Walsh, 2002; Walsh and Li, 2013; Can Daskin, 2014). The study was also informed by the sociocultural concept of learning as a social affair that is achieved through participation (Lantolf, 2000; Donate, 2000; Mondada & Pekarek, 2004). A Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology was used to analyse two extracts collected in EFL classrooms at a language institute in Santiago, Chile. Findings suggested that when teachers shape their learners' contributions by means of scaffolding, clarification requests and confirmation checks in a pedagogical environment that promotes conversation, participation and learning will likely be enhanced. © University of Chile. All rights reserved.El presente estudio intentó demostrar la importancia que la forma de las contribuciones lingüísticas tiene en la provisión de oportunidades de participación y en el aprendizaje en el aula. Se examinó un conjunto particular de características interaccionales que pueden dar forma a los enunciados de los alumnos: andamiaje lingüístico, solicitudes de aclaración y comprobaciones de confirmación. Se ha demostrado que estos rasgos interaccionales promueven la participación y el aprendizaje desde una perspectiva de discurso en el aula (Walsh, 2002; Walsh y Li, 2013; Can Daşkın, 2014). El estudio utilizó el concepto sociocultural del aprendizaje como un logro social conseguido a través de la participación (Lantolf, 2000; Donato, 2000; Mondada & Pekarek, 2004). Se utilizó una metodología de Análisis de Conversación (CA) para examinar dos extractos recogidos en aulas de inglés como lengua extranjera en un instituto de idiomas en Santiago de Chile. El análisis sugirió que si los profesores forman las contribuciones de sus alumnos adecuadamente y en un ambiente pedagógico que busque desarrollar fluidez, la participación y el aprendizaje serán facilitados.https://lenguasmodernas.uchile.cl/index.php/LM/article/view/4922