Level Language Research Articles

The Key Role of Gestures in Spatial Tasks for Students With Intellectual Disability.

The gestures produced by children with intellectual disability (ID) in spatial tasks are rarely considered, although they have a supporting role in the formation of thought. In this research study, we analyzed the number of gestures, the type of gestures, and their role in the expression of knowledge of students with ID. Twenty students (12-17 years old) with ID and 40 students with typical development (TD) matched on visual-spatial level (n = 20) and on language level (n = 20) participated in the research. Students with ID made significantly more gestures in relation to the number of words spoken compared to their peers with TD. Thirty percent of the expressive communication of students with ID came from gestures alone, and 60% of the responses contained at least one gesture. Finally, the higher the level of task difficulty, the more gestures the students made.

Stakeholders’ perspectives on informed decision-making for migrant women in CC prevention programs

Abstract Background This study gathered the perspectives of stakeholders regarding participation in cervical cancer (CC) screening and human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination among migrant women in the Netherlands. Considering their perspectives by developing interventions that are tailored to migrant women’s information needs regarding CC screening and HPV vaccination will support informed decision-making. Methods In total five focus group discussions were held with community leaders, healthcare professionals and communication experts separately. The focus group discussions were transcribed verbatim in Dutch, and analyzed thematically according to the Grounded Theory. Results The analysis resulted in six themes. The first theme describes the existing views and misconceptions regarding CC (screening) and HPV vaccination in the target population according to the stakeholders. The second theme is about the current approach of informing about these health programs, and its belonging barriers. Theme three dives into the differences within the target population, such as generations and level of language. Theme four describes the conditions to which interventions should adhere. In theme five and six suggestions for interventions were introduced, focused on the target population and their (social) network respectively. Conclusions The results of this study showed that stakeholders are willing to play a role to support informed decision-making regarding CC (screening) and HPV vaccination among migrant women, but they need more training to support. Community leaders express a need for training to gather more medical knowledge of CC and its prevention programs. Healthcare professionals expressed a need for more insight into the practical, cultural, religious and emotional aspects that play a role within this target population. Communication experts emphasize the need for customized information materials and a more district-oriented approach. Key messages • Stakeholders operating at different levels are willing to play a role in increasing informed decision-making regarding CC screening and HPV vaccination. • Migrant women’s (social) network need more training and support to be able to provide tailored information regarding CC screening and HPV vaccination.

<b>English Language Anxiety in Higher Education: A Case Study of Spanish Students</b>

This article examines the anxiety of French-speaking students in the Spanish Department at the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon) while learning English. We used quantitative and qualitative methods. The theoretical framework adopted for this study is the Affective Filter Hypothesis developed by Krashen (2009). The results showed that anxiety is a barrier that negatively affects the learning of English by French-speaking students. Several factors were found to be at the root of this anxiety: language typology, language level, the influence of French, personality, the reactions of others, and beliefs. We also found that students were anxious about learning Spanish, but this anxiety affected them positively. The paper suggests that learners should be in permanent contact with the English language, teachers and students should develop language tolerance by focusing on the message, not the language form, and teachers should include digital technologies to lower anxiety.

Assessing Writing Across Levels of Language to Identify Instructional Needs

Educators are faced with many decisions regarding supporting students’ writing. While writing achievement and curriculum-based measure scores provide numbers that are important for high-stakes decisions like determining special education eligibility, they do not provide educators with information on a student’s explicit instruction needs. Written products can provide substantial information if educators know what to look for. This article offers five steps within an empirically supported framework to describe a student’s writing at a finely grained level and connect their writing performance to instructional planning.

Quelques remarques sur la notion de médiation en traduction

The socio-cultural role of translators is undergoing rapid changes in the lives of societies affected by globalization. The objective of the article can be summed up in questioning the traditional role of the translator consisting, among other things, in what Jean Peeters (1999) calls “the mediation of the foreigner”. The question that arises, therefore, concerns the possibility of existence of the strangeness and relevance of this notion in the globalized world. The process of unifying a global market for cultural, symbolic and literary goods calls into question the need for mediation at the level of languages and cultures. The aim of the article is therefore to analyze from the sociolinguistic perspective new sociocultural roles that could assume the translator in the face of the unification process.

A polymorphic word in old Romanian (adjective, noun, adverb and interjection): ferice ʻgood/blessed/well, happyʼ

Consulting the main Romanian lexicographic works and taking into account some previous contributions on Romanian (diachronic) morphosyntax, the author aims to discuss the meanings of the word ferice ‘good/blessed/well, happy’ and its morphological values or syntactic implications, as they are presented in the old Romanian writings, more precisely in some old texts integrated into the SOR Corpus, enriched with new sources recently published. To this day, despite the antiquity of the word in question, it has been discussed only sequentially, which calls for revealing its morphosyntactic behavior. Consulting the main Romanian lexicographic works and taking into account some previous contributions on Romanian (diachronic) morphosyntax, the author aims to discuss the meanings of the word ferice ‘good/blessed/well, happy’ and its morphological values or syntactic implications, as they are presented in the old Romanian writings, more precisely in some old texts integrated into the SOR Corpus, enriched with new sources recently published. To this day, despite the antiquity of the word in question, it has been discussed only sequentially, which calls for revealing its morphosyntactic behavior. Therefore, it will be possible to establish much better the place and role of the word ferice ‘good/blessed/well, happy’ at the sentence level (in the old language), proposing some relevant analytical solutions, leading to some interpretative repositioning, so necessary for a proper understanding of language facts that are not always clear.

Characteristics of early cognitive development in children with Williams syndrome: a prospective cohort study

To investigate the early cognitive development characteristics of children with Williams syndrome (WS) at different age stages. From September 2018 to June 2023, 106 children diagnosed with WS at the Department of Pediatric Health Care, Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, aged 1 to <5 years, were prospectively enrolled. All children underwent Gesell developmental diagnostic assessments to analyze the cognitive development characteristics of WS children across different age groups. The average age of the 106 WS children was (3.1±1.2) years; 58 were male, and 48 were female. There were no significant differences in developmental levels between males and females in the five domains of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language, personal-social skills, and adaptive behavior (P>0.05). The incidence rates of mild, moderate, severe, and profound developmental disabilities among children of different age groups showed no significant differences (P>0.05). Comparisons of developmental levels in gross motor skills, language, personal-social skills, and adaptive behavior among different age groups were also not statistically significant (P>0.05). With the increase of age, the developmental level of fine motor skills showed a decreasing trend (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in verbal IQ and non-verbal IQ within each age group of WS children (P>0.05). The overall developmental level of WS children stabilizes with age, and their early language abilities do not significantly exceed their non-verbal abilities.

Analysis of Personality Factors’ in Second Language Acquisition

This research was carried out based on problems encountered by researcher in the fifth semester of the English language education study program at UIN SMDD Bukittinggi. First, many students do not yet recognize their personalities. Second, students still feel insecure, anxious and afraid in using their second language skills because of their personality. The aim of this research is to describe student personality which has an impact on the process of second language acquisition for students in the fifth semester and to describe how personality factors influence the second language acquisition of students in the fifth semester. This research is research with a mixed approach. The instruments of this research are questionnaires and interviews. The respondents for this research for quantitative data were 46 fifth semester students of the English language education study program. The informants for this research were 4 students who had participated and filled out the research questionnaire. Data was obtained from three classes through distributing questionnaire instruments and interviews with fifth semester students. There are two data analyzes in this research, namely descriptive statistical data analysis for quantitative data and qualitative data analysis for researcher using the theory of Miles and Huberman in Sugiyono. The findings and discussion outline the answers to the three research questions, namely students' personality types, students' level of second language acquisition, and the relationship between personality and second language acquisition. First, it was found that the personality types of fifth semester students are conscientiousness, extroversion and its opposite, neuroticism, and agreeableness. Second, more than half of the fifth semester English education students have reached the level of continuous language development/advanced fluency with 57.6%. Third, students have the view that personality can facilitate or complicate the process of language acquisition, but it can still be influenced by other factors such as one's desire and self-control.

Second Language Lexical Competence in Classroom Environment from the Perspective of Cognitive Flexibility Theory

This paper is based on the framework of cognitive flexibility theory, this study intends to test the vocabulary skills of three groups of subjects representing low, middle and high levels of English and explored the following three main questions:1. Whether there are differences in second-language vocabulary competence in the classroom environment for subjects with different language levels. 2.whether there are differences in the cognitive flexibility of subjects with different language levels. 3. whether there is a correlation between cognitive flexibility and classroom second language vocabulary competence. The purpose of this paper is to provide experiences for developing learners' ability to apply their knowledge flexibly.

Training Methods for Students-Foreigners with the English Level Lower than A1

The English language level of students-foreigners who are going to study at Ukrainian Universities plays a crucial role especially in the cases when their future practical lessons and lectures are delivered in English. The group of Turkish students who had to undergo the training in Medical University as future doctors demonstrated during the preliminary linguistic tests that English (and Ukrainian) knowledge of the majority of students was even lower than A1 level. The causes were as follows: the low level of school education, geographical position of their native places, i.e. their remoteness from the cultural centers of the country, age (the younger the worse) and others. The situation made the Ukrainian teachers, who were responsible for their English training, use some uncommon methods, which should have led to positive results. The methods are as follows: first of all to brake the opposition “teacher – students” which allows to put teachers and students in the same social position; to forbid the use of computer translator during the lessons except for learning the new lexis to stop the irresponsible attitude of students to classes; to control psychological situation during the training and follow the University psychologists advices. The results of such methods use are described in the presented article.

Behavioral observation and assessment protocol for language and social-emotional development study in children aged 0–6: the Chinese baby connectome project

BackgroundThe global rise in developmental delays underscores the critical need for a thorough understanding and timely interventions during early childhood. Addressing this issue, the Chinese Baby Connectome Project (CBCP)’s behavior branch is dedicated to examining language acquisition, social-emotional development, and environmental factors affecting Chinese children. The research framework is built around three primary objectives: developing a 0–6 Child Development Assessment Toolkit, implementing an Intelligent Coding System, and investigating environmental influence.MethodsUtilizing an accelerated longitudinal design, the CBCP aims to enlist a minimum of 1000 typically developing Chinese children aged 0–6. The data collected in this branch constitutes parental questionnaires, behavioral assessments, and observational experiments to capture their developmental milestones and environmental influences holistically. The parental questionnaires will gauge children’s developmental levels in language and social-emotional domains, alongside parental mental well-being, life events, parenting stress, parenting styles, and family relationships. Behavioral assessments will involve neurofunctional developmental evaluations using tools such as the Griffiths Development Scales and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. Additionally, the assessments will encompass measuring children’s executive functions (e.g., Head-Toe-Knee-Shoulder), social cognitive abilities (e.g., theory of mind), and language development (e.g., Early Chinese Vocabulary Test). A series of behavior observation. experiments will be conducted targeting children of different age groups, focusing primarily on aspects such as behavioral inhibition, compliance, self-control, and social-emotional regulation. To achieve the objectives, established international questionnaires will be adapted to suit local contexts and devise customized metrics for evaluating children’s language and social-emotional development; deep learning algorithms will be developed in the observational experiments to enable automated behavioral analysis; and statistical models will be built to factor in various environmental variables to comprehensively outline developmental trajectories and relationships.DiscussionThis study’s integration of diverse assessments and AI technology will offer a detailed analysis of early childhood development in China, particularly in the realms of language acquisition and social-emotional skills. The development of a comprehensive assessment toolkit and coding system will enhance our ability to understand and support the development of Chinese children, contributing significantly to the field of early childhood development research.Trial registrationThis study was registered with clinicaltrials.gov NCT05040542 on September 10, 2021.

Об изменении подходов к формированию читательской грамотности школьников

The article highlights the results of a study of the problem of developing reading literacy among schoolchildren in Kyrgyzstan in the light of the requirements of the All-Republican Testing (ORT). ORT tasks place higher demands than subject standards in terms of students' language skills and level of text complexity, as well as in terms of depth of analysis, analytical, critical thinking and the ability to apply knowledge in practical scenarios mastered in school subject lessons. However, there are gaps between the requirements of ORT and teaching students reading and comprehension at school. To eliminate the gaps between subject standards, methods of teaching reading and comprehension at school and the requirements of ORT, the author proposes ways to solve the problem that will contribute to the development of students’ ability to read and understand a variety of texts of varying complexity, which, in turn, will contribute to the formation of students’ information skills. competence.

Языковое образование онлайн: принципы создания размеченного корпуса ошибок в специализированном английском языке русскоязычных работников IT-сферы

Today, academic corpora are a matter of great interest to many linguists. The article examines the importance of academic corpora in modern linguistics and pedagogy as a tool for identifying typical errors in the speech of foreign language students. They reveal problems in foreign language acquisition and create new teaching methods. The paper reviews the existing academic corpora and error classifications. The authors developed a corpus of oral speech errors typical of Russian-speaking IT students that study English for IT purposes. The corpus relied on 50 video recordings of in-class activities in which students communicated with English-speaking IT specialists and made up dialogues in English. The corpus made it possible to identify the main difficulties experienced by adult learners of English for IT purposes. It involves a tagged classification of typical errors divided by language level into morphological, syntactic, lexical, and phonetic ones. The research demonstrated good prospects for developing other academic speech corpora with automated error tagging based on the speech of English learners.

Biopsychosocial Factors That Influence Depression, Anxiety, and Neuropsychological Functions in the Aging Process.

Aging is a process inherent to the human condition that is characterized by various biological, psychological, and social changes that can lead to certain mental health problems. This study aimed to understand and characterize how biological, psychological, and social factors influence mental health symptoms and neuropsychological function in the aging process. A sample consisting of 616 participants (73.8% female) aged between 50 and 90 years, (mean [SD]: 69.6 [17.2] years). Data collection involved a neuropsychological assessment carried out by a psychologist in a clinical interview session and the self-completion of a questionnaire. Regression models revealed that depressive symptoms are explained by anxiety, psychological and environmental quality of life, and sleep habits. Anxiety symptoms are explained by depression, physical quality of life, and sleep habits. Statistically significant differences were identified between participants with and without anxiety in neuropsychological terms at the level of agnosia and praxis. Statistically significant differences were identified between participants with and without depression in neuropsychological terms at the level of memory, language, agnosia and praxis, and executive function (eg, prefrontal tests). Depression and anxiety symptoms are associated and could negatively influence the aging process. Aging should be understood in an ecological way taking into account the action of biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors, as well as the relationship and influence between the different levels and factors. This knowledge is important for diagnosis, for clinical practice, and for the development and definition of public policies to promote healthy aging.

„Głośnik” – preradiofoniczna historia słowa w polszczyźnie

The starting point of this article is the analysis of texts collected in the Polona.pl database and other databases of the Digital Libraries Federation. Based on these archives, the author outlines the transformation of the semantic scope of the word głośnik – “loudspeaker” – in 19th-century Polish. The functioning of this term is particularly interesting in the context of inventions which, from today’s perspective, appear as precursors of the modern loudspeaker. The development of radio broadcasting after the First World War popularised the contemporary understanding of the term; earlier – pre-radiophonic – uses in the 19th-century cultural press and dictionaries make it possible to trace changes not only within the language itself, but also the entire acoustemology of Polish society of the time. The semantic evolution of the term “loudspeaker” is at the same time a picture of deeper shifts in the perception of the role and meaning of sound. Under the pressure of the cultural policies of the partitioners, the Polish community retreated in its search for national identity to the level of language, and then – under the influence of new media and lifestyles, but also of the profound reforms of the Polish language in the interwar period – interacted with the cultural phenomenon of the new medium, with its help redefining its view of modernity. Key-words: acoustemology, speaker, semantic field, sound history, Polish history

بولی اورزبان: اردو کے سیاق میں تجزیہ

The initial level of language is called dialect, which helps in maintaining and maintaining daily activities, business transactions, and social relations. The majority of people depend on it. Language derives its energy from local dialects. The range of language is wide and dialect is limited. There can be many dialects in a language area, but there cannot be many languages in a dialect area. Language is the queen of expressing every concept and feeling. Language covers educational, administrative, judicial, political and literary aspects. Script is necessary for language. Due to writing, language documents are preserved and the vocabulary is also increasing day by day. Dialect is mainly verbal expression. However, it is not necessary that every dialect is devoid of writing. Normally its written forms appear in private letters and folk literature.

STEM education: content integration in English classes (SCILLA project)

STEM education is a progressive trend in modern education. Its aim is to develop students’ critical thinking, research abilities, engineering thinking based on scientific methods, technical applications, mathematical modelling, etc. Implementation of STEM approach will expand the boundaries of students’ thinking, bring Kazakhstani education closer to the international standard, and open new opportunities for students. Statistics on the implementation of STEMeducation in the Kazakhstan education system shows that the transition in the pilot phase began in 2012, in the conditions of updated content in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, Haileybury, Quantum School, etc. However, at the level of university education this topic is highly significant. The application of STEMeducation technologies in teaching foreign languages is of particular interest.The article presents an analysis of the results of the international project, which was funded under the grant program of the U.S. Mission in Kazakhstan. The article considers STEM education as a means of teaching a foreign language at the university, which allows to include students in the activities in the natural-scientific field, thus ensuring the success of future specialists in the world of constantlychanging information technologies. All this is possible due to the interdisciplinary applied nature of STEM education. In the course of the study, a meta-analysis was conducted to determine the impact of STEM educational practices on student lear ning outcomes in teaching and learning process. The research makes an overview of universities in Kazakhstan in terms of students’ demographics, language level, etc. Then the context is provided on teacher training, teacher preparation, lesson planning, a model for planning and delivering instruction to university students. This context lays the foundation for the development of an integrated STEM learning module that utilizes STEM + Language learning approach.

How do speech language pathologists use the Schwarz et al. (2015) rubric for read-aloud storybook selection?

ABSTRACT Reading storybooks aloud to prereaders helps them develop oral language skills; but educators struggle to select appropriate storybooks for read alouds. To better understand this selection process, we evaluated how experienced speech language pathologists (SLPs) apply the storybook selection rubric in Schwarz et al.'s (2015). A read-aloud storybook selection system for prereaders at the preschool language level: A pilot study. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58(4), 1273-1291. doi:10.1044/2015_JSLHR-L-15-0056. That rubric includes: eight book characteristics, one four-level difficulty scale, and exemplar storybooks for each scale level. Using this rubric, 38 SLPs—who had served children at the preschool language level—rated 63 storybooks based on how difficult they thought the storybooks would be for children at the preschool language level to understand when the storybooks were read aloud to them. A principal component analysis identified-among the original eight characteristics a subset of five highly correlated characteristics related to overall text difficulty: vocabulary, story structure, sentence length, book length, and density. We revised the original rubric to include only four storybook characteristics: (a) text difficulty, (b) amount of inferencing, problem-solving, and abstract concepts, (c) familiarity of activities/experiences, and (d) level of support provided by the illustrations. Using quartile values of the text difficulty characteristic, we derived a four-level difficulty scale for the 63 storybooks. The revised storybook selection rubric simplifies the process of selecting appropriate storybooks for read alouds. The revised rubric and SLPs' difficulty ratings of 63 storybooks provide clinicians with a resource ready-made for clinical practice.

PIDGINISATION AS LINGUOCULTURAL PHENOMENON (on the example of African linguoculture)

This article identifies the features of such a linguocultural phenomenon as pidginisation and creolisation on the example of African linguoculture. The scientific problem is caused by the influence of globalisation on the state of languages and cultures within the framework of intercultural and interlanguage interaction, on the one hand, and the need to preserve native languages and cultures, on the other hand. The purpose of the article is to identify the key properties of such hybrid languages as Pidgin English and Creole English which operate in the largest country in West Africa – Nigeria. The research work is based on a combination of linguistic and cultural analysis method, which revealed the peculiarities of language and culture in the process of historical development, and comparative analysis method, which is the key to distinguish similar and distinctive features of Nigerian Pidgin English in relation to British English. The research work systematised the key historical, linguistic and cultural factors that influenced the formation and Pidgin English and Creole English development in Africa, and identified its key characteristics. It was proved that English is a universal means of interethnic communication for all social groups, but Pidgin English has simple structure at all language levels – phonetic, grammatical, lexical ones – and suits for everyday communication perfectly. Adapting to local realities, Nigerian Pidgin English at the phonetic level is the subject to assimilation and dissimilation of consonants, quantitative and qualitative reduction of vowels. The grammatical structure of Nigerian Pidgin English is the subject to maximum simplification, this level is characterised by the omission of articles; the use of abstract nouns in the plural form; the formation of adjectives’ comparison degrees and adverbs on the principle of a monosyllabic adjective; the use of simple tense forms of verb. The lexical structure of Nigerian Pidgin English is characterised by the functioning of high-frequency lexemes of autochthonous languages, which is due to the desire to follow the norms of native culture. All deviations from British English are explained by the need to create an accessible form of communication for all social groups using minimal linguistic means.

The fourth generation of academic Kazakh grammar

The article discusses the issue of compiling large grammatical works, including academic grammars. In particular, answers are sought for such questions as the following: What is the scientific character (style) of compiling fundamental grammatical works? What should their scientific apparatus, their design and structure look like? What research methods should be used? What is their target audience? In order to achieve this purpose, we carried out a comparison of academic grammars originating in the Soviet Union and those fundamental, voluminous grammatical works compiled according to the European-American model. The experience of compiling grammatical editions in Turkic languages has also been taken into account. The ideas obtained as a result were used in compiling the next academic grammar of the Kazakh language. This article was written with the objective of sharing the experience and elaborating on the results of the comparison. It has been found out that fundamental grammatical works have their own scientific character (this concerns the Soviet school): academic grammars are written on the normative and descriptive basis, i.e. scientific descriptions must be accompanied by a normative differentiation. The structure is directly linked to the levels of language which the editorial board have chosen as the object of study (lexis, phonetics, word building, morphology and syntax). There are consistency and moderation in designing grammatical works as well. Research material and examples are taken from literary samples. These principles are based on the fact that academic grammars are oriented to scientific and educational community. At the same time, as European and American fundamental grammars are compiled for the general scientific community, the aforementioned academic principles may not be followed. Since fundamental grammatical works are not compiled very often (once in 20–30 years), such studies are not frequent either. The grammars created in the Soviet period have not been revised fully yet. It is specifically important to revise academic grammars, as they need to document and standardize the new knowledge in the field of language. The issue of revising the academic grammar of the Kazakh language has been brought into the spotlight, and in 2022, the new generation of the grammar was prepared. For this reason, the conclusions of the article and the experience obtained while developing the new generation of the “Kazakh Grammar” may become useful while compiling new fundamental grammatical works.