scholarly journals Quality of L2 Input and Cognitive Skills Predict L2 Grammar Comprehension in Instructed SLA Independently

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 124
Author(s):  
Kristin Kersten ◽  
Christina Schelletter ◽  
Ann-Christin Bruhn ◽  
Katharina Ponto

Input is considered one of the most important factors in the acquisition of lexical and grammatical skills. Input has been found to interact with other factors, such as learner cognitive skills and the circumstances where language is heard. Language learning itself has sometimes been found to enhance cognitive skills. Indeed, intensive contact with another language has been found to sometimes boost cognitive skills, even in intensive instructed settings, such as immersion programs (bilingual advantage hypothesis). In this paper, we report a cross-sectional study to assess grammar learning of 79 fourth grade German students learning L2 English in two immersion schools. Verbal teacher input was assessed using the Teacher Input Observation Scheme (TIOS, Items 14–25), and the learners’ L2 grammar comprehension was tested with the ELIAS Grammar Test II. Cognitive skills, including phonological awareness, working memory, and non-verbal intelligence, were determined using standardized assessment procedures. The results show that verbal input quantity and quality correlated significantly with the learners’ L2 grammar comprehension. None of the cognitive skills moderated the effect of input on grammar comprehension but all predicted it independently. The combination of L2 input and phonological awareness was found to be the most robust predictor of L2 grammar comprehension.

Author(s):  
Claire Goriot ◽  
Sharon Unsworth ◽  
Roeland van Hout ◽  
Mirjam Broersma ◽  
James M. McQueen

Abstract Children who have knowledge of two languages may show better phonological awareness than their monolingual peers (e.g. Bruck & Genesee, 1995). It remains unclear how much bilingual experience is needed for such advantages to appear, and whether differences in language or cognitive skills alter the relation between bilingualism and phonological awareness. These questions were investigated in this cross-sectional study. Participants (n = 294; 4–7 year-olds, in the first three grades of primary school) were Dutch-speaking pupils attending mainstream monolingual Dutch primary schools or early-English schools providing English lessons from grade 1, and simultaneous Dutch-English bilinguals. We investigated phonological awareness (rhyming, phoneme blending, onset phoneme identification, and phoneme deletion) and its relation to age, Dutch vocabulary, English vocabulary, working memory and short-term memory, and the balance between Dutch and English vocabulary. Small significant (α < .05) effects of bilingualism were found on onset phoneme identification and phoneme deletion, but post-hoc comparisons revealed no robust pairwise differences between the groups. Furthermore, effects of bilingualism sometimes disappeared when differences in language or memory skills were taken into account. Learning two languages simultaneously is not beneficial to – and importantly, also not detrimental to – phonological awareness.


2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derrin Pinto

This cross-sectional study in interlanguage pragmatics analyzes the requests employed by English-speaking learners of L2 Spanish, using data collected from university students at four different levels of language learning. The most common request strategies are first identified in a cross-linguistic analysis of Spanish and English and are then compared to the interlanguage data. The requests of lower-level students are found to be more idiosyncratic and pragmatically ambiguous than those of advanced learners, although not necessarily more direct. Advanced learners show signs of improvement, but still rely largely on L1 request behavior. Learners at all levels display more difficulties in areas in which there is cross-linguistic variation between the L1 and L2.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135910532092230
Author(s):  
Sonya Meyer ◽  
Sara Rosenblum

A strict gluten-free diet is the only treatment for celiac disease, and it is especially challenging among adolescents. Participation in food-related activities and self-managing the chronic health condition involve use of cognitive skills. This cross-sectional study examined how executive functions might be associated with participation in food-related activities. Adolescents aged 12–18 years ( N = 65; Mage = 14.67) with celiac were interviewed about participation, and their parents completed an executive function questionnaire. Poorer participation significantly correlated with poorer executive abilities. Identifying executive function profiles may contribute to understanding and advancing resourceful daily functioning and participation in daily food-related activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tengku Mohd Azizuddin Tuan Mahmood ◽  
Abdullah Al Mamun ◽  
Mohamed Dahlan Ibrahim

Purpose This study intended to determine the effect of selected entrepreneurial traits on the attitude of Asnaf Millennials in Malaysia towards entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This is a cross-sectional study that collected the quantitative data via structured interviews from 310 randomly selected Asnaf Millennials from Kelantan, Malaysia. Findings The findings confirmed the positive and statistically significant effect of innovativeness, internal locus of control, need for achievement and proactive personality on the attitude of Asnaf Millennials on entrepreneurship. Originality/value This study focussed on the development of non-cognitive skills for individual characteristics regarding entrepreneurship for the benefit of development practitioners and policymakers. The government and development organisations should focus on developing entrepreneurial traits that are expected to improve the attitude towards entrepreneurship and increase the entrepreneurial activities in Malaysia. This initiative can improve the socio-economic condition of Asnaf Millennials with low income.


2016 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-298
Author(s):  
Yolanda Peñaloza-López ◽  
Aline Herrera-Rangel ◽  
Santiago J. Pérez-Ruiz ◽  
Adrián Poblano

ABSTRACT Objective Dyslexia is the difficulty of children in learning to read and write as results of neurological deficiencies. The objective was to test the Phonological awareness (PA) and Sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM) threshold in children with Phonological dyslexia (PD). Methods We performed a case-control, analytic, cross sectional study. We studied 14 children with PD and 14 control children from 7 to 11 years of age, by means of PA measurement and by SAM test. The mean age of dyslexic children was 8.39 years and in the control group was 8.15. Results Children with PD exhibited inadequate skills in PA, and SAM. We found significant correlations between PA and SAM at 4 Hertz frequency, and calculated regression equations that predicts between one-fourth and one-third of variance of measurements. Conclusion Alterations in PA and SAM found can help to explain basis of deficient language processing exhibited by children with PD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 321-335
Author(s):  
Sale Maikanti ◽  
Jurgen Martin Burkhardt ◽  
Mei Fung Yong ◽  
Salina Binti Husain ◽  
Olúwadọrọ̀ Jacob Oludare

Pronunciation in second language learning is sometimes challenging, especially the vowels. Vowels such as [i] and [a] are found both in Hausa and Yorùbá but [i:] and [a:] are peculiar to Hausa alone. While Hausa has short and long vowels, Yorùbá has only oral and nasal vowels in their vowel inventories. Such phonemic differences constitute learning challenges, especially for the Yorùbá native speakers. This is a cross-sectional study design using mixed methods to examines the production of high front vowels: [i], and [i:], as well as low: [a], and [a:] Hausa vowels by the Yorùbá speakers to identify which group perform better between group 1 (Yorùbá native speakers who learned Hausa in the secondary school before going to the college of education), and group 2 (Yorùbá native speakers who learned Hausa informally before going to the college of education). The study also seeks to find out vowel substitutions that occur in the pronunciation tasks using 80 participants from 18 years old and above from the College of Education system in Nigeria who were selected based on purposive sampling. The findings were discussed in line with Flege & Bohn’s (2020) ‘Revised Speech Learning Model’. 8 stimuli were audio-recorded, transcribed, and rated by two independent raters, in addition to participant observation techniques adapted. The results of the Mann-Whitney test revealed that group 2 performed better than group 1. The study discovered also that the short [a] in the first and second syllables had the highest frequency of substitution compared to [i], [i:] and [a:] vowels. Such problems have pedagogical implications for learning Hausa as a second language.


Author(s):  
Farida Mahmoud Hassona

ABSTRACT This study aimed to assess the laboratory class engagement level among nursing students in a four dimensions (that is, engagement activities, cognitive skills, other educational practices, and class atmosphere) and its difference with the demographic profile of the students. This research employed a comparative-cross sectional study design. The research was conducted in the College of Nursing, University of Hail in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the academic year 2018-2019. There were 136 nursing students that participated in this study because of the convenience sampling. This study was conducted from January to February 2019. The participants have a high level of engagement activities (2.65), cognitive skills (3.07), other educational practices (2.92), and classroom atmosphere (2.72). There is no significant relation between laboratory class engagements with age (p>0.054), academic year (p>0.382), previous education (p>0.895), gender (p>0.297), and reason for enrolment (p>0.313). Nursing students who enrolled in the fundamental of nursing practical course were highly engaged. The age, academic year, previous education, gender and reason for enrolment were not significant to the students’ engagement. The nursing educator played a major role for the students to reach their highest achievement in the attainment of their goal to meet the expectation of every nursing school towards mission vision.


Author(s):  
Maja Stanojević Gocić ◽  
Anita Jankovic

Learner autonomy is a concept developed to reiterate the need for life-long learning that goes beyond the prescribed curriculum and institutional settings. In addition, learner-centered approach shifts the burden of responsibility from teachers to learners, as learners are now obliged to take charge of their learning. In that respect, students at the tertiary level of education are expected to know how to learn, inclusive of what to learn and where to learn. In other words, they should be trained to organize their own learning, control and monitor their progress, and evaluate the results, whereas the current educational settings should be given the task to contribute to the development of learner autonomy that paves the way for life-long education. The participants in the research are EFL students from the department of English Language and Literature at Faculty of Philosophy, University of Priština in Kosovska Mitrovica, and ESP students from the Academy of Technical and Pre-School Vocational Studies Niš, Department Vranje. A Learner Autonomy Questionnaire developed by Zhang and Li (2004) was administered to measure students’ learner autonomy level. The aim of the paper is not only to outline the significance of taking control of one’s learning, but also to use certain tools in the EFL classroom that contribute to the process of building learner autonomy, as its pedagogical implication, including language learning strategies, project-based tasks, reflective journals, etc.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Tomoko Osera ◽  
Setsuko Tsutie ◽  
Misako Kobayashi ◽  
Nobutaka Kurihara

Our previous study suggested that children’s food preferences were related to their concern about food and respect for food. In general, concern and respect were sorts of non-cognitive skills, which are useful for future life if acquired during childhood. The aim of this study was to make clear how concern about food and respect for food were related to their food habits and life style. We investigated the relationship between children’s non-cognitive skills and their food habits in a cross-sectional study. From 2007 to 2016, 2,408 Japanese kindergarten children aged 3 to 5 years were included in the study. The distribution was categorized into two patterns of their non-cognitive skills based on whether a particular the guardians answered children’s non-cognitive skills, concern about food and respect for food. The high and low of non-cognitive skills toward food were related to lifestyle, food preferences and food habits. High non-cognitive skills toward food may be associated with to take good food habits and their preferences in kindergarten children.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 102-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Roberto Andrade do Nascimento Junior ◽  
Adson Alves Da Silva ◽  
Carla Thamires Laranjeira Granja ◽  
Daniel Vicentini De Oliveira ◽  
Roseana Pacheco Reis Batista ◽  
...  

Abstract This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the association between sporting experiences and the perception of team cohesion according to sex among youth Brazilian recreational athletes. Participants were 253 youth athletes with age average of 12.97 ± 0.98 years.  Athletes represented the following sports: Indoor soccer (n=20); basketball (n=62); handball (n=123) and; volleyball (n=48). The instruments used were the Youth Experience Survey for Sport (P-YES-S) and the Youth Sport Environment Questionnaire (P-YSEQ). Independent sample t-test revealed significant difference between sexes in the dimensions of Personal Skills (p=0.02) and Task Cohesion (p=0.02). The following significant correlations were found for girls: Task Cohesion with Personal Skills (r=0.48), Initiative Experiences (r=0.37); and Social Cohesion with Personal Skills (r=0.41), Cognitive Skills (r=0.43) and Initiative Experiences (r=0.32). For boys, it was found the following correlations: Task Cohesion with Personal Skills (r=0.19), Initiative Experiences (r=0.42) and Negative Experiences (r=-0.22); and Social cohesion with Personal Skills (r=0.18) and Initiative Experiences (r=0.30). Multiple regression analysis indicated that sports experiences are significant predictors of task (R2=0.21; F=17.838; p<0.01) and social cohesion (R2=0.10; F=7.440; p<0.01). It can be concluded that positive sporting experiences may predict social and task cohesion among youth athletes.


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