Top Research Papers on Language Learning

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. (2002). Program standards for the preparation of foreign language teachers (Initial level-Undergraduate & Graduate; for K-12 and secondary certification programs). Yonkers, NY: Author. Available online at http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/ index.cfm?pageid=3384 and NewGuidelinesPrep Rpt4JanO6.pdf Byrnes, H. (2006). Perspectives. Modern Language Journal, 90, 244-246. Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence. Modern Language Journal, 90, 249-252. Linn, R. L., & Gronlund, N. E. (2000). Measurement and assessment i...

This guide will connect you to online databases and books and CDs that will help you to learn a new language.

The findings of the study suggest that primary school children are considerably aware of their learning process and hold elaborated beliefs which influence both their behaviour in class and their choice of learning strategies.

The connection between cognition and language is of paramount importance to language learning and teaching. Exploring this link may lead to an understanding of the part played by cognition in the English as a foreign language classroom. This is feasible by shedding light on the way multiple cognitive devices operate in language learning activities. This introductory chapter firstly gives a succinct account for the shift from behavioural to cognitive theories of learning. Secondly, it provides a brief overview of relevant research in the area of cognition and language learning. Finally, it desc...

Hartman indicated that the multiple-channel theory, involving at least two of the channels under consideration here, increases learners' language comprehension, and it is generally agreed that this theory is correct.

Learners and instructors of these languages – indeed of any underdescribed language – must think and operate well beyond the methodologies and organization of the better-resourced and more-established language programs in the US.

In this thesis, I propose six constructive effective measures which can help teacher to create much more foreign language environment as many as possible so as to do well in teaching.

Trabajo presentado al ECML-97 Familiarization Workshop: "Empirical Learning of Natural Language Processing Tasks" celebrado en the Republica Checa el 26 de abril de 1997.

This article describes classes that taught in this way, the advantages gained, and some of the problems encountered, and a polemic for the upgrading of language teaching so that learning a language becomes an intelltual discipline worthy of inclusion in the college curriculum.

Written by experienced language teachers at the Open University, this book offers undergraduates and postgraduates crucial and practical advice on important areas such as: choosing a language and study programme, setting personal goals for language learning and monitoring progress using ICT to support language learning.

The role of learning in generative grammar is explored, highlighting interactions between distributional patterns in the environment and the innate structure of the language faculty.

1. List of Contributors 2. Preface 3. Introduction (by Gass, Susan M.) 4. A Role for the Mother Tongue (by Corder, S. Pit) 5. A New Account of Language Transfer (by Schachter, Jacquelyn) 6. Verification of Language Transfer (by Ard, Josh) 7. Nonobvious Transfer: On Predicting Epenthesis Errors (by Broselow, Ellen) 8. Language Transfer and the Acquisition of Pronominal Anaphora (by Gundel, Jeanette K.) 9. Transfer and Variability of Rhetorical Redundancy in Apachean English Interlanguage (by Bartelt, H. Guillermo) 10. Discourse Accent in Second Language Performance (by Scarcella, Robin C.) 11. ...

This book has two related purposes. The first is to demonstrate the extent and importance of language play in human life; the second is to draw out the implications for applied linguistics and language teaching. Language play should not be thought of as a trivial or peripheral activity, but as central to human thought and culture, to learning, creativity, and intellectual enquiry. It fulfils a major function of language, underpinning the human capacity to adapt: as individuals, as societies, and as a species.

In this chapter we discuss how input during joint attention (JA) interactions between parents and children may vary in ways pertinent to language development in simultaneous bilinguals. In particular we discuss mother-father differences, exceptionally relevant in bilingual families where one parent may be the primary source of input for a given language. We illustrate the need to examine this interaction by presenting research on internationally-adopted (IA) children. While clearly not simultaneous bilinguals, IA children are relevant insofar as these children, like bilinguals, have reduced ex...

It's time for language teaching in China to turn from tedious lectures, endless examinations to its nature as a langue, lay emphasis on the learners' practicing of what they learn in the classroom and train them to get more useful skills.

The common philosophical and psychological aspects of learning and acquisition are explored to comment on the difference between the two and also narrates upon the fundamental concepts of language to evoke the relation between language and humans.

This book is a comprehensive introduction to foreign language pedagogy, primarily intended for students and teachers of English. The book will also be of interest to anyone professionally or personally concerned with how people learn and use foreign languages. Methods for analysing learner languages are presented and related to a coherent theory of communicative competence and to principles of foreign language learning and teaching. The book draws on the experience and results of a large research project analysing the English used by Danes. The authors, who have all been associated with this p...

This article reviews Language Awareness (LA) as a field of research and practice. It deals with the period from 1990 to the present, asking what LA is, how it has been collectively constructed during this time, what the theoretical underpinnings might be and what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for society. It is recognized that its multidisciplinary nature and wide scope could lead to fragmentation, but it is argued that the holistic view evident in LA research and practice is a strength, and that its different sub-fields have certain core notions in common wh...

The background of language learning strategies is summarized, the concept of a language learning strategy is defined, and the taxonomy of languagelearning strategies proposed by several researchers are outlined.

The main aim of the thesis was to elicit what language learning strategies the pupils use when learning English as a Foreign Language.

The paper reveals cooperative learning benefits language learning in many aspects.

For those learning a new language or needing help with translation and grammar, this resource lists resources for media, film, music, and literature in all languages.

The Educators must place their students as people who naturally have experience, knowledge, desires, and thoughts that can be used to learn, both individually and in groups. All language learning strategies have the main goal of increasing one's ability to speak. The choice of teaching and learning strategies language learning strategies must be based on the consideration of placing students as subjects of learning who not only passively accept what is conveyed by educators. Teaching Japanese especially kanji using various learning strategies makes it easy for Japanese learners especially in l...

It is argued that a fundamental challenge of independent language learning is for learners to develop the ability to engage with, interact with, and derive benefit from learning environments which are not directly mediated by a teacher, and that strategies play a key role in this regard.

This paper reports a study which tested the assump-tion that speakers of one or more Romance languages are at an advantage when attempting to read and understand material written in another, unknown Romance language. A group of nine French speakers (four knowing only French and five with another Romance language in addition) were asked to read a newspaper story in Portuguese, a language new to them, and to summarise the main events while 'thinking aloud', in order to reveal the approach and strategies they were using to try and understand the text. Results showed that the two groups used diffe...

The background of language learning strategies is summarized, the concept of a language learning strategy is defined, and the taxonomy of languagelearning strategies proposed by several researchers is outlined.

This paper analyzes the related study of language learning motivation(LLM) and language learning strategy(LLS) in different age and explores the characteristics of the LLSs used by good learners;the differences between LLSs used by successful and unsuccessful learners;the relationship between individual learner difference and learning outcomes;the factors influencing learners' choice of strategies;and the model of learning strategy training and its achievement.

This paper introduces the research and its results of implicit learning in the mother language and the second language, and proposes some strategies to take advantage of implicitlearning in language learning.

This is a case study using an interactive digital game to teach grammar via Mobile Assimilation Language Learning (MALL) and shows that the game has somewhat improved students’ grammar knowledge.

This paper considers multilingualism from the point of view of language learning and teaching and argues that the monological stand, more often than not, also embeds a monolingual bias.

Questions that transfer role of NL is positive, negative transfer is unavoidable, interlanguage is inevitable will be discussed in this paper.

The study found no evidence that a multilingual learning environment hinders the language proficiency in L1 in students who have LD.

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More than 25 years have passed since CLIL was first introduced in schools all over Europe with objectives, methods and organizational structures that often also vary from one country to another. Time has passed, and still without a precise framework of reference, CLIL shows its great potential as well as its drawbacks. Using data from research conducted in Italy with four CLIL teachers who teach physics through a foreign language, this article aims to highlight the possibility that CLIL can serve to make every teacher, regardless of the subject, aware of the role that language can play in lea...

How learners perceive the of their linguistic development, and particularly how contextual factors in the learning environment and individual issues such as linguistic goals, self-confi-dence and friendship patterns interact with their per-ceptions of their progress and performance in Spanish is focused on.

The research began with a theoretical proposal that had to be modified as a result of the study, and emphasizes the importance of pedagogical proposals for children in the initial process of written language learning.

centrate initially on post-editing for grammatical accuracy: this component of the software will allow learners to have their German text parsed for grammatical errors, on the basis of which (and including other student data available to the program) feedback will be given to the learner during learner-computer interaction. The implementation of a substantial 'chunk' of German grammar was thus a pre-requisite for all other work on Textana—and the coverage of this grammar, together with the underlying morphological and syntactical theory, is touched on briefly here. The main part of the paper i...

02–89 Allwright, Dick (U. of Lancaster, UK). Learning (and teaching) as well as you know how: why is it so very difficult? Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication (Odense, Denmark), 22 (2001), 1–41. 02–90 Altaha, F. M. and Al-Easa, Noor S. (The U. of Qatar, Doha, The State Of Qatar; Email: faltaha@yahoo.com). Attitude and achievement in learning English as a foreign language. ITL Review of Applied Linguistics (Leuven, Belgium), 133–134 (2001), 303–23. 02–91 Altenberg, Bengt (Lund U., Sweden) and Granger, Sylviane (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium). The grammatical and lexi...

For over 20 years studies in literary theory, linguistics and semiotics have been contributing with models which describe the role of readers and how they construct the meaning of a literary text. Most of these studies, however, assume an ideal figure who may not necessarily correspond to classroom reality. This paper proposes a framework offering a more democratic setting. Cognitively, the model is in line with studies which regard learning as a process of development and adjustment. Linguistically, it accommodates different levels of language proficiency comprehending both native and non-nat...

This article describes a recent experiment which brought together trainee teachers and GCSE (General Certificate in Secondary Education) modern language examination candidates by means of video-conferencing. The school involved had approached the authors' institution with a view to exploring desktop videoconferencing as a way of providing pupils with additional oral language practice. A group of volunteers offered to spend time providing 'virtual tuition' in French and German to 31 pupils from the school. Results of a questionnaire designed to investigate pupils' reactions to the technology sh...

This article seeks to formulate a coherent view of English which is based on an analysis of pupils' experience of language in its social and cultural setting. It is argued that the revised National Curriculum for England and Wales, although influenced by conservative ideologies, has no fundamental rationale underpinning its prescriptions. The authors make the case that a concept of critical literacy, which would be applicable to all texts, should constitute the foundation of the subject.

05–32Allen, Linda Quinn (Iowa State U, USA). Implementing a culture portfolio project within a constructivist paradigm. Foreign Language Annals (New York, USA) 37.2 (2004), 232–239. 05–33Al-Sehayer, Khalid (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia). ESL readers' perceptions of reading in well structured and less structured hypertext environment. CALICO Journal (TX, USA) 22.2 (2005), 191–212. 05–34Barcroft, Joe (Washington U, USA). Second language vocabulary acquisition: a lexical input processing approach. Foreign Language Annals (New York, USA) 37.2 (2004), 200–208. 05–35Bateman, Blair E. (Brigham Young U, USA)....

Interpreting what you hear through the medium of speech sounds is in many ways just like interpreting what you see through the medium of the structured light that strikes your eyes. Understanding descriptive speech is closely akin to perception of the world through vision, ordinary hearing or touch. This, plus a flexible view of the different ways in which one mind can take account of another, helps to explain how children can learn tens of thousands of words without special instruction and without requiring a 'theory of mind.'

07–198 Agulló, G. (U Jaén, Spain; gluque@jaen.es), Overcoming age-related differences. ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 60.4 (2006), 365–373. 07–199 Ammar, Ahlem (U de Montréal, Canada; ahlem.ammar@umontreal.ca) & Nina Spada, One size fits all? Recasts, prompts, and L2 learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge University Press) 28.4 (2006), 543–574. 07–200 Bartram, Brendan (U Wolverhampton, UK), An examination of perceptions of parental influence on attitudes to language learning. Educational Research (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 48.2 (2006), 211–221. 07–201 Bordag, Deni...

06–20Abbott, Chris (King's College, U London, UK) & Alim Shaikh, Visual representation in the digital age: Issues arising from a case study of digital media use and representation by pupils in multicultural school settings. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 455–466. 06–21Andreou, Georgia & Napoleon Mitsis (U Thessaly, Greece), Greek as a foreign language for speakers of Arabic: A study of medical students at the University of Thessaly. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.2 (2005), 181–187. 06–22Aune, R. Kelly (U Hawaii at Manoa, USA; kaune@hawaii...

05–135 Armstrong, Kevin (Leicester U, UK; ka50@le.ac.uk), Sexing up the dossier: a semantic analysis of phrasal verbs for language teachers. Language Awareness (Clevedon, UK) 13.4 (2004), 213–224. 05–136 Baker, William & Boonkit, Kamonpan (Silpakorn U, Thailand; willmlbaker@yahoo.co.uk), Learning strategies in reading and writing: EAP contexts. RELC Journal (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) 35.3 (2004), 299–328. 05–137 Bell, N. (Indiana U of Pennsylvania, USA), Exploring L2 language play as an aid to SLL: a case study of humour in NS–NNS interaction. Applied Linguistics (Oxford, UK) 26.2 (2005), 192–21...

This article briefly traces the history of the National Standards for Foreign Languages in the United States and then addresses who is using the standards. The Center for Applied Linguistics, which designed a survey to determine the effect of national and state standards on public and private foreign language teachers in grades K(indergarten) to 12, reports that approximately half of the surveyed teachers are aware of national or state standards. Finally, the issue of how states are developing foreign language standards is addressed by examining the curricula of Minnesota, New Jersey, and Conn...

03—285 Ahmed, Mehreen (U. of Queensland, Australia). A note on phrase structure analysis and design implication for ICALL. Computer Assisted Language Learning (Lisse, The Netherlands), 15, 4 (2002), 423—33. 03—286 Argaman, Osnat and Abu-Rabia, Salim (U. of Haifa, Israel). The influence of language anxiety on English reading and writing tasks among native Hebrew speakers. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Clevedon, UK), 15, 2 (2002), 143—60. 03—287 Bielinska, Monika (Schlesische Universität, Katowice, Poland). Zu Semantischen Aspekten der Wortkombinatorik. [On semantic aspects of word combinati...

A key aim of ESOL provision (the teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) is to enable the learner to participate in society. As a consequence, ESOL practitioners frequently determine the content of ESOL classes by analysing the situations in which the students need to use English-a 'situational needs' approach to content which is reflected in ESOL materials. This article suggests that ESOL learners are under pressure to acquire 'take-away' language skills for immediate communicative effectiveness; and that there is a consequent danger that communicative gain may be achieved at the ...

Little has been published about the attrition rates of foreign language (FL) teachers. Most extant research quantifies demographic information, such as gender or age, but not the reasons teachers leave. The purpose of this article is to describe attrition of FL teachers primarily as the result of disparity between professional expectations and workplace realities. The 14 respondents in the study collectively represent male and female classroom teachers ranging widely in terms of background, type and years of experience. Analysis of their comments reveals that they leave the classroom if they a...