Challenges in a mobile English telecollaborative project: Towards a conceptual model

This paper, drawing upon a mobile telecollaborative project, resonates with the rapid development of technology in language learning. We employed the instant messaging app WeChat to create an English telecollaborative environment for two groups of Chinese students to communicate within. Interview data were triangulated with students’ chat transcripts and comments from a teacher’s reflective journal. A mixed-methods approach, including quantitative descriptive analysis, thematic analysis and content analysis, was used to investigate the challenges and the linguistic performance by applying the community of inquiry framework to the students’ chats. The analysis illustrates some of the complexities and challenges of using online apps as a way of communicating in a second language: students expected more teacher support, they struggled to use the app due to their physical environments and they felt that they were not sufficiently well prepared for chatting in an English medium environment. Based on the findings, a conceptual model is proposed for consideration when encouraging students to engage in telecollaborative learning. Implications for practice or policy: Teachers should enhance their visibility in mobile telecollaborative projects by promoting participants’ contribution through different facilitation techniques. Teachers and educators can capitalise on the proposed conceptual model to guide their own design of such online learning experiences for their learners. Telecollaborative learning can be improved by taking into account various factors such as physical environment, the medium of communication and the potential incentives.

Some Methodological Principles in Specialized FLT for the Professional Sphere

The article discusses the necessity to apply specific methodological principles in FLT for professional purposes due to the increasing interest of learners towards such training. The focus is on the essence of the concept of specialized economic language and on the method of Task-Based Approach. The necessary strategies for its application are also mentioned. The development of the skill for active linguistic performance is promoted mainly by the implementation of minimally structured training situations (authenticity). The constructivist principle of creating polymodular conditions, including the personal experience of the learner so as to stimulate the solution of the given problem are mentioned. For this purpose the specialized content and its peculiarities together with its exact location in the vertical stratification of specialized language are emphasized. The process of working with specialized text and one of the descriptors of CEFR are discussed. When working, the principles of subject-specific aspects are taken into consideration, placing the importance on the quality of teaching materials instead of their quantity, and prioritizing the sistematicity and the orientation of the content over the form.

Does Phonological Complexity Provide a Good Index of Language Disorder in Children With Cochlear Implants?

Purpose Phonological complexity is known to be a good index of developmental language disorder (DLD) in normal-hearing children, who have major difficulties on some complex structures. Some deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) present a profile that evokes DLD, with persistent linguistic difficulties despite good audiological and environmental conditions. However, teasing apart what is related to auditory deficit or to language disorder remains complex. Method We compared the performance of three groups of school-age children, 33 children with CI, 22 with DLD, and 24 with typical development, on a nonword repetition (NWR) task based on phonological complexity. Children with CI were studied regarding their linguistic profile, categorized in four subgroups ranging from excellent to very poor performance. Influence of syllable length and phonological structures on the results of all the children were explored. Results The NWR task correctly distinguished children with DLD from typically developing children, and also children with CI with the poorest linguistic performance from other children with CI. However, most complex phonological structures did not reliably identify children with CI displaying a profile similar to that of children with DLD because these structures were difficult for all of the children with CI. The simplest phonological structures were better at detecting persistent language difficulties in children with CI, as they were challenging only for the children with the poorest language outcomes. Conclusions The most complex phonological structures are not good indices of language disorder in children with CI. Phonological complexity represents a gradient of difficulty that affects normal-hearing and deaf children differently.

(What) Can Deep Learning Contribute to Theoretical Linguistics?

Deep learning (DL) techniques have revolutionised artificial systems’ performance on myriad tasks, from playing Go to medical diagnosis. Recent developments have extended such successes to natural language processing, an area once deemed beyond such systems’ reach. Despite their different goals (technological development vs. theoretical insight), these successes have suggested that such systems may be pertinent to theoretical linguistics. The competence/performance distinction presents a fundamental barrier to such inferences. While DL systems are trained on linguistic performance, linguistic theories are aimed at competence. Such a barrier has traditionally been sidestepped by assuming a fairly close correspondence: performance as competence plus noise. I argue this assumption is unmotivated. Competence and performance can differ arbitrarily. Thus, we should not expect DL models to illuminate linguistic theory.

Intonation and Referee Design Phenomena in the Narrative Speech of Black/Biracial Men

This study examines how men with one Black parent and one white parent variably construct their racial identities through both linguistic practice and explicit testimonials, with a specific focus on how this construction is realized in narratives about law enforcement. The data consist of interviews with five young men, aged 18-32, in Washington, D.C., and the analysis compares use of intonational phenomena associated with African American Language (AAL) in response to questions about aspects of their racial identities. Declarative intonational phrases from responses to questions were MAE-ToBi annotated and analyzed for use of intonational features subject to racialized stylistic variation, including use of L+H* versus H*, focus marking, and peak delay interval length. Results of multiple regression models indicate speakers avoid intonational features associated with AAL in police narratives, especially L+H* pitch accents with broad focus marking and longer peak delay intervals. These findings illuminate an important aspect of the relationship between linguistic performance and identity: both racial and linguistic identities are subject to topic and audience/referee-conditioned variation and individuals can use specific intonational variables to align themselves within specific audience and topic-influenced constraints. In the context of police narratives, avoidance of salient features of AAL intonation can serve as linguistic respectability politics; these speakers have motivation to employ linguistic behavior that distances them from the most societally and physically precarious implications of their identities.

Social Factor Effects on Linguistic Performance, Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence

The main focus of this study was to determine the significant effect of social factors on linguistic performance, emotional and spiritual intelligence. The descriptive-quantitative method of research was used in the study. There were 110 students included as respondents that were selected through simple random sampling. The linguistic performance test, USM Emotional Quotient Inventory, and Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory served as instruments to gather data from the respondents. The data were analyzed through the use of t-test, ANOVA, and post-hoc. Based on the careful analysis, social factors affected students' linguistic performance, emotional and spiritual intelligence. The findings are summarized into the following: 1) There was a significant difference among the respondents' linguistic performance on students' family religiosity, involvement in the social group, and students' madrasah experience, 2) There was a significant difference in their emotional intelligence as far as students' family educational attainment, income, and students' madrasah experience, and 3) There was a significant difference on students' spiritual intelligence on their involvement in the social group.

Effects of socioeconomic status on the use of written language: does it extend into Brazilian Higher Education?

Bourdieu and Passeron defended the thesis that the school was the main locus to legitimate and perpetuate class differences. This is reinforced by the multiple proficiency tests used to monitor public policies, which privilege the use of the formal language as part of the instruments and, therefore, penalizes participants with less mastery of the language. We adjusted two hierarchical models with Enade’s results on standard Portuguese grades, using as covariates, indicators of students’ socioeconomic status and economic independence and average values for these variables for the knowledge areas. The linguistic performance is disaggregated into three aspects: textual, orthographic and vocabulary/morphosyntactic. More affluent socioeconomic groups have greater proficiency in the Enade Portuguese Language component, even when controlling for the knowledge area average socio-economic level and financial autonomy of the students. The socioeconomic effect is not as strong as on lower educational level: university students constitute a rather homogeneous group. This reinforces Bourdieu’s thesis that through the social, cultural and economic capital still prevails the domination of wealthier classes over more popular classes, reinforcing the inequality.

The Effects of Task Repetition on Child EFL Learners’ Oral Performance

While the role of task repetition has received much attention in task-based research, few studies have examined how exact task repetition affects the performance of child second language learners. Also, little is known about the impact of exact task repetition on trade-off effects between linguistic performance areas among child learners. To help fill this gap, we investigated the impact of task repetition on 40 Chinese EFL learners’ oral production. The children repeated the same story-telling task three times, and transcripts of their performance were coded for linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Complexity was expressed in terms of overall complexity and subordination and phrasal complexity. We assessed accuracy with weighted clause ratios and proportion of errors. Fluency was captured by repair and breakdown fluency measures. Wilcoxon signed rank tests revealed positive effects for task repetition on fluency and accuracy. Trade-off effects observed during participants’ first performance had decreased by their third retelling. These results support Skehan’s (1998) Limited Capacity model and suggest that task repetition is a useful pedagogical tool in instructed child L2 contexts.