Educational Insights into Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a specific learning disorder characterized by difficulties in reading, writing, and spelling due to compromised phonological processing skills. Treatment of dyslexia solely with medical support is far-fetched. However, it can be surmounted by the combination of special education interventions and supportive psychosocial care. Suitable approaches coupled with beneficial learning strategies enable dyslexic learners with consummate linguistic achievement. Although dyslexia research offers an increased understanding from a biological standpoint, the knowledge gap on the educational front is unfortunately persistent. To this end, this paper revisits the teaching-learning aspects of dyslexia. Teaching principles and approaches, strategies to support learning, and personalized educational plans are discussed in detail. Acknowledging the difficulty, familiarizing with the approaches, and attaining successful outcomes via essential practices emphasize the inclusiveness of dyslexic learners in the curriculum. We contend that the educational insights into dyslexia will provide informed teaching and learning solutions.

Emotion knowledge, social behaviour and locomotor activity predict the mathematic performance in 706 preschool children

What are the foundational abilities that young children must develop at the beginning of school for their future academic success? Little is known about how emotion knowledge, social behaviour, and locomotor activity are associated and how these abilities may be predictors of academic-mathematic performance (less correlated with the children’s SES than pre-reading and linguistic achievement) in a large cohort of preschool children. Here we show that emotion knowledge, locomotor activity, social behaviour, and academic-mathematic performance are interrelated in 706 French preschool children aged 3 to 6. Mediation analyses reveal that the increase in academic-mathematic performance is explained by the increases in emotion knowledge and social behaviour and, in turn, children with a greater comprehension of emotions tend to have better locomotor skills and higher academic-mathematic scores. Additionally, sequential mediation analysis reveals that the increase in emotion knowledge, locomotor activity and social behaviour partially explains the increase in academic-mathematic performance. These results are discussed in relation to three possible mechanisms. Our findings are consistent with the political and scientific consensus on the importance of social-emotional abilities in the academic world at the beginning of school and suggest adding locomotor activity to these foundational abilities.

Une théorie résurgente : l’africitas

Summary:The africitas theory, for which Einar Löfstedt wrote in 1959 that: “it constituted only merely a historical significance”, nevertheless enjoys currently a militant resurgence, in particular clarified from a rereading of Apuleius.Our communication aims to achieve two objectives: 1) To attempt, with the insight of over a century, an update, taking into account the scientific, historical, linguistic achievement involved in the establishment of this theory: nature of the corpus; research methods; regional diversification of Latin; linguistic state of roman Africa; sermo cotidianus and cultural languages; ideological presuppositions. 2) To evaluate the theoretical and methodological relevance of the theses supported by the contemporary supporters of a revivified africitas.

The complexity of control shift for learner autonomy: A mixed-method case study of Chinese EFL teachers’ practice and cognition

The promotion of language learner autonomy has been recognized as being beneficial in various domains, from linguistic achievement to personal growth. Key to the development of learner autonomy is shifting control from the teacher to the learner. While much has been written about the construct of learner control, there has been little close examination of the practices with which language teachers release their command. This article reports on a study conducted in a Chinese private school intent on promoting learner autonomy, and explores ways in which teachers’ practices facilitated or hindered control shift and their perceptions of these actions. From a study of nine teachers within one English department, two case studies are explored in depth through analysis of classroom practices, interviews and post-lesson discussions. While the feasibility of promoting learner autonomy in non-Western contexts has previously been questioned, the present findings highlight the opportunities available within routine tasks, while stressing the delicacy of these opportunities.

Effects of mobile-supported task-based language teaching on EFL students’ linguistic achievement and conversational interaction

To address the challenges of limited language proficiency and provide necessary feedback in the implementation of task-based language teaching (TBLT), a mobile-supported TBLT application was developed to provide linguistic and task scaffolding. Sixty-six English as a foreign language (EFL) university learners participated in a three-week experiment as part of a general English course. They were assigned to either an experimental group (mobile-supported TBLT), which received TBLT with scaffolds built into the application, or a control group (traditional TBLT), which received traditional paper-based TBLT without the scaffolds. At the end of the experiment, an English achievement test of vocabulary, grammar, and conversation comprehension was administered to determine if the technological scaffolds enhanced the learning outcomes for the course. Students’ self-perceived use of oral communication strategies was also measured to explore how these scaffolds affected the conversational interaction essential for task performance. Results showed that the mobile-supported TBLT group outperformed the traditional TBLT group on the vocabulary and conversation comprehension tests but not so much on the grammar test. Also, the mobile-supported TBLT group reported greater awareness of fluency- and accuracy-oriented strategies for speaking than the traditional TBLT group. Implications for designing mobile learning to enhance TBLT in an EFL setting are drawn.

Methodological Problems of Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers in Indonesia

The Arabic language is a decent place in Indonesian society because it is a religious language that coincided with the entry of Islam in this country. The growing interest in it through the ages and continued to try to raise its status continuously until the field of education witnessed a remarkable development in the last decade. However, this status does not necessarily mean that this language has received what it deserves as a religious and foreign language from the engineering and policy of advanced education. The current status of Arabic language education in Indonesia is a transitional phase, as some promising developments are beginning to take place on the one hand, and it is still facing a number of thorny problems on the other. The teaching of Arabic in most institutes in Indonesia is done in a way that explains the rules and the translation of texts into the Indonesian language. In addition, the evaluation system used to measure the learner's linguistic achievement is largely focused on linguistic aspects. The teaching of Arabic language on such a method is a traditional trend and it has to be changed and developed, and since some of the significant shortcomings related to the curriculum, it requires searching for the places of this deficiency in the curriculum of teaching Arabic in the institutes. The framework of the study is determined in the problems of the curriculum of the Arabic language in terms of objectives, content, method and means of education and evaluation. The study will take its place in the language institutes of the Asia Muslims Charity Foundation (AMCF) in Indonesia.

Effects of Creating an English Language Club on Intermediate Learners' Attitudes and Linguistic Achievement

This paper discusses the efforts of a group of ELT instructors at a private Syrian university, Arab International University (AIU), to modify students' attitudes towards general English remedial courses at the Foreign Languages Center (FLC) of the university. After analyzing the results of a questionnaire distributed to clarify the students' linguistic needs and assess their motivation, it was concluded that most students preferred interactive language exercises to theoretical text book activities. Thus, the instructors have resorted to practical methods embodied in establishing an English language club that seeks to fulfill students' needs. The club focused on two motivational activities: reading tabloids and making documentary short films. Consequently, regular weekly sessions were organized to hold these activities. All in all, students' attitudes were greatly enhanced and have become more positive. It was also noted that the students have become self-motivated to the extent of generating new and original ideas that will enrich the English language club at AIU. Furthermore, the students were able to achieve remarkable enhancement on their linguistic skills especially those of reading, writing and speaking in addition to acquiring and improving other personal skills e.g. team work, organizing and planning projects, and communicating ideas via oral presentations.

Curriculum Effects On University Students’ English Language Achievement

The objective of this research is to identify, analyze and determine the curricular effects in the linguistic achievement to implement a curricular redesign and improve the English language teaching-learning to students and teachers of the Escuela Superior Politécnica of Chimborazo Language Center. The research used the communicative method, using several comprehensive techniques based on language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It was considered the critical-proactive paradigm to look for solutions in an environment of description and understanding of the educational, social and cultural process. Surveys were applied to measure the learning achievement of the language, as an independent variable, applied to one hundred and fifty students and the curricular effect as a dependent variable directed to fifty five teachers of the Language Center, as well as, interviews to four directors of the Language Center. At the level of the students, it was concluded that the level of English is still basic, therefore, a new instrument is needed that proposes: methodology, techniques and updated contents to reach a competitive level. Most teachers indicate that the curriculum established by the Center must be updated in order to make better teaching possible.

John Palsgrave as a sixteenth-century contrastive linguist

John Palsgrave is the first English lexicographer known by name. As a teacher of French to Henry VIII’s sister Mary, he set himself the task to ‘reduce the French language to rule’. His Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530) is an outstanding linguistic achievement which describes French pronunciation, explains the rules of French grammar, and includes an English–French dictionary of some eight hundred pages. Himself a dedicated teacher, Palsgrave helped his English countrymen to understand the foreign language by explicit comparisons between the differences of expression, explaining them and illustrating them with examples. The chapter presents the most striking grammatical comparisons in the use of pronouns, questions, and negation, and then focuses on the lexicon: contrasts in semantic range, idiomatic usage, sense-dependent complementation, and construction patterns.