Case Of Pronouns Research Articles

Children learn from speech not addressed to them: the case of personal pronouns.

ABSTRACTA modelling experiment was conducted to determine if children would benefit from observing speech not addressed to them in discovering the correct use of first and second pronouns. Imitative behaviours of 18 English-speaking children who were about to learn personal pronouns were analysed under two modelling conditions. The non-addressee condition provided the child with systematic opportunities to observe the parents saying me/you with pointing actions directed towards each other as well as the parents saying me/you with pointing action directed towards the child. The addressee condition provided the child only with systematic opportunities to observe the parents saying me/you with pointing actions directed towards the child. Only children in the non-addressee condition imitated their parents' pointing actions and use of me/you without errors, suggesting that even children under two years old can attend to and can learn from speech not addressed to them.

Controlled Composition for Basic Writers

Teachers of basic writing who are searching for an effective method of teaching remedial writing, who have already given up first one basic grammar and then another, first one basic workbook then another, and first one basic rhetoric then another, may have overlooked a technique used successfully for many years in teaching English as a second language (ESL). This technique, called controlled, or guided, composition, is increasingly coming to favor in remedial classes. Similar to sentence combining in that students perform certain manipulations with pre-written material, but different in that the controls are tighter, controlled composition is used to promote (1) improved student writing, including increased fluency, error control, and sense of essay structure; and (2) greater student self-confidence and motivation to further improve writing. These benefits derive from daily practice of correct writing and from the assigned manipulations that tap previously acquired competence in the language. Controlled composition thus is used to teach the skills that grammar exercises attempt but rarely attain. By requiring copying together with specified lexical or syntactic manipulations, controlled composition requires student writers to employ what they already know about language but frequently fail to practice. It can be used effectively to deal with errors in tense markers, subject-verb agreement, punctuation, spelling, pronoun case and agreement, and sentence formation and boundary markers. It is particularly useful for students using standard written English as a second dialect or as a second language, and for students whose biggest writing problem is lack of attention to written forms. These latter students write as they talk and give little attention to their writing once it is on paper. But controlled composition, because it demands accuracy in both transcription and manipulation, focuses student attention on lexical and syntactic forms in the written language. Instruction using this technique generally consists of a series of lessons requiring increasingly sophisticated language manipulations. Usually it begins

At the Time of the Case of Pronouns

At the Time of the Case of Pronouns