The effectiveness of audiovisual translation (AVT) for language learning has been widely discussed and demonstrated by scholars in the past (cf. Lertola 2019). Nevertheless, many areas in this field ...of investigation are still underexplored, such as the usefulness of AVT for the acquisition of plurilingual and pluricultural competence (PPC). This is of paramount importance in the multilingual and multicultural societies we live in, and also given the emphasis the CEFR Companion Volume (Council of Europe 2018) places on mediation and PPC. The latter has been the focus of the research project PluriTAV (2017–2019), in which the authors of this paper have taken part, aimed at developing a set of activities involving the use of AVT for the acquisition of PPC in the language classroom. This paper sets out to illustrate the theoretical framework sustaining the PluriTAV project and to reflect on the potential of AVT for the acquisition of PPC. This will be achieved by establishing links between AVT modes, transfer/mediation skills, and the descriptors developed within the Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures (FREPA) (Candelier et al. 2012), as well as referring to sample and specific activities developed within PluriTAV. In line with this project, the emphasis will be on language teaching in Higher Education, yet the discussion and the activities suggested could be easily extrapolated and adapted to other educational contexts and levels of language ability.
As policy agents, teachers are involved in representing and reproducing language education policies in their talk, practices and classroom interaction. Contemporary Finland and its education system ...are experiencing times of change from the increased globalisation and dynamic flows of migration. This has affected the most recent Finnish curriculum reform for compulsory education, which to a greater extent than before promotes multilingualism. In this article, we explore how Finnish teachers reflect language policies in the two most recent curricula Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE 2004 and FNBE 2014) and how teachers (re)produce ideologies of language and multilingualism. The findings, based on a meta-ethnography and discourse analysis of four recent studies, show that teachers acknowledged multilingual children's language competencies but rarely made use of them in the classroom. Teachers expressed the belief that the use of other languages than the language of schooling might impede language learning, and they discursively distinguished between us and them in terms of cultural practices, nation and language. Teachers' talk reflected the previous curriculum and was not yet aligned with current national education policy. In order to have some effect on persistent monolingual ideologies in schools, teachers' role as (re)makers of language policy should be taken more seriously.
The compilation, management, and publication of electronic dictionaries through Lexonomy provides a user-friendly environment for a user without advanced technical knowledge. It is, therefore, an ...efficient tool for the lexicographical processing of demanding texts, such as literary works, in the teaching of English as a foreign language. This research is based on the principles of didactic lexicography for language learning and aims to analyze the effectiveness of creating and using a monolingual digital dictionary created ad hoc by students for learning English as a foreign language. To this end, an exploratory empirical intervention was conducted over two school years (2020–2021 and 2021–2022) with 159 ninth-grade students from a high school in Madrid, who were randomly divided into a control and an experimental group. To collect data, the results of four tests (two per school year) of the two groups were analyzed in order to check the effectiveness of the digital dictionary created by the students on the one hand and the traditional paper glossary used by the control group in their notebooks on the other. The results confirm the hypothesis that using an ad hoc digital dictionary improves vocabulary learning and English as a foreign language (EFL) linguistic competence by enhancing the comprehension of unabridged literature. Practical implications for the creation of digital dictionaries in EFL classrooms are discussed.
Most studies examining Computer Mediated Communication to enhance EFL learning have been limited to evaluating test scores, questionnaires, and interviewing students. This study used a holistic ...assessment model with qualitative analysis of student reflective essays and descriptive analysis of pre- and post-test oral performance by students in a university English conversation course in Taiwan. The instructional design included Internet videoconferences with a native speaker in the United States and an emphasis on critical thinking about cultural differences and similarities. Although the class was too small for statistical analysis, the students' oral scores improved an average of 44.5% from the beginning to end of the semester. The analysis of the essays showed that students engaged in reflective thinking about 70% of the items they observed in their essays, which is evidence of critical thinking. Qualitative analysis revealed four major recurring themes in the students' essays, 1) this was a different kind of class from any they have taken before and the instructional design was helpful, 2) the importance of history and underlying meaning of iconic cultural elements, such as holidays and festivals, 3) their development of a growing multicultural worldview, and 4) their growing confidence as a result of the course.
The present study set out to inspect how organizational and pragmatic knowledge can be functions of the assessment techniques practices implemented in the classroom. To this aim, the effects of ...teacher, peer, and self-assessment techniques that focused on providing feedback on pragmatic and organizational knowledge were compared. A total number of 98 female Iranian learners studying at pre-intermediate level in a language institute participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to one of the three groups of self-assessment (SA) (N = 32), peer-assessment (PA) (N = 33), and teacher-assessment (TA) (N = 33). Pragmatic competence was gauged using Discourse Role Play Talks (DRPTs) and organizational knowledge was assessed by a scale covering the grammatical and textual knowledge of the participants. The results of the analysis of one-way ANOVA test indicated that self-assessment followed by peer assessment had an advantage over the teacher assessment technique in promoting both pragmatic and organizational competence. In general, the obtained results yielded support for the employment of alternative methods of assessment as pedagogical tools to foster language competence. Implications for EFL pedagogy are discussed.
This paper considers how implicit and explicit knowledge are
dissociable but cooperative. It reviews various psychological and
neurobiological processes by which explicit knowledge of form-meaning
...associations impacts upon implicit language learning. The interface is
dynamic: It happens transiently during conscious processing, but the
influence upon implicit cognition endures thereafter. The primary
conscious involvement in SLA is the explicit learning involved in the
initial registration of pattern recognizers for constructions that are
then tuned and integrated into the system by implicit learning during
subsequent input processing. Neural systems in the prefrontal cortex
involved in working memory provide attentional selection, perceptual
integration, and the unification of consciousness. Neural systems in the
hippocampus then bind these disparate cortical representations into
unitary episodic representations. These are the mechanisms by which
Schmidt's (1990) noticing helps
solve Quine's (1960) problem of referential
indeterminacy. Explicit memories can also guide the conscious building of
novel linguistic utterances through processes of analogy. Formulas,
slot-and-frame patterns, drills, and declarative pedagogical grammar rules
all contribute to the conscious creation of utterances whose subsequent
usage promotes implicit learning and proceduralization. Flawed output can
prompt focused feedback by way of recasts that present learners with
psycholinguistic data ready for explicit analysis. Other processes of
acquisition from output include differentiation, analysis, and preemption.
These processes of conscious construction in working memory underpin
relationships between individual differences in working memory capacities
and language learning aptitude.Thanks to
Rod Ellis for first suggesting that I try to write this and to the staff
and students at Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics
University of Auckland (2003), the TESOL Program Temple University Japan
(2003), the Chester Language Development Reading Group, and the LOT winter
school (2004) for helping me think it through. I am particularly grateful
to Michel Paradis, Michael Swan, Karen Roehr, Anne Feryok, and Tamar
Keren-Portnoy for pointing their giant biological cameras of consciousness
at a prior draft, and for sharing their awareness with me in kindly and
constructive fashion. I have learned a lot from it.
The aim of this study was to identify and evaluate the effect of different aspects of integrated learning on building foreign language competence of future philologists. The research involved a ...pedagogical experiment with the introduction of integrated learning. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was used to determine the impact of this approach on the students' academic performance in English. Besides, the level of foreign language competence was established by using the criteria proposed by O. Bihych. It was found that the integration of the content of the academic subject and a foreign language is more effective in building foreign language competence than the traditional study of a foreign language. However, it has less effect than the integration of linguistic, intercultural and communicative components of foreign language competence, the latest technologies, interactive learning methods, and the integration of online and offline learning. It was established that integrated learning has the highest effect on building a foreign language competence, provided that all its aspects are simultaneously introduced into the educational process.
Writing across the curriculum (WAC) has been viewed as a movement that links several academic fields across various academic departments in different institutions. WAC has emerged as a powerful ...pedagogical tool for improving students’ learning outcomes and critical thinking. While the practice of WAC as an independent learning unit is not formally implemented in all Saudi universities, teaching writing across the disciplines is pervasive. The principal objective of this research project is to inform writing specialists and policymakers in Saudi higher education about the status of WAC on Saudi campuses. Through five faculty narratives and group interviews, this research collects and analyzes faculty experiences, challenges, perceptions, and institutional expectations concerning writing practices across the disciplines at predominantly undergraduate, teaching-oriented Saudi universities. Findings indicate that faculty members utilize WAC to encourage critical thinking and improve students’ overall linguistic competence. While instructors face challenges, participants reported the need to develop a community of practice to enhance WAC culture in Saudi Arabia. The study recommends that educators form cross-institutional teams to collectively design culturally sensitive, locally rooted, and responsive writing practices.
Recent evidence underlines the importance of seeing learning disorders in terms of their partial association (comorbidity). The present concept paper presents a model of reading that aims to account ...for performance on a naturalistic reading task within a comorbidity perspective. The model capitalizes on the distinction between three independent levels of analysis: competence, performance, and acquisition: Competence denotes the ability to master orthographic-phonological binding skills;
refers to the ability to read following specific task requirements, such as scanning the text from left to right. Both competence and performance are acquired through practice. Practice is also essential for the consolidation of item-specific memory traces (or instances), a process which favors automatic processing. It is proposed that this perspective might help in understanding surface dyslexia, a reading profile that has provoked a prolonged debate among advocates of traditional models of reading. The proposed reading model proposes that surface dyslexia is due to a defective ability to consolidate specific traces or instances. In this vein, it is a "real" deficit, in the sense that it is not due to an artifact (such as limited exposure to print); however, as it is a cross-domain defect extending to other learning behaviors, such as spelling and math, it does not represent a difficulty specific to reading. Recent evidence providing initial support for this hypothesis is provided. Overall, it is proposed that viewing reading in a comorbidity perspective might help better understand surface dyslexia and might encourage research on the association between surface dyslexia and other learning disorders.
This study investigates the rate of unawareness of common errors in English and its impact on human vs. machine translation into Arabic. It analyzes the reaction of human and machine translators when ...encountering English sentences with common errors, and its impact on translation process. Translators are readers in the first place, they have to comprehend what they read in the SL in order to convey it in the TL. In order for the ST message to be correctly conveyed into the TL, detecting errors and correcting them before translating is a necessity. The study is conducted through presenting 40 SL texts and evaluating their 680 TL texts translated by 14 MA students of translation and 3 online machine translators. Results show that the rate of unawareness of common errors is 51% for human translators and 79% for machine translators.
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