Enseñanza de la post-escritura centrada en la forma en los procesos de las clases de composición escrita orientadas hacia el género: Efectos en la precisión de la escritura de los estudiantes de segunda lengua

Recent findings have provided growing evidence in support of process-genre-oriented writing pedagogy. However, these types of approaches tended to place form-focused instruction (FFI) in the background, particularly the explicit teaching of grammar (i.e., isolated FFI). As such, limited improvement in writing accuracy was reported by recent studies. It is, therefore, important to look into how isolated FFI might further improve this aspect of writing within process-genre-oriented writing classrooms. Thus, the current study investigates the effects of post-writing isolated FFI (post-FFI) on second language (L2) writing accuracy within this writing environment. Using mixed methods quasi-experimental design, the findings show that post-FFI benefits students as it improved their overall writing accuracy, particularly errors that impede meaning (levels 2 and 3 errors). This improvement was attributed to noticing, contextualised learning of forms, and students’ psycholinguistic readiness as supported by students’ qualitative responses. Nonetheless, some challenges were also reported by students regarding the intervention. Implications for L2 writing pedagogy and future research are discussed.Recientes hallazgos han proporcionado una creciente evidencia en apoyo de la pedagogía de la escritura procesual orientada al género. Sin embargo, estos tipos de enfoques tienden a colocar la instrucción centrada en la forma (FFI) en un segundo plano, en particular la enseñanza explícita de la gramática (es decir, FFI aislado). Por ello, los estudios recientes informan de una mejora limitada en la precisión de la escritura. Por lo tanto, es importante investigar cómo la FFI aislada podría mejorar aún más este aspecto de la escritura dentro de las aulas de escritura como proceso orientadas al género. El presente estudio investiga los efectos del FFI aislado en la post-escritura (post-FFI) en la precisión de la escritura de la segunda lengua (L2) dentro de este entorno de escritura. Utilizando un diseño cuasi-experimental de métodos mixtos, los resultados muestran que el post-FFI beneficia a los estudiantes, ya que mejora su precisión general en la escritura, particularmente los errores que impiden el significado (errores de nivel 2 y 3). Esta mejora se atribuyó a la atención, al aprendizaje contextualizado de las formas y a la preparación psicolingüística de los estudiantes, tal y como se desprende de sus respuestas cualitativas.&nbsp

Percepção dos tons em Mandarim por falantes nativos do Português Europeu

O presente estudo visa investigar a percepção dos tons do Chinês Mandarim por falantes nativos do Português, determinar os fatores que condicionam a percepção dos tons, nomeadamente a natureza dos contrastes tonais (tipo de tom), a posição do tom (ordem) e a natureza do segmento em que o tom ocorre, e explorar a interação entre variação segmental e variação tonal na percepção dos tons. Para atingir esse objectivo, foi realizada uma tarefa de percepção em que os participantes avaliaram o grau de semelhança/diferença perceptiva dos contrastes tonais e segmentais. Os resultados mostraram que os falantes nativos do Português consideram que os pares que partilham características fonéticas parecidas, como é o caso dos pares T1T2 e T4T2, são mais difíceis de discriminar do que os restantes pares de tons. É possível que os falantes recorram mais à altura de F0 na discriminação dos tons, dado os pares com onset e offset semelhantes (e.g, T1T2, T2T1, T4T2 e T1T4) serem mais difíceis de discriminar. A posição do tom revelou-se um fator não significativo. Já quanto à presença de contraste segmental e contraste tonal, os resultados confirmaram que os participantes são mais sensíveis ao contraste segmental que ao contraste tonal. Para além disso, o efeito do tom também foi significativo, pois pares com segmentos diferentes e tons diferentes, ou segmentos iguais e tons diferentes, foram percepcionados como sendo mais diferentes que, respectivamente, pares com segmentos diferentes e tons iguais ou pares com segmentos iguais e tons iguais. Por outras palavras, os falantes do Português não são “tone deaf”. Diferenças verificadas quanto ao tempo de reação nas condições tom igual e tom diferente apontam no mesmo sentido. Foi observado ainda que os falantes nativos de Português têm mais dificuldades na discriminação de tons quando a vogal é ‘A’ do que com a vogal é ‘I’. Esse resultado não era esperado e poderá dever-se ao facto de a produção de ‘I’ com os vários tons ser mais estável do que ‘A’ em Mandarim.The present study aims to investigate the perception of Mandarin tones by Portuguese native speakers, establish the factors that affect tone perception, namely the type of tone contrast, tone order, and the type of segment that bears the tone, as well as explore the interaction between segment variation and tone variation in tone perception. To this end, a perception task was performed in which participants were asked to assess the degree of similarity/difference of tone and segment contrasts. The results have shown that tone pairs sharing similar phonetic properties, like T1T2 and T4T2, are the most difficult to discriminate. This suggests that listeners use F0 height as the main perceptual cue, since pairs with similar F0 onset and offset (e.g., T1T2, T2T1, T4T2 and T1T4) are considered more similar than the others. Tone order was found not to be a significant factor for tone perception. By contrast, the difference between segmental and tonal contrasts was relevant. Listeners were more sensitive to the former than the latter. In addition, there was a main effect of tone, with better discrimination of pairs with a tonal contrast than without, other things being equal. This shows that Portuguese native speakers are not “tone deaf”. Differences in reaction time between the same and different tone conditions further support this finding. It was also found that native speakers of Portuguese have more difficulties in discriminating tone pairs with the vowel 'A' than with the vowel 'I'. This result was not expected. A possible explanation is that the production of the vowel ‘I’ with the various tones is more stable than the vowel ‘A’, in Mandarin

Application of Educational Psychology Based on Improved SPBO Optimization Algorithm in English Learning

It is an inevitable process of current social development to apply the motivational theory of educational psychology in the field of English teaching. The current method is to start with the introduction of new language teaching projects by teachers, and then use excellent training to make students master the knowledge they have learned. The flaw is that such teaching is simplistic in the present. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes an improved SPOB optimization algorithm, aiming to study the application of motivation theory in educational psychology to current English teaching. By using the formula definition for the excellent and poor students in the improved SPBO optimization algorithm and the criterion function in the cluster analysis, the application process of motivational design model in oral English teaching is explored through the application of SPBO algorithm. And through the investigation and analysis of the experimental process of the application of incentive design model in oral English teaching, the results showed that 77.2% of teachers chose interest incentives, 34.8% of teachers chose cooperation-competition incentives, and 32.6% of teachers chose emotional incentives

Permanent Deformation Characteristics of Coarse Grained Subgrade Soils under Train-Induced Repeated Load

This paper presents the results of a laboratory experiment that aimed to characterize the permanent deformation behavior of coarse grained soils. To evaluate the effects of the cyclic stress amplitude, initial mean stress, and initial stress ratio on the permanent axial deformation, six series of repeated load triaxial tests were performed. The results indicate that permanent deformation of coarse grained soils increased with increasing cyclic stress amplitude. In particular, for relative low cyclic stress levels, accumulation rate of permanent deformation decreased progressively with number of cycles and eventually reached an equilibrium state. The initial stress ratio was also found to obviously facilitate the buildup of axial deformation since it means higher deviatoric stress as the mean pressure kept constant. As the initial stress ratio was less than the slope of static failure line, the experimental results indicated that the increase of initial mean stress enhanced the capability of resisting deformation. A simplified mechanistic empirical prediction model was proposed, which predicted the permanent deformation as product of four independent functions about cyclic stress amplitude, initial mean stress, initial stress ratio, and number of load cycles. Satisfactory predictions of the permanent deformation behavior of coarse grained soils were obtained with the proposed model