Learner autonomy and awareness through distance collaborative group work in English for Academic Purposes

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40956-6_13Learner autonomy is considered to be both an important skill and attitude of learners, which involves responsibility for and control of the learning process. A key notion in autonomy is interdependence, developed through collaboration and which results in heightened awareness. Precisely, this concept lies at the core of technology applications, which facilitate interaction and collaboration at a distance. With a growing number of online ESP situations, more attention needs to be paid to virtual classrooms and the development of learner autonomy through collaboration. In the context of a distance EAP course, this chapter examines how students carry out a collaborative language awareness task, considering that peer interaction can be an appropriate setting to develop language awareness, whether in face-to-face or online situations. Based on the framework of 'community of inquiry' (Garrison et al. 2000), this study looks at how group members interact through forum posts and wiki edits, showing how students initiate, manage and carry out the task, together with the social, cognitive, and meta-cognitive processes that are generated. Given the nature of the task, creating a language learning activity, special attention is paid to students’ focus on and discussion of topics related to language and learning. From these observations we can derive implications for online language teaching and materials design.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Computerized cognitive training for improving cochlear-implanted children's working memory and language skills

Abstract Sensory deprivation, including hearing loss, can affect different aspects of a person’s life. Studies on children with hearing impairment have shown that such patients, especially those with cochlear implants (CIs), suffer from cognitive impairments, such as working memory problems and poor language skills. The present study aimed to examine the efficacy of cognitive computer training in improving working memory and language skills in children with a CI.This research was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. Fifty-one children with a CI aged 6-12 years were recruited through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to the control and treatment groups. The Wechsler Working Memory Subtest and the Test of Language Development (TOLD) were used to evaluate children’s working memory and language skills pre- and post-treatment. The treatment group attended twenty 50-60-minute cognitive computer training sessions three times a week.Sina-Working Memory Training was used to provide the treatment group with working memory training, whereas no intervention was provided to the control group. Univariate and multivariate analysesof covariance were used to analyze data.The results demonstrated the efficacy of cognitive computer training in improving the performance of cochlear-implanted children’s working memory (auditory and visual-spatial) (P < 0.01). The results also pointed to improved performance in sentence imitation (P < 0.01), word discrimination (P < 0.01), and phonemic analysissubtests (P < 0.01).Overall, the findings indicated that cognitive computer training might improve working memory and language skills for children with CI. Therefore, the development and execution of such programs for children with CIs seem to improve their cognitive functions, such as working memory and language skills

Using Moodle as a Digital Educational Tool to Improve Undergraduate students' English Language Cognitive Performance and Proficiency

The current global educational predicament is under challenging circumstances due to the impact of COVID-19 that drastically affected the academic performances of all those involved in handling and sharing knowledge. To mitigate the pandemic's negative impact, stakeholders at educational institutions are looking for ways to use digital tools to reduce learning loss. The researcher conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate the impact of Moodle interactive language learning activities on learners' language skills and cognitive performance. The study included sixty-six undergraduate students. He used an independent t-test to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in undergraduate learners' language skill development and cognitive performances between the empirical class and control class in the pre and post-experiment. The analysis revealed considerable discrepancies in the empirical class's language skill development and cognitive performance. The results demonstrated statistically considerable differences in learners’ performances in post-test between the empirical and control class in favor of the empirical. Based on the findings of the study, the researchers recommends the employment of mixed approach of teaching. Instructors are required to use digital tools side by side with the conventional pedagogies of handling English language classes

Evidence for Shared Cognitive Processing of Pitch in Music and Language

Language and music epitomize the complex representational and computational capacities of the human mind. Strikingly similar in their structural and expressive features, a longstanding question is whether the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms underlying these abilities are shared or distinct – either from each other or from other mental processes. One prominent feature shared between language and music is signal encoding using pitch, conveying pragmatics and semantics in language and melody in music. We investigated how pitch processing is shared between language and music by measuring consistency in individual differences in pitch perception across language, music, and three control conditions intended to assess basic sensory and domain-general cognitive processes. Individuals’ pitch perception abilities in language and music were most strongly related, even after accounting for performance in all control conditions. These results provide behavioral evidence, based on patterns of individual differences, that is consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive mechanisms for pitch processing may be shared between language and music.National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship ProgramEunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Grant 5K99HD057522

The relationship between second language acquisition and non-verbal cognitive abilities

We monitored the progress of 40 children when they first started to acquire a second language (L2) implicitly through immersion. Employing a longitudinal design, we tested them before they had any notions of an L2 (Time 0) and after 1 school year of L2 exposure (Time 1) to determine whether cognitive abilities can predict the success of L2 learning. Task administration included measures of intelligence, cognitive control, and language skills. Initial scores on measures of inhibitory control seemed predictive of L2 Dutch vocabulary acquisition. At the same time, progress on IQ, inhibitory control, attentional shifting, and working memory were also identified as contributing factors, suggesting a more intricate relationship between cognitive abilities and L2 learning than previously assumed. Furthermore, L1 development was mainly predicted by performance on inhibitory control and working memory

Facilitating Emotional Self-Regulation in Preschool Children: Efficacy of the Early HeartSmarts Program in Promoting Social, Emotional and Cognitive Development

Developed by the Institute of HeartMath (IHM), the Early HeartSmarts (EHS) program is designed to train teachers to guide and support young children (3 -- 6 years old) in learning emotional self-regulation and key age-appropriate socioemotional competencies, with the goal of facilitating their emotional, social and cognitive development. This work reports the results of an evaluation study conducted to assess the efficacy of the EHS program in a pilot implementation of the program carried out during the 2006 -- 2007 academic year in schools of the Salt Lake City School District. The study was conducted using a quasi-experimental longitudinal field research design with three measurement moments (baseline and pre- and post-intervention panels) using The Creative Curriculum Assessment (TCCA) instrument, a teacher-scored, 50-item instrument measuring student growth in four areas of development -- social/emotional, physical, cognitive and language development. Children in nineteen preschool classrooms were divided into intervention and control group samples (N = 66 and 309, respectively; mean age = 3.6 years), in which classes in the former were specifically selected to target children of lower socioeconomic and ethnic minority family backgrounds. Overall, there is compelling evidence of the efficacy of the EHS program in increasing total psychosocial development and each of the four development areas measured by the TCCA: the results of a series of ANCOVAs found a strong, consistent pattern of significant differences on the development measures favoring preschool children who received the EHS program over those in the control group who did not

Exploring the Relationship Between Early Childhood Attentional Control and Language Ability

Relatively few studies have investigated the relationship between early childhood attentional control and later cognitive outcomes, especially language development. The current study is an investigation of the relationship between the executive functioning (EF) component of attentional control and language ability in the second year of life. More specifically, the predictive nature of two aspects of attentional control, attentional focus and resistance to distraction, was be the primary focus of the proposed study. Although it was expected that children both high in attentional focus and resistance to distraction would have significantly superior language development than infants with lower attentional capacities, analyses indicated associations between the postural deviation component of resistance to distraction and language. Attentional focus was also related to infant language ability. Avenues for future research regarding early childhood attentional control, resistance to distraction, and language ability are discussed

Classroom climate and teacher questioning strategies : relationship to student cognitive development

The purpose of this research was to determine if classroom climate and teacher questioning strategies have an influence on level of student cognitive development. The three null hypotheses stated that no statistically significant differences existed between classroom climate and level of student cognitive development; between teacher questioning strategies and level of student cognitive development; and between the combination of classroom climate and teacher questioning strategies and level of student cognitive development. Thirty students, randomly selected from eight seventh and eighth grade language arts classrooms, comprised the sample. The Classroom Climate and Questioning Strategies observation instrument was used to cluster the teachers on the basis of observed frequency of climate and questioning practices. A student cognitive test was administered individually to the 15 students in the experimental group and the 15 students in the control group as a pre- and post-treatment measure of level of student cognitive development

The Role of Cognitive Control in Understanding Speech in Noise

Purpose: During speech perception, lexical candidates compete for word recognition. Incorrect candidates are briefly activated and then become suppressed. An aspect of word recognition is the ability to suppress these incorrect candidates especially in noisy environments. Previous work examining lexical inhibition and domain-general cognitive control found no correlation, suggesting cognitive control was not involved in spoken word recognition. Few studies have examined individual characteristics that impact a listener’s ability to process speech in noise. This study aims to understand the role cognitive control when speech is presented in noise. Methods: We utilized the visual world paradigm (VWP) to measure lexical competition over the time course of word recognition. In the VWP, listeners heard words and clicked on the referent from a screen containing targets, cohorts, rhymes, and unrelated items, while eye-movements are monitored as a measure of lexical competition. Two classic cognitive controls tasks, the Flanker and Simon, were used to measure inhibition, a domain general cognitive mechanism. An experimental task, Temporal Flanker, was used because it simulates how speech unfolding over time. Results: In the noise condition, listeners waited around 400 ms after the onset of the word to launch eye-movements. They showed slower and reduced activation of the target and increased competition. A significant interaction between Temporal Flanker score and timing of target fixations suggests that individuals who were better at the Temporal Flanker task were quicker to activate the target. Discussion: The study showed a link between spoken word recognition and cognitive control. It has been well documented that the development of cognitive control is slow in childhood. This could have potential implications for children with Developmental Language Disorder or who use a cochlear implant. The development of cognitive control may be a potential avenue for intervention for language and hearing disorders