Language Experience Research Articles

Linguistically responsive learning and teaching for non-native speakers in undergraduate nursing education: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionNon-native-speaking nursing students as well as faculty, preceptors and mentors face specific issues related to language in undergraduate nursing education. A better understanding of the language experiences, needs, requirements, assessments...

Brain correlates of attentional load processing reflect degree of bilingual engagement: Evidence from EEG

The present study uses electroencephalography (EEG) with an N-back task (0-, 1-, and 2-back) to investigate if and how individual bilingual experiences modulate brain activity and cognitive processes. The N-back is an especially appropriate task given recent proposals situating bilingual effects on neurocognition within the broader attentional control system (Bialystok and Craik, 2022). Beyond its working memory component, the N-Back task builds in complexity incrementally, progressively taxing the attentional system. EEG, behavioral and language/social background data were collected from 60 bilinguals. Two cognitive loads were calculated: low (1-back minus 0-back) and high (2-back minus 0-back). Behavioral performance and brain recruitment were modeled as a function of individual differences in bilingual engagement. We predicted task performance as modulated by bilingual engagement would reflect cognitive demands of increased complexity: slower reaction times and lower accuracy, and increase in theta, decrease in alpha and modulated N2/P3 amplitudes. The data show no modulation of the expected behavioral effects by degree of bilingual engagement. However, individual differences analyses reveal significant correlations between non-societal language use in Social contexts and alpha in the low cognitive load condition and age of acquisition of the L2/2L1 with theta in the high cognitive load. These findings lend some initial support to Bialystok and Craik (2022), showing how certain adaptations at the brain level take place in order to deal with the cognitive demands associated with variations in bilingual language experience and increases in attentional load. Furthermore, the present data highlight how these effects can play out differentially depending on cognitive testing/modalities – that is, effects were found at the TFR level but not behaviorally or in the ERPs, showing how the choice of analysis can be deterministic when investigating bilingual effects.

Creating Real Situations, Developing Thinking Tools Design and Implementation of the Interdisciplinary Project Autumn Museum for Lower Grades of Primary School

Childrens expressive abilities need to be gradually built. In the lower grades of primary school, real situational tasks should be used as the teaching environment, students task inquiry activities as the main line of learning, and language interaction between teachers and students as the teaching technique. The ultimate goal is to enhance individual language experience centered on students pragmatic abilities. By using situational tasks as the main line, continuously providing students with tools for expression, and achieving the learning objective of childrens creative expression through a structured language construction process. This paper develops and designs an expressive literacy course based on the first semester Chinese textbook for first graders.

ENHANCING RECEPTIVE SKILLS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING: THE INTERPLAY OF READING AND LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Receptive skills, particularly reading and listening comprehension, are crucial components of foreign language acquisition. This study explores the interplay between these skills and their significance in language learning by utilizing the scientific literary and analytical–synthetic method. The literature suggests that reading proficiency can enhance other language skills, whereas listening comprehension facilitates foreign language learning through various activities and the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Specific learning disorders, auditory functioning, and instructional materials can influence the development of receptive skills. The relationship between short-term memory (STM) and listening comprehension was also examined, highlighting the importance of enhancing STM capacity in improving listening skills. Additionally, vocabulary knowledge is central to both listening and reading comprehension. The research collectively underscores the importance of targeted strategies and resources to enhance the receptive skills of learners in foreign language contexts. However, individual learner characteristics and prior language experiences may require tailored approaches for effective improvement. While receptive skills are crucial for understanding, some argue that a balanced approach that incorporates both receptive and productive skills may lead to better language outcomes. Although receptive skills are certainly important for comprehension, it can be argued that a more holistic approach to language learning, which includes both receptive and productive skills, may ultimately result in more effective language acquisition. The basic aspects of teaching listening skills involve understanding the cognitive and pedagogical underpinnings of listening comprehension and applying effective strategies, such as top-down and bottom-up processing and a metacognitive approach, to enhance this skill.

What difficulties do children learning English in addition to another language experience with English oral language? A systematic review

ABSTRACT Within the majority of English-speaking settings, children learning English as an additional language (CLEAL) underperform academically relative to their monolingual, English-speaking peers. This systematic review (preregistration: https://archive.org/details/osf-registrations-zgmha-v1) identifies the elements of the English oral language where these children experience difficulty. We focused on research measuring an English oral language outcome for CLEAL between the ages of 3 and 7 and their age-matched, monolingual English-speaking peers. We searched PsycINFO, Web of Science, British Education Index and Linguistics and Language Behaviour s, for studies published between 2015 and 2024, written in English. Of the 2125 records identified, 20 were eligible for inclusion, with a low-to-moderate risk of bias. Overall, our target group performed significantly worse in tests of English receptive and expressive vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, listening comprehension, embedding, collocational knowledge and areas of narrative skill and phonological production. However, these children were comparable with their peers in other areas of narrative skill, lexical and pragmatic understanding, elements of morphological production and areas of phonological production and processing. Overall, while the picture is mixed, highlighting the need for further study of oral English in CLEAL, this review strengthens existing arguments for vocabulary and syntax acquisition as appropriate targets for intervention.

Adaptation and psychometric investigation of the Gameful Experience Questionnaire (GAMEFULQUEST) in Brazilian Portuguese

Over the years, the use of questionnaires has become one of the most used methods for analyzing individuals’ experiences. Especially in the area of gameful environments (e.g., games, gamification, and simulators), the Gameful Experience Questionnaire, a self-report instrument to measure gameful experience, became one of the most popular. Despite the instrument’s popularity, there is no Brazilian Portuguese version, preventing studies from being carried out in Brazil (i.e., a country with more than 200 million inhabitants), where only 5.1% of the population have adequate English comprehension skills. To face this challenge, we conducted a cross-cultural adaptation of the Gameful Experience Questionnaire, providing a version of the questionnaire in the Brazilian Portuguese language. For this process, we conducted a mixed-methods (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) psychometric study (N = 384) organized in six steps (i.e., (i) translation, (ii) synthesis, (iii) experts evaluation, (iv) target audience evaluation, (v) adapted instrument application, and (vi) validation (i.e., confirmatory factor analysis)). The results indicate that the cross-cultural adaptation took place efficiently, where the resulting instrument maintained the psychometric properties of the original, measuring the construct of interest with similar effectiveness (i.e., χ2/df\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\chi ^2/df$$\\end{document} = 2.4, RMSEA = 0.061, CFI = 0.991, TLI = 0.989, GFI = 0.986 and SRMR = 0.061), enabling its application with Brazilian Portuguese speakers. With this study, we contribute to researchers and practitioners in the field of gameful environments by providing an instrument to measure gameful experience in the Brazilian Portuguese language.

Helen Keller’s ‘Sense of light’: life-writing, light-writing and the photosynthetic subject

ABSTRACT Contributors to Mere Light ask how ‘light’ falls in and through the non-visual medium of the literary text, illuminating that medium’s potential to initiate an experience of immediacy. While we might look to the luminous inscriptions of medieval mystics for its template, a fascinating post-Enlightenment exemplar of this paradox is the literary ‘self-recording’ of the deafblind modern ‘miracle’ Helen Keller. ‘Illustrated’ with often surreal photographs that both marked their modernity and complemented their thematic preoccupation with the dynamics of light, Keller’s nine autobiographies strove to replicate her primarily ‘tactual’ sense experience in graphic language while tendering apparently eyewitness images of light. Where these literary dissimulations bring the body of Keller’s disabled I into view, they develop a complex ‘sense of light’ as vibrant, self-actualising literary metaphor, capable of moving between sight and touch, and thus beyond the limits of both. Projecting its speaking I as light’s writing alongside illustrative photographs that projected that I as light-written, Keller’s life-writing synthesises sight and touch. Epitomised in her experimental The World I Live In (1908), this was to ‘photo’ synthesise the mimetic pretenses of post-Enlightenment visualising technologies with a transhistorical disability aesthetics oriented around peripheral – hence invisible – embodiment.

Declared Practices of Language Facilitation in Early Childhood Education and Care with Children Younger than Two Years

AbstractEarly reciprocal language experiences are crucial for children’s language development. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has the potential to facilitate language development. However, knowledge on ECEC educators’ actions in implementing early language facilitation is scarce. This study surveyed educators’ declared practices of early language facilitation and its relationship with their educational background. Open-ended responses gathered from 644 Finnish ECEC educators were categorized by content and analyzed in relation to the educators’ qualifications and work experience. The findings showed that when reporting on their practices, the educators typically did not focus on the child’s communicative initiatives and reciprocal language. However, the responses of educators with a qualification in ECEC special education contained more focused content on child-led reciprocity. Moreover, both ECEC special education teachers and educators with experience in infant-toddler ECEC underlined the importance of interaction. The findings indicate a need to increase educators’ awareness of their actions in facilitating children’s early language skills. To achieve the educational and preventive rehabilitative potential of ECEC, it is crucial that centers both include ECEC special educators in their teaching staff and invest in educator training.

Preschool educators’ use of commanding language in China and Japan: a cross-cultural comparative study

ABSTRACT The manner in which educators use commands, a form of language that serves to guide and regulate behaviour, constitutes an essential component of children’s learning experiences in relation to language and social interactions. This study investigated nine Chinese and nine Japanese educators’ use of commanding language in educator-child free play interactions. Totally, 4296 clauses generated by the educators were analysed, drawn on systemic functional linguistic theory that classifies command based on its semantic feature. The results show that Chinese educators generally uttered more commanding language than Japanese educators. The proportion of direct & non-suggestive commands (revealing speakers’ authority) dominated in both cohorts, yet Chinese educators rated significantly higher than Japanese educators. The proportion of indirect and suggestive commands (carrying negotiation tones) in Japanese educators’ language was significantly higher than Chinese educators. The effect of child age on the educators’ commanding language was identified. Compared to the Chinese educators, Japanese educators uttered much less commands when interacting with children under four years, however, the gap was narrowed when communicating with children above four years. The findings illustrate how the educators create culturally-different language experiences for children in daily interactions, which has implications for worldwide preschool education in multicultural contexts.

The role of native language and beat perception ability in the perception of speech rhythm : Native language, beat perception, and speech rhythm perception.

The perception of rhythm has been studied across a range of auditory signals, with speech presenting one of the particularly challenging cases to capture and explain. Here, we asked if rhythm perception in speech is guided by perceptual biases arising from native language structures, if it is shaped by the cognitive ability to perceive a regular beat, or a combination of both. Listeners of two prosodically distinct languages - English and French - heard sentences (spoken in their native and the foreign language, respectively) and compared the rhythm of each sentence to its drummed version (presented at inter-syllabic, inter-vocalic, or isochronous intervals). While English listeners tended to map sentence rhythm onto inter-vocalic and inter-syllabic intervals in this task, French listeners showed a perceptual preference for inter-vocalic intervals only. The native language tendency was equally apparent in the listeners' foreign language and was enhanced by individual beat perception ability. These findings suggest that rhythm perception in speech is shaped primarily by listeners' native language experience with a lesser influence of innate cognitive traits.

Warisan Budaya Dunia “Batik” sebagai Bahan Ajar Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing dalam Mendukung Internasionalisasi Bahasa Indonesia

Batik is one of Indonesia's cultural heritages which was recognized by UNESCO on October 2 2009. The word "batik" comes from two Javanese terms, namely "amba" and "nitik" which means write and dot. This cultural heritage from Solo can be a means to deepen the experience of learning language and culture. This research found that adding batik to the BIPA curriculum can increase participant engagement and encourage their interest in Indonesian. The results show that Batik is not only a cultural heritage but also a bridge between language and culture. The integration of cultural elements in Indonesian language learning can provide a real picture, making it easier for BIPA students to understand. These results can be used as a guide for BIPA teachers, educational institutions, and related parties to create learning strategies that are in line with the internationalization of Indonesian.

Speaker-listener neural coupling correlates with semantic and acoustic features of naturalistic speech.

Recent research has extensively reported the phenomenon of inter-brain neural coupling between speakers and listeners during speech communication. Yet, the specific speech processes underlying this neural coupling remain elusive. To bridge this gap, this study estimated the correlation between the temporal dynamics of speaker-listener neural coupling with speech features, utilizing two inter-brain datasets accounting for different noise levels and listener's language experiences (native vs. non-native). We first derived time-varying speaker-listener neural coupling, extracted acoustic feature (envelope) and semantic features (entropy and surprisal) from speech, and then explored their correlational relationship. Our findings reveal that in clear conditions, speaker-listener neural coupling correlates with semantic features. However, as noise increases, this correlation is only significant for native listeners. For non-native listeners, neural coupling correlates predominantly with acoustic feature rather than semantic features. These results revealed how speaker-listener neural coupling is associated with the acoustic and semantic features under various scenarios, enriching our understanding of the inter-brain neural mechanisms during natural speech communication. We therefore advocate for more attention on the dynamic nature of speaker-listener neural coupling and its modeling with multilevel speech features.

Accessing the Greek Verbal System Through the Shona Verb: Toward a Bantu Approach to Biblical Languages

Abstract As with any other language, mastering biblical languages such as Greek remains a challenge in Africa. Meanwhile, many African languages hold keys to a better experience in teaching and learning biblical languages. Accordingly, this study proposes a Bantu-based approach to teaching and learning biblical Greek for effective delivery and better mastery. In this study, by means of comparative linguistics, the verbal system of Shona, one of the numerous Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa, is used to demonstrate correspondences with the biblical Greek verbal system. Elements of special interest in the two languages’ verbal systems relate to signification codes for tense, voice, mode, person, and number. The study is premised on the understanding that the verb is the heart of any language. The basic assumption of the study is that since both Shona and biblical Greek verbal systems are conjugated in comparable ways, something which English lacks, using Shona to teach or learn biblical Greek in the Zimbabwean context should be effective. The study proposes that this method be similarly tried with other Bantu languages and the other two biblical languages: Hebrew and Aramaic. In the end, there may be a need to produce biblical language grammar written with Bantu languages as their base, especially considering there is no substitute for learning in one’s own language.

Adaptation and norm determination of the Boston Naming Test for healthy Lebanese adults aged between 50 and 88 years

The Boston Naming Test is a well-known neuropsychological test widely used to evaluate linguistic abilities, encompassing object naming and word retrieval in subjects representing various clinical pathologies. Our study has two main stages: (1) a pilot study aimed at adapting the BNT to the linguistic and cultural particularities of Lebanese society and (2) norm determination for the Lebanese version of the BNT through the analysis of participants’ responses. The primary goal of this study is to develop a Lebanese version of the BNT comprising 60 images adapted to the Lebanese language and culture. This version is based on normative data derived from healthy Lebanese adults aged between 50 and 88 years. The study seeks to assess the influence of age, gender, and education level on the naming performance of participants. In the pilot study, 103 Lebanese volunteers participated, while the normative study involved 280 healthy volunteers aged between 50 and 88 years. Three screening tests—Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q), and Geriatric Depression Scale 15-item (GDS)—were administered to select participants meeting inclusion criteria. The findings revealed a statistically significant effect of age and education level on the BNT (Lebanese version) total score. The total score decreased with age and increased with education. However, the effect of gender was not significant, a result confirmed by the generalized linear model. This study successfully produced a Lebanese version of the BNT comparable to the original English version. Additionally, it provided normative data crucial for evaluating naming ability, word retrieval, and detecting potential disorders associated with aging.

Conceptualizing Linguistic and Cultural Identity among Breton and Arabic Users in Brittany

The linguistic diversity of France is a highly discussed topic, particularly in relation to the French state's (lack of) support for regional and minority languages (RMLs). There are approximately 200,000 speakers of the regional language Breton, while Arabic is the second-most widely spoken language in France with an estimated 3–4 million speakers. Recent studies have called for comparative analyses and this research seeks to fill this gap, focusing on individual speakers and their social experiences as they relate to language(s), diversity, and identity. This paper discusses findings of fieldwork conducted in Brittany with Breton and Arabic language users, examining how Breton and Arabic language users describe their language experiences, and how identity can be shaped by language practices. This research also explores how such language practices relate to diversity and multilingualism across France more broadly, and how individuals understand the multifaceted nature of identity using terms such as ‘double culture’ and ‘mélange’.

Experiences of Afghan-Canadian language and cultural advisors who served with Canadian forces abroad: an interpretive phenomenological analysis

Though much research has been conducted on the potential well-being effects of deployment on armed forces members, a significant gap seems to exist in the literature when it comes to its effect on conflict-zone interpreters. Drawing on the experiences of six former Afghan-Canadian Language and Cultural Advisors (LCAs), this paper aims to contribute to expanding the nascent literature on conflict-zone interpreters by exploring how former LCAs perceive their experiences before, during, and after their deployment and the resulting impacts on their well-being. Interested in an in-depth exploration of the experiences of former LCAs, this study employed an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach. Through the analysis, four superordinate themes emerged in participants’ narratives including: (1) the right opportunity, referring to the reasons for becoming an LCA; (2) overcoming challenges, when it comes to the work itself; (3) deserving better, relating to the experience returning to post-service life; and (4) moving forward, speaking to the current reality of participants. The results reveal key insights into the unique experiences and support needs of former Afghan-Canadian LCAs included in the study, offering an in-depth account of their experience before, during and after their service. The findings also offer important considerations regarding the support available not just to interpreters but to all contractors deployed in conflict-zones.

Language Portraits of Four Transnational Educators from China: Experiences, Ideologies, and Teaching Practices

This study uses language portraits (Busch, 2018) to shed light on the relationship between the multilingual experiences and teaching practices of four transnational educators who have lived, studied, and taught across China and the United States. Using multimodal thematic analysis methods (Coffey, 2015; Purkarthofer & De Korne, 2020), this approach highlights the ways in which language experiences and teaching practices are mediated by language ideologies. This approach enables the participants to visualise and describe their linguistic repertoires and multilingual experiences in relation to teaching practices in the focus group interview. Findings show that these educators from China value Chinese as a resource for teaching and learning. They hold an asset-oriented view of the students’ home languages and are willing to incorporate their home languages to support classroom teaching and learning. Although they have mixed feelings about English, due to negative learning experiences, they are aware of the economic value of the language, which sustains their efforts to improve their English proficiency and influences their career plans. Overall, the educators evidence an emerging, yet rudimentary, multilingual awareness. The entrenched ideology of Mandarin monolingualism, which prioritises Putonghua (Standard Mandarin) over other Chinese dialects, along with the global dominance of English and its associated language ideology, has profoundly influenced teaching practices in multilingual classrooms.

Cross-linguistic perception of Spanish intonation by Chinese speakers: Effects of linguistic experience and prosodic features

This study aims to explore the cross-linguistic perception of Spanish intonation patterns and the role of linguistic experience and prosodic features in identifying the question-statement contrasts. To this end, 43 Spanish native listeners and 75 Chinese learners of Spanish were presented with auditory stimuli in a gating paradigm for the recognition of sentence types. The results showed that listeners’ perception of target intonational contours was highly dependent on their language experience. Although Spanish listeners outperformed Chinese learners in perceiving different intonational cues, most Chinese learners were able to correctly identify sentence types after hearing the initial F0 peak due to the positive transfer of their tonal processing ability in their native language. In addition, our data revealed that the position of the final stressed syllable might also be a relevant factor for discriminating the sentence type depending on the length of the utterance. Overall, the findings seem to suggest a complex integration mechanism for cross-linguistic intonation perception, in which listeners’ language specificity and the prosodic structures of the materials should be accounted for evaluating non-native auditory performance.

Early Parental Knowledge and Parent-Child Conversations Promote Preschool Language Skills: A Randomized Controlled Trial

ObjectiveThis randomized controlled trial examined the long-term impact of the 3Ts-HV intervention on preschool-aged children’s language skills through promoting parental knowledge and parent-child conversational turns during toddlerhood among families from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds, controlling for parental education level, parental language skills, and child’s age. MethodsNinety two parent-toddler dyads of low socioeconomic status were randomized to receive either the 3Ts-HV intervention (n = 46) or Healthy Lifestyle control (n = 46) curriculum from 14 to 20 months. Parental language skills were assessed at 14 months; parental knowledge was assessed at 14 and 26 months; parent-child conversational turn count was assessed at 14 and 38 months; children’s language skills were assessed at 50 months. ResultsA significant serial mediation effect (β = 0.05, 95% CI [0.002; 0.13]) revealed that the 3Ts-HV intervention increased parental knowledge at 26 months, contributed to more frequent parent-child conversational turns at 38 months, and in turn promoted children’s language skills at 50 months. ConclusionsThe present study provides empirical evidence illustrating the underlying longitudinal processes from increasing parental knowledge and enriching parent-child linguistic interactions during toddlerhood, to promoting children’s language development at preschool age. These findings point to a significant path to supporting families who face socioeconomic challenges early in life to promote equity in children’s early language experiences and narrow disparities in children’s developmental outcomes.

Infants and toddlers in the United States with more close relationships have larger vocabularies.

Young children learn language from their caregivers, family members, and friends. However, with few exceptions, contemporary developmental scientists have studied language input and language learning through the lens of the primary caregiver and the nuclear family, rather than the infants' broader communities. In many communities-and increasingly in the United States-nonnuclear family structures are common, and extended kin, fictive kin, and intergenerational relationships are relied upon for child care. Understanding children's relationships within kinship networks can allow for more inclusive depictions of children's social interactions and their language experiences. We drew upon methods used by researchers studying social networks to assess U.S. infants' and toddlers' network composition. Results showed that young children with a greater number of close relationships (but not those with larger networks overall) had larger vocabularies, after controlling for age and socioeconomic status. These findings suggest that distributed models of child-rearing are an influential factor in early language growth and call for increased attention to social networks for understanding children's developmental trajectories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).