Improving Students’ Speaking Skills through Task-Based Learning: An Action Research at the English Department

This study aims to improve students' speaking skills at the Department of English. Based on interviews carried out to get initial data on the students' speaking skills, it was shown that the students had problems in speaking due to inadequate knowledge of the language which in turn made the students felt unconfident to speak. The students were not familiar with various speaking activities facilitating them to speak. They read the text to convey ideas and a lack of strategies when speaking. To help the students, task-based learning was adapted through action research in one-semester courses. Fifteen students in the third semester participated in this study. The data were taken from the results of the pre-test to post-test, interview, and observation. The findings reveal that the use of task-based learning helps the students improve their speaking skills of three indicators assessed: accuracy, vocabulary, and comprehension. The students manage to complete the tasks by conducting various activities through three phases of learning: the pre-task, task-cycle, and form focus. They succeed in improving their speaking skills and gaining their confidence. The students can evaluate their learning in pairs and group works.

On the limits of shared syntactic representations: When word order variation blocks priming between an artificial language and Dutch

Several studies used artificial language (AL) learning paradigms to investigate structural priming between languages in early phases of learning. The presence of such priming would indicate that syntactic representations are shared across these languages. Muylle, Bernolet, and Hartsuiker (2020) found similar priming between Dutch (SVO order) and an AL with either SVO or SOV order. However, it is unclear whether such sharing would occur if the AL allows both the same and different word order as the native language. Indeed, the presence of a (easy to share) similar structure might block the sharing of a less similar structure. Here, we report two experiments that each tested 48 native speakers of Dutch on an AL that allowed both SVO and SOV order in transitive and ditransitive sentences. We assessed both within- AL and AL-Dutch priming. We predicted a) priming of both structure and word order within the AL, and b) that the presence of SVO sentences in the AL would result in weaker priming to Dutch from SOV sentences than from SVO sentences. Indeed, cross-linguistic priming was significantly weaker in the SOV compared to the SVO conditions, in line with our predictions. Unexpectedly, in the absence of a condition with verb overlap between prime and target sentences, no priming was found in AL and Dutch target conditions without verb overlap (Experiment 1), but priming emerged when a verb overlap condition was added (Experiment 2). This finding suggests that lexical overlap conditions are crucial to establish abstract syntactic representations during early L2 acquisition.

Writing Bees, Wikis, Problem-Based Learning, and Assessment

This chapter introduces a case study to explore the pedagogical re-design of an online module using online discussions as the focus for learning. A longitudinal and development module assessment was threaded through three phases of learning: 1) writing bees, 2) WIKI (what I know is), and 3) problem-based learning (PBL). Each phase of learning is explained using evidence to support its development, and a critique of the benefits and limitations of learning this way is included. An evaluation of the re-designed module is included, demonstrating although at times the online discussion and writing activities were challenging that on the whole, students enjoyed learning in this way. This chapter concludes by claiming that the pedagogical design of learning using online discussions should be engaging, interactive, collaborative, and fully supported at every stage of the learners' journey and recommends further research in the theory of communities of practice to inform such pedagogical design.

The self-organized learning of noisy environmental stimuli requires distinct phases of plasticity

Along sensory pathways, representations of environmental stimuli become increasingly sparse and expanded. If additionally the feed-forward synaptic weights are structured according to the inherent organization of stimuli, the increase in sparseness and expansion leads to a reduction of sensory noise. However, it is unknown how the synapses in the brain form the required structure, especially given the omnipresent noise of environmental stimuli. Here, we employ a combination of synaptic plasticity and intrinsic plasticity - adapting the excitability of each neuron individually - and present stimuli with an inherent organization to a feed-forward network. We observe that intrinsic plasticity maintains the sparseness of the neural code and thereby enables synaptic plasticity to learn the organization of stimuli in low-noise environments. Nevertheless, even high levels of noise can be handled after a subsequent phase of readaptation of the neuronal excitabilities by intrinsic plasticity. Interestingly, during this phase the synaptic structure has to be maintained. These results demonstrate that learning in the presence of noise requires adaptation of the synaptic structure but also of the neuronal properties in two distinct phases of learning: an encoding phase, during which the inherent organization of the environmental stimuli is learned, followed by a readaptation phase to readapt the neuronal system according to the current level of noise. The necessity of these distinct phases of learning suggests a new role for synaptic consolidation.

Pan, Hutter, D'Andrea, Unwalla, and Rickard (2019) In search of transfer following cued recall practice: the case of biology concepts (preprint)

Previous work has demonstrated that cued recall of a term from a fact yields learning that does not transfer, relative to a restudy control, to recall of another term from the same fact. Here we report six experiments in which a series of manipulations during the initial study and training phases of learning, hypothesized to increase transfer for process-based biology concepts, were investigated. In Experiments 1-2, fill-in-the-blank questions combined with immediate or delayed and repeated correct answer feedback improved learning but not transfer. In Experiments 3-4, practice questions that involved recalling process steps, understanding ordinal relationships, or making inferences, did not improve transfer. Positive transfer was produced, however, in Experiments 5-6 via retrieval-verification-scoring, a new method in which difficult fill-in-the-blank questions were combined with extensive feedback processing. We discuss implications for transfer in both theoretical and applied contexts.