Foreign Speech Research Articles

Evidence of a metacognitive illusion in stimulus-specific prospective judgments of distraction by background speech

Two experiments served to examine how people arrive at stimulus-specific prospective judgments about the distracting effects of speech on cognitive performance. The direct-access account implies that people have direct metacognitive access to the cognitive effects of sounds that determine distraction. The processing-fluency account implies that people rely on the processing-fluency heuristic to predict the distracting effects of sounds on cognitive performance. To test these accounts against each other, we manipulated the processing fluency of speech by playing speech forward or backward and by playing speech in the participants’ native or a foreign language. Forward speech and native speech disrupted serial recall to the same degree as backward speech and foreign speech, respectively. However, the more fluently experienced forward speech and native speech were incorrectly predicted to be less distracting than backward speech and foreign speech. This provides evidence of a metacognitive illusion in stimulus-specific prospective judgments of distraction by speech, supporting the processing-fluency account over the direct-access account. The difference between more and less fluently experienced speech was largely absent in the participants’ global retrospective judgments of distraction, suggesting that people gain access to comparatively valid cues when experiencing the distracting effects of speech on their serial-recall performance firsthand.

Abnormal brain activation during speech perception and production in children and adults with reading difficulty

Reading difficulty (RD) is associated with phonological deficits; however, it remains unknown whether the phonological deficits are different in children and adults with RD as reflected in foreign speech perception and production. In the current study, using functional Near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we found less difference between Chinese adults and Chinese children in the RD groups than the control groups in the activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during Spanish speech perception, suggesting slowed development in these regions associated with RD. Furthermore, using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we found that activation patterns in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), premotor, supplementary motor area (SMA), and IFG could serve as reliable markers of RD. We provide both behavioral and neurological evidence for impaired speech perception and production in RD readers which can serve as markers of RD.

Psychological basis for the creation of adaptive speech situations in a foreign language class in the higher educational institutions of physical culture and sport

The problem of creating adaptive speech situations when teaching oral foreign speech is a very important part of teaching foreign languages in general. Failures can be explained by the fact that, firstly, the complete non-compliance with the conditions of the educational process, the conditions that are necessary for the emergence of an adaptive act of speaking in a foreign language, and secondly, by the fact that the data of related sciences, including psychology, are still not sufficiently used to solve this issue in higher fields of physical culture and sports. It is proposed to solve this kind of problem based on the following provisions. A natural or adaptive speech situation is a situation in which a student of higher education in the field of physical culture and sport performs certain acts of speech activity. In this article, we will try to find a place for speech activity in the sports structure of behavior and after that, we will describe the conditions of the educational process in which adaptive acts of speaking in a foreign language can take place. It should be an equivalent to describing the conditions for the formation of adaptive speech situations. The term "sports behavior" in sports psychology does not have a clear meaning. It can be understood as any specific activity of an athlete (training, game, training process, competition) and individual actions of a sports individual (for example: training, sports adaptation, educational process), as well as individual operations that are part of these actions. At the same time, the purposefulness of acts of "sporting behavior" is determined, on the one hand, by the subject needs, and on the other, by the conditions that can satisfy these needs. The purpose of behavior acts is to satisfy this need of the subject. Let us add that the subject, as a rule, possesses a certain action more or less automatically, that is, it is given to him as a kind of ready-to-function unity. All these facts contribute to the psychological basis of the formation of adaptive speech situations in foreign language classes in the higher fields of physical education and sports.

PEDAGOGICAL PROCESS OF WORKING WITH THE MECHANISMS OF LONG-TERM MEMORY AS A KEY SKILL IN THE FORMATION OF PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY READINESS AMONG FUTURE INTERPRETERS

The paper examines the leading role of long-term memory in preparing future translators for professional activity. The focus is put on the issue of long-term vocabulary assimilation and its control. The authors compile a list of recommendations on how to organize the learning process to ensure the effective assimilation of vocabulary. The necessity of transition of the learned vocabulary into long-term memory is considered. Another discussion point of the paper is the need to develop an understanding the root of difficulties in understanding of foreign speech in listening and in speaking, which are rooted primarily in a lack of vocabulary in long-term memory.

Role of Visual Speech Cues (Cued Speech) in Foreign Language Learning by Hearing School-Age Children

In this study, we aimed to determine the role of visual speech cues in the process of foreign ‎language learning by hearing school-age children. Our experiments used Cued Speech, a method ‎designed for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We expected that the principles of the ‎method might also be beneficial for people with normal hearing because they may help distinguish ‎the sounds of foreign speech that are difficult to hear. This study mainly focused on the effects ‎of speech perception. We tested 126 Polish junior high school students (66 girls and 60 boys) ‎with a normal range of phonemic hearing and language aptitude. We envisaged that foreign ‎language learners using visual speech cues would achieve a higher score on a test of foreign ‎language than learners who had studied the language in the traditional manner. We also ‎formulated a hypothesis concerning the interaction of training type and training conditions on the ‎effectiveness of foreign language learning: that the difference in the effects of foreign language ‎learning between participants who received visual or executive training and typical training would ‎be more significant in the presence of auditory distractors than in their absence. We observed ‎interactions between conditions and types of training for speech sound identification. Under ‎conditions of auditory distraction, foreign language learners using Cued Speech scored ‎significantly higher than learners who had traditional training.‎

Misjudgement of One's Own Performance? Exploring Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder (ADHD) and Individual Difference in Complex Music and Foreign Language Perception.

In previous research, we detected that children and adolescents who were diagnosed with ADHD showed deficits in both complex auditory processing of musical stimuli and in musical performance when compared to controls. In this study, we were interested in whether we could detect similar or distinct findings when we use foreign speech perception tasks. Therefore, we recruited musically naïve participants (n = 25), music-educated participants (n = 25) and participants diagnosed with ADHD (n = 25) who were assessed for their short-term memory (STM) capacity and the ability to discriminate music and speech stimuli and we collected self-ratings of the participants' music and language performances. As expected, we found that young adults with ADHD show deficits in the perception of complex music and difficult speech perception stimuli. We also found that STM capacity was not impaired in young adults with ADHD and may not persist into young adulthood. In addition, subjective self-estimation about the participants' language and music performances revealed that the ADHD group overestimated their performance competence relatively compared to both control groups. As a result, the findings of our study suggest that individuals diagnosed with ADHD require a special training program that not only focuses on improving performance in perceptual skills of music and language but also requires metacognitive training to develop realistic self-assessment skills.

Cognitive performance in open-plan office acoustic simulations: Effects of room acoustics and semantics but not spatial separation of sound sources

The irrelevant sound effect (ISE) characterizes short-term memory performance impairment during irrelevant sounds relative to quiet. Irrelevant sound presentation in most laboratory-based ISE studies has been rather limited to represent complex scenarios including open-plan offices (OPOs) and not many studies have considered serial recall of heard information. This paper investigates ISE using an auditory-verbal serial recall task, wherein performance was evaluated for relevant factors in simulating OPO acoustics: the irrelevant sounds including the semanticity of speech, reproduction methods over headphones, and room acoustics. Results (Experiments 1 and 2) show that ISE was exhibited in most conditions with anechoic (irrelevant) nonspeech sounds with/without speech, but the effect was substantially higher with meaningful speech compared to foreign speech, suggesting a semantic effect. Performance differences in conditions with diotic and binaural reproductions were not statistically robust, suggesting limited role of spatial separation of sources. In Experiment 3, statistically robust ISE were exhibited for binaural room acoustic conditions with mid-frequency reverberation times, T30 (s) = 0.4, 0.8, 1.1, suggesting cognitive impairment regardless of sound absorption representative of OPOs. Performance differences in T30 = 0.4 s relative to T30 = 0.8 and 1.1 s conditions were statistically robust. This emphasizes the benefits for cognitive performance with increased sound absorption, reinforcing extant room acoustic design recommendations. Performance differences in T30 = 0.8 s vs. 1.1 s were not statistically robust. Collectively, these results suggest that certain findings from ISE studies with idiosyncratic acoustics may not translate well to complex OPO acoustic environments.

Scribing as an innovative technology in teaching oral foreign speech to students majoring in engineering

The purpose of this research is to study the features, forms and structure, as well as the possibility of practical application of scribing in the process of teaching foreign language speech to students of technical universities. Scribing is considered to be a technology that has great didactic potential and contributes to the solution of pedagogical problems in various fields of knowledge. Having come to pedagogy from the business environment, this technology can also be used to develop oral speech skills in foreign languages. The main stages of scribing have been defined. It is noted that scribing technology can be considered as a type of project activity. The main advantages of this technology are highlighted. Paper versions of scribing on several topics have been developed and presented in accordance with the Foreign Languages Work Programs of the Rostov State Transport University. Methods of description, analysis, systematization and generalization of theoretical material have been used, as well as practical application of the studied technology during the classes of foreign languages. The analysis of the obtained results has been carried out. The results of the work will be of interest, first of all, to the tutors and teachers who are trying to apply innovative teaching technologies in the classroom. In future work, it is planned to develop and apply scribing for the presentation of other educational topics using online platforms.

Foreign speech sound discrimination and associative word learning lead to a fast reconfiguration of resting-state networks

Learning new words in an unfamiliar language is a complex endeavor that requires the orchestration of multiple perceptual and cognitive functions. Although the neural mechanisms governing word learning are becoming better understood, little is known about the predictive value of resting-state (RS) metrics for foreign word discrimination and word learning attainment. In addition, it is still unknown which of the multistep processes involved in word learning have the potential to rapidly reconfigure RS networks. To address these research questions, we used electroencephalography (EEG), measured forty participants, and examined scalp-based power spectra, source-based spectral density maps and functional connectivity metrics before (RS1), in between (RS2) and after (RS3) a series of tasks which are known to facilitate the acquisition of new words in a foreign language, namely word discrimination, word-referent mapping and semantic generalization. Power spectra at the scalp level consistently revealed a reconfiguration of RS networks as a function of foreign word discrimination (RS1 vs. RS2) and word learning (RS1 vs. RS3) tasks in the delta, lower and upper alpha, and upper beta frequency ranges. Otherwise, functional reconfigurations at the source level were restricted to the theta (spectral density maps) and to the lower and upper alpha frequency bands (spectral density maps and functional connectivity). Notably, scalp RS changes related to the word discrimination tasks (difference between RS2 and RS1) correlated with word discrimination abilities (upper alpha band) and semantic generalization performance (theta and upper alpha bands), whereas functional changes related to the word learning tasks (difference between RS3 and RS1) correlated with word discrimination scores (lower alpha band). Taken together, these results highlight that foreign speech sound discrimination and word learning have the potential to rapidly reconfigure RS networks at multiple functional scales.

Non-game like training benefits spoken foreign-language processing in children with dyslexia.

Children with dyslexia often face difficulties in learning foreign languages, which is reflected as weaker neural activation. However, digital language-learning applications could support learning-induced plastic changes in the brain. Here we aimed to investigate whether plastic changes occur in children with dyslexia more readily after targeted training with a digital language-learning game or similar training without game-like elements. We used auditory event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically, the mismatch negativity (MMN), to study learning-induced changes in the brain responses. Participants were 24 school-aged Finnish-speaking children with dyslexia and 24 age-matched typically reading control children. They trained English speech sounds and words with "Say it again, kid!" (SIAK) language-learning game for 5 weeks between ERP measurements. During the game, the players explored game boards and produced English words aloud to score stars as feedback from an automatic speech recognizer. To compare the effectiveness of the training type (game vs. non-game), we embedded in the game some non-game levels stripped of all game-like elements. In the dyslexia group, the non-game training increased the MMN amplitude more than the game training, whereas in the control group the game training increased the MMN response more than the non-game training. In the dyslexia group, the MMN increase with the non-game training correlated with phonological awareness: the children with poorer phonological awareness showed a larger increase in the MMN response. Improved neural processing of foreign speech sounds as indicated by the MMN increase suggests that targeted training with a simple application could alleviate some spoken foreign-language learning difficulties that are related to phonological processing in children with dyslexia.

Auditory P3a response to native and foreign speech in children with or without attentional deficit

The aim of this study was to investigate the attentional mechanism in speech processing of native and foreign language in children with and without attentional deficit. For this purpose, the P3a component, cognitive neuromarker of the attentional processes, was investigated in a two-sequence two-deviant oddball paradigm using Finnish and English speech items via event-related potentials (ERP) technique. The difference waves reflected the temporal brain dynamics of the P3a response in native and foreign language contexts. Cluster-based permutation tests evaluated the group differences over the P3a time window. A correlation analysis was conducted between the P3a response and the attention score (ATTEX) to evaluate whether the behavioral assessment reflected the neural activity. The source reconstruction method (CLARA) was used to investigate the neural origins of the attentional differences between groups and conditions. The ERP results showed a larger P3a response in the group of children with attentional problems (AP) compared to controls (CTR). The P3a response differed statistically between the two groups in the native language processing, but not in the foreign language. The ATTEX score correlated with the P3a amplitude in the native language contrasts. The correlation analyses hint at some hemispheric brain activity difference in the frontal area. The group-level CLARA reconstruction showed activation in the speech perception and attention networks over the frontal, parietal, and temporal areas. Differences in activations of these networks were found between the groups and conditions, with the AP group showing higher activity in the source level, being the origin of the ERP enhancement observed on the scalp level.

Infants' preference for speech is stable across the first year of life: Meta-analytic evidence.

Previous work suggested that humans' sophisticated speech perception abilities stem from an early capacity to pay attention to speech in the auditory environment. What are the roots of this early preference? We assess the extent to which it is due to it being a vocal sound, a natural sound, and a familiar sound through a meta-analytic approach, classifying experiments as a function of whether they used native or foreign speech and whether the competitor, against which preference is tested, was vocal or non-vocal, natural or artificial. We also tested for the effect of age. Synthesizing data from 791 infants across 39 experiments, we found a medium effect size, confirming at the scale of the literature that infants reliably prefer speech over other sounds. This preference was not significantly moderated by the language used, vocal quality, or naturalness of the competitor, nor by infant age. The current body of evidence appears most compatible with the hypothesis that speech is preferred consistently as such and not just due to its vocal, natural, or familiar nature. We discuss limitations of the extant body of work on speech preference, including evidence consistent with a publication bias and low representation of certain stimuli types and ages.

Использование приема «заинтересованных лиц» как основа методики обучения студентов направления «Туризм» устной иноязычной речи с опорой на текстовой материал

The aim of the study is to develop a methodology for teaching a foreign language utterance by using the “interested parties” technique based on textual material of different genres, taking into account the training of students in the “Tourism” direction. The article presents three stages of work according to the developed methodology, taking into account the categorization of interested parties’ names that are thematically relevant for the sphere of leisure and tourism; a set of speech exercises is proposed depending on different types of speech stimuli. The scientific novelty is determined by the introduction into scientific use of a new definition of the notion of “interested parties” from the point of view of the methodology for teaching students of non-linguistic areas, as well as the development and description of a three-stage methodology for teaching oral foreign speech, based on the presented categories of interested parties. As a result, a methodology was created for teaching oral foreign language based on textual material to students of the direction “Tourism”, consisting of a system of exercises in accordance with the stages of students’ speech skills formation, improved through the use of “interested parties” technique.

Conception of creativity-based method of foreign language communication learning in agrarian university

This article is devoted to the analyses and the creation of creativity-based method of foreign speech in non-linguistic university of agrarian training area. The aim of the given article is to create the more effective way of learning foreign speech in agrarian university which includes creative thinking usage. The author of the article gives the detailed analyses of foreign speech learning process issues in non-linguistic agrarian university. The author of the article developed the training curriculum of creativity-based method of foreign speech learning process in agrarian university. The methodical algorithm, developed by the author of the article, gives the detailed analysis of creative thinking implementation in practice for future agricultural specialists. Creativity-based exercises’ system, developed by the author of the article, includes creativity-based drills and creativity-based communicative tasks which provide parallel development both creative thinking and foreign speech skills of agrarian training area, necessary for communication for special purposes in agrarian universities. The article describes different modern viewpoints and concept variants of creative thinking implementation in learning process by different leading specialists in creative thinking methodology. The given article represents the better variant of foreign speaking learning technique in non-linguistic agrarian university based on consideration of creative thinking as foreign language learning terminology category and its introduction to foreign language learning process in non-linguistic agrarian training area.

ВИКОРИСТАННЯ ДОСВІДУ АЗІЙСЬКИХ КРАЇН У НАВЧАННІ АУДІЮВАННЮ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ В УКРАЇНСЬКОМУ ЗВО

Introduction. There is analyzed in the ar-ticle the experience of the training audition in the higher educational establishments of Asian countries. Scientists consider that the metacognitive technology of learning English is so effective. Special subjects are taught in English. Educational programs are worked out perspec-tiveof independent personal contacts and professional communication. There is the special audition course in the educational component. Students listen to sound texts in different genres and themes. They learn the authentic materials too. Audio is attended bytexts, video, and subtitles. Students use the audiobooks too. Thepurposeofthearticleisto analyze the ways of teaching audition which the Asian colleagues suggest.It had been regarded the level of linguistic competence of the Ukrainian students. Ithad been defined the factors which influence positively in the audition process. These factors are: the easy of perceptual information, the inter-est, the attentiveness, the independence, the motivation, and the freedom of choosing education material.Theactivemethodsofusingthe mobile applications are presented. Students study necessary vocabulary in the basic textbook. Revision of studied material and study of new words is realised with the help of recom-mended mobile applications. Students do tasks which make for the formation of audition skills. These tasks are searching daily information on the sites, acquaintance with realistic Britain life, and revision of English Gram-mar. Students choose the level of studying. They take into account their own level of linguistic competence. In the studies various kinds of Homework checking put into practice. There are questions and answers, reviews, phrase exchange, reading, stories, dialogues.Results. The usage of sound materials makes for ef-fective formation of audition skills. Students learn to listen to texts indifferent genres and themes. Regular listening simplifies the perception of foreign speech in rendering of different native speakers of English.Originality.In the process of regular listening of dif-ferent materials, students can improve their audition skills. They perfect their reading, writing and speaking skills too. Searching information in the mobile applica-tions attracts interest. The independent choosing the correspondent study level makes possible to learn new information in English effectively. Conclusion. While teaching English, the effective methods of training audition were tested. New vocabulary is studied in the mobile applications. Students use sound texts with parallel reading in studiesand in the process of Homework. They watch video in different levels too. Students have interest and motivation in further studying English.

Discriminatory Brain Processes of Native and Foreign Language in Children with and without Reading Difficulties.

The association between impaired speech perception and reading difficulty has been well established in native language processing, as can be observed from brain activity. However, there has been scarce investigation of whether this association extends to brain activity during foreign language processing. The relationship between reading skills and neuronal speech representation of foreign language remains unclear. In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) with high-density EEG to investigate this question. Eleven- to 13-year-old children typically developed (CTR) or with reading difficulties (RD) were tested via a passive auditory oddball paradigm containing native (Finnish) and foreign (English) speech items. The change-detection-related ERP responses, the mismatch response (MMR), and the late discriminative negativity (LDN) were studied. The cluster-based permutation tests within and between groups were performed. The results showed an apparent language effect. In the CTR group, we found an atypical MMR in the foreign language processing and a larger LDN response for speech items containing a diphthong in both languages. In the RD group, we found unstable MMR with lower amplitude and a nonsignificant LDN response. A deficit in the LDN response in both languages was found within the RD group analysis. Moreover, we observed larger brain responses in the RD group and a hemispheric polarity reversal compared to the CTR group responses. Our results provide new evidence that language processing differed between the CTR and RD groups in early and late discriminatory responses and that language processing is linked to reading skills in both native and foreign language contexts.

LEXICO-SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL GROUPS IN THE MODERN GERMAN LANGUAGE

Objective. The objective of the article is to familiarize yourself with the general characteristics of German prepositions and prepositional groups; consider the structural features of German prepositions and their positions within the prepositional group; analyze the governing features and syntactic functions of German prepositions and prepositional groups and their positions in the sentence; identify the main sources of difficulty for German learners. Methods. The main scientific results are obtained applying a complex of general scientific and special research methods, namely: analysis, generalization and systematization of scientific and educational and methodological literature on pedagogy, linguistics, methods of teaching foreign languages; theoretical generalization, analysis and synthesis, as well as comparative, descriptive and analytical methods. Results. In the modern German language, there is a fairly large number of prepositions, which differ significantly from each other in structural features, government, number of meanings and stylistic characteristics. German prepositional groups can have a different internal structure, perform different syntactic functions in a sentence and occupy different positions in it. Many prepositional groups are collocations or components of larger collocations. Based on the fact that German prepositions and prepositional groups have quite a lot of lexical-semantic and syntactic features, we came to the conclusion that this significantly complicates their study and correct use, since similar prepositions in different languages can differ from each other in terms of their government , as well as the spectrum of meanings. Knowledge and correct use of derived prepositions typical for written speech is important both for understanding and for writing relevant texts in the language being studied. Therefore, we can say that the confident mastering connotations of various types, which are expedient to memorize as integral lexical-semantic units, significantly facilitates both the process of understanding foreign speech and the process of independent use of a foreign language in various situations. Thereby it is advisable to study German prepositions and prepositional forms in more detail, and for this it is necessary to include them in relevant practical manuals and working programs.

THE LINGUISTIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE OF FUTURE OFFICERS

The linguistic and psychological characteristics of foreign language of the future officers will be discussed in this article. The author highlights that an analysis of English-speaking and French-speaking material allows to establish psychological characteristics of generation and reproduction of presentation foreign speech of future officers who are given the opportunity to develop their corresponding skills.

Psychophysiological Prerequisites to Master Foreign Language Communicative Competence by University Students during the Functioning of a Hybrid Educational Program

The article presents a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of hybrid educational environment. Definitions of distance learning are given. The history of the development of distance learning both in Russia and abroad is noted. A brief overview of the use of distance learning technologies in the educational process is presented. The psychophysiological features of the perception of foreign speech by ear and its development in the learning process through distance educational technologies are considered.

The Intersection of Linguistic Worlds in Women’s Prose

The process of using foreign-language insertions in the Russian text is examined using books written by five female authors (A. Marinina, L. Romanovskaya, E. Rozhdestvenskaya, G. Shcherbakova, and T. Ustinova). Some aspects of women’s prose are discussed, as well as the appropriateness of including into it other-language words and expressions. This phenomenon can be interpreted as a replication of the translingual nature of modern texts, a case of code switching, an artistic method, an attempt to transcend the monolingual world, or a demonstration of the historicism of the narrative. It turns out that the most commonly used languages are German, English, and French, and many of the borrowed words are already rooted in the Russian language and might be considered part of its vocabulary, particularly in the case of the German language. This is exemplified by the Cyrillic spelling of inclusions and the limited repertoire of the foreign speech means employed. This material is valuable in that everyday writing prose, focused on the intimate problems of the “inner” (family) circle, allows us to conclude in what situations and for what purpose the writers resort to this technique. The material was collected by continuous sampling. Each writer uses elements of linguistic inclusions from the repertoire of languages available to her. We come to the conclusion that they are Russian-speaking, but not in the strict sense translingual: the use of the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet emphasizes the degree of “domestication” of the concept expressed by a foreign word. Characters are often characterized by the languages they borrow from. The repertoire of inclusions is small, it seems that it is Ukrainian words that look the most interesting and original, while borrowings from other idioms largely belong to the general fund, with which everyone who lived in the USSR and Russia is familiar to one degree or another.