Development Of Language Competence Research Articles

Improving student motivation for the development of language and speech competencies with training and digital learning platforms

Particular attention today is paid to the search for new methods in foreign language teaching that provide high proficiency in a foreign language for professional purposes. An effective way to achieve this goal is the use of digital platforms, which increase motivation in the study of a foreign language for scientific communication. This study investigates the influence of digital platforms on motivation for academic foreign-language communication among students in technical specialties. The pedagogical experiment conducted demonstrated a significant improvement in motivation in the experimental group (EG) compared to the control group (CG). Specifically, students in the EG exhibited a 10.4% increase in high motivation levels post-experiment compared to the CG's 2.2% increase. These findings highlight the efficacy of the Moodle platform in enhancing students' academic foreign-language communication skills.

Profiles of young children's home environment and association with their development.

This study aimed to identify profiles of young children's early home environment and explore their association with development in motor, inhibitory control, language, and emotional competence skills. The sample included 2,158 children (51.4% male), 35.47 months old on average. Four home environment profiles emerged: high support and high discipline (HS-HD), high support and low discipline (HS-LD), average support and average discipline (AS-AD), and low support and low discipline (LS-LD). Notably, children from higher socioeconomic status (SES) families were more likely to be associated with HS-HD and HS-LD profiles. Girls exhibited a higher likelihood of belonging to the HS-LD profile. Utilizing regression analyses, children showed the highest motor, inhibitory control, language, and emotional competence development when they were in the HS-LD home environment profile. A concerning finding is that high discipline from parents was negatively associated with children's development, despite providing a high-quality physical environment. The text highlights the positive implications of providing a high-quality home learning environment and offers constructive recommendations for improving practice and future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the Relationship Between Language competence and Intercultural Communicative Competence Among English as a Foreign language Learners: A Mixed-Methods Study

This study explores the relationship between language competence and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners through a mixed-methods approach. A sample of 196 Chinese EFL learners was divided into three proficiency groups (low, intermediate, and high), with data collected through Likert-scale questionnaires and semi-structured interviews involving 16 participants. Quantitative analysis revealed that higher language proficiency is linked to improved overall ICC scores and its specific dimensions. The Kruskal-Wallis H test confirmed significant differences in overall ICC, attitude, and skill across proficiency levels, with attitude showing the strongest effect. Spearman's correlation analysis demonstrated small but significant positive correlations between English proficiency and overall ICC, attitude, and skill. Qualitative findings further enriched the quantitative results, emphasizing the foundational and catalytic role of language competence in enhancing ICC and its dimensions. However, participants acknowledged that language competence alone is insufficient for fully successful intercultural interactions. This study expands Byram’s model by offering detailed insights into the intricate relationship between language competence and various ICC dimensions. The study recommends that to fully cultivate ICC, it is essential to integrate the development of language competence into instructional practices.

M-learning w nauce języków obcych – potencjał i ograniczenia

M-learning refers to learning supported by mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, which can be taken anywhere and utilized independently of place and time. The continuous improvement of portable devices gives them new features, among which solutions favoring the development of language competencies can play an important role. The first part of the article will discuss theoretical justifications and models related to mobile learning, as well as associated approaches such as multimedia learning and multimodality. In the second part, with reference to available results of empirical research, an attempt will be made to indicate the potential and the limitations of mobile learning, as well as to signal research directions encompassing issues in this area that are worth exploring in the future.

Assessing student teachers’ knowledge of English to inform curriculum design in initial teacher education

Background: In Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes, there are concerns about student teachers’ English language proficiency.Aim: To discuss the first iteration of the PrimTEd English language and literacy test and analyse the results for information about the test instrument and about student teacher attainment.Setting: South African student teachers in BEd programmes preparing for teaching in primary schools, across six public universities, participated in the test from 2020 to 2022.Methods: The student results for the PrimTEd English assessment were analysed using basic statistics, focussing on the largest samples of first-year and fourth-year students who took both the subtests. The items in each subtest were coded according to their underlying language constructs, and each subtest was subjected to Rasch analysis before the test was considered as a whole.Results: The initial test showed the attainment of fourth-year students (mean = 55%, standard deviation [SD] = 21%, n = 731) was only 3 percentage points higher than that of first-year students (mean = 52%, SD = 20%, n = 1177).Conclusion: The similarities between the first- and fourth-year students’ test results is concerning. There remains much work to be done in building student teachers’ English language proficiency in BEd programmes.Contribution: The findings and recommendations should be useful to ITE lecturers in designing programmes that enable progressive development of English language and literacy competence from first year to graduation.

Influence of Individualised Teaching Methods on Improving the Professional Flexibility of Future Primary School Teachers

The study aims to determine the effectiveness of individualised teaching methods for developing future primary school teachers' professional flexibility. The authors have developed individualised learning mechanisms that provide for the development of language competence, as well as mathematical, interdisciplinary and innovative competence. It has been determined that the most significant impact on the development of professional flexibility, in the opinion of teachers and students, was made by language and interdisciplinary competence, which contributed to the clarity of their thoughts. The study results showed the achievement of a high level of information assimilation by future teachers after training (0.74). It was found that individualised learning mechanisms contributed to the formation of developmental individualisation (23%) and creative thinking (22%) in the first place. The work's practical significance is finding effective mechanisms for forming professional flexibility for future primary school teachers.

Additive and Causal Connectives in GFL Argumentative Writing

The main objective of foreign language learning and teaching is the development of communicative language competence. One of its key components is discourse competence which consists of three main elements: cohesion, coherence and text composition (Bagarić Medve and Pavičić Takač 2013). The development of writing skills is acknowledged as one of the main challenges in foreign language learning and teaching, which includes the appropriate usage of cohesive devices in order to tackle the semantic relationships within a text. In German, explicit cohesive devices refer to coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions and adverbial connectors. While a bulk of previous research has focused on English as a foreign language, the studies conducted among the learners of German are still scarce Earlier studies (e.g. Breindl 2016; Vaakanainen and Maijala 2022) pointed to a limited range of variations within the same semantic group and an inappropriate use of connectives when comparing their usage between native speakers and learners of German as a foreign language (GFL). The aim of the present study is to analyse the frequency, variation and errors of causal and additive connectives (coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions and adverbial connectors) in GFL argumentative writing. The corpus consists of 43 argumentative essays written by Croatian GFL students at B2 level. The findings concerning frequency show that additional connectives are most frequently used within the whole corpus, whereas causal connectives take third place. The additive coordinating conjunction und is the most frequent additive item, the subordinating conjunction weil is the most frequently used causal item. The results connected to variation point to a wider range in the use of additional connectives in comparison to causal, but also reveal more error recognition within the additive semantic group. The most common types of errors concerning connectors detected in the corpus are as follows: syntax, meaning, spelling/punctuation, redundancy and register. In order to utilize these research findings aiming at improving the writing skills of GFL students in the learning/instructional process, practical implications are presented at the end.

Conceptual Bases of Foreign Language Competence Development by Means of Technologies

Conceptual Bases of Foreign Language Competence Development by Means of Technologies

Identitätsarbeit und Rollenverständnis durch persönliche Narrationen in Virtuellen Austauschen zwischen deutschen und israelischen Studierenden

Digitalization is essential in daily life, especially in education, and has been further emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. Schools and universities are demanding digital development. To date, little progress has been made in virtual and transnational exchange programs for foreign language student teachers from diverse cultural backgrounds. These learners could greatly benefit from enhanced development of foreign language and intercultural communicative competencies (O’Dowd 2006, 2021). A group of Israeli and German students took part in a four-week virtual exchange project. The students collaborated on concepts for their future foreign language classroom, drawing from their (digital) pandemic experiences. Zoom meetings were recorded and multimodally transcribed for research purposes. The essay provides insight into a conducted PhD research project analyzing online personal narratives resulting from given impulses and assigned tasks. Using a phenomenological approach, an example sequence was selected. The findings will illuminate the discourse development of participants' secondary conversations („off-task-talks“) and their (situated) concept of roles and identities presented in the discourse.

A TEACHER “ON A SMARTPHONE” OR MOBILE APPLICATIONS AS AN INNOVATIVE TOOL FOR LEARNING UKRAINIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

The application of collective teaching methods leads to the development of language and conversational competence and directs to the creating a stable motivation to learn the Ukrainian language in a foreign language audience. The article considers the possibilities of using a collective method as a means of activating language and speech activity in the process of teaching Ukrainian to high-competence Polish students. It was analyzed the current state of the problem, and characterized modern collective game-like teaching technologies, which play a significant role in the process of effective learning of Ukrainian as a foreign language by means of professional language, and help to achieve the level of free foreign language communication in professional process. The purpose of the tasks and their impact on the development of the student’s personality and increase his level of knowledge were highlighted in the manuscript. The most effective for foreign (Polish) student audience training exercises for collective performance were analyzed, and features and the benefit of their application in the educational process were indicated. The expediency of using of collective game-like tasks for deepening and mastering the terminology of museology in classes with foreigners was analyzed. The examples of non-standard games aimed the developing students’ skills in analyzing and solving everyday situations were offered. The application of collective game-like teaching methods increases the efficiency of students’ learning, enriches the change of the educational process, enhances the motivation to learn the Ukrainian language, makes impossible the domination of participants in the educational process, creates conditions for closer cooperation between teachers and foreign language authorization. Key words: terminology of museology, Ukrainian language as a foreign language, collective method of teaching, high competence, exercise, game.

Mechanisms of formation of speech skills on the basis of media technologies

The expansion of the socio-economic and cultural cooperation of the countries in the world is increasing the interest, need and desire to learn foreign languages, especially English. In the educational system of developed countries, special attention is paid to learning English in accelerated ways from the school period. The development of students' language and speech competences on the basis of media technologies is becoming an urgent issue in teaching English in general education schools. Especially for A1 levels, it has become a priority to acquire the linguistic competence noted in the content of English language teaching and to develop the ability to use it in speech communication. The experience of world countries shows the need to create and improve teaching methods based on the development of lexical competence in teaching English to students.

The significance of foreign language Geography teaching in the dual language secondary school programmes of the Northern Great Plain region

Dual language education has been present in numerous institutions across the Northern Great Plain region of Hungary. Educational centres across the region have been running dual language programmes in secondary grammar schools and vocational schools for decades. As regional centre and traditional educational hub, Debrecen is also represented by a number of schools offering international programmes. Although recent socioeconomic and education policy changes have forced schools for constant renewal, bilingualism in educational programmes managed to remain popular, partly due to the achievements of foreign language subject teaching. Through the alignment of subject-specific content and the development of language competence, this form of education effectively contributes to the improvement of students’ language skills, shapes their mindset and expands their further education and increases their market value as potential workforce. This study will explore the role and impact of foreign language Geography teaching across the secondary schools of the Northern Great Plain region through the lens of teaching and educational research, by discussing some of the relevant regional findings of a broader PhD dissertation (including school visits, final exam results and a recent nationwide teacher survey). Research findings prove that Geography has been a popular subject choice to be taught in foreign languages: it has been present in the majority of the 15 dual language secondary schools of the region, it has been playing an important role in vocational school programmes and it has been chosen as final exam subject by nearly 1,000 candidates.

Development of language competence of future defectologists in the context of bilingualism

Relevance. The development of special education in Kazakhstan is associated with legislation in the education sector, the country's policy in relation to children with special needs, the level of development of special (correctional) science as an integrated (psychological, pedagogical, medical) field of knowledge. The system of higher education in Kazakhstan is forced to revise the goals and strategies for the development of professional education of future special education teachers. One of the main tasks of which is the transition from the qualification training of a specialist to competence based, by changing the training strategy, where the student learns to achieve the set goal, work for the intended result, i.e. the development of professional competencies is expected. Purpose. The purpose of the study is the scientific and theoretical substantiation of the need to develop the language competence of future defectologists with the consideration of bilingualism and educational and methodological support of the process. Methodology. The fundamental method of the research was pedagogical design, during which a pedagogical model of the language competence development in future special education teachers was designed. Within the framework of a comprehensive program for the development of the language competence in special education teachers, the following methods have been developed: an elective course �Fundamentals of the speech culture of a defectologist�; project complexes, bilingual creative tasks, exercises; methodological measures. Results. During the approbation of the developed model, it was revealed that the introduction of the proposed active methods, means and forms of teaching into the language teaching process can be an effective way to solve the issue under consideration. Conclusions. Theoretical substantiation and the results of experimental work in the future can be used in the accumulation of content and the development of educational recommendations, teaching aids and methods of teaching languages. Keywords: special education; language peculiarity; communication; specialist

The Development of English Language Competencies in Higher Education in the Context of Media and Informational Literacy

The Development of English Language Competencies in Higher Education in the Context of Media and Informational Literacy

Enhancing German language learning through interactive tools

This article explores the utilization of interactive tools in the creation of interactive exercises for German language lessons and the assessment of learners' performance. The concept of didacticization, which involves adapting educational materials and authentic texts, is examined in detail. The article outlines the essential steps for didacticizing authentic texts and provides examples of how digital tools can be employed to accomplish this task, thereby facilitating their integration into the educational process. The primary objectives of employing these tools are to foster language competence development and evaluate the attainment of learning outcomes. The study establishes that the utilization of mobile applications and Web 2.0 interactive tools effectively organizes students' work both within and outside the classroom, leading to the enhancement and refinement of their language competence.

The Impact of metacognitive strategies on the development of language competence for secondary cycle learners with Hearing impairment

This study, which is part of doctoral research into applied Arabic linguistics and comparison, aimed to identify the impact of teaching using metacognitive learning strategies on developing linguistic competence for the Arabic language for deaf learners in LALLA ASMAE foundation for deaf children in Rabat-Morocco. To achieve the research objectives, theresearcher used the descriptive and the quasi-experimental methodologies approaches, and the research sample comprised two groups; experimental have been learned by the 5E-Learning cycle strategy and Self-Questioning, and the control group by an ordinary method.Study tools:- Mykle Bust test for diagnosis of learning disabilities.- Linguistic competence test (examined its psychometric stabilities).The results showed that there were significant differences at (α 0.05) between the average scores of the learners of the experimental and control group in the post-test of the linguistic competence in the Arabic language in favor of the experimental group used the 5E-Learning cycle and self-questioning strategy in teaching. There were also no statistically significant differences at (α 0.05) in the mean of student's scores on the post-test of the linguistic competence and language Fields due to the gender variable. Results confirm the positive effect of metacognitive strategies, specifically the 5E-Learning cycle and Self-Questioning. So, it is recommended to increase the use of metacognitive strategies in the educational learning process, especially for Hearing impairment learners and encouraging research to apply metacognitive strategies in teaching various fields of Arabic language skills in addition to generalizing the study of these strategies at different educational levels

Метакогнитивные стратегии в текстовой деятельности (на примере англоязычных научных текстов)

Globalization on the one hand and border closure on the other hand spur communication process participants in all areas of human activities and especially young researchers into foreign language learning which is currently focused on foreign professionally-oriented texts. Traditional methods of teaching a foreign language based on grammatical approach are not effective in solving the problem of language competence development when working with professionally-oriented texts. The objective of this work is to assess the effectiveness of the method of legal texts concept analysis using a technique of metacognitive strategies in reading activity. Several groups of law students, Southwest State University (Kursk, Russia) took part in the experiment based on the above-mentioned method. Students performed both conventional (skimming, key words finding) and specially developed tasks (constructing a text compositional structure model, plotting a text graphical representation, etc.). Original criteria were used to evaluate the performance. The experiment showed a persistent significant difference in learning indicators and students’ behaviour in the control and experimental groups. The technique contributed to the development and enhancement of students’ skills improving their foreign language competence. The obtained skills facilitated communication and contributed to students’ satisfaction with the learning process, increased their creative and professional potential, students’ sustainable intrinsic motivation.

Using Interactive Language Development Tools to Enhance Cognitive and Literacy Skills in K-12 Education

The incorporation of interactive language technologies, such as ChatGPT, into K-12 education has sparked interest as a way to improve language acquisition and cognitive development. This qualitative study investigates the perspectives and experiences of educators enrolled in the Advanced Teaching MEd program who have implemented ChatGPT in their language classes. The study investigates the influence of ChatGPT on language competence, cognitive skills, and literacy development using educator interviews, classroom observations, and a comprehensive literature analysis. The findings underscore ChatGPT's dynamic and interactive nature, which encourages active involvement, knowledge production, and tailored support in the zone of proximal growth. Furthermore, the study demonstrates how ChatGPT improves language proficiency by offering authentic language experiences, timely feedback, and exposure to a variety of linguistic structures. ChatGPT integration helps students become confident communicators and teachers construct dynamic classes that adapt to specific learning needs. Future research should look at the long-term impact of interactive language tools, the importance of teacher training, and the cultural and socioeconomic aspects that influence their use and efficacy. This work adds to the continuing efforts to improve language learning outcomes in K-12 education by increasing our understanding of how interactive language tools can boost cognitive development and language competency.

Subject-related communicative language competence: Exploring future information technology specialists' learning and teaching

The need for IT professionals with fluency in foreign languages becomes increasingly critical as the Kazakhstani government implements steps to foster IT innovation. However, there are structural, geographical and professional imbalances in the interaction of supply and demand for IT professionals who can speak a foreign language in the modern labour market which is the main problem that is currently hindering the growth of the IT sector in Kazakhstan. The aim of this study was to assess the development of subject communicative language competencies (a) in linguistic or grammatical ability and (b) in discourse ability in first-year students for the proposed author's innovative learning technique in the educational process as well as the appropriate technological and systematic procedures. A mixed-research method was used in this study. The study involved 365 learners in the "Informatics" direction at the International University of Information Technologies in Almaty, Kazakhstan during the school year 2021-2022. According to the findings, the experiment participants did not develop subject-related communicative language competencies. The results show that the degree of capability formation is not satisfactory. 52.8% is the basic level, 41.6% is the production point and only 5.8% is the high level. Positive dynamics shaping learners' subject-related language communication competencies were identified as a result of the implementation of innovative techniques. This paper contributes to the research on teaching IT students in developing countries and highlights the most important factors that contribute to improve the level of subject-related communicative language competencies of IT students.

Texts and contexts: Linguistic landscapes, graffiti, film, and literature in L2 classes

AbstractGiven that societies across the globe are increasingly multicultural and multilingual, the notion of communicative competence grounded in constricting definitions of national cultures and languages reflects neither our instructional realities nor the sociolinguistic reality of the languages and cultures we teach. To foster students’ development of second language (L2) competence grounded in an awareness of the symbolic construction of language and culture as well as “tolerance for ambiguity” (Kramsch, 2006), students must create with L2, rather than just reproduce what they have learned. After briefly outlining changing conceptions of language competency, this paper first describes how public uses of language and images through signs and graffiti make up a given place's linguistic landscape (LL), defines an evolving concept, and illustrates how it can be effectively used in L2 instruction. Then it highlights how a variety of LL‐based activities help language learners become cognizant of their own sociolinguistic contexts and provides concrete examples from intermediate to advanced‐level classes in two distinctly different German programs. The different approaches encourage students to combine LL‐based activities with visual, literary, and film analysis to develop symbolic competencies that prepare them to negotiate unpredictable and diverse cultural norms.